Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to Coburn amendment No. 26 which deals----

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes to address this amendment.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to Coburn amendment No. 26. What it does is prevent certain types of funding to be given to UASI, which is the lifeblood of New York's antiterror programs. It has gotten rave reviews from people. The person in charge is Ray Kelly, who is very much in the mainstream, right in the center of our fight against terrorism, not only in New York but in the country.

As you know, New York City has more than 100 police officers devoted exclusively to antiterrorism. They work very closely with FBI taskforces and others. Some of this amendment is befuddling. To say that UASI, our antiterror division of the New York City Police Department, could not buy computers, flat screens makes no sense.

The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative is an antiterrorism computer system. It is one of the mainstays of preventing terror. How do we fight modern 21st century terrorism and say they cannot use computers. That makes no since whatsoever. Make no mistake, if this amendment passes, New York City training and security deployments would be in jeopardy.

Another aspect is we often need to use overtime in our antiterrorism units. For instance, we have to guard bridges and tunnels, particularly when there are threats against them. To have officers constantly changing because of time commitments and time limitations makes no sense whatsoever.

The bottom line is simply New York had a terrible tragedy on 9/11/ 2001. America rallied to New York's side, of which we are very appreciative. One of the ways, one of the most material and important ways was this U.S. grant. It has been used well. It has received plaudits from around the country. To tie the hands of the very people who are leading the fight on terror and saying they can do this but not this, they can do this but not this, this is the kind of micromanaging for which I think most people in America resent Washington.

I urge that this amendment be roundly defeated.

I yield the floor.

Vote on Amendment No. 69

Madam President, first, let me thank the chair of the Budget Committee, my friend and colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Murray, for her remarks and, even more, for her excellent work on putting together a terrific budget. That may be the reason our colleagues want to delay.

For 4 years, they have had a great time saying: You don't have a budget. You don't have a budget.

It was perhaps the only thing they had to say because the actual confines of their budget are so far away from what the American people want, they couldn't get into the details. After all, nobody wants to end Medicare as we know it. Nobody, as in the Ryan budget, wants to reduce taxes dramatically on the wealthiest Americans--39 percent to 25 percent--and then take away deductions for middle-class people, good deductions that make sense, such as the mortgage deduction, the charitable deduction, the retirement deduction, and the health care deduction. No, no one wants to do that. And no one wants to eat our seed corn--cut money dramatically for things such as investment in education, in infrastructure, and in scientific research--in order to cut taxes on the very wealthy or keep existing narrow loopholes open, deductions for moving businesses overseas, stuff for the oil companies. They don't want to debate that, I guess. But now we have a budget because of the leadership of the chair of the Budget Committee and the members of her committee.

By the way, this is not a small group of Democrats. It runs from our most liberal Members to our most conservative Members, all united around a budget that is fiscally responsible. It meets the Simpson- Bowles restraints, the budget targets, it invests in jobs and the economy, and it closes loopholes and preserves the middle class's ability to grow and proceed.

So we now are in this 30-hour thing. We could actually be debating a budget while those 30 hours tick by. We don't have to be sitting here doing nothing. One of our colleagues said he would like to debate the budget 2 weeks from now. Why is he putting things off? Well, I guess if I had their budget and looked at it compared to our budget, that is what I would want to do, but that is not fair and it is not right.

So I just came to the floor to join my colleague from Washington in pleading with our colleagues: Let's have a real debate on the budget. The lines are sharply drawn. Our budget and their budget contrast. Let the American people hear the debate and decide what they like. We are pretty confident they will like ours better. They no longer have the talking point that we don't have a budget. Instead, they are now preventing us from actually talking about our budget. It is not fair. It is not fair, and it doesn't really help the process.

I know there are some Members on the other side of the aisle who have some objections to the CR in certain areas. We are all hurt by the CR, by the way, I would say to my colleagues. If we want to get rid of things such as the horrible things that are happening in the air traffic towers, vote on our budget. We do not do sequestration. We undo sequestration, and it might pave the way to doing more things this year. But to sit here and let the clock tick makes no sense.

