Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to praise the majority and minority leaders for coming together to make sure we get our pending judicial nominees confirmed in a timely manner.

Today, the Senate is back on track to do what we have always done for decades: confirm judicial nominees--the vast majority of whom are totally uncontroversial--as part of our day-to-day business.

Thanks to the hard work of the leaders of both caucuses, and to Chairman Leahy, who has been persistent and smart and focused on this issue, we were able to avoid having 17 cloture votes this afternoon on judicial nominees--most of whom were unopposed; 13, in fact, were supported by their Republican home State Senators.

While the details of the agreement have not yet been announced publicly--and they will be by Senator Leahy and Leader Reid and Senator McConnell--we know there is an agreement, and that is a good thing.

The bottom line is, I hope we can continue at least at the same pace, when we have cleared the backlog that has existed.

Let's be clear: This is what doing our job is, and it is doing exactly what we have done literally for decades--nothing more, nothing less. I suppose each side could point fingers at the other as to why this degenerated, but that is not the point today. The point today is that we have come to an agreement and, hopefully, it will set the ball rolling on much smoother approvals of judicial nominees in the future, with less altercation, more comity, and actually filling the bench more quickly.

There are more judicial vacancies now than at any time in recent history. One out of every 10 judgeships is empty. As a result of these vacancies, families and business must wait sometimes over 2 years before their civil trial can even start. Even worse, it cost the government $1.4 billion in 2010 alone to detain inmates awaiting trial because there were not enough Federal judges to hear their cases.

The agreement we have reached to work through these judges is certainly not an attempt to jam judges through the process. In one day in 2002--we were here in the Senate--we confirmed 17 district court nominees and 1 circuit court nominee.

I am glad we have come to an agreement. I want to give special thanks to my good friend, Senator Alexander of Tennessee. He and I have talked about this for a long time. I know he has talked to Senator McConnell. I have talked to Chairman Leahy and Leader Reid. His encouragement to move us forward has been very helpful indeed.

Let us talk just about district court nominees for a moment.

The vast majority of Americans want us to confirm good, moderate, pragmatic judges to the U.S. district courts--exactly the nominees whom this President has put forward. After all, judges on the district court do not make law. Courts of appeals and the Supreme Court have a little more latitude, depending on the case.

I have said time and time again--I will say it again--the Senate has an obligation to take a hard look at the President's judicial nominees. My view remains that ideology does matter. Every Senator here has the right to make sure that a President's judicial nominees are within the mainstream. And the definitions of ``mainstream'' sometimes differ. We know that.

There will always be nominees--especially to the courts of appeals-- about whom we will disagree. There will even be those who some of us view as so extreme, on either side, that we will refuse to give our consent to holding an up-or-down vote.

But there is a hard look, and then there is purposeful delay, and we have to avoid that by either party at all costs. We need to get the process moving again. When nominees come out of the Judiciary Committee unanimously or by an overwhelming bipartisan vote, there is no reason they cannot be approved on the floor a few days later.

We have come together today. I know we can continue in the future to agree to confirm qualified judges without further obstruction, without furthering the view ``it is my way or the highway.''

I wish to mention one specific way I think we can move forward on judicial confirmations in a meaningful and useful way. In the past, we have cleared the calendar of nominees on whom there is a consensus before going out for recess. Lately, we have not done that. As a result, there were 20 nominees who did not get confirmed before last August and 10 from December.

I hope wherever we are at the end of the summer, we can agree to confirm consensus nominees--those who got unanimous support or close to it--as we always have in the past and fulfill our obligation to the third branch of government.

One other point. Today, this morning, we passed a highway bill, overwhelmingly. It was led by Senator Boxer, one of the most liberal Members of this body, and Senator Inhofe, one of the most conservative. This afternoon, we are going to hear an announcement of specifics of an agreement to move judges forward. Tomorrow, we will be working on a jobs bill that, while there are differences in the specifics, has broad bipartisan support and consensus.

Perhaps an idea; a moment of greater comity that we have seen this week is not just momentary but will last on into the future. The lesson the American people taught us is they do not

want obstruction, particularly for its own sake. They understand compromises have to be made in a legislative body, that it cannot be ``my way or the highway.''

Unfortunately, all too often in the past year we have seen too much of that attitude. The fact that we are batting 3 for 3 this week in terms of important issues: a highway bill, judicial nominees, and an IPO bill with broad bipartisan consensus, hopefully, augers well for the future.

Perhaps the era of obstruction and confrontation has passed its high- water mark. Perhaps it is now politically damaging to block legislation for its own sake or because someone does not get 100 percent of what they wanted. Perhaps a new era of more bipartisan consensus and more accomplishments for the American people to deal with our problems is upon us. I hope and pray it is so.

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

Madam President, I did not know Marie personally, as my friend and colleague from Rhode Island did. But his words, his passion, his emotion allow us all to know her a little bit better.

Even just reading the newspaper accounts, she was a remarkable person. But hearing from Sheldon, both here and speaking to him privately, it is obvious that those who knew Marie were privileged and were touched by her life long before her untimely death. She leaves an amazing mark.

I just wish to say to my colleague Sheldon, there are times that measure the mettle of a person and one of them is when they go through grief and tragedy. My respect for him, as high as it was before, is higher still knowing what he is going through and how he has worked to handle this difficult situation.

