Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce the Law Enforcement Officers' Equity Act. This good-government bill will provide Federal law enforcement officers with the Federal benefits they deserve for their service. I thank Senator Rob Portman for being an original cosponsor of this bill.

There is perhaps no harder job in the United States than that of law enforcement officers. Each day, brave men and women work under tremendously stressful conditions to keep our communities safe. From apprehending violent criminals to arresting drug kingpins, these brave men and women in uniform put their lives on the line for a higher cause. We owe them our sincerest gratitude for their service.

Due to the high level of training required for their job and the ever-present danger in their profession, Congress determined that Federal law enforcement officers should receive higher salaries and enhanced benefits compared to other Federal employees. Unfortunately, due to a technical error,

nearly 30,000 Federal law enforcement officers classified as G5-0083 police officers do not receive enhanced benefits under the United States Code. As a result, certain officers who work for Federal agencies--such as the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Mint, National Institute of Health and many more--receive lower pensions as compared to other law enforcement officers with similar responsibilities. It makes no sense that postal police officers or any other Federal law enforcement officers receive less benefits even though they have the similar duties and functions as other law enforcement officers.

The Law Enforcement Officers' Equity Act would fill in this gap in the law and expand the number of Federal law enforcement officers who can receive benefits. The bill would expand the definition of ``law enforcement officer'' for retirement purposes to include all Federal law enforcement officers. The change would grant law enforcement officer status to the following individuals: employees who are authorized to carry a firearm and whose duties include the investigation or apprehension of suspected criminals; employees of the Internal Revenue Service whose duties are primarily the collection of delinquent taxes and securing delinquent returns; employees of the U.S Postal Inspection Service; and employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs who are Department police offices. These officers face the same risks and challenges as the men and women currently classified properly under Federal law as law

The Law Enforcement Officers' Equity Act would allow incumbent law enforcement officers' Federal service--after the enactment of the act-- to be considered service performed as a law enforcement officer for retirement purposes.

This legislation has the support of law enforcement groups, including the Fraternal Order of police, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers' Association, and the Law Enforcement Action Network.

Fundamental fairness demands that we close this loophole in Federal law and give all Federal law enforcement officers the retirement benefits they deserve-Trask my colleagues to support the Law Enforcement Officers' Equity Act, and I urge its speedy passage.

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce the Law Enforcement Officers' Equity Act. This good-government bill will provide Federal law enforcement officers with the Federal benefits they deserve for their service. I thank Senator Rob Portman for being an original cosponsor of this bill.

There is perhaps no harder job in the United States than that of law enforcement officers. Each day, brave men and women work under tremendously stressful conditions to keep our communities safe. From apprehending violent criminals to arresting drug kingpins, these brave men and women in uniform put their lives on the line for a higher cause. We owe them our sincerest gratitude for their service.

Due to the high level of training required for their job and the ever-present danger in their profession, Congress determined that Federal law enforcement officers should receive higher salaries and enhanced benefits compared to other Federal employees. Unfortunately, due to a technical error,

nearly 30,000 Federal law enforcement officers classified as G5-0083 police officers do not receive enhanced benefits under the United States Code. As a result, certain officers who work for Federal agencies--such as the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Mint, National Institute of Health and many more--receive lower pensions as compared to other law enforcement officers with similar responsibilities. It makes no sense that postal police officers or any other Federal law enforcement officers receive less benefits even though they have the similar duties and functions as other law enforcement officers.

The Law Enforcement Officers' Equity Act would fill in this gap in the law and expand the number of Federal law enforcement officers who can receive benefits. The bill would expand the definition of ``law enforcement officer'' for retirement purposes to include all Federal law enforcement officers. The change would grant law enforcement officer status to the following individuals: employees who are authorized to carry a firearm and whose duties include the investigation or apprehension of suspected criminals; employees of the Internal Revenue Service whose duties are primarily the collection of delinquent taxes and securing delinquent returns; employees of the U.S Postal Inspection Service; and employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs who are Department police offices. These officers face the same risks and challenges as the men and women currently classified properly under Federal law as law

The Law Enforcement Officers' Equity Act would allow incumbent law enforcement officers' Federal service--after the enactment of the act-- to be considered service performed as a law enforcement officer for retirement purposes.

This legislation has the support of law enforcement groups, including the Fraternal Order of police, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers' Association, and the Law Enforcement Action Network.

