Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 2 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 25, 2009.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environmental and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 10 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 11 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 10 a.m. in room 325 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 2:15 p.m. in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on June 25, 2009, at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on June 25, 2009, at 12 p.m. in SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife of the Committee on Environmental and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 3:30 p.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise to speak to my colleagues on two issues this afternoon. One is the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court and the second is on the public option in health care.

Mr. President, several of my colleagues across the aisle have come to the floor to attack Judge Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. I must say, I think these attacks are entirely misplaced. I have always had a consistent standard for evaluating judicial nominees. I use it when voting for them. I use it when joining in, in the nomination process. I did under President Bush and continue to under President Obama. Those three standards are excellence, moderation, and diversity.

I am confident Judge Sotomayor meets these criteria. Based on my review thus far of her lengthy and impressive record on both the district court and court of appeals, her impressive career in both public and private sectors, and her stellar academic credentials.

I have also been deeply impressed with her personal story, a true story of an American dream. She pulled herself up from the projects in the Bronx to stand before this body as a nominee to the highest Court in the land. Her history is truly inspirational, a history of which we should all be extremely proud. It is a great American story. It is what the greatness of America is all about, as my friend from New Jersey said earlier.

I think some of the comments I have heard from my Republican colleagues this morning have distorted Judge Sotomayor's distinguished record, so let's take a minute to consider what the real story is and how Judge Sotomayor's record reflects the highest ideals of judging.

Judge Sotomayor's record reveals her to be both modest and moderate, dedicated to the rule of law and not outcome oriented.

For example, Senator Sessions spent some of his time this morning criticizing one particular case, Hayden v. Pataki, about felon disenfranchisement--because Judge Sotomayor's dissent would have resulted in an outcome with which he did not agree. He neglected to mention that her opinion was based on the plain text of the statute before the court and he also left out some of the key, revealing comments she made in her dissent:

No one disputes that States have the rights to

disenfranchise felons;

No. 2:

The duty of a judge is to follow the law, not question its

plain terms;

And No. 3:

I trust that Congress would prefer to make any needed

changes itself rather than have the courts do so for it.

These are the kind of statements, in the very case my good friend from Alabama uses to criticize the judge, that we have heard from people on the other side of the aisle over and over as to what a judge should do: Not replace his or her own judgment for that of a legislature or that of the law.

Judge Sotomayor was following text to a result, not the other way around. These quotes tell us a lot more about Judge Sotomayor's judicial philosophy and commitment to rule of law than simply looking at the outcome in any particular case. Even when we look at outcomes, the entirety of her record gives us a more accurate picture of her judicial philosophy than the outcome of any one case. She rejected discrimination claims in 81 percent of the cases she considered, and in those 78 cases rejecting discrimination claims she dissented from the panel she was on only twice.

When my office looked at her record on immigration cases she sided with the immigrant in asylum cases only 17 percent of the time. That is average for the entire Second Circuit. This should put to rest any notion she is swayed by outcomes rather than by law.

Obviously, she sympathizes with the immigrant experience, that has been clear. But she does not let those sympathies stand in the way of her judging what the law says and mandates. So she is clearly not a judicial activist, someone who reaches beyond the proper role of a judge to impose her personal preferences.

I think it is about time to debunk the notion of judicial activism, as some are using. I think that judicial activism is starting to become code for many of my friends on the other side of the aisle for ``decisions with outcomes with which I don't agree.'' When they say judicial activist, they are not looking at how close or far from the law. They are, rather, looking at: Well, I didn't agree with the ultimate decision.

That is why I prefer to use the term ``modest'' in describing my ideal judge. It was a term that was used by Justice Roberts when he was before us.

I will quote from the Federalist Papers as some of my colleagues have done. In Federalist No. 78, the primary source for justification for judicial review in the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton explains the role of a judge very simply: A judge must interpret the Constitution, interpret the laws, and when there is ``irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred.''

An ``irreconcilable variance''--that imposes a high bar on any judge who is tempted to strike down a law or a practice or any decision by a legislature or

executive as unconstitutional. This is, by the way, exactly the standard Judge Sotomayor lived up to in Ricci, when she deferred to the elected local official in New Haven and to Federal title VII law and to firm Second Circuit precedent.

