Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have a request for a committee to meet during today's session of the Senate. It has the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

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

Committee on Finance

The Committee on Finance is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Monday, November 13, 2017, at 3 p.m., in SH-216 to conduct hearing on the ``Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.''

Mr. President, the last time Congress really did the big job that is before us right now was 1986. It did quite a bit to modernize the Tax Code. That was 30 years ago. In the generation since, the Tax Code has grown out of control. Everybody knows that. It has been a dream come true for accountants and lobbyists who make their living from certain provisions of that Tax Code. But for the American taxpayer, the gigantic Tax Code is not a dream, but a nightmare for most Americans.

This has helped the powerful and the well connected, but it has hurt American workers. It has hurt American industry, and it hurts America's ability to compete with the rest of the world.

The bill unveiled today takes a giant step forward to make our Tax Code simpler, fairer, and more competitive. It catches us up with our major trading partners, who have been lowering business tax rates while we stood still, and it keeps us uncompetitive. It will give us an opportunity to export more when we are competitive in the global economy.

This bill will also help bring back jobs and create new ones. It will boost American wages by promoting economic growth and incentivizing investment.

The centerpiece of the legislation is where it ought to be--in the center of our population, middle-class America, so it has middle-class tax cuts. The average middle-class family of four would see a tax cut of more than $1,400 and an increase in the child tax credit of $650-- above the $1,000 that is already there per child, which would mean real help for working parents.

Nearly doubling the standard deduction means that many lower income Americans will be removed from the tax rolls completely, and the tax filing season will be much simpler for millions more.

Small businesses will also see significant tax relief from the rate reduction on the individual side but also from an innovative, new small business income tax deduction. Two-thirds of the jobs in this country are created by those very same small businesses, and we ought to give them some better equity with big C corporations.

It will provide much needed tax relief to nearly all small businesses, down to the smallest family-owned corner store and family farmer.

Our bill recognizes the importance of small businesses in our economy. After all, as I just said, they are responsible for a majority of those new jobs. The tax savings they receive could be spent on a new hire. It could be spent on giving raises to employees in those same small businesses. It could be invested in a growing company. All of this adds up to Americans seeing more ``Now Hiring'' signs throughout our country.

Landmark tax relief during the Kennedy and Reagan administrations grew wages, created jobs, and made the United States more competitive, so there is enough history behind what we are trying to do to know that it will accomplish the goals we are trying to accomplish.

Today, Congress has a golden opportunity to do, again, what was done in Kennedy and the Reagan years, and it has not been done for 30 years: tax cuts, tax simplification, and tax reform.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I join my colleague, the ranking member of the Rules Committee, as she seeks unanimous consent to adopt our antiharassment training resolution. It is closely modeled on a Senate resolution I introduced 2 days ago with Senators Feinstein, Klobuchar, Ernst, Gillibrand, and several other colleagues.

This resolution's adoption marks the first time that this Chamber requires sexual harassment training for all Senators, staff, interns, and fellows.

I wrote legislation on this topic after contacting the Rules Committee chairman last week to urge that everyone in this Chamber receive antiharassment training. This measure's passage with the Rules Committee chairman's support, just days after I called for the Rules Committee to institute a harassment training requirement for this chamber, is a sign of the wonderful things we can accomplish when we work together in a bipartisan way.

More than two decades ago, I sponsored the Congressional Accountability Act as a sign of our commitment to promoting fairness in the workplace. This 1995 statute requires Congress to follow the same civil rights, labor, workplace safety, and health laws to which other employers are subject.

It is certainly time for us to make antiharassment training mandatory, but we also may want to revisit the statute to ensure that it is working as intended. According to the Washington Post, over 1,000 former staff have contacted Congress in the last week to urge that we revisit policies relating to sexual harassment, and I am fully committed to doing so.

The resolution we have developed would ensure that the Rules Committee has the authority necessary to ensure that every Member of this Chamber, every employee on the Senate payroll, and every unpaid Senate intern receives antiharassment training.

All of us work hard to ensure that our offices are professional, free of harassment, and places where merit is rewarded, but I think we have to acknowledge that in our society, despite our best efforts and intentions, sexual harassment remains a serious problem. We must work together to make sure that the Senate remains free from harassment.

It is important for every Senate office to have a consistent stance on this particular issue. Every office should receive the same training so the Senate maintains a culture in which harassment is not tolerated. This is a common interest we all share. The voters who sent us here expect the best. We owe it to the American people to hold ourselves and our employees to the highest standards of conduct and professionalism.

I will close by again thanking Senators Klobuchar, Feinstein, Ernst, and others for working so closely with me on the measure's development. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the staff of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment and the Office on Compliance, who worked with our offices on draft after draft of this resolution. Finally, I want to thank our other cosponsors, including our majority leader and minority leader. I urge my colleagues to embrace a sensible approach to preventing sexual harassment by supporting its immediate adoption.

Mr. President, today the Senate will confirm Steven Engel to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel.

The Office of Legal Counsel, which we refer to as the OLC in the Judiciary Committee, functions as legal advisor to the President and executive branch agencies, providing advice on complex questions of constitutional and statutory interpretation. The OLC essentially serves as the general counsel to the executive branch.

Mr. Engel is well equipped to lead that office, both from the standpoint of academics and from the standpoint of background. Mr. Engel received his undergraduate degree from Harvard, his master's of philosophy from Cambridge University, and his law degree from Yale Law School.

Following his graduation, Mr. Engel clerked for Judge Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Mr. Engel joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis after clerking for Justice Kennedy. Mr. Engel's practice focused on appellate and commercial litigation matters.

In 2006, Mr. Engel joined the OLC as counsel to the Assistant Attorney General at that time and was later promoted to Deputy Assistant Attorney General. There he provided legal advice to the Attorney General, to the White House counsel, and other executive branch clients on a variety of legal matters.

In 2009, Mr. Engel joined the law firm of Dechert as a partner in the white collar and securities litigation group and later in that same firm as a member of the complex commercial litigation group.

Mr. Engel's nomination has broad support across the legal community. The Senate Judiciary Committee received a number of letters in support of his nomination. One such letter is signed by former Attorneys General Mukasey and Gonzales, as well as former Deputy Attorneys General Filip, Morford, and McNulty. Other letters of support were received from his coclerks on the Supreme Court, a group of Mr. Engel's former colleagues, Yale Law School classmates, and Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith. Mr. Engel also received an endorsement from the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association of the city of New York, which is the largest police union in New York City.

