Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I have 7 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

committee on armed services

The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing.

committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs

The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of HUD.''

committee on energy and natural resources

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Theodore J. Garrish, of Maryland, to be an Assistant Secretary (International Affairs), and James Edward Campos, of Nevada, to be Director of the Office of Minority Economic Impact, both of the Department of Energy, and James Reilly, of Colorado, to be Director of the United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior; to be immediately followed by a hearing to examine S. 2539, to amend the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015, to reauthorize certain projects to increase Colorado River System water, S. 2560, to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to establish a program to facilitate the transfer to non-Federal ownership of appropriate reclamation projects or facilities, and S. 2563, to improve the water supply and drought resilience of the United States.

committee on energy and natural resources

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``2018 Western Water Supply Outlook.''

committee on finance

The Committee on Finance is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``The President's 2018 Trade Policy Agenda.''

committee on the judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: John B. Nalbandian, of Kentucky, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, Kari A. Dooley, to be United States District Judge for the District of Connecticut, Dominic W. Lanza, to be United States District Judge for the District of Arizona, Jill Aiko Otake, to be United States District Judge for the District of Hawaii, and Thomas T. Cullen, to be United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, Robert K. Hur, to be United States Attorney for the District of Maryland, and David C. Joseph, to )e United States Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, all of the Department of Justice.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 2 p.m. to conduct a closed hearing.

Mr. President, yesterday at the White House, two terrible things happened, and it shouldn't be difficult to condemn both of these things at once.

First, at the podium in the White House press room, it was suggested that the U.S. Government is unsure if Putin's reelection was perhaps legitimate, free, and fair or that perhaps the United States is morally indifferent to the question of whether Putin's reelection was fair, free, and legitimate.

It was not fair or free or legitimate, and it matters.

The second horrible thing that happened yesterday is that the President's confidential briefing materials for his call with Vladimir Putin were anonymously leaked to the public. That should not happen. The President's congratulatory call was terribly ill-advised, but that doesn't change the fact that the leaking of the confidential briefing materials for his call was also wrong.

It shouldn't be difficult to say both of these things. They are both true. So we should be able to say both of them at once.

Our people are very divided right now. They are unclear about who we are and how we conceive of ourselves on the global stage. Our tribalism has run amok. If you listen to some of our cable news today--I haven't--I suspect that what you would find is that on certain networks there is only discussion of the leaking and no discussion of what a terrible abandonment of American foreign policy yesterday's failure to condemn Putin's phony sham reelection was. And on the other networks, I imagine you are going to get exactly the opposite story, where the only thing that matters is how stupid this call was to Vladimir Putin, and nothing about the leaks. That isn't helpful for building a nation of 320 million people who know what we stand for together.

Here is what is true. A President's staff shouldn't leak. In cases of principle, you may need to resign. So resign. Do the right and honorable thing if you believe your conscience is compelled to do so, and resign your position and go out and publicly make a case for why a certain policy is failing. But that is a different thing than anonymously leaking the information that a President has--not just this President, but that any President has--to make his or her decisions, to deliberate with their staff, to plot their actions.

Leaks like this weaken us both at home, in terms of public trust in our institutions and our public servants, and they weaken us abroad, in terms of whether or not we have any coherence to who we are as a people and how we make our decisions.

Now, as to this decision to fail to condemn Putin's sham reelection, it is very foolhardy. Vladimir Putin is not a friend. Vladimir Putin is a despot. The President of the United States was wrong to congratulate him, and the White House Press Secretary was wrong to duck a simple question about whether or not Putin's reelection was free and fair.

It was not. The American people know that, the Russian people know that, and the world knows that. Yesterday, when the White House refused to speak directly and clearly about this matter, we were weakened as a nation, and a tyrant was strengthened.

Around the world, there are two great symbols of America from this city. The first is the dome of the Capitol, in which we stand. This building testifies to the strength of our self-government and to our belief in inherent human dignity, but the other symbol that comes from this city that is known around the world is the podium in the White House press room. Tucked into a small room and surrounded by members of a free press, it is simply the free world's biggest megaphone. It symbolizes Americans commitment to the universal dignity not just of 320 million people--the citizens of this country--but to 7.6 billion men, women, and children across the globe.

Speaking clearly about tyrants is one of the things that we do. It is not seeking monsters to destroy. For more than 200 years, the American people have clearly understood this. For more than 200 years, administrations of both parties have clearly understood this.

At times in the past, previous administrations have made mistakes. They have split hairs. They have smoothed edges. They have dodged. They have hedged. But what happened yesterday at the podium at the White House--the dodge on Putin--broke with the basic

American moral tradition. It broke faith with our core values, and it broke trust with freedom seekers across the globe.

This very day there are dissidents all over the globe struggling against totalitarian regimes in darkness. To them, America has always said and America still says: We see you. We stand with you. We may make long and deliberate decisions about how we engage in the world and about what particular commitments are prudent to exercise at different times with different allies, but we have always spoken unequivocally about the universal dignity of 7.6 billion people. To those who struggle, we have always said: We see you, and we stand with you.