Fundamental fairness demands that we close this loophole in Federal law and give all Federal law enforcement officers the retirement benefits they deserve-Trask my colleagues to support the Law Enforcement Officers' Equity Act, and I urge its speedy passage.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to the following members of my staff. One is an incredible young person, Ariana Spawn: the other is a very special human being--this will be his first time ever on the Senate floor, so history for him--Zach ``Jersey Giant'' McCue.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize and pay tribute to New Jersey's heroic police officers and first responders. Their quick and decisive actions over one tense weekend this past September helped to apprehend a suspect in three bombings in New Jersey and New York, a potential terrorist attack on American soil in which one of the three bombings alone injured 31 people in Manhattan.

As they do every day, these police officers, firefighters, and first responders worked swiftly and efficiently to protect our communities from further harm. Their courage, spirit of service, and commitment to protecting our communities ultimately helped to apprehend an individual who, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was an admirer of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al Awlaki.

I greatly appreciate the efforts of the Linden, NJ, police officers who apprehended the suspect following a shootout between the suspect and law enforcement. Authorities located the suspect in Linden after a collective manhunt was organized by officers from Manhattan, Elizabeth, Linden, and communities along the Jersey Shore. A trial is now pending.

I am grateful for the close coordination of New York and New Jersey law enforcement at the municipal, county, State, and Federal levels. Everyone worked together and shared actionable intelligence in real time, which ultimately led to the capture of a suspect before more bombings could occur. This critical sharing of information, paired with the swift action of law enforcement, played a key role in preventing further casualties.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to the first responders who risk their lives each and every day for the safety of our communities. Our police officers and first responders represent the best of who we are as a nation, and we, as citizens, have an enduring responsibility to support them. As President Obama said during the hunt for the perpetrator of these bombings, ``We all have a role to play as citizens in making sure we don't succumb to that fear. And there's no better example of that than the people of New York and New Jersey.''

These American heroes answered our call when we needed them the most, and we stand together as a grateful nation in expressing our undying gratitude. Thank you.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to join a chorus of my colleagues in speaking out against the nomination of Steven Mnuchin to serve as Secretary of the Department of the Treasury.

What I believe is, if you look at Mr. Mnuchin's record, he has spent a lot of time benefiting from--in fact, even exploiting--families who are struggling homeowners in my State.

I would like to read into the Record a report by NPR from November of last year which makes his pattern stunningly clear.

During the depths of the financial crisis, Mnuchin was

looking to make profits from the ruins of the housing bust.

In 2009, he put together a group of billionaire investors and

bought a failed California-based bank called IndyMac. It had

been taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

after its sketchy mortgage loans went seriously bad.

Mnuchin and his partners bought IndyMac on the condition

that the FDIC agree to pay future losses above a certain

threshold. They renamed the bank OneWest Bank, and after

running it for 6 years, they sold it last year for a profit,

estimated at close to $1.5 billion.

Kevin Stein of the California Reinvestment Coalition, a

housing advocacy group, says that profit was made on the

backs of suffering Californian homeowners.

This is not in the text here, but homeowners who were suffering from a massive mortgage collapse that was created in many ways or stimulated by the greed and avarice of bad actors. I witnessed this myself in Newark, NJ, watching people feed upon a subprime mortgage environment where they were pushing bad loans on unsuspecting borrowers.

Back to the text:

In essence what they did is they bought a foreclosure

machine.

According to the coalition, OneWest foreclosed on more than

36,000 homeowners under Mnuchin. During that time, the FDIC

made payments to OneWest totaling more than $1 billion. Those

payments went to the billionaire investors of OneWest Bank,

says Stein, to cover the cost of foreclosing on working-class

everyday American folks, many of whom lived in California.

So this was what we saw at the height of the financial crisis. Mr. Mnuchin, already very wealthy, already very successful, did not see Americans struggling, did not join efforts to try to empower, support, or deal with this crisis. What he saw was an opportunity to take over a financial institution and continue, if not accelerate, the foreclosures that were going on.

It has become painfully clear that in what Mr. Mnuchin oversaw in the operations of this bank that, as its business model, he set out to explicitly mislead and manipulate homeowners into foreclosure.

This one article that I read has been repeated by organizations and by news outlets all over the spectrum, talking about how Mr. Mnuchin, in this environment, worked very hard to accelerate foreclosures and take advantage of this and make a profit. From elderly widows, the stories continue, to families, to small business owners, to Active-Duty servicemembers, there were many, many victims of Mr. Mnuchin's bank's predatory tactics, taking advantage of folks in a crisis, as opposed to trying to figure out a way to support folks through it.