One thing I can tell my colleagues: I know my good friend Harry Reid, and we are not going to kick the budget can down the road for 2 weeks. We will be here, whether it has to be Saturday night and Monday and Tuesday. We will be here. So they may as well let us debate the budget. There is 50 hours. We can have a nice, full, open debate and then do our votes.

It is a logical request. I don't think there is any good argument against it. I haven't thought of one.

I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--we would say, Mr. Republican leader, Mr. Republicans, let's debate the budget. Tear down the wall of not debating, and let us show our budget, you show yours, and let the American people decide.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the EPW Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 166 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I further ask that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H. Con. Res. 14 which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H. Con. Res. 20, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 15, S. Res. 12.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendment be agreed to; the resolution, as amended, be agreed to; the committee-reported amendment to the preamble be agreed to; the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 74, which was submitted earlier today.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, March 12, 2013; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 12:30 p.m. with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first 30 minutes and the Republicans controlling the second 30 minutes; further, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:30 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

We expect the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee to make their opening statements on the continuing appropriations bill tomorrow at 11 a.m. We expect to begin consideration of the bill tomorrow after the recess for the caucus meetings.

Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. President, I rise in full support of Caitlin Halligan and must strongly disagree with my friend from Kentucky, the Republican leader. The bottom line is very simple: She is a well- qualified nominee, and we know that.

The Republican leader acts as if Ms. Halligan were acting on her own. Whether the Senator from Kentucky agrees or disagrees, the Republican leader cannot cite a single instance where Ms. Halligan was not acting as an attorney representing the views of someone else. The same was true with what John Roberts did, and the same was true for what Sam Alito did. When those issues were brought up, our colleagues on the other side justifiably said we cannot attribute those views to them when they are representing somebody as an attorney. We all know that the obligation of an attorney is to represent his or her client, whether we agree or disagree with those views.

When one works as solicitor general, they represent the State of New York. The State of New York's views on guns were clear, and Ms. Halligan ably represented those views. But nothing she has said about guns that was cited by my good friend the Republican leader was her own view. Similarly on the terrorism cases, she was representing an office that was prosecuting, not her views, so the comparison to Miguel Estrada is like night and day. Miguel Estrada had his own very, very clear views on the law, and he stated them in speeches, in articles, and in other ways. That is not so with Ms. Halligan. In fact, I challenge the other side to give me one instance where they disagree with something Ms. Halligan stated as her own views as opposed to representing someone as a lawyer should.

What is really going on here? What is going on is that our colleagues want to keep the second most important court in the land, the DC Circuit, vacant because right now there are four vacancies and the majority of those on the court have been appointees of Republican Presidents and, in fact, are very conservative. That is what is going on. Let's call it what it is. This has nothing to do with Ms. Halligan. This has to do with keeping a court they care about from having someone who doesn't have those same very conservative views. Ms. Halligan is a moderate, and that bothers people on the other side. It bothers the hard right who use the DC Circuit in their court cases to try to constrict government.

I say this to my good colleagues: We have come to an agreement on district court judges and on other nominees. We have come to a general agreement that there ought to be more comity. The Republican leader, my friend from Tennessee, and so many others have said we should do that. The filibustering of Caitlin Halligan is not, I will admit, against the letter of our agreement because it simply applies to district court judges, but it sure is against the spirit.

All those on our side who said we should change the rules because issues such as the filibuster of Ms. Halligan would occur are being vindicated even though my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would not want that type of option to be on the table.

I say this to my colleagues because I believe and I think most of us believe that this is nothing about Ms. Halligan, but it is about keeping the DC Circuit vacant and not allowing our President to rightfully fill those vacancies. We are going to bring nominee after nominee after nominee up to fill that DC Circuit. Are they going to continue to filibuster every nominee and find some trivial excuse to filibuster him or her? Because that is what is going to happen.

The obstructionist views that some on the other side have held and implemented--which served them so poorly in the election of 2012, in the polls, and in what the American people want, which is for us to come together--will be exposed.

I would urge my colleagues to forgo this charade. Don't vote for Halligan if you don't like her, but don't filibuster her, because we are going to come back time after time after time with nominees to this circuit who are qualified, who are moderate, and who have fine personal ethics. Are they going to ObamaCare each one of them? Because that is the challenge they will face.