It has always been my view that a commitment to modesty is key in a judge. A judge who is modest understands that any concept of doing justice must have as its touchstone the meaning that the authors of the text intended to give it.

I also believe it is consistent with judicial modesty to acknowledge that our Constitution is written to endure. It does not live and breathe like a flesh-and-blood child does, who evolves through adolescence and adulthood to become unrecognizable.

I don't believe in using those terms. Rather, the Constitution endures. It endures because the people whom it governs, the people who retain all of the many rights that are not listed in the document itself, believe that it continues to apply to them. The only reason it continues to apply to them is through guardianship of judges who are modest in reaching their conclusions. They understand that people have to live by the Court's interpretation and judgment. They understand that people want justice and that justice means predictability, adherence to text, and the willingness to avoid patently absurd results.

I am looking forward to the confirmation hearing of Judge Sotomayor. She is a gifted lawyer, she is a respected and serious jurist, and her life experiences will only serve to enrich the views of the eight other justices, each of whom brings with him or her individual lessons, lessons taught by a hard-working grandfather in Pinpoint, GA; by an independent, studious-minded mother who died the day before her daughter graduated high school; by a hotel owner in Chicago, IL; or by a single Spanish-speaking mother who told her daughter that she could do anything through hard work and a good education.

Let's be reasonable and realistic. These experiences do not turn a good judge into a bad one or who is not an impartial one or whatever my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are suggesting.

To recognize the role of personal experience is simply to acknowledge that in the art and science of interpreting the Constitution and laws of our country we have to ask ourselves the following questions: Do we trust more the decisions of judges who, as I have said before, have ice water in their veins, who view their role as stripping themselves of their pasts and ruling in a vacuum, free of human experience and common sense, or do we trust more the decisions of judges who acknowledge and address their own life experiences even while striving always to be fair and within the law--as Judge Sotomayor herself has said?

These are questions I look forward to discussing at Judge Sotomayor's upcoming hearing.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the necessity of including a public option in the health care legislation Congress is currently drafting. One of our top priorities, as we undertake health care reform, must be increasing competition among health insurance companies in order to get costs under control and give consumers better choices. A recent New York Times/CBS poll clearly shows that a large majority of the American people, 72 percent in fact, want a government- sponsored health care option that would compete with private health insurance companies--72 percent.

What is even more incredible, 50 percent of all Republicans in this country want a public option. There seems to be a disconnect between my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and even their Republican constituents.

Do you know why so many Americans want a public plan? Because, despite what many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would have you believe, they do not believe they have affordable choices. Fundamentally, this is what lies at the heart of our public plan proposal. We want to ensure all Americans have a guaranteed affordable choice when it comes to health insurance. Right now, too many of them do not.

In many areas of the country, one or two insurers have a stranglehold on the entire market, which produces costly premiums and health care decisions that often serve the interests of the insurer, not the patient. In fact, according to a study of the American Medical Association, 94 percent of insurance markets are highly concentrated. This is why a public health insurance plan is absolutely critical, to ensure the greatest amount of choice possible for consumers and provide at least one option that is patient--not profit--focused.

When you read what percentage one insurance company or two insurance companies have of a market in each State, you know that robust competition is missing from the health care market. That is why so many people are worried about the future of the plans that they now have.

The public plan is not about government-controlled health care, socialism or any of the buzz words that have been tossed around as part of this debate.

I ask my colleagues, do they consider Medicare socialism? Would they like to abolish Medicare? Probably some of them would. But Medicare-- hello, my friends--is a government-run plan. It is very popular with the American people. Very few propose eliminating Medicare. So let's be real here. The public option is about offering Americans a choice in the market that, far too often, offers them none.

I will tell you the choices too many Americans face: whether to pay for health insurance or health care or to pay for other necessities of life, because health care has become so expensive. That is not a choice anyone should have to make, and maybe that explains why the American people do not agree with the critics of the public plan.

Half of all Americans think the government plan will provide better health care coverage than private insurance companies, and a significantly lower percentage disagree with that statement.