These simple truths matter. The moral responsibilities of the Office of the Presidency matter. When we don't affirm these basic truths, it is a failure to who we are, and it is a failure to do what we do. It is a betrayal not just to the millions of people who were denied free and fair elections in Russia this week, but it is a failure to people all across the globe who are struggling in darkness against tyrants.

Each and every Member of this Senate--all 100 of us--was elected in the kind of free and fair election that Vladimir Putin fears--the kind of election that he would not win. Vladimir Putin is a coward. Vladimir Putin is a despot.

Just this month, Vladimir Putin tried to assassinate a political dissident and his daughter on NATO soil in the UK. Given that we have taken an oath in this body, after our free and fair elections, to uphold and defend the Constitution--given that--we ought not, in this body, find it difficult to say basic true things, like that we condemn leaks by the President's staff against him. We also condemn Vladimir Putin's sham election. We condemn a Russian despot who aims to make Soviet tyranny great again.

I yield back.

Madam President, as we consider this legislation to protect 20-week-old babies who feel pain, I want to ask my friends in this body to put aside whip counts and score cards, politics and reelection, and let's talk today simply about beauty and about science.

We love beauty. Beauty calls us. Beauty inspires us. Beauty captivates us. It is part of what makes us human. It is not surprising that there is almost nothing more universal on this Earth, almost nothing more beautiful, than our natural impulse to care for a little baby.

We all start in the same place--vulnerable and dependent in every way. We all ``ooh'' and ``aah'' over sonogram pictures of our children, our grandchildren, our nieces, our nephews, even sonogram pictures from a stranger on a bus or a plane. We all ``ooh'' and ``aah'' in the same way. When we look at those pictures, we love. We love. You don't have to be taught this. You don't have to be conditioned to love. You don't have to be conditioned to know that we should help the vulnerable. This isn't because of economics. This isn't because of politics. We love because they are babies. You don't need anyone to explain this to you. Every one of us has experienced this when we have seen the sonogram pictures. We should note that this love is not just a feeling; it is also built on and backed up by facts.

As we consider whether these unborn babies--having been carried by their mamas for almost 5 months--deserve legal protection, whether they deserve our protection, we should think, too, about the science and what is becoming clearer year by year and month by month.

I want to associate myself with the comments of the Senator from Montana who preceded me. A huge part of why the millennials are becoming more pro-life than the two generations older than they are is because they are seeing these sonogram images, and it is changing them year by year and month by month.

I have been on the floor for about 45 minutes today, and I have heard many claims about polling and facts that just aren't true. I am not here to argue this case and argue how we should vote on this legislation because of polls; I am here because we should all love babies. That is why we should be doing this. But just at the level of polling, there have been claims on the floor today that are absolutely not true.

Younger people are becoming more pro-life, as the Senator from Montana said, year over year right now, and it is because of the prevalence and the pervasiveness of sonogram technology. This movement, the pro-life movement, is ascendant, and it is because people are grappling with science, grappling with images, and grappling with the reality of that intrinsic feeling we have to love.

We can and we should appeal to ethics. We can and we should discuss human dignity. We should reaffirm intrinsic value. For now, for this conversation today, we can limit ourselves to just scientific facts. As we consider those facts, I want to respectfully ask my colleagues in this Chamber today, where will we draw the line? No one seriously disputes that the little girl in that image is alive. No one seriously disputes that that little girl is a human being--no one. There is no one in this Chamber and there is no one outside this Chamber who has ever looked at that sonogram image who will come to the floor and say: Do you know the debate I want to have? I want to say that baby is not alive and she is not a human.

Somebody who is going to vote no on the legislation today should come to the floor and make that case, say that is not a life and that is not a human, because it is not true, and no one believes it.

The science is clear. We all know and understand that little baby in that sonogram image is a unique and separate being. We know she has unique DNA from her mother, and she has DNA that is unique from her father. The baby apps are now telling new moms and dads-to-be when that baby is the size of a sesame seed, then a blueberry, and then an apple. With the help of the sonograms, we are now catching pictures of her sucking her thumb, flexing her arms and legs, yawning, stretching, making faces. Here is what is really new the last couple of years: We are catching pictures and images of her responding to voices--familiar voices of other human beings that she is already in community with, people who are called to love her.

As early as 20 weeks postfertilization, which is about halfway through the pregnancy, scientists and our doctors now tell us that this unborn baby can feel pain. In fact, it has become routine procedure of late for us to give unborn and premature infants anesthesia for their fetal surgeries. Why? This is new. We didn't used to do this. Why do we do it? It is because we have new scientific evidence that they feel pain. It turns out that babies who are 20 weeks along in gestation are pain-capable inside mom's uterus.

As Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand testified before the Congress, ``The human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by the fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns.''

Not only can she feel pain, not only do the images show us that she recoils from being poked or prodded, advances in modern medicine are now helping babies who are born at 22 weeks, at 21 weeks, and at 20 weeks postfertilization survive outside the womb. The pain that those babies feel outside the womb is supporting the evidence that those babies also feel pain inside the womb, which leads me to ask my friends: Have our hearts grown cold to truth? Have we become indifferent to questioning our previously held convictions? Are we indifferent to what the science is clearly showing us?