I urge and plead with my colleagues, based on the new comity we are desperately seeking in this Chamber, to avoid this filibuster, allow Caitlin Halligan to have an up-or-down vote. She is extremely worthy of the position for which she was nominated. It is only ideology, only a view that this important circuit should not be filled with nominees whom our Democratic President nominates that is motivating, in my judgment, this action.

I think my time has expired, and I note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, first let me compliment my colleague from Delaware not only for his typically excellent remarks today but also for his vigilance on these issues. He is a relatively newer member of the Judiciary Committee, but he has jumped into these issues with tremendous eagerness, intelligence, balance, and effectiveness. So I thank him for his great remarks.

I too rise today in enthusiastic support of the nominee to the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Caitlin Halligan. Ms. Halligan has been waiting 23 months for an up-or-down vote. More importantly, the entire country has been waiting to fill this position--a judgeship on the second most important court of the Nation--for 23 months.

The question we are going to answer tomorrow is, Can we take some of our bipartisan good will, our desire to legislate and get things done for the country, and apply it to a nominee who is the very picture of moderation and mainstream legal thinking, a nominee who has dedicated her entire career to public service, and a nominee who would be only the sixth woman to join this court in its 212-year history? That is right--there have only been five women to serve on the DC Circuit in 212 years.

The D.C. Circuit is currently one-third vacant. Four of its 11 slots--37 percent--are without active judges. Ms. Halligan is one of the two nominees for these four slots.

Two years ago, when Halligan was first filibustered, many of my colleagues decided they could not support a cloture motion because she would have been the tenth judge on an 11-member court, a court they perceived as understaffed and overworked. I take issue with the fundamental premise. The D.C. Circuit hears many of the most complex and important cases in the country. The court hears appeals from virtually every regulatory agency, reviews statutes, has jurisdiction over numerous terrorism cases, including those from Guantanamo Bay. But even if I were to accept the faulty premise that the court somehow needs fewer judges than it ever had, the court that hears the most complex cases, the court is now near a crisis point. There are only seven active judges currently sitting. What is more, the caseload per judge has risen by 21 percent--21 percent since the last judge was confirmed, and that was under President Bush's administration.

I think there is now more than compelling evidence that the caseload- based argument against Halligan is gone, and you would have thought our colleagues on the other side of the aisle

would say: OK, four vacancies, the last vacancy filled under Bush, we can now move to support her. But they do not.

What else could possibly prevent a vote on Halligan? Is it her ideology? I submit to my colleagues it cannot possibly be her ideology. If zero is extremely liberal and 10 is extremely conservative, Halligan falls right in the sweet spot of judges who both President Obama and President Clinton have generally nominated, 5s and 4s, maybe even a 6 or two. Opposing Halligan on her ideology, opposing even a cloture vote based on her ideology, can mean only one of two things:

First, that some of my colleagues have misread her record. Let me clear up a few things today. Halligan is not anti-gun nor anti-second amendment. She has clearly said at her hearing she fully supports the individual second amendment right to bear arms as the Supreme Court decided in Heller. Her briefs for the State of New York--which were product liability cases, not second amendment cases--were briefs for a client and not her own views, just as Chief Justice Roberts described his work for clients. In fact, Hallligan, like many of my colleagues, enjoys shooting and does so from time to time on weekends. Anyone who accepted a meeting with her would have discovered this.

Halligan is not anti-law enforcement in any way. She spent most of her career in law enforcement. New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly, hardly a shrinking violet, hardly a wallflower--he is a tough-on-crime guy; that is why I like him so much, and he is one of the most respected law chiefs in the country--has written a letter in full support of her.

Specifically, Halligan has lived with the consequences of terrorism. She lives not far from the World Trade Center site, and she represented the Redevelopment Corporation there in its post-9/11 efforts. She has personally handled terrorism cases in the New York Manhattan office. In her hearing she stated her beliefs regarding the executive's power to detain terrorism suspects.

I have heard evasive nominees. She was not evasive. She gave completely clear answers to every single question that was asked.