Let's be clear: A public plan may not have special built-in advantages. It would be a coverage option that would compete on an equal footing alongside private insurance plans in the market for individual and small business coverage. If a level playing field exists, then private insurers will have to compete based on quality of care and pricing instead of just competing for the healthiest consumers. In this way, a public plan will accomplish many of our most important goals. It will not waste money on costs incidental to providing health care. It will not focus on profits at the expense of the best health outcomes. Instead, it will spend money on improving health delivery and on trying innovative technologies and systems in order to save, save money. It will force many insurers that have been shielded and protected from competition for far too long to compete with a plan that provides comprehensive care at an affordable rate. It will, most importantly, give all Americans a choice. In fact, I think the thing that really scares opponents of the public option is choice, that Americans might actually choose the public plan over the plan of private insurance companies, because then the curtain might be pulled back on their friends at the insurance companies and Americans will finally see the hidden costs that have caused their premiums to skyrocket, the wasteful spending that does not improve health outcomes but fattens bottom lines, and the protection from competition that has been offered to private insurers over the last decade.

To truly reform our health care system, Congress must pass legislation that includes a public option. A figleaf public plan is no plan at all, and I will not settle for such a figleaf.

It is important to remember how we arrived here. For a long time, when thinking hypothetically about health care reform, many in this country suggested that we move to a single-payer option.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado.) I would note that the Senator has used 10 minutes.

I ask unanimous consent that I be given 5 additional minutes.

The Republicans rejected the single-payer plan. So at the onset of this debate, we met them halfway with a framework that continues

to largely rely on private insurers. So then we said: If we are going to continue to rely mostly on private insurance, can we at least introduce greater competition into the market by having a public plan as one option? The Republicans--most, at least; just about all, I think--rejected that too. We said: Well, what if we ensured that the public plan had to adhere to the same rules as private insurers, thus guaranteeing a level playing field? The Republicans here in the Senate--not in the country but the Republicans here in the Senate-- still said no to even a level playing field.

So some Democrats came up with a new idea: What if we relied on a co- op model that has served rural States well? In a good-faith attempt to consider this idea, I proposed some ideas for ensuring that co-ops could do the job of keeping private insurers honest. Yesterday, Senator Conrad indicated he could go along with many of these proposals. But Senator Conrad has never been the problem here. He has been well open to negotiating on how to make a co-op plan have the kind of clout to go up against private insurance companies, be available to all Americans, be able to bargain with the providers, and be ready to go on day one to compete with the large nationwide insurance companies. Senator Conrad has always been willing to entertain all of that. He has been a good- faith negotiator with the best interests at heart. It has been those on the other side of the aisle who have not been willing to negotiate. So I am losing confidence that Senate Republicans will ever agree to the types of changes to a co-op to make it a viable alternative, a viable substitute to a traditional public plan that is nationwide and available to everybody, that can go up against the private insurers and go up against the suppliers in buying power, that is formulated so that it hits the ground running on day one of the insurance exchange.

We can only bend so much to try to win over opponents of health care reform. We cannot bend so far that we break. We cannot say we are putting something else out there and not have it do the job because a public option is what really does the job. We must not let the scaremongering about the possible consequences of a public option deter us from doing what the American people overwhelmingly want and need. It is time to put the health needs of the American people, not the insurance companies, first. It is time to move past the partisan bickering and make sure the health care reform passed by Congress includes a real public option. It is the right thing, it is the smart thing, and it is what the American people want and what they deserve.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the remarks given by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at New York University's commencement ceremony in New York City, on May 13, 2009.

First, Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague and friend from Illinois for his outstanding words once again on health care, and on the fact that we need some kind of check on the insurance companies. Our colleagues offer none. They just point to Canada and England, as he mentioned, which is a totally different system than we are focusing on.

Second, I wish to thank my colleague from Oregon, who is doing a great job in his first year in the Senate, for his generosity so I could speak for a brief moment and share with my colleagues some words about an act of bravery that occurred in my State yesterday.

Mr. President, as the Senate right now debates some of the biggest national issues of our time, it is important to sometimes take a step back and look to some of the great acts that are happening every day in our towns, cities, and States. So I wish to call attention to an act of personal heroism--and that is the appropriate word; this man is a true hero--that took place in my home State of New York.