I would like to read one more from the Minneapolis StarTribune, an article that documented one instance of the disturbingly prevalent practices of Mr. Mnuchin's company.

The headline reads: ``Negotiating on foreclosure, then locked out in a blizzard.''

A Minneapolis woman who was negotiating with a lender to

find a way to stay in her foreclosed house--

Stepping back from the text, this is someone who is working hard to do the right thing in negotiations.

Back to the text:

They arrived home from work during Tuesday night's blizzard

to find that the locks had been changed. After spending the

night at her mother's, Leslie Parks went Wednesday to

Hennepin County Housing Court, where a referee ordered that

she be allowed back into her mother's former duplex at 3749

Park Avenue while negotiations continued. Locksmiths on

Wednesday reconfigured the locks that had been changed

Tuesday by a contractor for OneWest Bank.

These are the kind of tactics that were being used, the kind of hardball tactics that were being used by Mr. Mnuchin's company that really undermined a lot of hard-working Americans from a variety of backgrounds in many, many different States.

His record is clear. Mr. Mnuchin not only advocated in support of this company and its tactics, but even now he talks about trying to roll back the kind of protections that have been put in place to try to protect average Americans. Many of them are in the Dodd-Frank legislation that helped to protect against the creation of an environment in which such predatory practices can take place.

This position that Mr. Mnuchin has been nominated for, which is the Secretary of Treasury, has a critical role within our economy. But one of those roles has to be the idea that average Americans will be protected from the kind of financial victimization that was going on during the recession--actually, which lead into the recession.

We see that we can prevent Wall Street from burdening Main Street with the costs while they reap the rewards. This is the broken system that we saw in the past that needs fixing and needs healing. We don't need one of the architects of the system that caused so much pain to be in one of the most important positions in our land.

The head of this vital agency must be someone who understands their responsibility to look out for the struggling American trying to make it by playing by the rules and someone who is qualified and willing to direct the Department to fiercely protect the economic security of our Nation, the economic well-being of the American people, and the integrity of our financial system.

I don't believe Mr. Mnuchin is that person. He has made it clear in his decades-long career that he is willing for a profit to work hard to exploit hard-working families and shortchange homeowners for that personal gain. This is unacceptable. Mr. Mnuchin has built a career and has reaped literally millions of dollars of success by pushing people, by exploiting people, and by hurting people.

The American people cannot afford to suffer through another financial crisis. We can't afford to have a master Wall Street manipulator put in the position that we should be relying on to protect us from that kind of financial manipulation.

This is a difficult economy where people in our country are still struggling under challenging financial

times. I believe that we can make a nation where people can do good and do well at the same time, where we should not elevate or celebrate people who really fed off of the misery and the challenges of others, but, instead, that we can have a nation where we put people, regardless of their political background, in positions like the Department of Treasury to celebrate the best of who we are, the best of our values-- people who are public servants, people who have shown a commitment to not only serve but even sacrifice for one another.

What we saw amidst this crisis--amidst a crisis that, in many ways, was aggravated and caused by greed and avarice in the mortgage industry and the banking industry, among rating agencies--was that many people showed who they were in a time of American struggle and American crisis. We saw with clarity where people's priorities were. Was it exploiting people? Was it manipulating systems for their own avarice and their own benefit, or was it for being there for our country, trying to make thing things better, trying to give people bridges that could carry them from financial struggle and strain to stability, or people that were trying to crumble those bridges and have people free fall in financial distress.

This is, unfortunately, what we see here today. We have President Trump trying to elevate someone who has not shown a record of someone who wanted to help but instead has shown a record of someone who wants to hurt. That to me is unacceptable, especially at this time where so many American families are still struggling to get back on their feet to find financial security and find the pathway to their American dream.

It is for this reason and more that I cannot support this nomination.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we have had a lot of long nights here, and I just want to take a moment again to really give my gratitude to the staff. A lot of folks go into making the Senate work. We can see a lot of them down here. I can't imagine the days that they have been pulling, as we have been pulling long nights. Many of them get here early in the morning and they go a long way. So I want to thank them, from the stenographers to many of the Senate staff who make it work.

I also want to thank the pages again. These are young folks who have to carry a full load of classes and course work--hard stuff. I don't understand why they haven't come to me to help them with their calculus homework. But the reality is they are working a full class load of courses as well as being here with us around the clock. They probably aren't caught by cameras. They aren't even getting C-SPAN glory. But your presence here really means a lot, and I am grateful for that as well.

