Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask to add 10 minutes to the 10 minutes I have already requested.

Mr. President, I listened carefully to Senator Lindsey Graham, who put forward a very dangerous bill for women and their families in this country. I will explain in a moment why I think it is dangerous, but what was interesting is that I believe he said he brought it forward today because it is the anniversary that Dr. Gosnell was convicted and sent to prison. This is a rogue doctor who committed despicable and illegal acts and is now serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for what he did--abusing the trust of being a reproductive health care doctor. Dr. Gosnell is away, as he should be.

How does my friend from North Carolina commemorate this? By putting forward a bill that will drive more women to rogue doctors. If we make it illegal for a woman, regardless of her circumstance, she is going to find a way to save her health, her life, and her family.

Women deserve to have protections. The bill that my friend proposed simply says that after a certain number of weeks, an abortion will not be allowed no matter what a woman's health situation is, and that is very dangerous.

I ask--just rhetorically--how can a Senator say he is doing something right for women and their families when there is not a health exception? If a woman goes to the doctor and finds out she is facing cancer, kidney failure, blood clots or some other tragic complication, why should the government step into the middle of her family? Why should the government and U.S. Senators be allowed to step between the woman, her doctor, her God, and her family? It is a disgrace, especially from a party that is known for saying: Get Government off our backs.

This is horrible. There is no exception for rape or incest victims who are unable to report those heinous crimes. Let's say initially they were too frightened and then suddenly they get their courage. Well, too bad. Have your rapist's child. This is not a government that cares about families. This is a government that steps into our business at the most tragic moments of our lives.

The bill is so extreme that the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which represents thousands of OB/GYNs, said these restrictions are ``dangerous to patients' safety and health.'' Who do you think stands up for the health of the women in this country? U.S. Senators or doctors who know the women, the family, and the circumstances of her health?

I have a letter from Christie, who lives in Central Virginia, and she said:

My husband and I were confronted with two equally horrible

options--carry the pregnancy to term and watch our baby girl

suffocate to death upon birth, or terminate the pregnancy

early and say good-bye to our much-wanted and much-loved baby

girl.

Why should a Senator tell her what to do? It is a war on women. When you tell a woman in that type of circumstance what to do and take away her right to use her mind, her brain, and the love she has for her family, her husband, and her children to make that decision, it is a war on women.

Christie was pregnant with her second child when that happened. She wanted this baby, but it was not until a 20-week ultrasound that she found out her daughter would suffocate to death at birth. What U.S. Senator has a right to make her watch that baby child suffocate to death? I am sorry, but that is not life-affirming.

Then there is Judy from Wisconsin. She says:

I know what it is like to live without a mother. My mother

died when I was only 4 years old, and it changed my life

forever.

Four months into her pregnancy, Judy developed a pregnancy-induced blood clot in her arm. The only guarantee she would not die and leave behind her 5-year-old son was for Judy to terminate the pregnancy. She and her husband made the very difficult decision to terminate that pregnancy.

What right does a U.S. Senator--who doesn't know her, doesn't know her husband, doesn't know her family history and how she lost her mother when she was young--have to step into that world at that moment and tell her what she has to do. Do we think so little of the women of this Nation?

We just had Mother's Day. We lauded our mothers. We are crying out for the girls who were taken by terrorists. If we all care, then why would we support legislation such as this?

Then there is Bridget's story. At the time, she was a 25-year-old mom looking forward to the birth of her third child. She initially had a normal ultrasound at 13 weeks. Her second ultrasound showed a major, complex fetal cardiac malformation, a fatal problem. Because tests could only confirm this fatal defect later in the pregnancy, she could not make a decision until after the 20 weeks.

What right does a U.S. Senator have to get in the middle of her most personal, most private, most difficult decisions? There is a place for government. It is to make life better for people. It is to say: We are with you. We have your back. We understand what you are going through. It is not to make life so difficult for people.

In Missouri, Julie and her husband were told relatively early in her pregnancy that the baby they were expecting had multiple abnormalities and would not survive outside the womb, but it took her 3 weeks to locate an abortion provider because they had shut down so many providers. They found out, under Missouri's restrictive laws, she would have to travel 2 hours to a facility on two separate occasions to comply with the State's 24-hour waiting period. When they were finally able to get the care they needed, her pregnancy was just over 20 weeks.

What right does any U.S. Senator have to step out there and tell the American people that we know better than their families know, that we know better than their doctors know, and that we know better than their clergy knows?

This bill targets doctors who risk their lives to help women who are at risk for paralysis, infertility, have cancer, and whose lives would be in danger if they continued the pregnancy. This bill would throw those doctors in prison for 5 years just for providing needed health care to their patients.

I don't know what kind of country people envision when we have the government policing the private health care decisions of women and their families. Why would we want to go back to the last century and open battles that have long been fought? Those battles were fought in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was the decision of the Supreme Court, and do you know what that court said? They balanced all the rights--the rights of the fetus with the rights of the mother--and they said early in the pregnancy, a woman has the right to choose. It is her decision, but as she goes along with the pregnancy, then later, yes, there will be restrictions, and that is fine as long as the health and the life of the mother are in the forefront.

This legislation that Senator Graham wants to vote on--before it goes to any committee as Senator Blumenthal was saying--it is not what is best for women and their families or our communities, it is about an extreme rightwing agenda that needs to stop. This is a moderate country. We work together. I don't get everything I want, you don't get everything you want, but we work it out.

To come and offer legislation that is extremely dangerous to women is, in my opinion--I don't know what to call it. It is out of sync with what we ought to be doing. As Senator Baldwin said, we ought to be fighting, and she used that word ``fighting.'' We should be fighting for health care for women, fighting for the rights of our families, so they can have decent health care, and not putting rules in the books that are so onerous that a woman is desperate. I don't understand it.