Another letter from former senior government officials and legal officers of the executive branch, including Kenneth Wainstein and Michael Hayden, noted their ``enthusiastic support'' for Mr. Engel's nomination. Wainstein and Hayden wrote: ``We are confident that as head of OLC, Steve will render legal opinions with the highest level of professional integrity and according to his best understanding of what the law and the Constitution require.''

Mr. Engel and I met this summer, and we discussed the importance of congressional oversight and the essential role played by Members of this body and the House of Representatives. He assured me that he agreed that each Member, whether or not a chairman of a committee, is a constitutional officer entitled to the respect and best efforts of the executive branch to respond to his or her requests for information. Further, he committed to review the May 1, 2017, OLC opinion on this very issue and to consider whether a more complete analysis of the issue is necessary.

You may remember that my interest in this whole thing goes back to early in this new administration, when people working for the President and presumably speaking for the President said that the only oversight letters that would be responded to would be those from chairmen of committees. Now, you can imagine that leaves out

at least 30-some Republicans that would never get answers to their oversight letters, and it would leave out 48 Democrats that would never get answers to their letters. Consequently, most of Congress would not be able to do their constitutional role of oversight, making sure that the executive branch is in enforcing the laws and spending the money according to what we require. So I raised that issue through a 7-page letter to the White House, and they came and visited with me about it.

I think they had some misunderstanding of what oversight was all about. They wrote a letter that said they are going to respond to every Member of Congress on oversight issues, which satisfies me from the standpoint of their intent.

As I just said in my remarks here, Mr. Engel committed to review that May 1, 2017, OLC opinion on this issue and to consider whether a more complete analysis of the issue is necessary because every Member of Congress should be able to do oversight, and every Member of Congress ought to expect an answer to their letters from the executive branch of the government, whether they are a chairman or not, whether they are a Republican or not, whether they are a Member of the House or a Member of the Senate. I want to make sure that we follow through on this, although I will give this administration credit for almost totally reversing an opinion that they issued way back in May.

The head of OLC is a highly important role at the Department of Justice, and it is a role whose importance is felt throughout the Federal Government. Just to show you how it is felt throughout the entire government, let me tell you that they issued an opinion in the previous administration on something to do with the work of inspectors general throughout the government, previously, or maybe originally, intended to say what the inspectors general could demand or not demand. We understand that the law passed in 1979 says that an inspector general can be entitled to any information he wants from that department, but they issued an opinion--the OLC person at that time-- along the lines of, well, there are some areas that maybe the head of the agency has to review, which means that the 1979 law isn't being carried out in the spirit. That is kind of an example because that opinion from the Justice Department was used by general counsels throughout the administration of Obama to keep Congress from doing its oversight work. That is how important the person who is the head of the Office of Legal Counsel is in determining what goes on in the executive branch of government--enough to stifle the oversight work of the Congress of the United States or the work of the inspectors general of each department.

So I see Mr. Engel as a person who is going to be a friend of congressional oversight and, if he isn't, I am going to be very, very disappointed. He has satisfied me through his testimony before our committee and through the promises he made in letters to me and in the privacy of my office that he is going to do that. So we are ending up with a Mr. Engel who is, as you can see, very well qualified to take on such a role as Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel.

I urge my colleagues to support Mr. Engel's nomination and confirm him to this important position.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, allegations of sexual harassment against a growing number of people have surfaced recently. Some facing the accusations have issued public apologies, while others have maintained their innocence. But the allegations continue to mount, and as each new one surfaces, so grows my concern about whether we're doing enough to combat this problem.

There are many things on which members of this chamber don't agree, but one thing on which we can and should agree is this: sexual harassment has no place in the workforce. And it certainly has no place in the halls of Congress.

To signal how seriously I take this issue, I last week called on the Senate Rules Committee to impose a requirement of sexual harassment training for every employee in this chamber. Today, I'm introducing a bipartisan resolution to ensure that the Rules Committee has the authority necessary to ensure that every member of this chamber, every employee on the Senate payroll, and every unpaid Senate intern receives anti-harassment training.

This is not an onerous requirement, and it's one that's long overdue. Training materials on harassment already exist, thanks to the Congressional Office of Compliance and our Office of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment. It's already mandatory for my Judiciary Committee staff and personal office staff to take anti-harassment training. The executive branch and some private employers already have instituted similar training requirements for their employees.

More than two decades ago, I sponsored the Congressional Accountability

Act as a sign of our commitment to promoting fairness in the workplace. This 1995 statute requires Congress to follow the same civil rights, labor, workplace safety, and health laws to which other employers are subject. The law also established our Office of Compliance to implement the law's dispute resolution, education, and enforcement provisions for Congress. That office not only mediates sexual harassment complaints but also has developed sexual harassment training for congressional offices. The Office of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment also makes anti-harassment training available to Senators and staff.

The resolution I'm introducing today also calls for the Sergeant at Arms to develop an anonymous survey on the prevalence of sexual harassment in the Senate. This survey, which will be conducted every two years, is to be developed in consultation with the Office of Compliance and Office of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment.

I have tremendous respect for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I believe each of you works hard to ensure that your offices are professional, free of harassment, and places where merit's rewarded. But I think we have to acknowledge that in our society, despite our best efforts and intentions, sexual harassment remains a serious problem. And we must work together to make sure that the Senate remains free from harassment.

Some may say that policies regarding sexual harassment should be left to the discretion of each office. But I believe it's important for every Senate office to have a consistent stance on this particular issue. Every office should receive the same training so the Senate maintains a culture in which harassment is not tolerated. This is a common interest we all share. The voters who sent us here expect the best. We owe it to the American people to hold ourselves and our employees to the highest standards of conduct and professionalism.

Mr. President, I want to close by thanking Senators Feinstein, Klobuchar, Ernst, and Gillibrand for working so closely with me on the development of this resolution. I urge my colleagues to embrace a common sense approach to preventing sexual harassment by supporting its passage.

Mr. President, we are about to vote on our fourth circuit court nominee this week, and I am glad to speak in support of the nomination of Professor Bibas to serve on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That court sits in Philadelphia. Professor Bibas is a highly qualified nominee. His background as a well-regarded legal scholar and Supreme Court advocate will serve him well as a judge on that circuit.