I rise specifically to speak about the President's nomination of Congressman Price to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services.

I want to take a step back and talk about the profound history that the United States of America has in terms of our bringing together the resources of this country to combat public health crises. We have a country where every generation has been able to step up and take on things that threaten the common health.

There was a time in this Nation when we had actual child death rates that were tragically high, and that for an industrializing nation, our water, the quality of our milk, women dying in child birth, and children dying was a common thing. But we had this bold understanding that in America, a Nation that believes in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the common health is important. And we took steps that, frankly, in a booming industrial economy, the private sector couldn't do. We took steps to protect the public health, and we made great strides.

It was a Republican President, actually, in 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who actually created what was then a version of what is now the Department of Health and Human Services. Specifically, it was called the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Now, the very first Secretary was a woman, and her name was Colonel Oveta Hobby. She had served as the director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during the Second World War. She was, in my just great reverence, someone who served and fought for health and safety and security during World War II.

As Secretary, Secretary Hobby had an expansive and expanding role. It was a demanding role. She was coordinating the distribution of polio vaccine, overseeing countrywide hospital expansions, overseeing Social Security and the Federal education policy. She had a huge role, one that was so full that one newspaper joked that ``when she [actually] learns her job, Oveta Hobby may trim her week to just 70 hours.'' This was someone who went out there as an agent of the government to lift up the welfare of all of our citizenry, the health and well-being of everyone, again pushing toward those ideals.

In the United States, we really do believe in this idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, freedom from deprivation, freedom from illness, the belief that we can have life and have it more abundantly. To Secretary Hobby, this was her duty to her country-- someone, again, who served valiantly in World War II.

In the collection of papers from Secretary Hobby's lifetime, Rice University includes that she was a great humanitarian and that she believed there was a role--a ``common thread,'' to use her words--to service to her country toward the empowerment of health for all. She set a standard, a powerful standard, as the first Secretary of Health for the greater good that we, acting collectively, could do to ensure the health and well-being of our Nation.

In fact, it was an understanding from President Dwight D. Eisenhower all the way down to Secretary Hobby that if we ensure people's health and access to health care, it is not just an individual concern, but actually, societally, we become better and we become stronger. The healthier all children are, the more likely they are to go out there and compete. If you are battling sickness, it undermines your economic well-being. In the world of infectious diseases, the words of Martin Luther King are true: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere; in fact, an illness somewhere is the threat of an illness to people everywhere. This was the brilliance of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and it is how this great Department began, setting the standard, understanding that in many ways we are all in this together when it comes to our health.

So for me, this is another point in history. It is a challenge to us as to who we will be as a Nation. Will we continue to be a country that believes, as a fundamental birthright in the richest Nation on the Planet Earth, that everyone can access the highest quality health care, the best access to quality doctors with wide avenues to pursue the rich abundance of life because we have the best health care system on the Planet Earth?

I actually was happy to hear President Trump on the campaign trail talk specifically about this issue, tell us we were going to have a health care system better than the one we have now, specifically calling it ObamaCare; that we were going to have one that is amazing, one that is going to be covering more people. I think the word that was used was ``terrific''; it was going to be terrific. He specifically spoke about some of the bedrock elements of our current health care system that Republicans and Democrats

both agree are things we want to preserve, protect, and in fact make better. He specifically talked about Medicare and Medicaid, defending them: They wouldn't be taken away; they wouldn't be undermined; people wouldn't be kicked off.

So with this excitement, hearing that we have a President committed to these ideals, creating a terrific health care system, we stand on this history in our country where we know our greatness, and it is an affront if we don't have a system that takes care of our most valuable natural resources: the people of this country and a global, knowledge- based economy. What helps us compete is the quality of our workforce.

I am telling you right now, I have learned in my professional life that when children are sick, they don't learn; when a mother is sick, it throws the whole family into crisis; if someone can't afford their medication, it is not just a sin to this country's values, it is a sin morally.

So when President Trump nominated his person to be Health and Human Services Secretary, we might imagine they would reflect the values that he espoused during his campaign and reflect the values he has talked about as President. But instead, he has chosen someone who is diametrically opposed to the things he says he is for--preservation of Medicare. More than this, he has advocated a view on health care that unequivocally would take millions of Americans off of health coverage, thrust millions of Americans into economic crisis, and put the health of many millions of Americans in jeopardy. Usually people say these things hyperbolically, but this is quite clearly a matter of life or death.