I believe the Republican Party has moved so far to the right, it is unrecognizable to me. When I started out in politics--which was a long time ago--Republicans and Democrats worked together on the environment. Now we can't get a vote from them so we can ensure that the Clean Air Act is protecting our people. We can't get them to address climate change. We cannot get a vote from them. Maybe once in a blue moon we get a vote from one or two. George Herbert Walker Bush was the President who worked hard at Planned Parenthood, and that is where Republicans used to be. We would come together on protecting a woman's right to choose. There were more Republicans in Planned Parenthood than Republicans when I got started in politics. Now the Republicans want to run Planned Parenthood out. They want to shut down their clinics and stop all the good they are doing to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

I call it a war on women. We heard people say: Well, maybe there is such a thing as legitimate rape. Have you ever heard of anything so outrageous? We can't even get anyone to move forward on equal pay for equal work around here.

I am sad to say that I think this bill is part of the war on women. Clearly, they are the ones who will suffer, along with their doctors. We don't put women in grave danger. We don't put up legislation without a health exception. We don't step in the middle of our families' most difficult decisions.

Americans want us to focus on making life better for our families. They don't want us to create new health risks. God knows we have enough health stressors just breathing the air out there, getting the flu and everything else. We don't need legislation that restricts a woman's rights when she needs to have us at her back, helping her, making her safe. Let's not go back to the last century.

If somebody has a bill such as this, I hope they will let it go through the whole committee process. We need these women who I quoted today to look Senators in the eye and say: Senator, please stay out of my life. These decisions are difficult enough, but I know I can handle them with my family, with my God, with my support system.

Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. In the early stages, a woman has a pretty much unfettered right. As we go along, there are more restrictions. But we never, ever turn our back on a woman's health or her life. That is what Roe says.

Frankly, I hope this bill and others like it will not see the light of day because it could only make life very difficult for many of our families.

I thank the Chair. It is an honor to work with the Presiding Officer on this issue.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jeptha Nafziger, a detailee from OMB with the Senate Budget Committee, be granted floor privileges beginning today, May 13, and ending August 1, 2014.

I reserve my right to oppose this modification, and I wish to briefly explain why, as my colleague explained his reason why he wanted to modify.

I think what Senator Landrieu has offered is what everybody in this country thought we were going to do. Senator Landrieu and I disagree on Keystone. No one could be a stronger advocate for Keystone than she is, period.

I believe tar sands should not be brought into this country the way they would be brought in at a 45-percent increase with this pipeline-- eventually 300 percent. We could have had a robust debate. The Senator and I would have been respectful and caring about each other, but we would have disagreed. We could have had the vote.

Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I believe when you give your word, you keep your word. Leadership was very clear that if we were able to give the Republicans and Senator Landrieu a vote on Keystone, we could move forward with Shaheen-Portman, a bipartisan, incredibly important energy efficiency bill.

Instead, what we know is Republicans want to offer--and it is in my jurisdiction so I can speak about it--environmental riders, the likes of which I have never seen in one grouping, essentially repealing the essence of the Clean Air Act that was signed into law in 1970 by Richard Nixon, and the 1990 amendments which were signed into law by George Herbert Walker Bush. They want to put those on this bill. You have got to be kidding. Something as serious as that?

So I object to the modification.

Mr. President, before Senator Shaheen and other Senators leave, I wish to say how disappointed I am, because energy efficiency is so good for this country, and they have stopped it because they want to repeal the Clean Air Act. Let's call it what it is. It is really a sad state of affairs.

I was so looking forward not only to the debate on energy efficiency, but, frankly, the debate on the Keystone Pipeline, which my Republican friends say is a major priority. If they felt it was a major priority, why have they filibustered this bill when we could have made that deal which they came up with in the first place?

So I am very disappointed. I hope we will have another chance to pass this bipartisan energy efficiency bill that Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman worked so hard on.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 433 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to a voice vote on the resolution.

Mr. President, I further ask the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, am I correct in assuming that we have now agreed to this resolution?

Mr. President, I want to thank my friends. It looks as though the Chamber is empty here, but everyone had to sign off on this measure, and I want to explain what we just did. We passed a very important resolution expressing our support for the young girls who were kidnapped in Nigeria.

As I think the world is learning, this is a horrific situation. Kidnapping certainly has no place in any village, in any region, or in any country--not in our country. We know how we feel. We have seen kidnappings recently of

women held in captivity. There should be no room anywhere for kidnapping. Today we heard new reports that the suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped eight more girls from the Nigerian village overnight. So clearly the voices of the civilized world must rise and be louder than the terrorists who are taking away basic human rights.

Senator Landrieu's resolution we just passed has many supporters on it, including myself. I am also pleased to hear today the administration has committed to acting with the Nigerian Government.

As a mother and grandmother, my heart is with all those mothers and grandmothers and dads and grandfathers who want their daughters and granddaughters to come home safely. We cannot stay silent in the face of these unspeakable crimes. We are not silent today as a U.S. Senate.

I am so proud we have agreed to this resolution. I want to commend my friend Senator Mikulski. She and Senator Collins have worked on a letter we are sending to the administration. I am about to go outside to be part of a vigil, an event that has been organized by the Congressional African Staff Association as well as the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association and the Congressional Black Associates, and I am so proud of the Senate for standing for these girls. We will do everything we possibly can to get them home to their families.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is my honor to rise today to support this very important bill, the Minimum Wage Fairness Act of 2014. I am very proud of my colleagues who have just spoken, and particularly, I want to say, of Senator Shaheen who, as I understand it, is the only woman here in the Senate who is both a former Governor and a Senator; is that correct?

When Senator Shaheen was a Governor she stood up for the people, and as a Senator she certainly fights for her people.

Part of this fight involves making sure that when you work hard and you work full time you don't have to live in poverty. It just isn't fair. Remember most of the people on the minimum wage are adults. They are not children. They are not teenagers. They are adults. So many of them are trying to raise their children in jobs at the minimum wage level, and you don't have to be a mathematician to know that the current minimum wage leaves you in poverty. So you have a full-time job, you work your heart out, and you wind up in poverty.

I went back into my little memory books, and I found my son's first paycheck when he was working his way through school. He went to a supermarket to work as a checkout clerk. He came into a store called Lucky Stores. They were a union store, so he joined the union. Do you know what that young man made in those years? In 1986, 28 years ago--it is right here--it was $7.41 an hour. Imagine. So he was so proud he could work hard. When he came home, he was able to help pay for his tuition and his books.