Additionally, Professor Bibas received a rare, unanimously ``well qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association. My Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee have expressed to me that the ABA's ratings are very important to their evaluation of nominees. Yet all of the Democratic members of the committee voted against Professor Bibas in the committee, despite his having received the highest rating possible. This is consistent with their votes against Professor Amy Barrett, Justice Joan Larsen and Justice Allison Eid, all of whom received ``well qualified'' ratings. It appears that my Democratic colleagues don't actually treat the ABA's ratings as particularly important when it comes right down to practice.

Professor Bibas is the son of a Greek immigrant who came to this country after surviving the Nazi occupation of Greece. He boasts impressive academic credentials. He graduated from Columbia University at the age of 19. He then received degrees from the University of Oxford and Yale Law School. After law school, Professor Bibas clerked for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and then for Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Following these prestigious clerkships, Professor Bibas became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. His experience as a prosecutor gave him a firsthand view of the problems and injustices in the American criminal justice system. He decided to pursue a career as an academic, focusing then on improving the criminal justice system for all involved.

Professor Bibas's first stint as a professor was in my home State of Iowa at the University of Iowa College of Law. He taught criminal law and procedure there for 5 years. We were certainly lucky to have a professor of his caliber. Professor Bibas then took a position on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he has been teaching since.

Professor Bibas has been prolific in his academic writings, publishing numerous articles on all aspects of criminal law. His academic work culminated in the publication of his book entitled ``The Machinery of Criminal Justice.'' That book was published in 2012. In this book and in many of his articles, Professor Bibas criticized the current model of bureaucratic ``assembly line'' justice and America's high incarceration rate. Much of his work is devoted to finding solutions to these problems. His academic work has certainly had an impact on the law. In fact, Professor Bibas is one of the most cited law professors in judicial opinions. One study shows that he is the 15th most cited legal scholar by total judicial opinions, and he is the fifth most cited in the area of criminal law--not bad for a relatively young professor.

Professor Bibas has also had a positive impact on colleagues and students. The Judiciary Committee received a letter from 121 law professors throughout our country representing a diverse range of viewpoints. These professors support Professor Bibas's nomination, pointing to his--and this quote comes from the letter--``influential contributions to criminal law and procedure scholarship,'' as well as his ``fair-mindedness, conscientiousness, and personal integrity.''

Professor Bibas also received a letter in support of his nomination from many colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania. They stated that he has been ``an outstanding scholar, teacher, and colleague'' at Penn.

Professor Bibas also has extensive litigation experience. He is currently the director of the University of Pennsylvania Law School's Supreme Court Clinic. In this role, he and his students have represented numerous litigants who could not otherwise afford top- flight counsel. He has argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court, and he obtained a significant victory in the landmark case of Padilla v. Kentucky, which established a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to accurate information about deportation before pleading guilty.

One of our Supreme Court Justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a personal letter to Professor Bibas that the Judiciary Committee received, called him one of the ``very best lawyers presenting cases to the Court.'' It is kind of nice, if you are considered kind of a strict constructionist, that you get a letter like that from one of the more activist members of the Supreme Court.

Some of my Democratic colleagues criticize Professor Bibas during his confirmation hearing for two really isolated events in the long and illustrious career he has had.

First, Democrats criticized Professor Bibas for prosecuting a minor theft of only $7 when he was an assistant U.S. attorney. This case took place nearly 20 years ago. But it was Professor Bibas's supervisor who made the decision to charge the defendant and, of course, required an underling by the name of Bibas to pursue the case even after it started to fall apart.

In his hearing, Professor Bibas readily acknowledged that the defendant should not have been prosecuted, and the professor stated this to our committee:

I learned from that mistake, and as a scholar, I have

dedicated my career to trying to diagnose and prevent the

causes of such errors in the future--inadequate Brady

disclosure, new prosecutor syndrome, tunnel vision, jumping

to conclusions, partisan mindsets. And I have testified

before this committee on those very issues. And so I made a

mistake. I apologized. I learned from it, and I have tried to

improve the justice system going forward.''

Some of my colleagues have also criticized Professor Bibas for a single article that he wrote but never published. This article endorsed limited forms of corporal punishment as an alternative to lengthy prison sentences. But Professor Bibas reconsidered this idea soon after completing the article. He concluded that it was a bad idea and did not publish it. He completely disavowed the position in his book published shortly thereafter.

When asked about corporal punishment at his hearing, Professor Bibas stated:

It is wrong. It is not American. It is not something I

advocate. I categorically reject it.

Additionally, Professor Bibas's position on corporal punishment was well-intended. He was motivated to address overly harsh and unproductively long prison sentences. As he said at his hearing, he wanted to offer an answer to the question, ``Is there some way, any way, we can avoid the hugely destructive effect [of imprisonment] both on prisoners' own lives and on the families, the friends, the communities?''

In the time since Professor Bibas wrote the article, he has offered more creative solutions to the disruptions caused by lengthy prison sentences. As an example, instead of suffering through forced indolence, prisoners could work and develop work-related skills in anticipation of their release from prison.

Professor Bibas's scholarship, as I have stated and quoted from, is a testimony to his devotion to the rule of law and the notion of equal justice before the law. It is very clear that he cares very deeply about how the criminal justice system impacts defendants, victims, families, and entire communities. As you can tell, I am very confident that Professor Bibas will make an excellent judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today Senators Klobuchar, Tillis, Schumer, Durbin and I will introduce legislation to help America's families locate missing loved ones who have Alzheimer's disease, autism or related conditions that may cause them to wander. Congressman Chris Smith will introduce a virtually identical companion bill in the House of Representatives today as well.

Our bill, which was introduced for the first time in the 114th Congress, extends an existing program that helps locate individuals with Alzheimer's disease or dementia. It also adds new support for people with autism.

We have named the legislation in honor of two boys with autism who perished because their condition caused them to wander. One of these children, nine-year-old Kevin Curtis Wills, slipped into Iowa's Raccoon River near a park and tragically drowned in 2008. The other, 14-year- old Avonte Oquendo, wandered away from his school and drowned in New York City's East River a few years ago.