For years, Congressman Price has told us who he is. He has led the charge in the House of Representatives to repeal the Affordable Care Act and take coverage away from millions of Americans while advocating specifically for the privatization of Medicare and the gutting of Medicaid. For years, Congressman Price has advocated for anti-choice, anti-contraception access, anti-commonsense measures, and supported efforts to defund and eliminate proven programs like title X family planning, programs like Planned Parenthood which, through their Medicare reimbursements, often in many communities is the only access women have in their communities for cancer screenings or to get contraception.

Congressman Price has been one of the loudest voices on tearing down many of the things that now Americans overwhelmingly say ``Hey, now that we've got this, we don't want to lose it,'' whether that is not having insurance companies dictating to you whether you get health insurance or not having pharmaceutical companies ratchet up prices so much that your lifesaving drugs are out of reach.

Then finally, at a time when we cannot afford to have people who have conflicts, we have a Congressman right now for whom other House Members are calling for ethics investigations because his personal financial interests clearly have been in conflict. In fact, he seems to be building a career as a Congressman working on health policy on one hand while building a fortune trading health stocks directly related to that work. This is a man who is so conflicted, a man who is so contrary to what our President says he believes, a man who has been leading the charge to take our health care back in an affront to the ideals that literally stem from the founding history of our Department of Health. I cannot support this individual.

But let me quickly go through some of these things. We now have to have an honest conversation in our country about this idea of repealing the Affordable Care Act without replacing it because objective organizations like the Congressional Budget Office, conservative organizations like the American Enterprise Institute, and fellow Republican Senators of mine have acknowledged that to repeal the Affordable Care Act would throw into crisis millions of hard-working Americans who have been able to get coverage because of the health insurance marketplace and the Medicaid expansion. Millions of Americans can now go to a doctor when they feel sick instead of going to an emergency room. By the way, as a local mayor--when people use emergency rooms as their primary care facility, it is extraordinarily more expensive; it is fiscally irresponsible.

Because of the ACA, millions more Americans can now access basic health and preventive services that can lead to lifesaving opportunities that did not exist before. Millions more Americans have the peace of mind of knowing that they are no longer one illness away from financial ruin.

Let me put up a chart for a second about the history of people having insurance.

This is the percentage of uninsured in the United States--going along, about 18 million uninsured. And then what happens? The uninsured rate has been driven down. Enrollment in the individual market continues to rise but has now decreased since 2014.

In late December 2016, Standard & Poor's--hardly a Democratic organization, but a market-based organization--released an incredibly optimistic report for the future of the individual market in the Affordable Care Act. But Congressman Price, on the other hand, has repeatedly introduced legislation and resolutions to repeal critical elements or the entirety of the law responsible for these successes without any regard for consequences. He has done this again and again and again and again, eight times. He authored a bill last year that would repeal critical parts, like the Medicaid expansion provision that has expanded access to care for millions, tax credits that would help millions buy insurance. And Congressman Price has introduced legislation that would fully repeal the Affordable Care Act.

I want to let you all understand that, to me, this is a point in our American history where this isn't arguing over opinion; these are facts about what Congressman Price has done. If he were successful in any of those eight attempts to rip down the Affordable Care Act, we now know objectively from organizations like the independent Congressional Budget Office that it would mean 18 million people losing their health insurance in the first year alone, 32 million of our fellow Americans by 2026. Objectively, there would be increases in premiums in the market by 20 to 25 percent; 4.4 million of those Americans who would lose coverage would be children; and 11 million of the most vulnerable would lose their Medicaid coverage.

There is a man named Andy Slavitt who is a former Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid--again, what our President says he wants to preserve. He put together a list because so many people were calling him, writing him: What are going to be the consequences if they repeal the Affordable Care Act without replacing it? What are the consequences? And he just went through a list: Small businesses, farms, self-employed Americans represent 20 percent of the coverage of the exchange. These are individual entrepreneurs, many of whom, by the way, experience something called job lock, where they are afraid to become entrepreneurs because if they lose their jobs, they lose health insurance. Twenty percent are covered by the exchange, and 127 million Americans--127 million Americans--have preexisting conditions. They would be put at jeopardy, and insurance companies would be able to deny them coverage.