We are talking about a minimum wage that is $10.10 an hour. Here is this young man working as an entry level checkout clerk at a supermarket in 1986 making over $7 an hour. This minimum wage has got to be raised.

We have the chart. If you put inflation on the minimum wage as it was in 1968--just inflation--the minimum wage would be $10.69 an hour. We are not even going that far. We are saying $10.10 an hour. So all we are suggesting is, make sure inflation is covered. That is all we are saying.

Increasing the minimum wage will give people a chance, a fair shot. Remember, most of the people on minimum wage are adults. If you stop someone on the street and ask who they think is on the minimum wage, a lot of folks guess it is teenagers. No. By the way, most of those happen to be women.

I am deeply disappointed and distressed that the Republicans are opposing this measure. Why do Republicans want to deny hard-working Americans a raise? The country supports it overwhelmingly. I don't understand it because in 2007, the last time we raised the minimum wage, it was bipartisan. A huge majority of Senators then agreed that a full day's work deserved a fair paycheck. The minimum wage in 2007 was during George W. Bush's Presidency. Let me say that again. For the minimum wage in 2007, which was the last time we raised it, the increase passed 94 to 3, and George W. Bush signed it into law. What has changed in the Republicans' hearts? What has changed in the Republicans' minds? Are they turning against the people?

If you ask them they will say that it is just not fair to small businesses. Well, more than 80 percent of small businesses pay their people more than the minimum wage. So come on. A majority of small businesses support what we are trying to do. So don't come on the floor and say you are opposing it because it is too much too soon. Wrong. It is even lower than the inflation rate, and secondly, regarding that small business doesn't want it, in fact, they do.

Now before that was 1989. We raised the minimum wage then, and it was 89 to 8, and at that time it was George H. W. Bush. So wait a minute. What is going on here? I don't get this. It is not about who is in the White House; it is about the working people of this country. Where is the bipartisan spirit? It is gone, and America is paying a heavy price with the minimum wage stuck at $7.25 an hour and with inflation eating away every day at it.

Let me read you just two or three stories about workers. Alicia McCrary, a single mom who testified in March before the Senate HELP Committee, struggles to support her sons with a minimum wage job in fast food. She has trouble getting them haircuts, shoes, clothing, and other items that kids need. She says: ``My boys ask: Why isn't there enough money? You work, and you work really hard, Mom.''

She said: ``I don't have a good answer other than I don't get paid enough.''

She is right. She doesn't get paid a fair minimum wage.

NBC News ran a story of a man who works three jobs. Two of them are overnight--he works three jobs--two of them are overnight jobs for minimum wage. He said:

I have four young children. They need a dad around. That is

why I work a day job when they are in school and then go back

to work when they go to bed. But it takes 3 jobs to make ends

meet because of $7.25 an hour. I am 43 and have over 20

years' experience and make $7.25 an hour.

That is wrong. These parents work so hard and their kids are growing up with so little, and their parents look in their children's eyes and they suffer because they want to do more for their children.

Economists project that this bill--which I hope most or almost every Democrat will support--will raise the wages of 28 million people in America. All we need is a handful of Republicans to join with us and we will get it done. By the way, if it were a majority rule, we would get it done. They are filibustering it. Let's be clear. They not only oppose it; they are forcing us to get 60 votes.

Twenty percent of the children in America are counting on this, 14 million children who would be lifted out of poverty if we pass the Harkin bill.

Then we have tipped workers. If I asked anyone on the street how much tipped workers make, they would say minimum wage. Most people don't know what the Federal tipped minimum wage is. I know the Presiding Officer has worked on this. It is $2.13 an hour. Can my colleagues imagine? Again, $2.13 an hour is the tipped minimum wage.

Many tipped workers live in poverty and instability. They don't know if they will make enough to cover the bills.

We will hear that if we pay the full minimum wage, it will be too hard on the restaurant owners. In my State the tipped workers get the full minimum wage, and that wage is $8 an hour, going up to $10, in California. So the tipped workers get the minimum wage amount every hour. Guess what. Our restaurants are going gangbusters. And guess what else. When a person does well and has their minimum wage plus their tips, they get to go out once in a while to a restaurant. They can go down to the corner store and get something for their children.

Sandra Samoa is a bartender in Chicago. She says if the bar is slow, she might take home just $40 after an 8-hour shift. She lives with her mom and her young son. This woman sleeps on the floor so her son can sleep in a bed. If we don't represent people such as these, who the heck do we represent--the Koch brothers? They are worth billions. This woman comes home Sundays with $40 in her pocket, she sleeps on the floor, and she says, ``My whole plan is to have a room for him one day.''

So, listen, if we are who we are supposed to be--the representatives of the people and working families--then we want to make sure we raise the minimum wage. It helps everybody, including those in business. That is why most small businesses support this.

We know the great story of Henry Ford, who raised the day rate of his workers way back in the olden days, and people said: What are you doing? You are raising wages? You could get away with paying them-- whatever it was.

He said: I am raising them because I want them to buy my car--the cars we make.

What we are going to hear on this floor from our colleagues is that we are going too fast, we are raising this too much. I have already shown my colleagues that we are raising it less than inflation, so that is baloney on its face.

No. 2, they say: Oh, it is going to hurt small business.

I have already stated that 82 percent of small businesses already pay all of their employees more than the Federal minimum wage, and more than half of them support raising it to $10.10 because they know people will spend money on their products and in their stores.

Then the next thing they are going to say is it is a job-loser. They are going to cite one study, which I call an outlier, from CBO. It said the minimum wage would reduce employment by three-tenths of 1 percent over the next 2 years. When I heard that, I thought, what is this about? I looked at some other studies. A study by three prominent labor economists from the University of Massachusetts, the University of North Carolina, and the University of California-Berkeley found that minimum wage increases absolutely do not cause job losses. The Economic Policy Institute found that the Harkin bill would increase employment by 84,000 jobs and add $22 billion to our economy over 2\1/2\ years. Let me repeat that. The Harkin bill would increase employment by 84,000 jobs and add $22 billion to our economy.