I rise simply as a New York Senator who represents the area, Long Island, where Marie Catherine Colvin came from. We are working--Sheldon above all--desperately, to bring her home to her mother Rosemarie, so her family can provide her with a final resting place, providing her with the dignity she deserves.

Marie had a remarkable career. It is no doubt that not only, as Sheldon said, the small band of journalists but many larger than that and anyone she knew will mourn her death for years to come because we have not just lost a daring journalist, but we also have lost a humanitarian, one who took her abilities as an investigator and a storyteller to speak for the voiceless. It is clear from Sheldon's remarks and from reading the biographical accounts and her obituary that this was a woman of both courage and passion who managed to sort of weave the two into an amazing life where she served so many.

Marie grew up on Long Island, attended Oyster Bay High School, and of course, as we know from what Sheldon has said, went on to study at Yale. She studied anthropology. She moved to New York City, worked as a UPI police reporter on the midnight to 6 a.m. shift. That is the time when most crimes occur. That is the times in the dark, particularly in those days in New York City, to be a journalist was difficult. It took courage. But even then, Colvin didn't shy away from tough jobs.

She worked her way up, moving to Paris and later to work for the UK's Sunday Times and became their Middle East correspondent in 1968. She has been doing this kind of dangerous and important work that inevitably and inexorably saved lives for so many years, 27 years. Colvin focused on years when the Middle East was not calm. It hasn't been the warmest climate for women and certainly was not an area for the weak of heart. But she didn't just stay for a year or two. She stayed at the front, and after each conflict ended, she went to the next one because I think she knew--and, again, Sheldon would know this much better than I. But just reading about her, she knew her talents were unique; that there wasn't anybody else who might fill those gaps and be able to do the kind of reporting that might bring change. So she followed the conflicts in Chechnya and the Balkans, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe. She was not just in the Middle East. She was there.

For those who cannot instantly remember some of her coverage, I am sure they remember her eye patch. This is from her work in Sri Lanka, where she defied a government ban on journalists' access, traveled over 30 miles through the Vanni jungles to report on the terrible war crimes of the Sri Lankan civil war. I remember reading them at the time and being moved to try and do something.

Colvin suffered. She never threw in the towel. If anything, it pushed her to work even harder. Her quests to help the women and children from every single war-torn country she entered endeared her to those women, those communities, those members of our global community who knew and know that her type of bravery was so rare indeed.

This brutal regime has broken families, torn apart homes, and forever changed the way of life for the Syrian people. There is darkness that has descended over Syria by design, by this awful regime. There was Colvin, shining a candle, letting the world know, and now we are all deprived of an incredible journalist.

With her, we lose an international role model. We lose the story she would tell, the light she would bring to the darkest lives, most recently in Syria but throughout the world, and we lose the voice she would have found wherever the next merciless regime tried to suppress it. Yes, Marie Colvin would have been there.

While there is currently no official U.S. diplomatic presence in Syria due to the awful human rights tragedy being carried out by the Assad regime, we are working as best we can to explore every avenue to help Sheldon and her family bring closure and to help her mother, in particular, who made clear that she will not rest until her daughter returns home.

On behalf of all my colleagues, I offer my condolences to Rosemarie Colvin in East Norwich, Marie's mother, and to the many people who will miss the work of one of the greatest correspondents of this generation.

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

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

Madam President, I rise today to discuss the amendment to the surface transportation bill offered by my friend and colleague from Missouri, Senator Blunt.

For reasons beyond me, the other side has demanded a vote on birth control. It seems they wish to debate whether we should take away access to contraception for millions of women.

Cooler heads are not prevailing on the other side of the aisle these days. There are some wiser voices on their side who do seem to regret they are having this debate, but they are the minority.

Just this morning, the senior Senator from Alaska is quoted in the New York Times expressing exacerbation. Of her party's push to roll back access to contraception, she says:

I don't know where we are going with this issue.

I sympathize with the frustration shown by my friend from Alaska. There is no good answer about where the other side is going with this issue--except, perhaps, back to the 19th century.

This whole debate is an anachronism. Our country progressed beyond the issue of whether to allow birth control a long time ago. Yet here we are in 2012 and some in the Republican Party suddenly want to turn back the clock and take away contraception from millions of women.

Make no mistake, that is what this debate is about, as backward as it is. I keep hearing this measure being referred to as the Blunt amendment, named after its sponsor, my friend, the Senator from Missouri. We should, instead, call it for what it will be: an attempt to take away for millions of women birth control.

If this amendment passes, it would ban contraception coverage for any woman in America whose boss has a personal objection to it. The measure would force women to surrender control of their own health decisions to their bosses. That concept is not merely quaint or old-fashioned, it is dangerous, and it is wrong.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, some 20 million American women could be cut off from health services by this proposal. The other side does not want the debate framed in those terms because they know it makes them look silly. So instead, they are spinning.

In the last week, there have been op-eds penned by the minority leader, the junior Senator from Massachusetts, and the junior Senator from Missouri, all seeking to frame this as about protecting religious liberty.

The debate may have been about religious liberty for a time, but now some on the other side have overplayed their hand. They may have started seeking protections for religious-affiliated employers, but now they sense a ripe time to make headway on a far-right social agenda.

The debate reminds me of a famous quote that our former colleague Dale Bumpers used to invoke. It was a quote by H.L. Mencken, who said:

When someone says it's not about the money, it's usually

about the money.