Theirs are not isolated cases. Just a few months ago, a four year-old with autism drowned in a pool after wandering away from her caretakers. We've all read or heard the heartbreaking stories of families frantically trying to locate a missing loved one whose condition caused him or her to wander off.

Our bill will give communities the tools they need to help locate people with Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia as well as children with autism spectrum disorders who wander away from their families or caregivers and into dangerous situations.

My home State of Iowa has the fifth highest Alzheimer's death rate in America and we have about 63,000 Iowans living with the disease, according to the Alzheimer's Association. Additionally, the CDC identified 1 in 68 children across the country as having autism spectrum disorders. In Iowa alone, about 8,000 individuals have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.

This bill will make resources available to equip first responders, law enforcement officials, and other community leaders with the training and tools necessary to better prevent and respond to these cases as soon as possible. With better information sharing, communities can play a central role in reuniting autistic children and other individuals who wander with their families.

Finally, the bill will ensure that local law enforcement agencies and nonprofits that educate and train people on how to proactively prevent and locate missing individuals who wander are eligible for grants from the U.S. Department of Justice. These grants will facilitate the development of training and emergency protocols for

school personnel, supply first responders with additional information and resources, and make local tracking technology programs available for individuals who may wander from safety because of their condition. Grant funding may also be used to establish or enhance notification and communications systems for the recovery of missing children with autism.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, which in the 114th Congress passed the Senate unanimously. The House companion bill garnered over 90 cosponsors and passed the other chamber by vote of 346 to 66 in the 114th Congress. Our bill has been endorsed by, among others, the Autism Society of Iowa, Autism Speaks, the National Autism Association, SafeMinds, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, ANCOR (American Network of Community Options), National Autism Society of America, the Alzheimer's Impact Movement, the National Down Syndrome Society, and the Color of Autism Foundation.

Mr. President, today Senators Klobuchar, Tillis, Schumer, Durbin and I will introduce legislation to help America's families locate missing loved ones who have Alzheimer's disease, autism or related conditions that may cause them to wander. Congressman Chris Smith will introduce a virtually identical companion bill in the House of Representatives today as well.

Our bill, which was introduced for the first time in the 114th Congress, extends an existing program that helps locate individuals with Alzheimer's disease or dementia. It also adds new support for people with autism.

We have named the legislation in honor of two boys with autism who perished because their condition caused them to wander. One of these children, nine-year-old Kevin Curtis Wills, slipped into Iowa's Raccoon River near a park and tragically drowned in 2008. The other, 14-year- old Avonte Oquendo, wandered away from his school and drowned in New York City's East River a few years ago.

Theirs are not isolated cases. Just a few months ago, a four year-old with autism drowned in a pool after wandering away from her caretakers. We've all read or heard the heartbreaking stories of families frantically trying to locate a missing loved one whose condition caused him or her to wander off.

Our bill will give communities the tools they need to help locate people with Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia as well as children with autism spectrum disorders who wander away from their families or caregivers and into dangerous situations.

My home State of Iowa has the fifth highest Alzheimer's death rate in America and we have about 63,000 Iowans living with the disease, according to the Alzheimer's Association. Additionally, the CDC identified 1 in 68 children across the country as having autism spectrum disorders. In Iowa alone, about 8,000 individuals have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.

This bill will make resources available to equip first responders, law enforcement officials, and other community leaders with the training and tools necessary to better prevent and respond to these cases as soon as possible. With better information sharing, communities can play a central role in reuniting autistic children and other individuals who wander with their families.

Finally, the bill will ensure that local law enforcement agencies and nonprofits that educate and train people on how to proactively prevent and locate missing individuals who wander are eligible for grants from the U.S. Department of Justice. These grants will facilitate the development of training and emergency protocols for

school personnel, supply first responders with additional information and resources, and make local tracking technology programs available for individuals who may wander from safety because of their condition. Grant funding may also be used to establish or enhance notification and communications systems for the recovery of missing children with autism.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, which in the 114th Congress passed the Senate unanimously. The House companion bill garnered over 90 cosponsors and passed the other chamber by vote of 346 to 66 in the 114th Congress. Our bill has been endorsed by, among others, the Autism Society of Iowa, Autism Speaks, the National Autism Association, SafeMinds, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, ANCOR (American Network of Community Options), National Autism Society of America, the Alzheimer's Impact Movement, the National Down Syndrome Society, and the Color of Autism Foundation.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that I have 25 minutes.

Mr. President, I would like to address the issue we are voting on in a few minutes. The Senate will vote on the nomination of Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen to serve on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Though she currently lives in Michigan, Justice Larsen was born in and hails from my State of Iowa. In fact, she and I share the same alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa, for our bachelor's degrees. I have also learned, since meeting Justice Larsen, that her father was the longtime CEO of the Lutheran Services in Iowa. He is now retired, but during the time he was the CEO, he was the very same person with whom I often met for breakfast when he would come to Washington to tell us about the concerns of the Lutheran Services in Iowa. At that time, I never knew I might be speaking in favor of his daughter. I didn't even know of his daughter at that time. So I am proud to see a fellow Iowan and such an eminently qualified nominee be nominated to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

For those who may not be familiar with her career and accomplishments, a few minutes will give me an opportunity to share them with you. I think you will find, as I have, that Justice Larsen is particularly well suited to serve as a Federal appellate judge.

Justice Larsen has an outstanding academic record, having received numerous awards during her undergraduate and law school careers. Justice Larsen was a Presidential Scholar at the University of Northern Iowa and graduated with the highest honors. She graduated first in her class at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where she won the Justice John Paul Stevens Award for Academic Excellence and served as editor of the Northwestern University Law Review.

She began her legal career as a clerk for Judge Sentelle on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and then clerked for Justice Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. Following her clerkships, Justice Larsen joined the DC firm of Sidley Austin, one of the largest law firms in the United States. Justice Larsen spent 2 years as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, where she provided legal advice to the President and executive agencies on difficult issues of constitutional and statutory interpretation.

Justice Larsen has taught constitutional law and criminal law at the University of Michigan Law School since 1998, where she has earned the respect of faculty members and students alike. She won the L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching early in her teaching career. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Justice Larsen ran Michigan's clerkship program, helping hundreds of students and alumni pursue clerkships at the Federal and State levels. As an adjunct professor, she continues to run the law school's Moot Court Program.