But let's look at history. We have to really ask ourselves--these guys and gals who are saying don't raise the minimum wage because it will lose jobs--what if they said that going back through time and they prevailed? We would never have raised the minimum wage. I worked for the minimum wage a long time ago. At that time it was a dollar an hour, and I earned 50 cents an hour because I was a teenager. It was great then. I earned 50 cents an hour. I am looking at the young people here, and they are thinking, you must be really old. They would be right.

My point is that the minimum wage was a buck an hour and it was raised many times. Since 1989 the minimum wage has been raised three times. It was raised many times before that. There have been 18 increases since 1956. So we can put that in our minds--18 increases in the minimum wage since 1956. Suppose the other side had taken that attitude: Don't raise it. Well, it would still be, I guess, a buck an hour, 50 cents if you are a kid. Today ``50 Cent'' is a singing group, right?

We have raised the minimum wage over and over again. What has happened? The economy has added millions of jobs. Since 1956 it has added 80 million. Since 1956, we have raised the

minimum wage 18 times and we have created 80 million new jobs. So if anybody says this is a job-killer, I just say, read the history books.

Americans support raising the minimum wage. I hope my colleagues are listening. The American people know $7.25 an hour is not enough. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 63 percent of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Let me say that again. Sixty-three percent of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.

All we need is a handful of Republicans. If they are listening to me, I hope they heard some of my arguments. No. 1, it is good for business to raise the minimum wage because people have more to spend. No. 2, history has shown that we have raised the minimum wage over and over again and we have created 80 million jobs. No. 3, most of the people earning minimum wage are adults, and most of those are women, and people are trying to raise their families on the minimum wage.

The last point is that we have always had strong bipartisan support. When George W. signed it into law, there was strong support from the Republicans. When his dad was in office, there was strong support. I can't believe the Republican Party has turned its back on working people, but if they have, we will find out tomorrow. The American people know what this is about.

The American dream is within reach, but we have to have fairness out there. People need a fair shot. We shouldn't tell someone who is a dad that he has to work three jobs. That is wrong. We need to lift up these workers and not let them fall behind.

When workers do better, families do better. When parents buy their kids enough to eat and shoes to wear, when they can go get a haircut at the local barber, when they can put gas in their car and fix up their house just a little, everybody does better. The community does better. Businesses do better. Families can walk tall when we reward hard work. When our workers earn a fair wage, our economy is stronger and our country is better. So let's give American working families a fair shot. We are not asking for the Moon and the Sun and the stars. All we want is just a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Thank you.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, today I ask my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to Sheriff's Deputy Ricky Del Fiorentino, an exceptional law enforcement officer, a devoted and loyal friend, and most of all a dedicated family man, who was tragically killed in the line of duty on March 19, 2014.

Ricky Del Fiorentino was born and raised in Napa, CA, where he excelled in both football and wrestling at Napa High School. His high school football coach called him the best lineman he had ever trained. Ricky also placed second in the heavyweight division of the State wrestling championship in 1982 and later earned a scholarship to wrestle at the University of Oklahoma. In 1998, he was inducted into the Napa High Athletic Hall of Fame.

After graduating from the Napa Valley Police Academy, Ricky joined the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office. His distinguished 26-year law enforcement career in Mendocino County included 10 years with the Fort Bragg Police before he returned to the sheriff's department in 2000. Residents of the Mendocino coast remember Deputy Del Fiorentino as a calm, towering presence and a guardian of the community. At a candlelight vigil in his honor, many community members described him as gentle, helpful, trusting, loving, and caring, relating personal interactions that had stayed with them for years.

Deputy Del Fiorentino was a respected and experienced leader, passionate about his work and never hesitant to help someone in need. In 1992, he dove into the Noyo River to rescue a young man who had jumped off the

Noyo Bridge. In 1998, he again showed his courage by rescuing four people who had been swept into the water at Pudding Creek by a sneaker wave. These heroic acts were second nature to Deputy Del Fiorentino, who received many official commendations from the community he served.

Deputy Del Fiorentino's friends say he had a ready smile, was quick to laugh, was an avid outdoorsman and a devoted husband, father, and brother. When he was not on duty he spent as much time as he could with his friends and family.

Ricky Del Fiorentino devoted his life to his family, his community, and his country. His dedicated and courageous service will not be forgotten. On behalf of the people of California, whom he served so bravely, I extend my gratitude and deepest sympathies to his family, friends, and colleagues.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the 99th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide--a tragedy that has left a dark stain on the collective conscience of the world.

Between 1915 and 1923, more than 1.5 million Armenians were marched to their deaths in the deserts of the Middle East, murdered in concentration camps, drowned at sea, and forced to endure unimaginable acts of brutality at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

The Armenian Genocide--along with the Holocaust is one of the most studied cases of genocide in history. Countless experts have documented the atrocities that occurred, compiling an overwhelming body of historical evidence on the Armenian Genocide.

However, successive U.S. administrations have refused to call the deliberate massacre of the Armenians by its rightful name, continuing only to refer to it as an annihilation, massacre, or murder.

It has been nearly a century since the Armenian Genocide began and each day that goes by without full acknowledgement by the United States prolongs the pain felt by the descendants of the victims, as well as the entire Armenian community.

For years, I have been urging both Democratic and Republican administrations to finally acknowledge the Armenian Genocide for what it was--genocide. I do so again today.

The United States has often led the international community in speaking out against violence and suffering wherever it occurs. But tragically, our Nation is on the wrong side of history when it comes to the Armenian Genocide. I hope that this year we right this terrible wrong once and for all.

It is time for the United States to join the list of countries from Argentina to France as well as 43 U.S. States that have unequivocally affirmed the Armenian Genocide.

Genocide is only possible when people avert their eyes. Any effort to deal with genocide--whether past, present or future--must begin with the truth.