Well, when the other side tries so hard to claim this is not a debate about contraception, that is how you know this debate is precisely about contraception.

The amendment is not about religious liberty. The truth is religious institutions have always been exempt under the law from certain coverage requirements. Under the President's compromise, an even larger set of employers--those with a religious affiliation such as certain hospitals and schools--also will not have to pay for contraception coverage. It will, instead, be covered by the insurance company. The President's compromise has been widely embraced, including by many of the same church-affiliated organizations that expressed concern originally.

The administration is working on a solution for self-insured employers. I am confident they will find a way that works for everyone.

The amendment being voted on tomorrow is not responsive to any real concerns about religious freedom. Its reach extends far beyond church organizations that legitimately seek considerations based on conscience. It wants to let any employer in the country decide to cut off services for any reason whatsoever.

Under the guise of religious liberty, some on the hard right are trying to accomplish a political goal: banning contraception more widely. This is a goal the other side has been pursuing for a while now at the State level. At the heart of many of the personhood proposals being advanced in State legislatures is an attempt to cut off women's access to certain forms of contraception.

Some Republicans in the Senate now seem to want to nationalize this fringe debate over whether contraception should be allowed. It is not a political winner. Even the House Republicans seem to have the good sense not to bring up the amendment on the floor of their Chamber. But here the other side is pushing ahead with the ban.

It is so far-reaching, it has stirred a wide collection of health organizations to speak out against it. These are groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the March of Dimes, and Easter Seals. These are groups with no agenda other than protecting the health of those they serve.

In a letter these groups sent earlier this week, they pointed out the wide variety of services that an employer could decline to provide, such as child vaccinations and mammograms.

It is true that all these services and more are threatened by this amendment. But are Republicans against child vaccinations and mammograms? I doubt it. So let's admit what this debate is really about and what Republicans want to take away from millions of American women. It is contraception. We should call this debate and this amendment for what it will be for millions of women whose boss may have a personal objection: This is a contraception ban.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, we have had a long discussion today on the amendment to the surface transportation bill offered by my colleague and friend from Missouri, Senator Blunt. I think the discussion has shown pretty clearly that the amendment by the Senator from Missouri is both way beyond the scope of what most people envisioned and is extreme. It is way beyond the scope because it would cause the deprival of certain types of health care to perhaps millions of Americans in areas that go way beyond contraception.

All an employer would have to do is say they have a moral objection to providing vaccinations and they would not have to provide health care. Maybe the employees could sue or go to court for 10 years and figure this out, but that is not what we want. So it would be a giant step backward in terms of health care.

It is also a giant step backward in terms of depriving millions of American women of contraception. In a sense, this is a ban on contraception, at least for the millions of American women whose employers would say they do not want to provide contraception. Some might be motivated by religious beliefs, some might be motivated by simply saving money, and we would never know except after long and costly litigation. Again, that would deprive the employee of contraception for a very long time.

I think if people listened in on this debate, they would say this was a debate occurring not in 2012 but maybe in 1912 or even 1812 because issues such as a woman's right to contraception without the employer making a determination have long been decided by this country. We have seen the statistics. The overwhelming majority of Americans of every faith believe contraception should be available.

So the debate has been pretty clear. I think the other side is making a huge mistake--certainly substantively, and in my judgment politically--so much so that today the leading Presidential candidate on the Republican side, when asked whether he supported the Blunt amendment said, no; he did not think Congress should be getting involved in contraception. Mr. Romney said we should not be doing this amendment, and he did not support it, unequivocally and clearly.

A few hours later, of course, his folks walked that back, probably because of political pressure. He is facing Republican primaries where this issue is debated seriously, even if the rest of America does not believe that it should be debated. But what it shows is even when a leading candidate of the other side who is seeking votes from the hard right has doubts about whether this is a good idea, those doubts are real.

The other side should make a retreat. Our Republican colleagues should not make the same mistake they made on the payroll tax deduction by appealing to an extreme group. They should back off this amendment. They should vote with us, and we should move on and debate the highway bill and put millions of Americans to work and update our infrastructure.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Illinois for his usual articulate and prescient comments about our judicial crisis, and that is what we have here in the Senate and in the third branch of government.

I rise today, along with many of my colleagues, to address a serious problem for which there is an easy solution. We have a crisis in our third independent branch of government, and it is one that only we in the Senate can solve. We can solve it. We need to come together as we have in the past and confirm judges to our article III courts and dispense with petty politics and hostage-taking.

Let me give just one example of how our process has broken down. In December, for the second year in a row, my colleagues across the aisle refused to consent to confirm even a single judicial nomination before the end of the Senate session. This senseless rejection of the Senate's longstanding practice of confirming consensus nominees is starting to do real damage to our Federal courts. One out of 10 on the Federal bench, 1 out of 10 seats on the Federal bench is currently vacant. Judicial vacancies are double, two times what they were at this point in President Bush's first term. We have confirmed only 3 judicial nominees this session, only 5 in the past 2 months, and only 11 in the last 90 days. And of the three judges we have confirmed this session, we had to file cloture on two of them. This is not a responsible use of the Senate's advice and consent powers; rather, this is a handful of people--plain and simple--using the Senate's procedures to thwart the will of the majority of Americans. The vast majority of Americans want us to confirm good, moderate, pragmatic judges to the U.S. district courts. After all, judges on the district court don't make law, they follow law. They are not supposed to make law at all. Courts of appeal have a little more latitude, and, of course, the Supreme Court can make law, although they are supposed to follow tradition and precedent, and they claim they do. We can discuss that a different day.