Yesterday morning, at the South Orangetown Middle School in Blauvelt, NY--a town in Rockland County about 45 minutes from New York City--a disgruntled man with a gun stormed into the office of the school superintendent. He grabbed the superintendent, Ken Mitchell, by the necktie and started threatening him and making demands. At least three gunshots were fired.

This is the kind of situation that would have scared most everyone. But, as we have learned now, Ken Mitchell is no ordinary person.

With his safety and the safety of his students on the line, he showed remarkable courage and wrestled the gunman down to the ground. He was able to grab the gun, kick it out of the way, and get the gunman pinned on the ground.

Usually when a SWAT team arrives at the scene of a crime, they are the ones to do the serious crime fighting. But this time, by the time they got there, they walked in on the school superintendent, who had already disarmed and pinned to the ground the dangerous criminal. To top it all off, Superintendent Mitchell even recognized one of the SWAT team members he had once coached as a kid on the local hockey team.

According to people on the scene, Mr. Mitchell was ready to get back to his office. As his brother-in-law said: ``his tie wasn't even messed up''--just another day on the job for another great New Yorker.

It should be no secret to anyone that this incident could very quickly have turned into something unspeakable. While the headlines today are ones of praise, they could have easily been ones of grief. And praise God they were not.

But as one of New York's Senators, I want to rise publicly and congratulate Ken Mitchell for his act of bravery and heroism. As a parent myself, I know what it is like to send kids off to school in the morning and hope and pray they will come back home safely.

It is people such as Ken Mitchell who make it easy for parents to know their kids are in good hands when they wave goodbye on the schoolbus and send Johnny or Jill off to school.

Ken Mitchell is a reminder that every minute of every day Americans are engaging in personal, quiet acts of heroism and bravery about which we should all be grateful. I am proud he is from my State. And I am proud that, if even for one moment, I can give him some of the recognition he deserves.

I am sure Superintendent Mitchell is back at work right now as if nothing happened. However, Superintendent Ken Mitchell, on behalf of all New Yorkers, all Americans, and parents everywhere, we say thank you. It is Americans like you that make us proud.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and once again thank my colleague from Oregon for yielding.

Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from Illinois for his strong and forceful words, meaningful, bringing it home, as he always does, in a very strong and good way about individuals and how they are affected.

I would like to talk a little bit about where we are in health care and where we have to go. Let me say that about 10 years ago--I cannot remember the exact time--one of the major issues we faced was called the Patients' Bill of Rights. Doctors and patients felt--everyone felt--that HMOs were taking undue advantage of them. Doctors, if a patient desperately needed a prescription, would call some accountant in a faraway city and could not get approval and the patient would not get the medicine. It sort of hit home.

There was a movie called ``As Good As It Gets,'' with Jack Nicholson, and I cannot remember the name of the woman who starred in it. The family could not get the health care they needed because the HMO turned them down. I believe it was her child who was hurting. When she and Jack Nicholson made remarks about how somebody has to keep an eye on these HMOs, in theaters across America, the audience got up and cheered.

That is, again, what we are talking about when we talk about public option. Every one of us has a friend, a family member--maybe it is ourselves--who has experienced the basic intransigence of insurance companies in providing--even when you have a package of benefits--the kind of care you or a loved one, a member of your family, needs.

It is clear in America the insurance companies--and they are doing their job maximizing their profit to their shareholders. Of course, our capitalist system says they have to maximize it by trying to sell as many policies as possible. So there is some check on them. But it is clear America is not happy with insurance companies.

My good friend from Kentucky, the minority leader, keeps saying we do not want the government involved. Well, let me ask him: Who is going to protect the individual and even some of the individual providers--the doctor in a small town or in an inner city--from an insurance company when the insurance company either charges too much or tries to get rid of the small businessman--such as in the case of the gentleman from Springfield whom my friend Dick Durbin talked about--or when they deny coverage or when they tell you because you have a preexisting condition that you can't get coverage or they are not renewing your proposal or whatever?