So this April 24, as we pause to remember the victims of the Armenian Genocide and to celebrate the many contributions Armenian Americans have made to our great nation, I hope that the United States will finally and firmly stand on the right side of history and call the tragedy of 1915-1923 by its rightful name.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Illinois for his leadership in making our people healthier than they otherwise would be. He talked about the battles we have had making sure that we crack down on the tobacco companies that told us for years smoking was safe--as a matter of fact, do it, it will relax you--and they denied the science.

We lived through those years. Many years ago, I worked with then- Senator Lautenberg--and Senator Durbin led the charge in the House--to stop smoking on airplanes. I remember coming home from these long trips and literally reeking of cigarette smoke--I never smoked in my life, but just sitting around it in the airplanes.

Now we are working together on NIH issues. We are very upset about some of the false claims that are being made about ecigarettes, and we want the truth out.

So before he leaves the floor, I want to thank the Senator.

Madam President, Senator Mikulski and I were just whispering to each other about how far we have come since the day Anita Hill came to the Hill and we couldn't do much to help her, but we organized and recognized that women had to be here in numbers sufficient to make a difference and clearly, today, we are.

My colleague Senator Mikulski is our dean of the women. All she is basically saying, with all of us as an echo chamber, is this: Women deserve a fair shot. It is long past time for us to stop shortchanging half of the country and their families.

I want to show us a chart that looks at what happens to a woman in a year when she gives up $11,000 because she is not being paid, for the same job, the same amount a man is. What could that $11,000 do?

She could buy a year of groceries, she could provide a year of rent, a year of daycare, she could buy a used car, and she could afford community college. That is 1 year. Look at what happens over the course of a lifetime when because a woman is not getting her fair share, the equal amount that she deserves, she is only getting 77 cents on the dollar. It is $443,000. What could she do with that? Pay off her entire mortgage, send three kids to the University of California--a great school, I might say--and buy 8,000 tanks of gas.

What is the point of all of this? It is to show that the dollars women are not getting could be going into the community, could be making sure their families are taken care of, and would make all the difference in the world. Now, I was a little startled to see some of my Republican friends on the other side--Republican Members of the House-- say this is demeaning to women. That is what I got out of a news report--that women don't need this. Would they have said that about children? Did children need protection against child labor? The answer is yes. Did workers need protection from a 14-hour day when they were being exploited? Yes. Did we need to make sure people in hazardous workplaces, such as chemical companies, have appropriate protective gear? Yes. Did we need to make sure there are fire exits in a crowded factory, after we saw a horrific fire called the Triangle fire? Yes. Now we need to make sure that women get equal pay for equal work.

This is just part of the continuum of bending that arc of history toward justice. That is what is happening here under the leadership of Senator Mikulski and all of us who stand on her shoulders. I have to say it is a great day. It is a great day to hear my colleagues come to the floor and speak as one. We are speaking not only for the women of America, who make up more than half, but for their families.

That is the point. Two-thirds of women are either the sole head of household or they share in providing for the economic well-being of their families. This is a matter of justice. It is a matter of fairness. It is a matter of a fair shot. I am proud to stand with my colleagues.

I hope and pray we will get the 60 votes necessary. There is a filibuster going on, as usual. We need a supermajority. But I would say to my colleagues on the other side that too many women have to be super women. So give them a supermajority. They are super women who are holding down

not one job but two jobs. So please help us. Let's celebrate tomorrow with a great vote.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased and honored to salute James B. Frankel, a respected lawyer, environmental activist, and a pillar of the San Francisco community who recently celebrated his 90th birthday.

James Frankel was born on February 25, 1924, in Chicago to Louis and Thelma Frankel. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1945, Jim went on to earn a law degree from Yale University, where he met his future wife Louise. Shortly thereafter the couple moved to San Francisco, where they raised their family.

In San Francisco, Jim maintained an active law practice until his retirement in 2000. He also contributed to the training and education of future lawyers, serving as an adjunct professor of law at Yale, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and UC Hastings.

Those of us who know Jim know that he is an inspiring and vibrant man who has always been generous with both his time and his energy on behalf of so many worthy causes. As an avid nature lover and outdoorsman passionate about backpacking, skiing, and the annual bicycle trips across Europe that he continued to take well into his eighties, Jim was an early supporter of the Natural Resources Defense Council, for which he served as a trustee for nearly 20 years.

My family is lucky to have known Jim for many years, and I have always admired his boundless passion and tireless zest for living life to its fullest. As Jim celebrates his 90th birthday, I am honored to join Louise, their children and five grandchildren, and Jim's many friends and admirers in offering my very best wishes on this wonderful milestone and many more years of continued happiness.

Mr. President, I am so proud to join Senator Murray, who organized several of the women here, to speak out in favor of the minimum wage increase for the workers of America.

My colleagues have said it well, but it bears repeating: No one in America--male or female--should have to live in poverty after putting in a full day's work. Yet that is the case today.

We should give hard-working Americans a fair shot to get ahead so they can raise their families. Everyone deserves that fair shot, and that is why Democrats have a fair-shot agenda. Right now we don't seem to have many Republicans joining us in our desire to raise the minimum wage so that it gets people above the poverty line when they work full time.

I would argue that anyone who votes against that level of pay--which is about $10.10 an hour to get a worker right above poverty--simply wants to keep people in poverty, and that is not the American way. Right now a mom who is working full time and makes minimum wage earns just $290 a week. That is just $15,000 a year, which is below the poverty rate for a single mom.

No mom or dad should come home from a full day's work and have to worry about whether they can feed their children or whether they can afford a roof over the heads of their kids.

I see Senator Warren is here, and she has brought such attention and focus to the unfairness in the number I am about to say. There are 400 families in America that control as much wealth as 150 million Americans. To hear people in this Chamber--who do just fine supporting their families--oppose the minimum wage is absolutely, in my view, a morally wrong position. They have their right to it, but I think it is morally wrong.

The minimum wage is a two-thirds problem for women. Let's be clear. Almost two-thirds of workers earning minimum wage or less are women, two-thirds of tipped minimum wage workers are women, and in two-thirds of American families, women are the breadwinners or co-breadwinners. We have a two-thirds problem. Women are overrepresented in low-wage jobs, and that is why I am so proud that next week Senator Mikulski is going to lead us toward equal pay for equal work. It is a wonderful bill. I think it is called the Paycheck Fairness Act.