This body, captive to abortion zealot-activists, might be ignoring the sonograms. That might be what is happening in this body today, but the American people are actually listening to the science and the sonograms. Contrary to those bizarre claims that were made on the floor a couple of times over the last hour, a hefty majority--it is not close--of Americans support this legislation, including a supermajority of women, including most young people, including most Independents, and now ticking up just shy of half of all Democrats. This should not be a partisan issue, and in the future, it will not be because more and more people are looking at these images. It is not going to be a partisan issue; it is going to be a bipartisan issue. But you have to tell the truth--that those pictures are pictures of babies, and they are alive, and they deserve our protection. But have our hearts in this body grown cold to the truth?

We should also not forget the mothers because the pro-life message is about being both pro-baby and pro-mother. Late-term abortions are actually not safe, even for the mother. Women seeking abortion after 20 weeks are 35 times more likely to die from an abortion than when done in the first trimester--35 times more likely.

The United States is one of only seven countries on Earth that allow elective abortion after 20 weeks, and we are actually tied with only three other countries as having the most permissive abortion regime on Earth. Do you know who our peers are? North Korea and China. That is who our peers are. If our rhetoric about human rights should mean anything, it should mean we don't want to be on a ``human rights worst'' list with North Korea and China. That is where we are today.

There are many reasonable people who are going to argue against this legislation. They are reasonable in other ways in life, and they want to make an argument about the very complicated issues about abortion in the

first trimester. There are many reasonable people who can have a reasonable debate about that. But when you listen to the arguments being made today, they are not actually grappling with today's legislation; they are talking about abortion in general. But nobody is telling us why we are tied with only China and North Korea as having the most permissive abortion regime on Earth.

My friends, beauty and compassion can stir our hearts, and science and facts should still confirm the truth. This legislation--the actual legislation we are voting on today--is pro-baby, it is pro-mom, and it is pro-science. These little babies, who are capable of feeling pain, deserve legal protection. They deserve our protection. I invite--I beg my colleagues to join in that conviction and to vote yes on this legislation today.

Mr. President, I say thank you very much to the Senator from Oklahoma and thanks to the Senator from Montana for spelling me. I have been sitting in the Presiding chair during this colloquy, so I have not been on the ground floor able to participate, but I would like to associate myself with this colloquy and with the leadership of the Senators from Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, and Montana.

I, too, know Micah, and it is an amazing thing. I wish all 100 Senators had a chance to know Micah and his family. I also want to associate myself with the comments of the Senator from Oklahoma, as he began this, that we are one of only four countries in the world that allow elective abortion at any time for any reason. Our peers in this are North Korea, China, and Vietnam, and it is a genuine shame. The American people need to understand that, and this body needs to grapple with that reality.

As the Senator from Missouri said, it is special to be a part of the rally and march over the next 36 hours because the college kids who are coming here understand this far better than the general public. There is a movement in this country to want to respect and celebrate life, and good things are happening generationally with this cause.

I want to associate myself with this colloquy and thank the Senator from Montana for spelling me from the chair. Thank you.

Mr. President, I thank my senior Senator for leading us in this resolution.

Nebraska volleyball continues to dominate. If there is any debate about the best volleyball State in the Union, there should be no more. Nebraska has proved, yet again, we have the best team, the best coaching staff, and indisputably the best fans in the country.

Two years ago, this team won the national championship at home in Omaha, setting records with the crowds that attended the games there, and last week in Kansas City, we set another alltime record with the most watched championship volleyball game ever at 18,516 fans, including my 6-year old who stayed awake at nearly 11 p.m. as we were finishing, and he was deciding to watch it upside down, hanging over the seats from the upper decks at the arena in Kansas City.

So I proudly join the senior Senator and Husker nation in congratulating these young women, saying ``Go Big Red'' on behalf of all 1.9 million Nebraskans.

Just two stats of note. First, in the earlier round at the final four, Nebraska beat Penn State. Those are the two winningest teams in the history of volleyball. Nebraska has the most wins at 1,308. Penn State has the greatest winning percentage. We have now won five championships in 22 years, as well as three runner-up, second-place finishes in the last 30 years.

Coach Cook, as Senator Fischer mentioned, has won four championships at Nebraska over the last 17 years. The alltime record for the history of volleyball is five national championships, and we expect that Coach Cook will set that new record.

So I join my senior Senator in urging the Senate to pass this resolution for the University of Nebraska women's volleyball team.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today in continued support of Steve Grasz's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Some of those who have been attacking Mr. Grasz have claimed that he doesn't have the character or the temperament to treat litigants fairly and decide cases based on the facts and the law.

In evaluating those claims, I hope my colleagues in this body will listen to the hundreds of Nebraskans of all partisan and ideological stripes who have stood up in support of Steve's nomination. I urge everyone to listen to what those Nebraskans have to say specifically about his character and about his temperament.

One Nebraskan wrote to Mrs. Fischer, the senior Senator from Nebraska, and to me, as well as to the Judiciary Committee:

I was the plaintiff in a First Amendment defamation and

political speech action against the Nebraska Republican

Party. . . . Mr. Grasz represented the Nebraska Republican

Party. I was not successful in my lawsuit. However, I did

have the opportunity to meet and interact with Mr. Grasz

during the case and found him to be . . . a consummate

professional. Based on my observations I believe his judicial

temperament would be of the highest quality and all parties

would be given equal opportunity. . . . I can think of no one

better qualified or suited to be appointed to this

prestigious judgeship than Steven Grasz.