We understand there needs to be a check on the insurance companies. Left alone, they will not provide the kind of low-cost, full health care many Americans need. And when we propose a public option, we are proposing someone to keep a check on them. That is the only point. If we had complete faith in the insurance companies, we wouldn't be debating a public option. If we had complete faith that, left on their own, when an individual had the situation of an illness and their costs went way up, they would say: Sure, we are going to take care of you, you signed the contract when you were healthy and now you are sick--and sometimes that happens. I am not saying it never happens, not for sure. But what about all the instances when it doesn't? What about the worry the rest of us have? And praise God, we are healthy, but it might happen. There has to be a check on the insurance companies, and that is what the so-called public option does.

Insurance companies are part of the free enterprise system, and it is a great system, but the goal of the insurance company--it is probably in their charters, but it is how our system works--is to maximize profits to their shareholders by producing a good product. But we all know, particularly when it comes to health, that system has major flaws. It sometimes works and it sometimes doesn't work.

If we thought only the private sector should provide health care, we wouldn't have Medicare. And I know there are some--way over on the right side--who would like to get rid of Medicare. If we thought private insurance on its own worked just fine, we wouldn't have fought for years for a patients' bill of rights. So this idea coming from the minority leader that we should have no check on the insurance companies, which is what we would have if we had no form of public option, isn't where the American people are, and it is certainly not where I am.

Some bring up--and I think it is a valid argument--well, if the government is involved--and by the way, what we are proposing here is not that the government take over health care. We are proposing that in this exchange where all kinds of insurances companies compete, there be at least one that doesn't put the profit motive above all else but has to put patients above all, a public option. It doesn't make a profit. And what we are saying is, if you believe in competition, why not let the public option compete? We do this in State governments. In State governments, if you are a State worker in some States, you can sometimes get a public plan or a private plan. The consumer chooses. And that is how it

should be. We are simply saying that, just as there are some who might say: I don't think there should be any private sector involved in health care, it should all be public--and many people think that is not the right view, as I know my friend from Kentucky does--many of us think it is just as wrong to say it should only be the private sector. Let's see who does a better job. Let them compete in the marketplace.

My view is this: There has to be a level playing field. You cannot give the public option such advantages that it overwhelms the private sector. The proposal that I have made and that others are looking at-- Senator Bingaman is one; my friends in the House, Congressmen Welch and Brady and Murphy--is to try to make the playing field level. The government won't just keep pouring money into the public option. It sets it up and then it has to compete. If the private sector needs reserves--God forbid there is catastrophic illness everywhere--then so will the public option. I am certain those of us who are interested in a public option are very interested in suggestions as to how to make the playing field level. But make no mistake about it, the public option is a different model. The public option will not have to make a profit. That is about 10, 12 percent. That money will go to health care for the patients. The public option will not have to merchandise and advertise. That is often 20 percent. So right off the bat, the public option has the same level playing field but has 30 percent of its revenues that can go to patient health care.

My friends on the other side say: Well, the public option isn't very efficient; it doesn't give enough direction, and direction to the right person, to cure this disease but lets people go all over. Well, if it is not, it is not going to work.

You know, if I were designing a health care system, I would even look carefully at single payer. I believe we do need control mechanisms, and I think the insurance companies themselves, no matter how we try to regulate them, will figure out ways around them. That is almost their mandate because their goal is to maximize profit. There is nothing wrong with that. But we are not going to get single payer here. We know that. And we are probably not even going to get something called Medicare For All, which would be a much more pure system that would not be, frankly, a level playing field. But just as we have to compromise and move to the center a little bit to get something done, so do my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Again, when they say no public option, it is the inverse of saying no private insurance companies. Let's see who does better in this exchange.

My view is this: The public option will have certain advantages. It won't have to make a profit, it won't have to advertise and merchandise. But on the other hand, it is going to have certain responsibilities. When Dick Durbin's friend from Springfield can't get insurance from a private company, the public option will be there, and that may be somewhat more expensive for them. Admittedly, we are going to try to pass laws to say the private insurance company has to keep Dick Durbin's friend, the small businessman who is paying for his own insurance, without a huge increase in cost. But if you believe, as I do, and I think most Americans do, that the private insurance company is not going to embrace this and say: Gee, this is great, this is costing us a ton of money and we have to report earnings for our shareholders, and we will try to find ways--there will be an intention of not covering people like that, and the public option will step into the lurch.