Her colleagues at the University of Michigan praised Justice Larsen and wrote:

Even among the talented and ambitious lawyers at an elite

law school, Joan stands out for her ability to make the

penetrating insight that untangles some knotty problem of

statutory interpretation or judiciary doctrine. Especially

distinctive, moreover, is the rigor and even-handedness she

brings to her analysis.

I will share one more example from that letter because I think it addresses some of my colleagues' concerns, who are on the other side of the aisle, as to her approach to the law.

Her colleagues wrote:

For those of us who have found ourselves on the opposite

side of a debate with Joan about a case, a statute, or some

broader issue of constitutional history, she has demonstrated

time and again that she is both a gracious and intellectually

honest partner in the collaborative project of figuring

things out. What matters for Joan is not winning but working

out the right answer.

Now I bring emphasis to this last sentence.

Even when you disagree with her, it is impossible not to

respect her and to take pleasure in the process of refining

the issues actually in dispute.

In other words, as I see it, Justice Larsen is and will be a jurist who seeks to find the right answer, never simply one she prefers as a matter of policy.

We can already see from her time on the Michigan Supreme Court that Justice Larsen is a principled jurist with an impressive legal acumen. She has served with distinction on that court since she was appointed in 2015. It happens that she was elected to the position in 2016, in her own right, by a resounding majority, winning every county in Michigan. Colleagues on the court have praised her sharp legal analysis, her clear and crisp writing, and, most importantly, her work ethic.

Outside the courtroom, Justice Larsen is actively involved in volunteer efforts to serve disadvantaged children, and she works with Michigan's veterans, drugs, sobriety, and mental health court programs.

Some of my colleagues have said they will not support the nomination

because Justice Larsen was included on President Trump's short list for the Supreme Court. Is there anything wrong with the President suggesting whom he is going to put on the Supreme Court if he is elected President? If you look at her background, it should be no surprise that she was included on that list. She is an accomplished legal academic, a mainstream jurist, and is well respected on a bipartisan basis throughout the legal community.

Because my colleagues have been concerned about everyone on that list, at her hearing, I asked Justice Larsen when she learned that her name was on that list. She replied: ``The date it was announced . . . it was a complete surprise to me.''

I also asked her about judicial independence and whether she could rule against the President who nominated her.

She replied:

I would have no trouble ruling against the President who

appointed me or any successor President as well. Judicial

independence means one thing, one very simple thing--

At this point I want to emphasize--

and that is putting the law above everything else, the

statutes passed by this body, and the Constitution of the

United States. So I would have absolutely no trouble, and,

indeed, that would be my duty.

Here is the most outrageous reason I have heard for voting against Justice Larsen. This should surprise a lot of people. Some in the minority have suggested that she is somehow responsible for outside groups running ads that support her nomination in Michigan. The claim that she is responsible for the action of an outside group is ridiculous, and the allegation that these ads are in some way a guarantee of how she will rule in the future is the most absurd thing I have heard based upon her answers to my questions.

I find it interesting that my colleagues who are complaining about conservative groups do not seem to have the same concern for groups on the left that are spending money in opposition to these nominees. One such group, Alliance for Justice, routinely issues reports and press releases on judicial nominees. Oftentimes, these so-called reports put forward incendiary and false criticisms of these nominees. My colleagues even make the same incendiary attacks against the nominees as these outside groups do. In other words, they use the same talking points. I do not hear that my colleagues on the other side are up in arms about their spending millions of dollars to oppose nominees.

Of course, some may remember that last year groups on the left coordinated attacks on this Senator. I was followed all over Iowa by these groups and their members. They ran ads against me and put up billboards that opposed my election, and that had something to do with the Supreme Court, as one might recall. I don't remember hearing any of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle complain about all of the money those groups were spending at that time.

As I have said before, I expect that outside groups on the left and on the right want to have their voices heard in the nomination process. Isn't that something to do with what we call democracy, representative government, freedom of speech, freedom of association? There is nothing wrong with that, whether it is done by the right or the left, but I take issue with complaints from the other side that do not acknowledge that all sides have interest groups that are spending and engaging in the judicial nomination process. It was completely appropriate for Justice Larsen not to wade in on the political debate regarding those political ads. Her answers to those questions were exactly what I would expect an independent nominee to say, particularly if she wants to be independent of any President who appoints her when she is appointed to the bench.

Justice Larsen's nomination is supported by a broad and diverse coalition of lawyers, judges, and academic colleagues. It is easy to see why, for she is an accomplished and well-respected academic. She is a brilliant and independent jurist. Her careful and well-reasoned legal analysis puts her squarely within the mainstream of legal thought. I urge my colleagues, in a few minutes, to vote for her nomination.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I yield back all time.

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

Mr. President, tomorrow morning the Senate will vote on the nomination of Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid. She is going to be voted on to serve on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. She is an eminently qualified and exceptional nominee who has received widespread, bipartisan praise and support.

Justice Eid has spent over a decade on the Colorado Supreme Court. Before her appointment, she served as the Colorado State solicitor general. In that role, she represented the State before both Federal and State courts. She also served as a tenured faculty member at the University of Colorado School of Law, where she taught courses in constitutional law, legislation, and torts. Justice Eid practiced commercial and appellate litigation at Arnold and Porter. At the beginning of her legal career, Justice Eid served as a clerk for Judge Jerry Smith on the Fifth Circuit and as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Justice Eid was raised by a single mother, whom Eid credits for her significant personal and professional achievements. She earned a scholarship to Stanford and graduated with distinction and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Justice Eid received her law degree from the University of Chicago, where she graduated with high honors and Order of the Coif. She has had an impressive legal career, and she has an impressive life story.

In her long and celebrated tenure on the Colorado Supreme Court, Justice Eid has heard roughly 900 cases and written approximately 100 opinions. In 2008, 75 percent of Colorado voters retained Justice Eid to the Colorado Supreme Court.

Her nomination has also received wide, bipartisan support. As an example, Justice Eid's former clerks, who noted that they ``come from a diverse set of geographic, economic, cultural and political backgrounds,'' wrote a letter to the Judiciary Committee supporting her nomination. Judges work closely with their law clerks every day. Law clerks understand a judge's deliberative process and approach to the law better than anyone. How did these clerks describe Justice Eid? They said: ``She never fails to provide her full attention and dedication to each individual case, mastering the relevant facts and carefully analyzing the law, whether the text of a statute or the word of a contract.'' Her law clerks also wrote that she goes ``where the law takes her'' and that in their decade of collective experience in over 900 cases, Justice Eid ``treats each case individually without any preconceived notion of desired outcome.''