When we lift the salaries of these workers, it helps entire families. Senator Harkin's bill, which we are all supporting, will benefit 14 million children. We have to do it for workers like Wendy Arellano, who works directing vehicles at an airport and has two other jobs, but she still doesn't make enough to support her two daughters.

We should do it for women like Shareeka Elliot, who works all night as a janitor scrubbing the floors and cleaning the toilets but still doesn't make enough to get her kids above the poverty line.

We should do it for women like Nyah Potts, who is working so hard to finish her college degree, but she is struggling to make enough to support herself and her son. I joined Nyah at a press conference last week.

In closing, I want to talk for a minute about the tipped minimum wage. This is a disgrace because the tipped minimum wage at the Federal Government is $2.13 an hour. We all know--because it has been studied-- that there are waitresses and there are waiters, and most of the less- expensive restaurants hire women, and they don't get big tips. If there is a storm, and suppose nobody comes into the restaurant that day, they get paid $2.13 an hour. This bill does move us up to 70 percent of minimum wage for tipped workers. Personally, I think there ought to be no difference. In California, we pay our workers--all of them, tipped or not--the full minimum wage. And no one can tell me that California's restaurants are suffering. They are some of the most successful in the country and in the world.

So let's be clear. History shows raising the minimum wage doesn't hurt the economy.

Now we will hear our colleagues on the Republican side cite the CBO study that said we could lose hundreds of thousands of jobs. That study is an outlier.

In 1956, the minimum wage was a buck. I hate to say it, but I remember those days. It was a dollar. And I remember, I worked my first job as a telephone operator for Hilton Hotels, and I earned the minimum wage. Actually, then, because I was a teenager, it was half the minimum wage, so I worked for 50 cents an hour. I was not very good at that job, but I tried hard. But let's say Congress had that attitude then: We are not going to raise the minimum wage because we will lose jobs. The minimum wage would still be a dollar an hour. How ludicrous.

Since then--since 1956--we have raised the minimum wage 18 times. Guess what. Did we lose jobs? No. The economy grew by more than 80 million jobs.

I know others are waiting to speak. I am so excited to finally get to vote on paycheck fairness and on minimum wage. All we Democrats are saying is, let's give Americans a fair shot.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, what is the time situation?

Do I need to ask permission to speak on health care?

I would so ask.

Thank you so much, Mr. President.

I want to say a big thank you to Senator Murphy because he has been a great leader on this issue. He and I are coming from States where people are signing up and signing up and surpassing the goals. The stories are incredibly heartwarming and wonderful and are being told on the radio and being told on TV. The truth is coming out about the Affordable Care Act.

All of the scares aside, we see now it is working. Why is it working? Because there was a very simple premise when we passed this bill 4 years ago; and that was, people deserve a fair shot at affordable health care. That is all it was. They deserve a fair shot at getting affordable health care. They deserve affordable health care. They deserve to be free from discrimination by the insurance companies.

So I am so pleased Senator Murphy has taken it upon himself to organize a few of us so we do not allow misinformation and lies to be spread about the Affordable Care Act.

What I loved about President Obama's speech yesterday at the Rose Garden was that he is so open about it. He said: Yes, we had a flawed rollout. We lost time. That was bad. And, yes, no bill is perfect. I think it was our colleague Angus King who said it the best. He said: The most perfect document in the world is the Constitution, and it has been amended 27 times. So is any bill perfect? Is any document perfect? Of course not. But I am here to say, given the facts--not the made-up stuff--given the facts, I am so proud I was able to vote for the Affordable Care Act. I am so proud of that. And I am sad that not one Republican joined us in that vote--not one of them, not one of them.

When you go back to 4 years ago, we saw that millions of our citizens were uninsured because they could not afford insurance; or they were uninsured because their insurance company walked out on them when they were sick; or there were annual limits on their plans, and they simply went over that annual limit and they went broke and they could not afford insurance. Some had lifetime caps. And it sounded like a lot: Oh, you have a cap of a quarter of a million dollars. But then when you get cancer, that cap is reached a heck of a lot faster than you thought.

So we had kids kicked off their parents' health insurance at 18, 19 years old.

We had people with asthma, diabetes, cancer who could not get insurance until the Affordable Care Act passed. Being a woman was considered a preexisting condition. If you were a victim of domestic violence, forget it. The insurance company wanted no part of your risk. So Democrats took action--took action.

All the Republicans can do is come down here and say: Oh, here is one constituent's story. For every one constituent's story that they tell, No. 1, doublecheck the facts because sometimes we look at the facts and they are not exactly what they say. But I can give 100 stories to their 1 of people finally getting health care.

By the way, we can fix this law any day of the week with the help of the Republicans if they have an issue they think needs to be addressed. But their answer is: repeal, repeal, repeal. Why would they want to repeal a law that is helping, I will tell you, over 100 million Americans, not 7 million--7 million who are on the exchange--but I will show you more than 100 million of our people are getting preventive care, free cancer screenings, immunizations, contraception.

It has made a big difference in their lives. It is making a big difference that kids can stay on their parents' policies. Why do they want to repeal a law that does that, that gives us a patients' bill of rights, so insurance companies cannot look at you when you are sick, in your darkest moment and say: Senator or friend or Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith, I am so sorry to tell you that you are not getting any more coverage because we just learned you had diabetes. You did not tell us. You did not mention it. You are out.

I do not know why Republicans want to take that away from people, but then again history is repeating itself. I tell my friends--I have so many friends on the other side of the aisle. We just see the world differently. When we go back to Medicare, you should see what the Republicans said in this Senate about Medicare: Socialism, let it wither on the vine.

Bob Dole was here. He was so proud he voted against it. He led the charge. ``It is terrible.'' Now you have tea party members come with signs to rallies that say, ``Don't touch my Medicare.'' They love their Medicare. They do not understand it is a government program, Medicare. The government is the insurer. Of course, Paul Ryan wants to end it in his budget. So I guess nothing changes; it all stays the same. They hated Medicare. They still hate it. They wanted it to wither on the vine. They totally destroy it in Ryan's budget.