Another Nebraskan wrote to us:

I know Steve personally having served as opposing counsel

to him on cases. . . . Steve was a formidable opponent. . . .

While he zealously advocated for his clients, he did so in a

level-headed and even-keeled manner.

Yet another Nebraskan writes:

I . . . have . . . represented clients in cases where Mr.

Grasz was opposing counsel. In all circumstances he

demonstrates the utmost professionalism. . . . I am a

registered Democrat and, quite frankly, am not a strong

supporter of the current administration. However, as a

practicing attorney dealing with complex litigation and

appearing regularly in the federal courts of appeals, I want

intelligent, thoughtful individuals appointed to the Bench

who will administer the law and apply existing precedent. I

have no doubt that Mr. Grasz can do that very effectively.

Also, consider the words of this Nebraskan:

Steve does not allow his role as an advocate to cloud his

analyses and judgment. He reviews statutes, regulations, rule

and common law with a clear eye, and he applies these

authorities to the facts presented to him. . . . [H]is

respect for precedent and his high regard for the works of

other branches of government show his dedication to following

the Constitution and our nation's laws as they are written.

Steve Grasz is a Nebraskan through and through. As I said here on the floor yesterday, Steve bleeds Husker red, but he is a guy who is well suited to take on the black robes of the judge, for he understands that we do not have blue or red partisan jerseys on our article III branch of government, the independent judiciary.

Steve is well suited to serve as a judge on the Eighth Circuit. I think that not just Nebraskans but folks across all the States represented in the Eighth Circuit are going to find a man of unbelievable temperament.

The ABA is a liberal advocacy organization. That is absolutely their right. What is not OK is for the ABA to masquerade as a neutral arbiter of professional qualifications.

Attacks on Steve's character have come out of this process because the two reviewers from the ABA cite again and again and again anonymous sources of his supposed rudeness. We have seen none of that in Nebraska. Again, hundreds of people have written to the senior Senator and to me and now to the Judiciary Committee in support of the President's decision to nominate Steve Grasz to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the specific letters I have just cited.

I urge all of my colleagues to listen to all of the Nebraskans, again, of all backgrounds and across the partisan spectrum, as they have urged us to confirm Mr. Grasz today.

Thank you.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I rise today in support of the nomination of Steve Grasz to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. One of the most important things this Senate has done this year and will do for the remainder of the year--and, in fact, well into 2018--is to consider nominees to the Federal courts.

When I talk to Nebraskans, I constantly hear from women and men who tell me that the No. 1 issue they care about when they vote for President is the judiciary. Nebraskans want judges who understand that judges are not lawmakers. Nebraskans want judges who understand that a lifetime appointment isn't designed to do politics. Nebraskans want judges who understand that the courts are to uphold the laws fairly and impartially.

My colleagues and I on the Judiciary Committee agree with those Nebraskans from townhalls and coffee shops and Rotary clubs. In the Judiciary Committee, we have worked to advance a record number of judges who know exactly that. We are looking for thoughtful men and women of integrity. That is why it is a pleasure today, it is an honor today, to come to the floor in support of Steve Grasz.

Steve is a Nebraskan through and through. He is a fifth-generation Nebraskan who grew up on a family farm--walking beans, raising sheep and pigs, branding cattle. When he was a young man, life in the Nebraska Panhandle taught him hard work. He then moved east to Lincoln, where the University of Nebraska taught him the law.

Steve graduated at the top of his class and then put his law degree to work serving his fellow Nebraskans. He served as the chief deputy attorney general for our State for nearly a dozen years. Steve's job was to represent the people of Nebraska in court. That means he was bound by the law and by his professional duty to defend our laws, including our State's ban on the gruesome procedure known as partial- birth abortion.

In his role in the Nebraska AG's office, he litigated multiple cases in

front of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Nebraska Supreme Court, and the U.S. Eighth Circuit, to which he has now been nominated by President Trump. Every time he represented us in court, Steve did so with integrity, with humility, and with decency. That is just what Nebraskans do.

Steve bleeds Husker red, but he is now ready to put on a judge's black robe. He knows that judges in America don't wear red or blue partisan jerseys. He knows that policy preferences, whether his or anyone else's, have no role in how a judge applies the law. He knows that, in his courtroom, two things matter and only two things--the facts and the law.

Anybody who wants to ensure that Steve will approach his job as a judge without partisan or ideological bias should listen to the words of hundreds of Nebraskans who have spoken out in support of Steve's nomination.