The National Native American Bar Association also endorsed Justice Eid. In their letter to the committee, they noted that she ``has demonstrated deep understanding of Federal Indian law and policy matters, as well as significant respect for the tribes as governments. Such qualities and experiences are rare among nominees to the federal bench.'' They went on to note that ``while we do not expect that Justice Eid will agree with tribal interests on every issue, we also believe that she is immensely well qualified and we are confident that Justice Eid is a mainstream, commonsense Westerner who will rule fairly on Indian Country matters.'' That is from the National Native American Bar Association. I think ``mainstream, commonsense Westerner'' is the perfect way to describe Justice Eid.

Despite this bipartisan support and her professional achievements, all the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee voted against her nomination in committee, and I suspect most of the minority will vote against her

confirmation when it comes up. That surprised me. Justice Eid received a majority ``well qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association, an outside group who evaluates judicial nominees. My colleagues on the other side claim that this group's ratings weigh very heavily in their decision to support or oppose a judicial nominee. In fact, my Democratic colleagues claim that these ratings should carry a great deal of weight with Senators, and they argue that the Judiciary Committee shouldn't hold hearings on nominees who have not yet received ABA ratings.

This week, we are voting on four circuit court nominees--including three women--who received ``well qualified'' ratings from the ABA. The American Bar Association rated two of these individuals unanimously ``well qualified.'' Yet the vast majority of my Democratic colleagues voted against the two nominees on whom we have already voted, and I am willing to bet that the other two nominees will see similar opposition from my Democratic colleagues.

Why do my Democratic friends profess such admiration for the American Bar Association's evaluation process and then vote against nominees who received the American Bar Association's ``well qualified'' rating? I would like to see them put their money where their mouth is or maybe, better yet, their vote where their mouth is. If my colleagues believe so strongly in the ABA evaluations, they should start voting for nominees who receive ``well qualified'' ratings, but I suspect they will not.

When the Judiciary Committee voted on Justice Eid's nomination, my Democratic colleagues really stretched to find reasons to oppose that nomination. One of the chief reasons given for opposition to her nomination centered on a quote in a Denver Post article that said Justice Eid has ``earned a reputation of one of [the Colorado Supreme Court's] most conservative members.'' I find that statement to be misleading. Of the seven justices on the Colorado Supreme Court, Justice Eid is one of only two justices appointed by a Republican Governor. To argue that she is somehow extreme just because she was not appointed by a Democratic Governor is very unfair.

Furthermore, the Denver Post published a subsequent article that disagreed with this characterization. By contrast, the more recent article stated that ``appointment by a Republican or Democrat does not always dictate the ideology of the justice. . . . Even categorizing justices as either conservative or liberal is generally an error.'' I would agree with the Denver Post on this point.

Justice Eid should not be evaluated by her ideological reputation but, rather, by how she approaches issues before her judiciary. That is how I have evaluated Justice Eid and other judicial nominees, and that is why I strongly support her confirmation today.

I am very proud to support the nomination of Justice Allison Eid. She is the third in a series of distinguished female circuit court nominees we have had the opportunity to vote on this week. Her impressive experience and numerous accomplishments speak to her qualifications for this role. I commend the President for nominating these outstanding and accomplished women to our circuit courts. Justice Eid is an exceptional nominee, and her record overwhelmingly supports her nomination. As a result, I will support her confirmation tomorrow, and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.

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

Mr. President, last month the Environmental Protection Agency--EPA--Administrator, Scott Pruitt, issued a directive to all Agency employees that prohibits the so-called sue-and-settle process. This is good news for good government.

Most of us here are familiar with the term ``sue and settle.''

These are tactics whereby the EPA has, in the past, resolved certain lawsuits against it through agreements negotiated behind closed doors with politically favored interest groups. As we saw under the Obama administration, some of these agreements committed the EPA to take far- reaching regulatory action, all without an adequate opportunity for those people most impacted to have a seat at the table, as would normally be done through the regulatory process.

Today, I come to the floor to applaud Administrator Pruitt's leadership in working to end these tactics, which make a mockery of laws that Congress has put in place to ensure a transparent and accountable regulatory process. The commonsense reforms outlined in Administrator Pruitt's directive will, no doubt, help restore transparency and accountability, and these reforms should stand as a prime example for all Federal agencies to follow.

Accordingly, I call upon President Trump to use his full authority through Executive order to ensure that similar reforms are adopted across the entire bureaucracy. Regulatory decisions that affect key parts of our economy should be made in an open, transparent, and, consequently, accountable manner. But as we have seen with sue and settle, Washington bureaucrats and their interest group pals would prefer to do things their own way.

It works like this. First, an interest group sues a Federal agency, claiming the agency has failed to take regulatory action required by law. Through the lawsuit, the interest group seeks to compel the agency to take action by a new, often rushed, deadline. These plaintiff interest groups often share a common regulatory agenda with the agency they sue, such as when an environmental group sues the EPA or the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Instead of challenging the lawsuit, the agency and the interest group enter into negotiations behind closed doors to produce either a ``settlement agreement'' or a ``consent decree'' committing the agency to take regulatory action. There is no transparency, no accountability, which you would get through normal regulation writing.

Noticeably absent from these negotiations are the very parties who will be most impacted, such as farmers, manufacturers, and even the 50 States themselves, which will be charged with enforcing some of these regulations. In 2010, for example, an environmental interest group sued the Obama administration EPA to force the agency to revise certain wastewater regulations.

Wouldn't it be nice to have the people who are affected by those regulations involved in the process in an open way--the way the Administrative Procedure Act is designed?

Oddly enough, the same day the lawsuit was filed, the plaintiff interest group submitted a consent decree already signed by the EPA, which committed the agency to take prompt regulatory action. Such a scenario should raise serious questions about how truly adversarial these lawsuits and negotiations are.

To add insult to injury, regulations that have resulted from sue-and- settle tactics impose tremendous costs on the American economy. According to the American Action Forum, from 2005 to 2016, 23 sue-and- settle regulations resulted in a cost burden of $67.9 billion, with $26.5 billion in actual costs. Sixteen of the rules imposed paperwork burdens on American job creators of more than 8 million hours. Think about that. Nearly $70 billion in regulatory costs were imposed on American business owners, manufacturers, farmers, and probably taxpayers, all without due regard for transparency and the normal rulemaking process required by the Administrative Procedure Act.