A few outside groups are trying to accomplish in the third branch of government what they have been unable to accomplish in the other branches of government by making sure that judges with moderate, pragmatic credentials don't get confirmed in the hopes they can fill the bench with people who meet their narrow ideology at some point in the future.

Now, to be sure, my colleagues have offered a wide variety of reasons to explain their inability to consent to votes on district court judges. Some have said they are upset about the President's improper use of his recess appointment powers, powers about which five experts can give five different opinions. What that has to do with the judicial appointments is beyond me. Some have said they are upset about the ability to get floor time on something that is not even germane to judicial nominations.

To hold the third branch of government hostage because they have a different beef on a legislative issue is virtually unprecedented, at least certainly to the extent it has been done here. Some have given into terrible, misleading, and sometimes even vicious attacks on pending nominees. I have seen material circulated by outside groups that appear ready to oppose nominees using any and all tactics. Some of them--not all, not most, but some, and any one is too many--can only be described as bigoted. I have seen it. I have seen the letters to our colleagues here in an attempt to pressure them.

This behavior needs to be stopped, and it certainly needs to stop having an effect on any Member in this body. I have seen material that twists a candidate's record beyond all recognition. In fact, just before recess one group circulated patently inaccurate quotes that were supposed to be from a brief written by now Judge Jesse Furman for a client.

I have said time and time again--and I will say once more today--the Senate certainly has an obligation to take a hard look at the President's judicial nominees. My view is that ideology does matter and every Senator here has the right to make sure a President's judicial nominees are within the mainstream. I would even admit that some definitions of mainstream are different from others, but when nominee after nominee--many of whom were reported unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee, which has some very conservative as well as some very liberal members--are held up by a handful of people, we are not talking about views outside of the mainstream. We are talking about something larger and, frankly, less defensible.

There will always be nominees, especially to the courts of appeals, about whom we will disagree. There will be those whom some of us view as so extreme that we will refuse to give consent to holding an up-or- down vote. But let's be clear; that is not what is going on today.

What is going on today is obstruction, plain and simple--obstruction against anybody, any nominee, and obstruction at unprecedented levels. The total number of Federal circuit and district judges confirmed during the first 3 years of the Obama administration is far less than for previous Presidents. The Senate is more than 40 confirmations behind the pace we set confirming President Bush's nominees between 2001 and 2004. The sheer amount

of resistance to President Obama's district court judges indicates the level of obstruction we are facing.

In 3 years President Obama's nominees have received five times as many no votes as President Bush's district court nominees did over 8 years. Isn't that incredible?

The proof is in the pudding. The President's nominees for district court are not out of the mainstream. Almost all of them have logged years in public service or worked in law firms or excelled in other ways that characterized the nominees of previous Presidents. The issue is that the standard has changed. It is no longer, will this judge be good for the country and meet the standards we demand from an article III judge. Now, it is, did I personally approve of this judge; and if I didn't, what can I get by voting for him or her or I am going to block that judge and tie the Senate in a knot so judges only in my narrow viewpoint can be appointed, even though the President is of a different party and of a different philosophy, even though the majority of the Senate on both sides of the aisle are of a different philosophy. This is nothing short of tragic.

I implore my colleagues to think about what they are doing. Let's come together, as I know we can, and confirm qualified district court judges without further gamesmanship, without further obstruction, and without the further view: It is my way or the highway, and if I don't get my way, I am going to try and cripple 1 out of 10 vacancies and cripple the article III branch of government. It is getting close to that.

There are emergencies on many circuits. The future of our courts and even this body could well depend on it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President. I rise today in strong support of the historic confirmation of Margo K. Brodie to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Frankly, at this point, all of our nominees deserve special attention. With one out of 10 seats on the Federal bench still vacant, and with 14 nominees with strong bi-partisan support pending since last year, we should be focused today on confirming more than one nominee. However, Margo Brodie's nomination is of singular importance to my fellow New Yorkers, and to this country.

First--to put it simply her presence is desperately needed on one of the busiest benches in the country, one that handles some of our most important cases.

Second, Margo Brodie will be, by all accounts, the first Caribbean- born nominee in our Nation's history to be confirmed to an Article III court.

As I've said many times, I look for three qualities in judicial candidates: excellence, moderation, and diversity. When excellence and moderation are both present in a candidate--as they are with Ms. Brodie--diversity is a bonus: a bonus that benefits the bench, the community, and Americans everywhere who might otherwise think that this kind of public service, or even a law degree, was beyond their reach. In fact, I think that a candidate like Ms. Brodie is especially well- qualified for a lifetime appointment to the court.

She has chosen to make her home in this country, and in the neighborhoods served by this court in the Eastern District of New York--and she has already graced her community with outstanding and dedicated service. In 1996, Ms. Brodie became a citizen of the United States in the very court house where she would serve as a judge. I can't think of a more fitting candidate to serve the people in Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and all the communities in between than someone who pledged her allegiance to this country just footsteps from where she will uphold the rule of law in her chosen country.