Democrat Ben Nelson, Nebraska's U.S. Senator from 2001 through 2013 and, before that, our Governor for 8 years, offered this testament to Steve's fitness for office:

I first got to know Steve when I served as Nebraska's

Governor and he served as our state's Chief Deputy Attorney

General. . . . With me as a Democrat and him as a Republican,

we sometimes found ourselves disagreeing on policy;

nevertheless, I quickly learned that Steve was the kind of

consummate professional who is capable of putting whatever

personal views he may have aside when appropriate in his

capacity as a public servant. . . . If Steve is confirmed, I

fully expect him to follow the law and the facts in each case

because I know his loyalty is first to the rule of law,

rather than to any personal views he holds on matters of

policy. He possesses first-rate legal skills and a

respectful, even-keeled temperament, key ingredients in the

making of a good judge. As a Nebraskan, I hope our state has

the opportunity to benefit yet again from Steve's public

service in this new role.

Then there is Deborah Gilg, who was President Obama's choice to be U.S. attorney for the District of Nebraska, who served in that office from 2009 through 2016. She wrote glowingly to our committee of Steve:

Steve has always enjoyed a reputation for honesty,

impeccable integrity and dedication to the rule of law. He

possesses an even temperament well-suited for the bench and

always acts with respect to all that interact with him. . . .

Without a doubt, he would be a tremendous asset to the bench

as he demonstrates excellence in all that he does.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that these letters be printed in the Record.

Madam President, Steve's reputation for honesty and integrity and decency have earned him bipartisan support across Nebraska.

I am a bit sad in that, when I got here to Washington, this nomination took a bit more of a partisan turn before the committee. Happily, we have the chance to do the right thing here in the full Senate tonight and return to a bipartisan tone. I hope that my colleagues will listen to the broad array of Nebraskans of all ideological and partisan views and support Steve's nomination tonight.

Thank you.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today the Judiciary Committee had the opportunity to advance the nomination of Steve Grasz, one of the foremost appellate attorneys in the State of Nebraska, and I would like to make one brief comment about that.

The Judiciary Committee has now heard and soon the full Senate will be hearing about the impeccable credentials of Mr. Grasz. Steve has served with distinction as Nebraska's chief deputy attorney general for nearly a dozen years. During that time, he defended our State's laws with integrity, humility, and decency. Whether he was litigating before the Eighth Circuit, before the Nebraska Supreme Court, or before the U.S. Supreme Court, Steve's character and professionalism earned the respect of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Members of the committee became familiar with Steve and in particular his recommendation from President Obama's U.S. attorney for Nebraska, Deborah Gilg. She wrote to the committee: ``Steve has always enjoyed a reputation for honesty, impeccable integrity, and dedication to the rule of law.'' She continued by noting that Steve ``possesses an even temperament well-suited for the bench and always acts with respect to all that interact with him.''

Steve has earned the support of Republicans and Democrats back in Nebraska, and I hope that when his nomination comes to the floor of the Senate, we will take to heart all of the support he has across the political spectrum and from well-respected lawyers across our State.

Thank you for the time, Mr. President.

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

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

Mr. President, the consideration of Federal judges with lifetime appointments is perhaps the most important and long-lasting work this body will do between now and the end of the year.

Every Senator--Republican and Democrat--took an oath to perform this duty. Nobody took an oath to outsource this duty to any outside organization. Unfortunately, some of my colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee are apparently willing to hand over their voting cards to the American Bar Association, based on the claim that the ABA is an unbiased, indifferent umpire that just calls balls and strikes.

The American Bar Association is not neutral. The ABA is a liberal organization that has publicly and consistently advocated for left-of- center positions for more than two decades now. The ABA has no right to special treatment by Members of this body.

It is pretty simple. If you are playing in the game, you don't get to cherry-pick who the referees are.

Take, for just a moment, a look at the amicus briefs they have filed in recent years.

In the District of Columbia v. Heller, the ABA supported denying an individual their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the ABA supported forcing Christian organizations on campuses to accept members that reject their faith.

In Medellin v. Texas, the ABA supported forcing States to recognize the judgments of the world court in order to stop the execution of a gruesome murderer.

In United States v. Windsor, the ABA supported the recognition of same-sex marriage through judicial fiat rather than through legislative debate.

In Arizona v. United States, the ABA supported a constitutional ban on State and local law enforcement assisting in enforcing Federal immigration laws.

The list goes on. In each of these cases, the ABA decided to weigh into divisive and contentious issues. This is their right, indeed, but it is definitely not neutral. In each of these cases, and many more, the ABA took what can only be described as a left-of-center position. In each of these cases, the ABA was picking a side.

Again--to be clear--they are absolutely allowed to do this. It is what makes this country great. But it is laughably naive to suggest that they are an objective and neutral organization. They are not.

The ABA cannot make liberal arguments to the nine members of the Supreme Court, and then walk across the street and seriously expect that the 100 Members of this body in the Senate will be treating them like unbiased appraisers. That is essentially what Attorney General Bill Barr said in 1992 when the ABA first began to openly take pro- abortion positions--which, by the way, led to thousands of members quitting in protest because those members knew that the ABA claims to neutrality about political issues were no longer even possibly defensible.

Then-U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr commented on the ABA's pro- abortion advocacy at the time by saying: ``By adopting the resolution and thereby endorsing one side of this debate, the ABA will endanger the perception that it is an impartial and objective association.''

Twenty-five years later, Barr's words were right. His words ring true.