Social Security. You should see what they said about Social Security. It was an abomination. That is what they said. So nothing changes. We have different people in different clothes. I look a little different than the Democrats in the old days. There were no women here for starters. My colleague is very handsome. He had some predecessors that looked good, but they all say the same thing: Government should not be involved in any of this. It will all be great. You know what. I

wish they were right. I wish they were right.

My husband developed a small business. He managed to pay health care for his people. He was proud to do it. But you know not every business is fair and just and right. So, yes, once in a while we have to say let's all work together to make sure people are covered. When I was a little kid, my mother used to tell me all the time: Without your health care, you have nothing. If you are sick, you got nothing.

I used to say: Oh, God, I am so tired of hearing that. I remember she used to say: You see that beautiful actress over there? She has everything, but she got sick so she has nothing. Your health is everything, she told me. You have to protect your health. She was right.

How do you protect your health and the health of your family? By getting preventive care so you can catch something early. If you do not have insurance, you do not get that preventive care. You are in trouble. If something happens and you are in an automobile accident and you thought you were an invincible young person and nothing would happen to you and suddenly you find yourself with broken bones and everything else, including a broken heart, and you have no health insurance, you can go bankrupt. People did, because it was so hard to get affordable insurance before the Affordable Care Act.

So what you are hearing and will continue to hear are scare tactics, stories. I am here to tell you--and I want to say it very clearly-- about the millions and millions of Americans who understand that the Affordable Care Act is working for them.

Yesterday was a historic day. They said: Never would you get 7 million people to sign up for private insurance on the exchanges-- never. It happened. Why? Because this is a product people need, health insurance that is affordable. But that number is the tip of the iceberg. I will prove it.

Medicaid; that is, insurance for the poorest working people. We expanded it. We let more people qualify: 4.5 million Americans previously uninsured now have coverage through Medicaid. So let's do the math. There are 7 million on the exchanges--7.1; 4.5 million on Medicaid who did not have it before; 3 million young adults are able to stay on their parents' plan who were not able to do that before. How about this? Eight million senior citizens who have saved billions of dollars because of the fix in the Affordable Care Act that says they get more help paying for their prescriptions.

That adds up to, drum roll, 22.6 million Americans with those very important benefits, but then here is the other thing. One hundred million Americans are now getting help with preventive services that they used to have to pay for: immunizations, mammograms, vaccines, annual exams, and other lifesaving preventive care.

We are talking about millions and millions. Even with private health care now, you can have no annual limit, no lifetime limit. They cannot be turned away for preexisting conditions. Your insurance company cannot break out on them just when they are needing them. So that is almost everyone in the country who is benefiting from the law.

Let me tell you about California. We are the biggest State in the Union, 38 million strong. Covered California is the way we set up our exchange. It is coveredCA.com. Peter Lee is the head of that. I wish to thank Peter Lee today--he does not know I am doing this--for his extraordinary leadership.

Here is what happened. We exceeded our State's goal for enrollment through Covered California by not 100,000 people, not 200,000 people, not 300,000 or 400,000, but by 500,000 people we exceeded our goal. That is bigger than some States. Can you believe it? Half a million people, more than we expected.

I am sure Senator Thune is shocked by this. This is a fact. We expected to have 700,000 sign up. Instead we had 1.2 million. That does not even include all of those who signed up on Monday or who were still in the process of completing enrollment.

We are going to hear a lot of stories about families who are paying what they think is too much--and I want to work with everybody to make this law better, believe me--but listen to a couple of my constituents. Julie Mims from Sacramento said:

We no longer have to worry about being ruined physically

and financially by a serious health issue. . . . We enrolled

in a Bronze 60 plan that will cost us $2 a month.

This is a working woman who is getting the help she needs to have a decent--decent--health care policy.

Then there is Rebecca Tasker. She runs a small construction business in San Diego with her husband. They are saving $1,000 a month. They are saving $12,000 a year that they can spend on their family. They can spend that in their community boosting this economy.

She said, ``These savings will help our company grow and might allow us to be able to hire our first employee this year.''

So here is a small businesswoman who had to spend so much on health care, and now because of the Affordable Care Act she is able to save $1,000 a month and possibly hire her first employee. Have you heard of something called job lock? Before the Affordable Care Act, people said: I do not want to leave my job because I have health care. I am scared to go out on my own. I would not be able to get it. I would not be able to afford it. That is why we set up the exchanges. It is freeing people to move out of a job that maybe they think is a dead-end and start their own business.

Here is a woman who is going to be able to hire her first employee with the money she is saving. There are hundreds more stories. I will be coming to talk about those in the coming days and weeks. Stunningly, House Republicans keep bragging about their never-ending efforts to take health care away from millions of Americans.

Do you know the House has voted not once, not twice but more than 50 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They are doing it again. If they had spent as much energy working with us to make the law better, which the President said he is open to, we are open to, just like we worked with them on Medicare Part D when they carried that. We worked with them to make it better.

Can you imagine, we would be standing here talking about even more millions of people. I have to say and this--I know it might be viewed as controversial, but because this law helps women so much with mammography, with vaccines, with birth control, with the end of discrimination based on gender, with an end of discrimination if you have been the victim of violence, with the end of discrimination because you could carry a child and have a pregnancy and want coverage, this Affordable Care Act helps women.

So I am going to say this: When you vote 50 times to repeal a law that benefits women, you are voting against women. So you can say all you want to become--and I know Speaker Boehner said: I want to become more sensitive to women. I have an idea: Stop trying to take away health care from women and their families and then you will see women feel much better about you.