Ms. Brodie's story is a classic immigrant's story--one that is born from our country's finest and deepest traditions. It's a story that speaks to our acceptance of people from all over the world who want to come to the United States to work hard, prosper, and become a part of our social fabric.

Ms. Brodie was born in St. John, Antigua. She and her brother Euan were raised by a single mother, with the help of her mother's parents and 14 siblings. After graduating from high school at the age of 16, she attended St. Francis College in Brooklyn, where she worked full time and graduated magna cum laude.

She went on to the University of Pennsylvania Law School. After graduating from law school, Ms. Brodie worked for the New York City Law Department for three years, where she learned how to litigate cases. She then spent five years at Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, founded in 1854 and known for alums that include Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Ms. Brodie returned to public service in 1999 by joining the United States Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York, one of the preeminent U.S. Attorney's offices in the Nation.

She rose to become Deputy Chief and then Chief of the General Crimes Unit, where she trained more than half of the current AUSA's in the Eastern District. Since 2010, she has been the deputy chief of the Criminal Division, supervising all 100-plus criminal AUSAs in cases involving public corruption, civil rights, business and securities fraud, terrorism, organized crime, narcotics, and many other areas.

Ms. Brodie has also lent her considerable talents to training prosecutors and law enforcement officers on the rule of law in many developing countries. She spent 10 months in Nigeria as a legal advisor on behalf of the DOJ's overseas training program, and has conducted and assisted in human trafficking training for prosecutors in the Bahamas, Jordan, Swaziland, and Tanzania.

In a short while, Ms. Brodie will be confirmed as a Federal judge--an honor she deserves and a position that she has more than earned. I am proud to have supported her nomination, and to vote for her today.

Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleagues from California, New York, New Hampshire, and Washington State for the great job they have done. Before I speak about our judicial nominee, I wish to say I join them in their remarks and their feelings. This is about women's health, and women and men all over America are scratching their heads and saying: Are we fighting against contraception? Are we turning the clock back 60 or 70 years? It makes no sense.

If a woman wants contraception for either birth control or other health purposes--and most women use it for other health purposes--it is up to that woman, not her employer. That is the

bottom line. The vast majority of Americans, men and women, agree with that statement. That is true of every major religion from the polling data I have seen.

Frankly, I don't understand this Republican Party. First, they made war on the Hispanic community, one of the fastest growing segments in America on immigration, and now they are making a war on the majority of America, women. While not every woman feels the way we do, the vast majority of women do. So I don't get it.

Then to take an amendment such as that from my friend from Missouri and expand it even further and say, if someone owns a McDonald's, they can decide to not provide contraceptive services--the real reason might be because they don't want to pay extra or other reasons that are not religiously based--I don't get it.

I hope we do have a vote on the Blunt amendment because I think the American people would not be for that amendment on an overwhelming basis. The more they learn about it, the more that happens, and that is why the tide is moving in that direction.

I wish to thank my colleagues for allowing me to say a few words on that issue.

Mr. President, I rise in support of Jesse Furman, who is a nominee for the District Court in the Southern District.

I have had the good fortune to present to the President more than 13 nominees for the Federal bench, every one of them is incredibly accomplished. Each represents the best of the bar that the State of New York has to offer. I believe in excellence, moderation, and diversity, which are the three standards I use. But on the standard of excellence, Jesse is no exception to my standard of excellence. In fact, he doesn't just meet it, he shatters it. He is one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country. He is amazing. The fact that he wants to serve our Federal Government on the bench is a tribute to us all. It is a tribute to our country and to him.

How about moderation? This is the issue I wish to speak most to my colleagues about. Who was his protege in many ways? Judge Mukasey. He worked for Judge Mukasey as a clerk and then as attorney general. A lot of people on this side of the aisle, including myself, have real differences with Judge Mukasey, but if we cannot support Jesse Furman for the nomination, then we cannot support anybody because this nomination could have come from a Democrat, it could have come from a Republican, it could have come from a conservative, it could have come from a liberal. He is truly a mainstream thinker, and so this vote will be indicative. Because if Jesse Furman cannot achieve cloture, then our system is so paralyzed we better go back to the drawing board because it will mean no district court judge can be approved, none.

So I would ask Senators on both sides of the aisle to support him. I know we have a number of our Republican colleagues who have said they might support him, and I hope they will. We had a good vote in the Judiciary Committee on Jesse Furman. Again, he is truly excellent, endorsed by his former coclerks on the Supreme Court, including those who clerked for Justices Rehnquist, Thomas, O'Connor, Kennedy, and Scalia.

John Podhoretz, a conservative columnist, wrote that Furman should be confirmed because he is ``terrifically knowledgeable, entirely respectful of views that differ from his, and utterly without an axe to grind.'' That is why he passed without discussion out of the Judiciary Committee without dissent.

Please, colleagues, a vote for Furman will show that we can come together certainly on a judge of such moderation. A vote against him will say the system is irreparably broken.

I thank the Chair.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman and the Judiciary Committee for reporting Jesse Furman out without dissent. Furman is a truly excellent figure. He clerked for the Supreme Court, has the support of all the clerks with whom he served, including those from Scalia and Rehnquist, on both sides of the aisle.

He worked for Attorney General Mukasey and clerked for Mr. Mukasey. He is truly a moderate. He could be nominated just as easily in the grand tradition of judicial integrity by someone from this side of the aisle or that side of the aisle.