Again, I want to be perfectly clear. The ABA is allowed to have any view that its members want to have, and they are allowed to advocate and to protest on behalf of those views and on behalf of their members. This is America, and that is exactly what the First Amendment is about. That is fine. But what is not fine is that the ABA, which is a liberal advocacy organization, would masquerade as a neutral and objective evaluator of judicial candidates.

The ABA cannot take blatantly liberal positions on the one hand, and then masquerade as a neutral party on the other, and then demand a special seat at the table in the Senate Judiciary Committee and in the Senate--in this body--to try to tell us who is and isn't supposedly qualified to be a judge.

Just as the ABA has every right to advance its liberal policy positions, every Senator has the right--and indeed, the duty--to give our advice and consent on judicial nominees. If Senators decide that they like and value the ABA's policy positions and they like and value the ABA's rating, they are free to give them due deference and consideration, but don't hide behind it.

Don't pretend that the ABA is something that it is not. Do not ignore the facts of what the ABA has become. The American people deserve honesty, not thinly veiled partisanship.

Thank you.

Will the Senator from Maine yield for 30 seconds?

I would just like to associate myself with your comments, sir, in praising the ranking member.

Senator Reed went through a long list of people who have gotten the NDAA across the finish line for more than half a century in a row.

As a newbie rookie in this body, I have to say that serving with the two of you on the Armed Services Committee is a real privilege and honor. Much of the body doesn't work very well right now, but that committee works incredibly well.

So I want to agree with the Senator from Maine that the ranking member is a huge part of why the Armed Services Committee works so well.

Thank you, sir.

I thought you were buying time.

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

Mr. President, I rise on the floor with a simple message. We should completely dispel with the fiction that the American Bar Association is a fair and impartial arbiter of facts. This is a sad reality, but it is the reality.

Let's back up. We in this body have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Considering judicial nominees who have lifetime appointments is the most important thing this Senate will do over the weeks ahead. It demands the full attention of every single Member--Republican, Democrat, and Independent. This ought to be an opportunity for this body to pause and stand back from the frenzy of day-to-day media cycles and cable news shouting and recommit ourselves to basic American civics and some very basic American ideas: the idea that our three branches of government have three separate roles; the idea that we in the article I branch, the lawmakers, make the laws because we stand before the people and can be hired and fired--if the people are going to be in charge of our system, they need to be able to fire the people who make the laws--the idea that judges are explicitly not to make law; the idea that judges do not have R and D, Republican and Democrat, behind their names but rather that judges should be dispassionately ruling on the law and the facts; and the idea that all of us, temporary public servants, although the judiciary have lifetime appointments, can be upholding and defending a limited system of government, again, through our three differentiated roles.

Unfortunately, over the last few days in this body, it has become clear that some of us are attempting to outsource our constitutional duties to an outside organization. That organization, the American Bar Association, purports to

be a neutral arbiter but is frankly twisting its ratings process to drive a political agenda in an important nomination pending before this body. I am referring specifically to the smear campaign of the ABA against Steve Grasz, a qualified public servant, who has been nominated by the President to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Steve Grasz has decades of honorable service in Nebraska, including more than a decade as the chief deputy attorney general of my State.

Mr. Grasz is, in fact, eminently qualified for the circuit court bench as has been testified to by Republicans and Democrats across our State.

Let's set the scene first for the ABA's silly decision earlier this week to announce that they regard Steve Grasz as ``not qualified.'' I will highlight three specific items.

First, we should discuss the two people who interviewed Mr. Grasz and recognize that unfortunately they are blatant partisans with a sad track record of hackery.

Second, the ABA is trying to paint Mr. Grasz as an extremist simply because he did his job as the chief deputy attorney general of Nebraska and defended Nebraska laws and Nebraskans who wanted to outlaw the most barbaric of abortion practices--partial birth abortion.

Third, we should talk about the obvious bigotry of cultural liberals evident in their interview process of Mr. Grasz when they asked him repeated questions about nonlegal matters that had nothing to do with the claims of competence of the ABA.

First, let's talk about the two reviewers. The lead reviewer for the bar association on the Grasz nomination was Arkansas law professor Cynthia Nance. As it turns out, this is an encore performance for Ms. Nance. In 2006, she opposed then-nominee and now-Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito because of his ``pro-life agenda,'' and she argued that made him unqualified to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. I wonder if there is anyone in this body who rejected her view then and voted to confirm now-Justice Alito who would now echo her claims that Justice Alito is not qualified to sit in the seat he now holds. Hopefully we as a body are better than that.

The ABA's second reviewer, Lawrence Pulgram, is an attorney from San Francisco. A cursory glance at Mr. Pulgram's political involvement shows a long track record of support for leftwing candidates and aggressively progressive political organizations. These are the reviewers who are setting themselves up as dispassionate umpires calling balls and strikes. It is hogwash. These are not umpires. These are folks in the starting lineup of the ABA, an organization that explicitly endorsed pro-abortion policies beginning two decades ago.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with Nance and Pulgram's zealous advocacy. They enjoy First Amendment rights just like all 320 million Americans do. There is nothing wrong with advocacy. What is wrong here is advocacy disguised as objective analysis, and that is what is actually happening in the case of the Grasz nomination.