Decades ago, Congress enacted the Administrative Procedure Act for the sole purpose of ensuring transparency, accountability, and, more importantly, public participation in Federal rulemaking. The EPA has been described as the citizens' ``regulatory bill of rights.'' A pillar of the Administrative Procedure Act is the notice-and-comment process, which requires agencies to notify the public of proposed regulations and respond to comments submitted--in other words, transparency.

Rulemaking driven by sue-and-settle tactics frequently results in reprioritized agency agendas and rushed deadlines for regulatory action. This renders the EPA's notice-and-comment process a mere formality. It deprives regulated entities, it deprives the States, and most importantly, it deprives the American public of sufficient time to have any meaningful input on final rules. The resulting regulatory action is driven not by the public interest but by the special interest priorities.

Sue-and-settle tactics also help agencies avoid accountability for their actions. Instead of having to answer to the public for controversial regulatory decisions, agency officials will simply point to a court order and say that their hands are tied, when really they welcomed that process.

The American people deserve better, but don't just take my word for it. The Environmental Council of the States, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan association of State and territorial environmental agency leaders, adopted a resolution in 2013 entitled ``The Need for Reform and State Participation in EPA's Consent Decrees which Settle Citizen Suits.'' The rationale behind it

provides that ``state environmental agencies are not always notified of citizen suits that allege U.S. EPA's failure to perform its nondiscretionary duties, are often not parties to these citizen suits, and are usually not provided with an opportunity to participate in the negotiation of agreements to settle citizen suits.''

The Environmental Council of the States further resolved that ``greater transparency of citizen suit settlement agreements is needed for the public to understand the impact of these agreements on the administration of environmental programs.''

Obviously, I agree. We need more transparency, more accountability, and more voices at the table. In other words, the public's business ought to be public, not some new regulation agreed to behind closed doors. I am happy to say that this administration is working to accomplish that, thanks to Administrator Pruitt. In his own words: ``The days of this regulation through litigation . . . are terminated.''

His directive puts a swift end to sue-and-settle tactics by this one agency, the EPA. It does so by adopting commonsense reforms to promote transparency and public participation in the regulatory process. It requires the publication online of notices of lawsuits filed against the EPA. It requires the EPA to reach out and notify any States or regulated entities that will be affected by the lawsuit. It requires the EPA to seek the agreement of any affected State or regulatory entities before the agency can enter into a consent decree or settlement agreement. Further, it prohibits the EPA from entering into any consent decree or settlement that converts a discretionary duty of the agency into a mandatory duty to issue, revise, or amend a regulation. Most importantly, it requires the EPA to post online for public comment any proposed consent decrees or settlement agreements before they are entered into by the court.

These and other reforms in Administrator Pruitt's directive mark a very strong step toward ensuring that States, American job creators, and the public at large have a seat at the table when regulatory decisions are made, which is exactly why Congress passed the Administrative Procedure Act.

Before I close, I will add one more thing. Earlier this year, I introduced the Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act. This bill would make permanent the very types of reforms outlined in Administrator Pruitt's directive. If it becomes law, it can't be changed at some later date. In other words, it would ensure that future administrations can't simply roll back the great work Administrator Pruitt is doing through this directive.

I am pleased to hear that the House of Representatives just passed the companion bill introduced by Congressman Doug Collins. We will continue our work to build bipartisan support here in the Senate for this commonsense decree.

But, today, I urge President Trump to move forward with the example set by Administrator Pruitt because Administrator Pruitt is draining the swamp through this process. The President loves to sign Executive orders. He would probably do more good in draining the swamp by producing an Executive order like this than almost any other Executive order he could do.

There is simply no reason these reforms should be limited to just the EPA. Transparency and public participation are core elements of a more accountable government. Simply stated, they are part of the process of representative government, where people make the laws and where administrators carry out the laws, not where something is done behind closed doors because some special interest wants something or because the agency is begging to do something--which maybe someone doesn't want them to do--to get it done and to do it behind closed doors, just to work it out the way they want it and not necessarily the way it would be done if people were participating.

I applaud Administrator Pruitt's directive. I urge the President to promptly see to it that similar reforms are implemented across the administration.

So for a third time today, President Trump, issue an Executive order to all departments to do what Administrator Pruitt has done at the EPA.

Mr. President, I want to remind my colleagues that we annually commemorate National Domestic Violence Awareness Month in November. This is a time when we're called to increase public awareness and understanding of domestic violence.

Mr. President, today the Senate will vote on the nomination of Notre Dame Law Professor Amy Barrett to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She is an eminently qualified and exceptionally bright nominee who has received praise and support across the legal profession. She clerked for Judge Silberman on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court. She has experience in private practice and many years as a law professor teaching classes on constitutional Law, Federal courts, statutory interpretation, among others. She was appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts to sit on the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, where she served for 6 years.

Her nomination has also received wide support. For example, in a letter to the Judiciary Committee, a bipartisan group of law professors encouraged the committee to confirm her nomination, saying that Professor Barrett ``enjoys wide respect for her careful work, fair- minded disposition, and personal integrity.'' Her colleagues at Notre Dame described her ``as a model of the fair, impartial, and sympathetic judge.''

Despite this, all the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee voted against her nomination in committee, and I suspect most of the minority will vote against her confirmation later today. This, of course, is a shame, and it does not speak well of our institution, the U.S. Senate, and I would like to explain why.

When the Judiciary Committee voted on Professor Barrett's nomination, I listened to the reasons my colleagues gave for voting against her. Some said that she didn't have enough experience to be a circuit court judge. Well, the American Bar Association rated Professor Barrett as ``well qualified.''

The Democrats have said that the ABA's ratings are very important to them when considering a nominee, once even calling it the ``gold standard.'' Their votes certainly don't reflect that. I suspect the ratings don't actually matter to them since they have voted against most of the ``well qualified'' nominees this Congress. The minority has even requested that I not hold hearings on nominees when the committee hasn't received the ABA ratings for that nominee, as if the ABA--an outside group--can and should dictate the committee's schedule. But even when we have ``well qualified'' or ``qualified'' ratings from the ABA, the minority still votes against these nominees, so the actual significance of the rating to the minority doesn't make a lot of sense.