The second possible reason my colleagues might decide to oppose cloture for such a reasonable candidate and such a gifted lawyer is that they want to put their own judges on the D.C. Circuit and they would rather leave it vacant than move Halligan. In other words, it is not that Halligan is extreme--unacceptably extreme in her views; it is simply that she doesn't share all their views. It is one thing to fight against certain judicial nominees with the sincere belief that they are outside the judicial mainstream. It is another for my colleagues to fight against a nominee because they disagree with him or her.

I always look for judges, when I nominate them, who are moderate. I don't like judges too far right. That is obvious. But I equally do not like judges too far left. My judicial panel will tell you, if I think a judge is too far left I will not nominate them, because judges at the extremes, whichever extreme, tend to want to make law, not interpret law. The best judges are those who see things clearly and fairly, not through an ideological lens, whether that lens is colored red or blue. Those are judges who understand the law, understand the role of each branch of government, understand the proper balance between State and Federal power, and understand the people who come before the bench.

I say one other thing to my colleagues. I just finished working with a bunch, four of us on each side, on coming up with a compromise so we could work together better. I want to let my colleagues know--I have done it personally with a few--that this vote, the desire to actually filibuster Caitlin Halligan, is causing a lot of consternation on our side. Clearly, this is a judge who deserves an up-or-down vote. One of the reasons that many of my colleagues--myself included--thought we ought to change the rules was because a judge such as Caitlin Halligan, a nominee such as Caitlin Halligan, should not be filibustered. I have respect for my friends on the other side of the aisle, but when they say--one of my colleagues I heard say this morning--that this one brief she signed with a bunch of others was extraordinary circumstances, that did not ring true. If that is extraordinary circumstances, wearing the wrong color tie or the wrong color blouse would be extraordinary circumstances.

She has a long record. They can hardly find anything. They come up with this one brief. They may not like it. But to say it is extraordinary circumstances? No.

I say to my colleagues, I plead with them--we are trying to start off on a good foot here. We are working together better than we have worked in a long time. Each side has to give. Part of the deal is amendments. They are going to get a lot of amendments on the other side of the aisle. But part of our deal is not to block things for the sake of blocking them or because there is another agenda. That goes not just for blocking legislation but for blocking nominees.

It is true in the deal we made, the agreement we made, it was only for district court judges. That could go seriatim. But the spirit of our compromise applies to this court of appeals nominee, and I have not heard a single good reason why she should be filibustered.

People disagree with her. I voted against some of George Bush's nominees because I thought their views were not quite mine, even if they were not extreme. And everyone on the other side of the aisle has the right to do the same. But not filibuster.

This court is a very important court. We know it makes lots of decisions about government. But that does not give license to block a nominee on what seem to be trivial grounds, inconsequential grounds, given her long career.

So again I urge, plead with my colleagues, please reconsider this cloture vote. Please give her the 60 votes she needs so she can come to the floor and get the up-or-down vote she has waited 23 months for. It violates fairness. It violates the comity we are trying to restore in this body. It violates simple justice to vote no on cloture and to filibuster Caitlin Halligan.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, I have some remarks I would like to make before 5:30.

I do not object.

I thank my colleague from Alabama for taking only 30 seconds because of the 30 seconds I took to explain to him. I have three parts to my little statement. I will speak briefly on each.

First, I rise in support of the nominations of Katherine Failla for the Southern District of New York and Pam Chen for the Eastern District. I have enthusiastic support for both of them. They are superb nominees to the Federal bench. Let me talk a little bit about each.

Similar to many proud New Yorkers, Chen was not born in New York City. But she is now a valid and valuable member, not just of the New York Bar but of our entire community. Chen was born in Chicago after her parents came here from China. She came by her zeal for public service honestly because her father worked for the IRS for over 30 years, while her mother was a professor of political science.

When I first met Chen, I do not think it took more than 5 minutes before she talked about how proud she was of her parents, how grateful for the sacrifices they made so she and her brother could excel in later life.

She graduated from the University of Michigan and then Georgetown Law Center. As a young lawyer, she began as a litigator in private practice, and then began her illustrious career in public service by joining the Special Litigation Section of DOJ's Civil Rights Division.

Fortunately for the people of New York, she came to the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York--which serves principally Brooklyn and Long Island--in 1998, and has been there ever since.