So this is a different model, no question about it. It is not just another insurance company that happens to be public. But it will be a level playing field. There will be a playing field where the private insurance companies will be under certain rules and the public option plan will be under certain rules. If the private company has to leave reserves, the public company will have to leave reserves. No one is seeking to unlevel the playing field, but we are seeking to keep the insurance companies honest. A public option will bring in transparency. When we know what the public option has to pay, we will say: Why isn't the private insurer paying the same? A public option will keep the insurance company's feet to the fire.

That is why President Obama feels so strongly about it. He said so in his letter. My friend from Iowa, Senator Grassley, said he is just being political. I don't think so. He knows the public option will work well. Maybe after 3 years, the public option fails and isn't needed. Fine. Fine. But I don't believe that will happen. But we are not going to, in the public option, just keep putting more and more government money in until it wipes out the insurance companies. That is not the intent. The intent is to have a robust market, such as we have in other States and some of the Federal systems, where many different plans compete, and one is a public option. There might also be co-ops, such as my friend from North Dakota has been advocating, but there will be plenty of private insurance companies.

I would say one other thing. My friends on the other side of the aisle say: Well, why can't we just have the private insurers compete and offer a whole lot of plans? We don't have that in the vast majority of States right now. We have a system where any private company can sell insurance. But in more than half our States--and I believe this statistic is right, but I will correct the record if it is not--the top two companies have more than 50 percent of the market. There is usually not unvarnished competition when you just leave it up to the private insurance companies but, rather, an oligopoly. And we all know what happens when there is not real competition: Price setting occurs. Price leadership is what the economists call it. Nobody tries to undercut on price. We have seen this with the oil industry, for instance, with our five big oil companies, and you don't get the kind of competition you would from a public option, even if there were only one or two insurance companies competing.

In conclusion, I would ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to, A, be openminded. We haven't said no this or no that. When you say no public option, you are saying we want to let the private insurance companies, under the guise of competition, run the show. And if you believe that will work, fine, but then you also should believe the public option won't be a threat to them. Some of us who are worried that, left to their own devices, the private insurance companies will not serve all or even most of the public as well as they should be served, are saying let there be the competitive advantage or the competition of a public option in a level playing field that has no particular built-in advantage but has a different model--no profit, no merchandising, no advertising, serve the patient first.

This debate will continue, but I would just say to my fellow Americans out there who might be listening to this, when you hear the other side say no public option, ask them: Then who is going to provide a check on the insurance companies? And do you believe the insurance companies, even with some government regulation, won't find their way out of the regulations or avoid the regulations or walk around them?

The debate will continue, Mr. President, and I appreciate the opportunity to address my colleagues.

Mr. President, I wish to confirm and agree with most of what the majority leader and our chairman have said. The bottom line is, this is a nomination that should be easy to study up on. The record is public. The record has been available from the day she was nominated. There are not thousands and thousands of pages given to us at the end of the days, as I know my colleague, the chairman, has said.

I would like to make one other point. I know my colleague, our ranking minority member, Mr. Sessions, said Alito took some 90 days. That is true. But that included both the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. If you look at the actual working days, it was much shorter, as it has been for every other Justice. Let me repeat. If we were to do what the minority leader asks, and not vote on this nomination until well after the September break, it would be the longest nomination proceeding we have had for the most publicly available and most concise record.

This is not somebody whom we have to dig and find out things about, because she has had 17 years--17 years--of Federal decisions at the district and at the court of appeals level, more than any other nominee to the Supreme Court in 100 years--in 70 years, excuse me. No, in 100 years for Federal and in 70 years for Federal and State because Justice Cardozo had 29 years on the State bench. The record is ample and the record is public. Given the staff that I know the Judiciary minority has, as chairman of the Rules Committee, any lawyer worth their salt could more easily research the whole record in less than a month. So, actually, Chairman Leahy has been kind of generous by delaying a week or two beyond that month.

Every day, as we speak now, there are, I daresay, tens of thousands of lawyers who have larger research dockets to do and are doing them in less

time. So the bottom line is very simple. One can only come to the conclusion that the reason for delay is delay alone, not needing time to study a public, ample record. So I would urge my colleagues on the other side to reconsider.