This brings us to our second point about the ABA's treatment of Mr. Grasz. When you read their letter, it makes many anonymous claims that some people supposedly support the author's great worry about Grasz's alleged deeply held social views, but the closest thing the ABA ever comes to stating a fact--let alone producing a smoking gun--is the fact that as the chief deputy attorney general of the State of Nebraska, Mr. Grasz did the job of the chief deputy attorney general of the State of Nebraska. That is not news.

It is no secret that the vast majority of Nebraskans are pro-life, and thus it is no surprise that our State's laws reflect this. In the 1990s, Nebraska outlawed the most horrifying of all abortion procedures--the partial birth abortion. Unless anyone seeks comfort behind empty euphemisms like ``choice,'' let's be very clear what the people of Nebraska were outlawing. The people of my State banned a gruesome and grotesque practice where a doctor partially delivers an unborn baby and, while that baby girl's head is the only thing still in the mother's womb, the doctor would then collapse the baby's skull. If there is anyone in this body who believes that is a good and a moral act, that it is a good and a moral thing to deliver that baby girl, and then moments before her complete and full entry into the world, to vacuum out her brains, please come to the floor because few people believe that is a good or a moral or a just act--or at least few would admit it openly.

In fact, that is why, just a few years later, Federal law followed Nebraska's law and outlawed partial birth abortion, but in the 1990s, when Nebraska first outlawed that partial birth abortion procedure, many pro-abortion advocates brought suit and Steve, as chief deputy attorney general of Nebraska, defended the law of our State, which again is now the Federal law. He defended that law because it was his job. He defended the law because that is what the people of Nebraska wanted when they said this unspeakably barbaric procedure had no place in our State and now, thankfully, has no place in our Nation. Anyone who would paint Steve as an extremist needs to take a long, hard, and honest look at what he did as chief deputy attorney general of Nebraska defending the laws of the State of Nebraska.

Third, I know the ABA has an august-sounding name, but here is the reality of the kinds of stuff they did in their interview with Mr. Grasz. They asked him: What kind of schools do your kids go to? I don't really understand the connection to their legal interview. When they found out his kids attended a religious institution, they asked him why his kids would go to a religious institution. Well, it turns out, in my State, lots and lots of Lutherans and Catholics and lots of non- Lutherans and Catholics send their kids to Lutheran and Catholic schools. I don't know what that has to do with someone's competence, man or woman, to sit as an objective judge on a court of appeals, and yet the interviewers decided they should go there.

Then they began to refer to Mr. Grasz repeatedly in the interview as ``you people.'' They would frame questions to him and ask about ``you people.'' At one point, he finally paused and asked: Can you tell me who ``you people'' are? Because at this point, he didn't know if it was pro-life people, people who send their kids to religious schools, maybe just Nebraskans. They informed him they were using the term ``you people'' to mean conservatives or Republicans.

Third, in the course of their time with Mr. Grasz, their interview went from actual legal questions to just asking him more and more detail about his pro-life views, again that has nothing to do with the distinction between sitting on the bench as someone who applies facts and law and someone who, in a private capacity or in his public capacity, as the chief deputy attorney general of Nebraska had been defending the laws of the State of Nebraska.

Ed Whelan is the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and is a legal and jurisprudential expert. He has been covering the ABA case and their judgment on Mr. Grasz this week closely, and so I would like to read a few of his comments into the Record.

The ABA contends that Grasz is not sufficiently able ``to

differentiate between the roles'' of advocate and

adjudicator.

As its first example, the ABA contends that there is an

inconsistency between Grasz's stated respect for stare

decisis (that is, for binding precedent) and the views he

expressed in a 1999 law-review article (and that it says he

continues to adhere to). Selectively quoting that article,

the ABA faults him for his supposed ``suggestion that a lower

court judge was entitled, in deciding the issue [whether a

`partially born' fetus has a right to life under the 14th

Amendment], to question the jurisprudence of a superior

court.''

But in the law-review article that the ABA criticizes--

In that same article--

Grasz states [on pages] 27-28:

``Lower federal courts are obliged to follow clear legal

precedent regardless of whether it may seem unwise or even

morally repugnant to do so. However, a court need not extend

questionable jurisprudence into new areas or apply it in

areas outside of where there is clear precedent.''

Read together, these sentences set forth an uncontroversial

position. In order to create controversy, the ABA entirely

omits the first sentence, and it then pretends that the

second sentence, rather than setting forth a general

proposition, is ``referring to the Supreme Court's rulings in

Roe and Casey.'' Yes, Grasz applies that general proposition

to the question whether Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v.

Casey speak to the legal status of ``partially-born human

beings,'' but, much as the ABA would have

the reader think otherwise, he isn't concocting a special

rule for abortion precedents.

Skipping ahead:

The ABA states that ``members of the bar shared instances

in which Mr. Grasz's conduct was gratuitously rude.''

Amazingly, it doesn't bother to give a simple example of rude

conduct by Grasz, so its claim is [entirely] impossible to

address.

Aside--

This is again quoting Whelan--

Aside: According to Larry Tribe, as Josh Blackman reminds

us, Sonia Sotomayor had a ``reputation for being something of

a bully'' when she was nominated to the Supreme Court. (It

was I [Whelan], by the way, who uncovered and published

Tribe's letter to President Obama.)