If we cannot approve Mr. Furman and have a close-to-unanimous vote on him, I do not know on whom we can because he is such an excellent, thoughtful, and moderate judge. So I hope all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will vote for him. It may begin to mark a new wave, at least, in dealing with district court judges.

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

Mr. President, today I rise to join my colleagues, Senator Klobuchar and Senator Grassley, to discuss an epidemic overtaking our country: synthetic drugs. I wish to compliment both of my colleagues. Each of us has been working on this issue in different ways, and we combined our three approaches into one piece of legislation that will go a long way toward helping to keep our kids away from drugs they should not have.

Synthetic drugs are an epidemic overtaking our country. They are also known as bath salts or, in the case of manmade marijuana, spice or incense. They are given innocent names, but they are deadly. Synthetic drugs are not sold on street corners by slingers who keep stashes hidden in alleys. Instead, these drugs can be found in local corner stores across the country. They are as easy to buy as a lollipop or a carton of milk, but they are much more dangerous.

No wonder emergency rooms and poison control centers have seen an enormous rise in patients who have taken these drugs and must seek help. The numbers are nothing short of eye-popping. Poison control centers reported 13 calls concerning these products in 2009, over 1,000 calls in 2010, and over 6,500 in 2011--from 13 calls to over 6,500 calls in 2 years. For every call they get, there are many people taking these drugs with no call at all. One survey, in fact, indicates that one in nine high school seniors used synthetic drugs in the past year. That is a frightening, astounding, and devastating number.

The Senate has before it a rare opportunity to do something simple and right that will actually go a very long way to fixing this crisis. We have three bills--Senator Klobuchar's, my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Grassley's, my colleague from Iowa, and mine--that would place the chemical components that make up these substances directly on schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act without waiting for the DEA to go through its yearlong listing process. Our communities desperately need us to make these drug compounds illegal once and for all. The DEA wants us to go ahead and make them illegal, and so does the FDA. There is no legitimate or commercial use for these compounds.

Our bills passed out of the Judiciary Committee unanimously and with no opposition. The House passed its version of our bills with little opposition. All we have to do now is put them on the floor and have a vote or simply pass them unanimously. But one of my colleagues has put a hold on these bills--just one. That is fine. I am in favor of protecting my colleague's rights, as they are my rights and Senator Klobuchar's and Senator Grassley's rights. But one Senator should not be able to prevent a vote on something that 99 percent of Americans want that directly affects their health and safety and the health and safety of their children. So I have a suggestion. Why can't we at least put these bills on the floor, and our colleague can air his opposition and see if he can win people over to his point of view? This really should not take more than an hour or two of our business.

Law enforcement and health professionals are begging for this bill. I know for a fact that parents and families in my State are begging for this to become law. A lot of us have worked hard on this issue because it is of critical importance to our communities and States.

Before I go any further, I again want to compliment and commend my colleagues, Senators Klobuchar and Grassley, as well as Senator Feinstein, who is not here with us this afternoon, for their excellent leadership on banning these so-called designer drugs.

On Monday I was in Rochester, NY, to discuss Senator Grassley's synthetic marijuana bill with local law enforcement and emergency room doctors. I heard horrific stories of patients who smoked synthetic marijuana and ended up crazed in the emergency room. Everyone I met with urged me to help ban these substances as soon as possible.

My own bill, the Combating Dangerous Synthetic Stimulants Act, bans two more of these drugs, mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone-- fortunately, it is regularly known as MDPV--and they are commonly sold as bath salts. By calling them bath salts, manufacturers are trying to deliberately mislead people into thinking they are an everyday product. It is despicable when young kids--14, 15, 16 years old--try bath salts and they think it is harmless. These dangerous drugs are sold in convenience stores and smoke shops for as little as $14 to $40. And what are their names? Tranquility, Zoom, White Lightning, and Hurricane Charlie. These so-called bath salts or plant foods are nothing more than deadly narcotics, and they are being sold cheaply to all comers with no questions asked at store counters around the country. How is it possible that such deadly drugs are legal? Because by marketing them as bath salts, which aren't for human consumption, they aren't regulated. These bath salts have much the same effects, according to users, as cocaine or ecstasy, but they are preferred because they are cheaper and more readily accessible. In fact, according to court papers obtained by the Staten Island Advance, one of our fine local papers in New York, a seller in Brooklyn boasted to a Federal agent that the bath salts would deliver a better high than cocaine.

This ease of access does not, however, translate into their safe use. A recent New York Times article reported that an individual high on bath salts had climbed a roadside flagpole and jumped into traffic, broken into a monastery and stabbed a priest, and scratched herself to pieces because something was under her skin.

One of these drugs, Cloud 9, is so easily accessible it is sold on amazon.com. A person can go on amazon.com and buy this horrible stuff. How much? Sixteen dollars, plus shipping. It is accessible to anybody. Can my colleagues guess what item most customers buy

with this specific bath salt? Is it relaxing candles or lotion? Is it soap? No. The item customers most buy with this bath salt is Click N Smoke all In One Vaporizer With Wind Proof Torch Lighter. That is the name of the product. One does not need much of an imagination to believe that the purchasers of Cloud 9 are smoking these drugs and not adding them to a relaxing bath.