I have been told, at least on my subcommittee, that no one is going to participate in any meetings on anything. I don't know if that is true--I hope it isn't--that there is going to be an attempt to close down the Judiciary Committee on all the important issues we face.

I will yield to the Senator.

I believe my colleague from Massachusetts is correct.

Clearly, longer than Roberts--much longer than Roberts-- and somewhat longer than Alito. But Alito had both the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks that were counted in that time, and we all know people are busy celebrating the holidays.

Well, I thank my colleague, and I think his points are well taken. As I mentioned before, the bottom line is, any lawyer worth his salt--and there are many very qualified lawyers in the minority on the Judiciary Committee--could research this record within a month, easily--easily. Right now, in the buildings here in Washington and in the buildings in New York and in the buildings in Birmingham, AL, are lawyers who have far more extensive research to do in less time and they do it well.

I would be happy to yield.

I think my colleague from California makes an excellent point, and I would answer in the affirmative. We are not asking for more time. We are actually asking for less time, if you include vacation time.

It is not a situation like with Justice Roberts and even Judge Alito, where there were weeks and weeks before we were able to get private records that were available. No one has requested--Judge Sotomayor has not worked with the executive, so you don't have all those issues that have to be discussed and negotiated about executive privilege. She has a 17-year career on the bench. She has 3,000 opinions. If that is not an adequate record?

My office just in 2 days looked at every one, for instance, of the immigration asylum cases that were brought before her. There were 83--a pretty good sample, 83 percent. I don't recall the number, but there were a large number of cases, and 83 percent of the time we found she denied asylum to the immigrant applicant, which we concluded made it pretty clear that her fidelity to rule of law trumped her natural sympathy for the immigrant experience.

We just did that in a day or two. I don't have the kind of staff that my good friend, the Senator from Alabama, has. He should have it. He is the ranking minority Member. So it is very easy, given the number of staff, given the public record, given that there is no litigation or discussion about executive privilege--as there was with both nominee Alito and nominee Roberts--that a month seems to me to be ample time. The chairman, in his wisdom, to which I will defer, gave more than a month to the day of the nomination.

I am happy to yield to my colleague.

I thank my colleague.

If I might respond, with nominee Alito, now Justice Alito, there was a Christmas break. As I understand it, according to Chairman Leahy it was the majority, Republicans, who asked we go to that Christmas break, not the Democrats. In Justice Roberts' case, I believe Katrina intervened and everybody had to drop everything and work on the emergency of Katrina.

If you look at days where the record is available, and it has been available right from the get-go here, and no vacation, no intervening long recesses and things like that, the minority here, any Senator here, will have had more time to scrutinize this record than we have had for most other Judges. Again, underscored by the fact that the record is public, is open and ample.

No one has to go look for needles in a haystack to try to figure out the record of Judge Sotomayor. It is very extensive and ample. With Justice Roberts, we only had a few years where he was on the bench and all the rest of his record was in the executive and it took us weeks, I think--the chairman probably remembers this better than me--or months to get the record.

With that, I yield the floor. I know we want to get on with the vote.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Wednesday, June 10, 2009, at 2:30 p.m. to hear testimony on the nomination of John J. Sullivan to be a member of the Federal Election Commission.

For further information regarding this hearing, please contact Jean Bordewich at the Rules and Administration Committee, 202-224-6352.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Wednesday, June 10, 2009, at 3 p.m., upon completion of the FEC confirmation hearing, to conduct an executive business meeting to consider the nomination of John J. Sullivan to be a member of the Federal Election Commission.

For further information regarding this hearing, please contact Jean Bordewich at the Rules and Administration Committee, 202-224-6352.

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

Mr. President, under the previous order, on behalf of Senator Lieberman, I call up his amendment, which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill S. 1144 be discharged from the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and that it be referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., tomorrow, Thursday, June 4; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there be a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the second half; further, I ask following morning business the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 1256, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

Mr. President, tomorrow we will resume consideration of the tobacco regulation bill; the Burr-Hagan substitute amendment is pending and we hope to reach agreement to vote in relation to it tomorrow morning. Senators will be notified when any votes are scheduled.