The ABA alleges that ``there was a certain amount of

caginess, and, at times, a lack of disclosure [on Grasz's

part] with respect to some of the issues which the evaluators

unearthed.'' But once again it provides no specifics or

illustrations, so it's impossible to assess whether Grasz can

be fairly faulted here.

Something very fishy is going on.

And here pulling up from Whelan, I would comment that my senior Senator Deb Fischer and I from Nebraska, both of whom were advising President Trump on the selection of Steve Grasz for this Eighth Circuit vacancy, received literally boxes of letters from Nebraska lawyers-- both Republican and Democratic--for months in the moment after the Eighth Circuit vacancy appeared, and at no point did we hear either verbally from people we know in the State or in our interview process or in those boxes of letters--at no point did we hear of any rudeness on the part of Mr. Grasz. Yet the ABA is judging him ``not qualified'' for the bench based on anonymous sources that say he is rude, without a single example. There is not one example.

It is an embarrassing letter from the ABA. Folks in this body who would be tempted to take the ABA's judgment seriously should read the letter. It is filled with anonymous claims that once he was rude to someone, and they have no examples.

Back to Ed Whelan:

[Reviewer] Nance's strong ideological bias is not difficult

to uncover. Among other things, she signed a letter opposing

the confirmation of Justice Alito. Given the ABA's persistent

complaints about Grasz's supposed inability to separate his

judging from his ``pro-life agenda,'' it's notable that

letter against Alito complains about the impact that he would

have on . . . women's reproductive [rights]. Nance also

signed a letter arguing that the ``government's interests in

protecting women's health and reproductive freedom, and

combating gender discrimination,'' meant that even

religiously affiliated organizations--like the Little Sisters

of the Poor--should be required to provide contraceptive

coverage (including drugs and devices that can also operate

in an abortifacient manner) notwithstanding their own

religiously informed views on what constitutes illicit moral

complicity in evil.

Nance's very active Twitter feed (more than 24,000 tweets)

also offers some revealing insights. Among other things,

Nance retweeted the question whether Justice Scalia would

have been in the majority in Dred Scott, and she evidently

found amusing or insightful the observation that

``Constitutional strict constructionists . . . want women to

have all the rights they had in 1787.'' Yes, this is just the

sort of fine and balanced legal mind, with a great grasp of

conservative judicial principles, that the ABA puts in charge

of evaluating judicial nominees.

Finally:

The ABA's supposed check against a hostile lead

investigator is to have a second investigator conduct a

supplemental evaluation of the nominee in those instances in

which the lead investigator recommends a ``Not Qualified''

rating.

So if you're the head of the committee, whom would you

select to ensure that ideological bias isn't warping the

process? Probably not a very liberal [activist] lawyer from

San Francisco. But that's exactly what the ABA did [in this

case].

Lawrence Pulgram, the second investigator, is a member of

the left-wing Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San

Francisco Bay Area.

We have a crisis of institutional trust in this country that should concern all of us. Our job here, in seeking to preserve and protect and uphold the Constitution, and a Constitution that is focused on limited government, is because our Founders believed that the vast majority of the most interesting questions in life happen in the private sector, not just for-profit entities but primarily civil society, families, neighborhoods, and not-for-profit organizations, and religious institutions, and the Rotary Club, and philanthropies, and voluntary enterprises. The most interesting things in life are not in government. Government provides a framework for order of liberty, but once you have that framework, once you are free from violence, you are free to live your life in all of these fully human-fit community ways in your local community.

Our job in this body is to not only pass good legislation and repeal bad legislation and to advise and consent on the President's nominees to faithfully execute the laws that have been passed by the article I branch, but our job is also to speak to a constitutional system, where a separation of powers exists so power is not consolidated in Washington and so there is room for the full flowering of social community across our great land.

So the decline of trust in our institutions is something that should trouble all of us. Our job here isn't merely about government, it is also teaching our kids about the Constitution and basic civics. I ache when private sector institutions and civil society institutions see the trust in those institutions decline. But one of the things that is clearly happening in our time is that the ABA is becoming much less a serious organization and much more an activist organization advancing a specific political agenda.

The ABA is due to appear before the Judiciary Committee in 2 weeks to explain this interview process and why they gave this judgment on Mr. Grasz with so few facts and so little evidence and so much pro-abortion zealotry driving the opinion of the lead reviewer in this case.

I hope that when the ABA comes before the Judiciary Committee, it recants this very silly opinion of ``not qualified'' on a man who is eminently qualified and is going to serve very well the people of not just the Eighth Circuit but this country on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

I would hope that the ABA would recant this silly judgment, but if they do not, I think we should recognize that the fiction of the ABA as a serious organization that ought to be taken seriously as a neutral, impartial arbiter of qualifications for the Federal bench should be dispensed with; and that we in this body, who have actually taken an oath to three separate-but-equal branches, with differentiated roles of legislating, executing, and ultimately judging, would continue to affirm that distinction; and that we should want judges who do not try to be superlegislators but, rather, seek to attend themselves to the facts and the law, as is indeed the calling of article III branch judges.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.