These drugs are the worst kind. Not only do they cause people to perform horrible actions, but they also give the impression that they are legal, that they are innocuous. Make no mistake that these drugs can and will cause harm to their users. At least 30 States, including my home State of New York, have recognized these drugs as harmful. They have banned bath salts at the State level. But only the DEA--the Drug Enforcement Agency--and the resources that are behind it can keep these drugs from coming into our country, from crossing State lines, and from morphing time and again to evade State bans. That is why we need these bills.

The DEA temporarily banned two of these substances in November. However, the clock is now ticking until this temporary ban ends. FDA and HHS must complete a complicated checklist in the remaining 7 months to prevent these drugs from returning to the corner store.

We must provide the DEA with a permanent ban before the time runs out. This will provide them with the necessary tools to address these legal drugs on a national stage. The DEA has the ability to spearhead multi-State and international investigations to prevent the manufacture and sale of bath salts.

These drugs are deadly and dangerous. Yet they are easier to buy than cigarettes in many States. Parents should not worry that each time their child goes into a convenience store or gas station, he or she can buy a deadly drug.

This bill has broad bipartisan support. We cannot wait for another parent to lose a child because of the inaction of the Senate. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the legislation. Once again, I implore my colleague--the single Senator who is holding up this bill--I hope he will not agree to set aside his differences, which come from a deep Libertarian ideological perspective that is different than most Americans have, but agree not to block them but to debate them and let them come up for a vote.

I thank the Chair.

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

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

Madam President, I rise today in support of the Paying a Fair Share Act, also known as the Buffett rule. This legislation, introduced yesterday by my good friend from Rhode Island, highlights an important conversation about fairness and tax policy in this country.

Now, some of my friends across the aisle have some interesting ways of discussing the principle that millionaires

and billionaires should pay the same percent of their income taxes as middle-class families. They call it class warfare; they call it a political stunt. But in reality it is neither of those things. The Paying a Fair Share Act is common sense--the principle that everyone has a right to earn as much money as they can in America, as long as they are contributing their fair share.

We must have a sincere discussion about the distribution of tax burdens in this country. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the Paying a Fair Share Act, because it addresses this issue head on.

New York is a large, diverse State full of very different people with very different views--a fact of which I am extremely proud. But all across the State people agree on the basic principle that a Tax Code which allows the most privileged of our society, people making tens and hundreds of millions of dollars a year, to pay less than 14 percent in taxes--significantly less than the average middle-class family--is broken.

With the introduction of the Paying a Fair Share Act, we now have before us legislation that can significantly reduce our debt and deficit without also breaking the backs of middle-class Americans. By ensuring that millionaires and billionaires pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes--a rate similar to many average Americans--we can reinstitute tax fairness in this country, a principle that our Tax Code has sadly lacked since the Bush tax cuts ballooned our debt by cutting taxes for the ultra wealthy.

I invite my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take part in this conversation. I consider the Paying a Fair Share Act as the beginning of a conversation, not the end of it. As the co-chair of the Senate Philanthropy Caucus, I was pleased to see that my colleague from Rhode Island included language that ensures we continue to promote charitable giving and I would have liked to have seen a similar provision for State and local income taxes. Regardless, I know we will have the opportunity to build upon this proposal as it moves through consideration in the Senate and I look forward to working with my colleagues to improve it.

The issues of institutional unfairness in our Tax Code and our debt are not going away--not until we act. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle can take the Paying a Fair Share Act as the beginning of a new chapter in the national debate, one that ends with a fairer Tax Code, deficit reduction, and a message to the American people that their government will not rest until we have created a stronger, more prosperous, and fairer American economy.

Mr. President, I rise today in honor of National Mentoring Month. This month we recognize the millions of Americans who have joined together to better the lives of others, especially our youth, through the gift of mentorship. The generosity and willingness of individuals to work together for the common good has been a hallmark of the American character since our Nation's founding.

Every day volunteer organizations across the country make substantial contributions to our Nation by fostering a place and sense of mentorship. One such extraordinary organization is the Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City. Founded in 1906, Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City is the oldest and largest youth mentoring organization in the United States, serving more than 3,000 young people annually. The mission of Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City is to provide mentors to all children who need caring adult role models. These mentors change the lives of New York City's youth by expanding their horizons and helping them to realize their potential.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City is unique in that it offers a variety of individualized mentoring programs that match dedicated mentors, or Bigs, to special populations of youth, or Littles. These include a New American Mentoring Program for immigrant youth, a Young Mothers Mentoring Program for pregnant teens or teenage mothers, an Incredible Kids Mentoring Program for children with a learning or physical disability or chronic disease, a Building Futures Mentoring Program for youth who are in the foster care system, and a Children of Promise Mentoring Program for children who have an incarcerated parent, sibling, or family member. Two additional special mentoring programs offered at Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City that have a national significance are their 9/11 Together We Stand and FDNY Partnership Programs. These are unique mentoring programs for children who lost a parent or close relative in the World Trade Center attacks and those who lost a parent in the FDNY in the line of duty, including but not limited to September 11. So as you can see, Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City is doing their part to ensure that all children have positive role models in their life no matter what their circumstances may be.

National Mentoring Month highlights the need and significance of mentors and mentoring for individuals of all ages. From organizations to individuals, mentoring enriches children's education and overall success in life.