At one of the premier U.S. Attorney's offices in the Nation, she rose to be chief of the civil rights litigation unit and later the civil rights section in that office.

She has prosecuted all manner of public corruption, gang, narcotics, and terrorism cases.

She is one of those highly intelligent, analytical individuals who was probably born to be a lawyer, and, once a lawyer, was almost certainly destined to be a judge.

Born in Edison, NJ, she earned her B.A. from William & Mary, and her law degree from Harvard. After clerking for the Federal court in New Jersey, she practiced in New York City with the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, and 6 years later joined the U.S. Attorney's office.

She has now served as a prosecutor for 12 years. In her work as head of the criminal appeals section, she defends some of the most important criminal convictions in the Nation, including terrorism cases such as the East African bombing case against bin Laden and his associates, complex white-collar cases, and RICO cases.

Her colleagues report to a person that her advice on legal arguments and matters of judgment is the most sought after in the whole * * *

Everyone attests to the fact she is fair, decent, honest, and very smart. I wish to finally add that I look for three qualifications in a nominee: excellence, she clearly has that; moderation, she has that; and all else being present, diversity. Chen will be only the second female Chinese-American article III judge in U.S. history, making this day yet another step forward in our path to making the Judiciary reflect both the talent and depth of experience of our communities.

Katherine Failla is currently U.S. attorney in charge of the important and

prestigious Criminal Appeals Unit in the Southern District of New York. She is one of those highly intelligent, analytical individuals who was probably born to be a lawyer, and once a lawyer, was almost destined to be a judge.

She has served as a prosecutor for 12 years. Her colleagues report to a person that her advice on legal arguments and matters of judgment is the most sought after in the whole office. This is the Southern District of New York. It is an amazing office.

She also came to her dedication to public service through a hard- working family. This is evident through her siblings as well, a school teacher's aide and a submarine commander.

I ask that my colleagues vote for both of them shortly.

Halligan Nomination

I also wish to say a few words this evening about the President's longest standing nominee to any office, Caitlin Joan Halligan. The DC Circuit is currently one-third vacant; 4 of the 11 slots are without active judges. What some people call the second most important court in the country is firing only on two-thirds of its cylinders. Halligan is one of the President's nominees for two of these four slots. Her nomination has been pending for 23 months.

Since her name has been sent to the Senate, she has not had an up-or- down vote. She has never had an up-or-down vote despite the fact that her academic and professional credentials are superb: Princeton University, GW Law School, prestigious clerkships on the DC Circuit, including Patricia Wald, the first female member of the court, and then to Justice Steven Breyer.

She has never had an up-or-down vote despite the fact that she has spent most of her career in public service as a prosecutor, first with the Office of the New York Attorney General, now as assistant district attorney who serves as the general counsel for the Manhattan DA's office.

She has never had an up-or-down vote despite the fact that she would be only the sixth woman to serve on the court since its inception in 1801. Two years ago, when her nomination was filibustered, many of my colleagues cited the DC Circuit's relatively low caseload for the reason the Senate did not need to confirm another judge. But now, 2 years later, there are only seven judges hearing cases on the court. The caseload for judges has risen 21 percent since President Bush made his last nomination to the court in 2006.

My colleagues know how difficult and time-consuming these cases are. I have great respect for my friend and colleague and the person I exercise with in the gym every morning, Jeff Sessions. But to say this is an extraordinary circumstance based on the smidgen of evidence he has mentioned--please, please, please.

Let's hope there is not a concerted effort by the other side to keep this important DC circuit empty--unfilled. It is unfair and it is not right to this fine women and to the need to proceed with justice in these United States of America.

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

I would like to add my congratulations to the junior Senator from Virginia for his maiden speech. We knew when he decided to run that he would be an outstanding Member. As his speech showed, he is living up to those high expectations. His speech was thoughtful, relevant, and showed both sides of the issue. That is the kind of trademark the junior Senator from Virginia has, and we look forward to working with him in the future.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, the Committee on Rules and Administration has adopted rules governing its procedures for the 113th Congress. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 2, of the Standing Rules of the Senate, on behalf of myself and Senator Roberts, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the Committee rules be printed in the Record.