Women are smart. They know who is on their side. They know who wants to give them a fair shot. But it is not people who want to take away their health care. That is what you say day in and day out. Remember, under the Affordable Care Act, many women were denied health insurance because of preexisting illnesses such as breast cancer, depression or, again, even being a victim of domestic violence. They were charged more than men. Let us be clear. Now we are guaranteed access to free preventive care and maternity care. Women are now paying zero dollars for a checkup--zero. This is it. Zero dollars to get a test to check for cervical cancer, zero dollars for a mammogram, zero dollars for FDA-approved contraception. Why do the Republicans want to repeal this law and take away mammograms, take away tests for cervical cancer, and take away checkups and FDA-approved contraception? Why?

At the same time, they say they do not understand why women do not gravitate to their party. I have to say, we should be celebrating this law--yes, fixing it where it needs to be fixed. But I think if Republicans would join with us and say let's work together to make this a better plan--if you have someone who cannot find their doctor in their plan, let's try to work together to fix it. If you have someone who you think deserves a subsidy, let's work together and try to fix it.

But let's remember, folks, I just pointed out the millions of people who are benefiting.

House Speaker Boehner called the Affordable Care Act a ``rolling calamity.'' House Majority Whip McCarthy said the enrollment numbers would be ``staggeringly low.'' Several GOP Members tweeted excitedly about how enrollments in their States wouldn't even fill a football stadium to capacity, and former Gov. Mike Huckabee said: ``You've got more people wanting to go moose hunting in New Hampshire than want Obamacare.''

Wrong. Really wrong--really, really wrong.

It is time for Republicans to look at the facts. It is time for the GOP to accept the reality that this law is helping millions of people: seniors, women, men, students, children--all Americans.

It is time to recognize that one of the biggest problems facing our country before the Affordable Care Act was a lack of affordable insurance and millions of people are gaining the benefits.

So we are not going to go back to the days when our people were denied health care, where an insurance company would walk out on you, where you brought in a child with asthma when they were wheezing and the insurance company said: Get out. We can't insure that child.

I have seen the tears before the ACA when people were forced into bankruptcy because they had no insurance, and I have seen the tears of joy since the ACA.

So we will listen to our colleagues tell their tale of horrors, and that is fine. They have every right. I respect them. But remember, as we hear these stories, go back and make sure that is exactly what you thought you heard and then ask them what is their plan. How do they want to help women and their families and their children?

So far, we haven't heard much. All we have heard about is repeal, repeal, repeal. That is not a policy. Repealing the Affordable Care Act will hurt Americans and not just a few but many millions.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the life of Stanley Grinstein, a successful businessman, a patron of the arts, a philanthropist, and a social activist. He was also a great friend of mine, and I will miss him dearly.

Born in Seattle in 1927, Stanley moved to Los Angeles with his family and graduated from the University of Southern California. He and his father started what would become a thriving forklift business that Stanley ran until he sold the company in 2000.

In 1952, Stanley married Elyse, the love of his life. The couple began collecting art and soon became well-known patrons of modern artists.

In January 1966, Stanley joined fellow art patrons Sidney Felsen and Ken Tyler to establish Gemini G.E.L., an artists' workshop and art print publisher. The first facility of its kind on the West Coast, Gemini quickly became a magnet not only for emerging Los Angeles artists but also for leading New York artists.

Among the many artists who worked and published at Gemini were Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, David Hockney, and Frank Stella. In 1981, Gemini donated its archives--containing works by these and other modern masters--to the National Gallery of Art. By this time, Stanley had begun his 26-year tenure as a trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA. Over the years, he and Elyse made many major gifts to LACMA, including a seminal work by Marcel Duchamp and all 124 of Robert Rauschenberg's posters.

Beyond the art world, Stanley was a deeply committed social activist who generously gave his time and resources in support of human rights, free speech, justice, and equality.

Stanley was also a longtime benefactor of the Cedars Sinai Medical Center, where he served on the Board of Directors, Executive Committee, and Advisory Council for the Arts. A passionate believer in the role that art can play in the healing process, Stanley helped fill Cedars Sinai with art and brought joy to countless patients.

Stanley Grinstein believed in living every moment to the fullest and inspiring others to enjoy what he called ``the party of life.''

I send my deepest condolences to Stanley's beloved wife Elyse; their daughters Ayn Grinstein, Ellen Grinstein Perliter, and Nancy Grinstein; sons-in-law Chuck Perliter and Neal Rabin; and six grandchildren Amanda, Joe, Alex, Willie, Tess, and Dia. I know they will truly miss this marvelous man, as will I.

Mr. President, I am pleased to pay tribute to my good friend Gloria Molina, who is serving her 24th and final year on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Gloria is a trailblazer who has inspired countless young women to pursue public service, and she is retiring from office at the end of this year after more than three decades of extraordinary service on behalf of the people of California.

Gloria Molina was raised in Pico Rivera, the eldest of ten children born to a Mexican mother and Mexican-American father. A graduate of El Rancho High School, she worked full time as a legal secretary while attending college and becoming certified as an adult education instructor, teaching clerical skills to adults at the East Los Angeles Skills Center.

Gloria entered government service as a staff member, first for Assemblymember Art Torres and later for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. In 1982, after serving in the Carter White House and with the San Francisco Department of Health and Human Services, she made history as the first Latina ever elected to the California State Assembly.

Gloria was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1987 and the County Board of Supervisors in 1991, making headlines each time for becoming the first Latina to serve in those positions.

Since 1991, Supervisor Molina has represented nearly 2 million residents in the First District of our Nation's largest county, where she has focused on making services more effective and on completing major capital projects that improve the quality of life for residents of her district and the entire county. Among the initiatives she championed are the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension, a six-mile light rail line connecting East L.A. to downtown and the rest of the county's mass transit network; the state-of-the-art LAC-USC Medical Center in Boyle Heights; the Plaza de Cultura y Artes

at El Pueblo Historic Monument, a museum dedicated to showcasing and preserving the history of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles; the Los Angeles River and San Gabriel River Master Plans, both of which serve as blueprints for ``greening'' local rivers and their tributaries; and the construction of more than 1,100 new affordable housing units in the First District.

I have known Gloria for many years, and I am honored to salute her as she prepares to retire from elective office. I am pleased to join Gloria's many friends, family members, associates, admirers, and grateful constituents in wishing her health, happiness, and all the best as she embarks on the next phase of her life.