Furthermore, lack of appellate experience hasn't mattered before. When President Clinton nominated Justice Kagan to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, she had no appellate experience. But I remember my friend from Vermont saying that the Senate should vote on her nomination because she was an ``outstanding woman.'' Her lack of appellate experience didn't appear to be of concern to my friends in the minority at the time of Kagan's nomination coming before the committee, so I don't understand why the standard is different now.

Another reason some of my colleagues gave when voting against her is that they say she will disregard judicial precedent. Of course, if that is true, that would be a very serious consideration, but looking at all of Professor Barrett's writings and listening to the testimony she gave, not once did she say that circuit or district court judges could disregard precedent. In fact, during her hearing, she told the committee that she understood ``circuit judges to be absolutely bound by the precedent of the Supreme Court'' and that ``circuit courts are bound to follow the precedent of their own circuit.'' That doesn't sound like a nominee who will not respect precedent. In fact, she understands exactly the role of precedent and the limitations and restrictions placed on lower court judges.

Another Senator argued that she has written provocative things like ``A judge will often entertain an ideological bias that makes him lean one way or the other. In fact, we might safely say that every judge has such an inclination.'' I am not sure why this statement is provocative. I think everyone here knows that every person has their own biases and policy preferences, whether or not they are a judge. In writing this, Professor Barrett shows the awareness to recognize that every person comes to their job with personal biasses and views. This is especially important for judges to recognize about themselves. In fact, she is so self-aware that this is a potential problem for judges that she cowrote an article arguing that if a judge cannot set aside a personal preference in a particular matter before that judge, she shouldn't hear the case in the first place.

These comments come from an article about potential issues Catholic judges may face that Professor Barrett wrote in law school. The article was about Catholic judges but could have been written about the biasses of judges of any religion or of no religion at all. My friends in the minority have looked at a few of her comments from this article and seem to have concluded that she will base her judicial decisions off of what her religion teaches.

During her hearing, one Senator even implied that Professor Barrett could not separate her religion from her judicial decision making, but Professor Barrett had said and argued quite the opposite and had done it several times. She believes that it is highly inappropriate for a judge to use his own religious beliefs in legal reasoning. In fact, she concludes the very article the Democrats are concerned with this way: ``Judges cannot--nor should they try to--align our legal system with the church's moral teachings whenever the two diverge.''

I think opposition to her nomination ultimately comes down to the fact that her personal views about abortion do not line up with the minority's views about abortion. I knew the minority would ask her about her views on abortion, so during her nomination hearing, I took advantage of being the first to ask her if she would allow her religious views to dictate her legal decisions. She said that she would not. I also asked her if she would follow Supreme Court precedent involving abortion, and she simply and succinctly answered: ``Absolutely, I would.''

At her hearing, the statement was made--now, can you believe this?-- ``You are controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems.''

This statement alone is stunning to me for two reasons--first, that a nominee is controversial because she might share the views of over half the country, which is that abortion is wrong; second, that this statement amounts to a religious test. In response, Professor Barrett said over and over that she has no power to overrule Roe or any other abortion-related Supreme Court case nor does she have interest in challenging that specific precedent.

A further statement was made:

[R]eligion . . . has its own dogma. The law is totally

different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read

your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma

lives loudly within you, and that's of concern when you come

to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for

years in this country.

So the Democrats are saying that women who have personal beliefs that are consistent with their religions are not eligible to be Federal judges even

when they have assured the committee, as she did over and over again, that they strongly believe in following binding Supreme Court precedent. If that is the case--if the minority is enforcing a religious litmus test on our nominees--this is an unfortunate day for the Senate and for the country.

Others have spoken on the issue of a religious test, but I will remind my colleagues that the Constitution specifically provides that ``no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office under the United States.'' It is one of the most important founding principles. I do not think an evaluation of how religious a person is or how religious she might not be should ever be a part of that evaluation.

We have received many letters on this topic, including one from Princeton University's president, who is a former law clerk to Justice Stevens and happens to be a constitutional scholar. He writes that the questions the Democrats posed to Professor Barrett about her faith were ``not consistent with the principle set forth in the Constitution's `no religious test' clause'' and that the views expressed in her law review article on Catholic judges are ``fully consistent with a judge's obligation to uphold the law and the Constitution.''

Finally, this morning, my friend from Illinois justified the Democrats' questions to Professor Barrett in committee by noting that I also asked questions in the committee about her article, but there is a difference in simply asking a nominee if her religious views will influence her judicial decision making and trying to ascertain just how religious a nominee is by asking, ``Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?'' or by saying, ``The dogma lives within you.''

My questions gave Professor Barrett a chance to explain her law review article, which was an article I knew the Democrats would question her over. The other side's questions and comments went to figure out just how strongly she would hold to her faith, which was the inappropriate line of questioning.

I will make one more related comment. I mentioned this in the Judiciary Committee, but I think that it bears repeating on the floor because the issue will continue to come up.

Professor Barrett and a few other nominees have a relationship with or ties to the Alliance Defending Freedom group, which, as several Senators have recently pointed out, has been labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. When the nominees have been asked about this, they have pointed out that the Southern Poverty Law Center's designation is, in itself, highly controversial. I would say that it is completely unfounded. The ADF, Alliance Defending Freedom, is an advocacy organization that litigates religious liberty cases. It has won six cases in front of the Supreme Court in the past 6 years, including cases that are related to free speech and children's playgrounds. They are not outside the mainstream.

Any difference in viewpoint that folks may have with them boils down to, simply, policy differences, but dissent and a difference of opinion do not equal hate, and it is wrong to compare an organization like the ADF to that of the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi Party and, by extension, imply that the nominees before us sympathize with such actual hate groups.

Finally, I would note that the Southern Poverty Law Center designates the American College of Pediatricians and the Jewish Defense League as hate groups. So some of the Southern Poverty Law Center's designations appear to be discriminatory in and of themselves.

Professor Barrett is a very accomplished, impressive nominee, and we know that her personal story is compelling. She has seven children, several who were adopted from Haiti and one who has special needs. She is an accomplished attorney and a well-respected law professor. I will be strongly supporting her nomination today, and I urge every one of my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.