The small investment a mentor makes in the life of a child exponentially increases the success of a child's future and the success of the community. National Mentoring Month is particularly significant for Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City because it offers a special opportunity for the organization to raise awareness of the power of mentoring and recruit volunteer mentors, which are critical to its mission of providing children with caring adult role models. By upholding the principles of volunteerism and academics, we continue creating positive opportunities for the next generation.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me in recognizing the month of January as National Mentoring Month so we may continue to honor the important work that organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City play in making our Nation a better and more prosperous place.

Would the Senator yield?

I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak immediately after Senator Wyden for no more than 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise today to again call for increased disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures so the American people are informed about who is spending in our elections.

I thank my colleagues from Oregon, Senator Wyden and Senator Merkley, for their good remarks, as well as many of the others who have spoken.

This week marks the second anniversary of the Supreme Court's appalling decision in Citizens United, in which Chief Justice Roberts and his cohort of activist judges overturned a century of legal precedent and created a flood of special interest group spending coursing through the veins of American elections.

It is my view this decision has done more to poison our politics than most any other in recent times. In fact, some have argued this is the worst decision the Supreme Court has made since Plessy v. Ferguson. I agree a great deal with that argument.

The Court's decision created a loophole that allowed entities to create groups to serve as a conduit to anonymously funnel money and mislead the public about their true motives. The decision has also led to the creation of super PACs, which are not only able to receive unlimited contributions and spend money at unprecedented levels, they are able to do so without accountability, working under the protective shadow of anonymity. As a result, a multimillionaire individual, corporations, and labor unions could spend $1 million or $5 million or $10 million against a candidate because they didn't like his or her stand on the environment, but all the ads would talk about would be, say, gay marriage. Nobody would know where the ads came from.

What the decision does is make our people feel more and more distant from our politics and our government. That is corrosive--vituperatively corrosive for any democracy. What has happened since this decision is appalling. I sometimes wonder what our Supreme Court Justices are thinking as they watch what is happening. Can they hide up in their ivory tower and say this is the first amendment at work? They know better than anybody that no amendment is absolute. They know we can't scream fire falsely in a crowded theater and we have libel laws, child pornography laws, and other kinds of laws that balance the needs of the first amendment with other societal needs.

One of the foremost needs of our society is for a fair functioning democracy, where there is some semblance of equality, that each person who votes has the same weight in the system. We know money counterbalances that fundamental fairness, but never has the balance been so put out of whack as by this decision. This decision--it is hard to believe that our Supreme Court Justices, whatever their ideology, went for this. I hope some of them are paying attention.

To be honest with you, I sat behind the Supreme Court Justices at the State of the Union Address. I was so tempted to talk to them about this, but I wasn't sure if that was appropriate protocol. I hope they are listening today--particularly Justice Kennedy, the swing vote, who wrote the majority decision. I hope they will listen to what we are saying because what they are doing is undoing our democracy. It is that fundamental.

In short, the Citizens United decision represents one of the most corrosive and destructive changes in law that has occurred in recent memory. Democracy is already struggling to stay afloat in a sea of powerful special interests, and this decision is an anchor around its neck.

In my judgment, there is no more important step we can take to ensure America's continued greatness than to fight back against this deeply flawed decision allowing anonymous special interests to subvert democracy. The need for reform is urgent.

Last Congress, I sponsored the Disclose Act to foster effective disclosure. I pledged my continuing commitment to fight for disclosure legislation in this Congress. The Disclose Act failed to get cloture by one vote. I hope the level of unmitigated spending in the Republican primary has changed the minds of the opponents. As we have seen, we now have a system where a single person can change the course of an election. That is a system more like monarchy than a democracy.

This is not a partisan issue. There are super PACs and other kinds of anonymous giving on both sides. In fact, two of the leading candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination called super PACs ``totally irresponsible, totally secret'' and ``a disaster . . . [that] makes a mockery out of our political campaign season.'' That wasn't me or Senator Shaheen or Bernie Sanders speaking. One quote came from Newt Gingrich and one quote came from Mitt Romney.

Disclosure will lift the curtain of secrecy and at least reveal the true identity of these organizations. One of the Supreme Court Justices' predecessors, Justice Brandeis, said, ``Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.'' People would not have malicious, pernicious, and false ads if they had to disclose who they are. It is plain and simple. But if you can hide behind the shroud of secrecy and put unlimited money into these campaigns, as the Supreme Court decision allows--and we have not changed it because our colleagues on the other side are even against disclosure, which, of course, is allowed by the law--the American democracy gets weaker.

Even eight of the nine Justices, in the activist and overreaching decision in Citizens United, agreed that the American people deserve meaningful disclosure. That makes the decision even more galling because they didn't require disclosure or limit what they did in light of the fact that we don't have disclosure, as they wrote. The Court found, though, that there was a strong governmental interest in ``providing the electorate with information about the sources of election-related funding.''

In conclusion, we cannot afford to be complacent while our democracy is under attack. The effect of the Court's decision is clear. The flood of secret money has begun cascading through our election system, and the American people need us to act. Spending by special interest groups must be checked, and the very least we can do is demand that these groups step into the light and identify themselves.

The Citizens United decision is a poison coursing through our body politic and disclosure is the antidote.

I yield the floor. If Mr. Coats is not here, with the permission of the minority, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from New Hampshire be allowed to proceed immediately after me.