Seniors, Medicare beneficiaries, have saved $2,000 on prescription drugs because of the ACA--$2,000; 30 million Americans are on individual policies and Medicaid; 2.8 million Americans with drug disorders would lose coverage; 1.25 million Americans with mental health disorders would lose coverage--1.25 million Americans with mental health disorders. In other words, the ACA put mental health care on parity with physical health care. A 42-percent reduction in uninsured rates for veterans has resulted. He said that bad debt--bad debt, bankruptcy--would go up by $1.1 trillion because health care bills would again be the lead cause in this country of bankruptcy. In other words, before the ACA, the No. 1 reason people were declaring bankruptcy was because of medical bills. After the ACA, that can't happen. There are steps to prevent that from happening, at least to the extent of $1.1 trillion.

The Medicare trust fund, which has been extended, will have several years reduced off its life expectancy. Taxpayers will lose $350 billion added to the deficit and $9 trillion would be added to the debt if it is repealed--2.6 million jobs lost, especially in communities like rural hospitals, where they

depend upon the ACA to keep doors open and hospitals running. Anyone who likes free preventive services like mammograms and better cancer treatment, preventive services that literally save lives by early detection, gone.

Young adults, 3.1 million right now on their parent's plan because of extending the years. Women who want to buy health insurance will pay more than men in premiums because, amazingly, at times insurance companies would be charging you more simply because of your gender and 105 million people had lifetime limits on what insurance companies pay.

This is a list from one of the great experts who knows factually what would happen if we were to turn back the clock. Let me drill down a little bit more. As head of Health and Human Services, Congressman Price would be responsible for insuring the continuance of Medicaid.

Americans like Kelley from New Jersey are able to access care right now because of the Medicaid expansions under the ACA. I want to read what she said. She said:

Thank you for supporting the ACA. I hope that you will

continue to fight hard for it. It's the ACA and Medicaid that

allow me to be able to seek medical treatments for my

scoliosis (which causes me to suffer from chronic pain) and

ensure that my newborn receives appropriate medical care when

need be.

I work full time and go to college but I still struggle to

pay the bills, as I'm only 18 and fast food doesn't pay much

even at 35 to 40 hours a week.

Here is someone going to college, raising a child, working full time, and relying on the ACA so she can inch toward her American dream, being a college graduate, getting a better paying job.

She concludes by saying:

I want my baby to have the health care she deserves so she

can be happy and healthy.

The Medicaid expansion under the ACA has extended access for millions in our country, millions of hard-working people like Kelly and their children, like her baby, across the country.

In New Jersey alone, hundreds of thousands of people gained coverage. Uncompensated costs were driven down, and my State saved a billion dollars, all because of Medicaid expansion.

Republican Governor of New Jersey: Medicaid expansion was the right fiscal decision for our State and for our communities' families who live in our State.

In Price's efforts to undo ACA Medicaid expansion, he has indicated people like Kelly and her newborn baby are not a priority.

I know for a fact that hard-working people across the country and in my community will suffer if Price is able to do what he intends to do and has tried to do.

Let me go to another issue; that is, Medicaid. How about Medicare? As Secretary Price, he will be responsible for overseeing Medicare, the health care program that services 57 million American seniors and those with disabilities.

Under the Affordable Care Act, we know that the quality of Medicare coverage has improved. The life of the Medicare trust fund has been extended, and we have begun to close the gap in prescription drug coverage that too many seniors and people with disabilities--they know about this. It is known as a doughnut hole. There is more work to do to strengthen Medicare and to make prescription drugs more affordable for everyone, including our seniors.

The changes we have done already have had real positive impacts on the daily lives of Americans. Let me read another letter from Myra in Willingboro, NJ. She wrote to tell me about the difference that Medicare is having for her family as they live with chronic illness. She said:

As your constituent and an advocate of affordable,

accessible health insurance, I would like to share how

adjustments to the health care system could impact me. As you

consider policy changes, I urge you to think about how your

constituents living with chronic conditions will be affected.

It is so important to my husband who lives with Parkinson's

disease and myself who is being treated for Chronic Lymphatic

Leukemia that our Medicare benefits continue without any cuts

in benefits. It is most important that we continue to be able

to visit doctors able to care for our specific needs and have

the expensive medications covered that are needed as we live

with these diseases.

As a support group leader for people living with

Parkinson's disease--

I pause here to say, my father suffered for years with Parkinson's, died from Parkinson's. The support groups are essential, and the medical challenges that this chronic disease brings are great.

I continue with her letter.

As a support group leader for people living with

Parkinson's disease and their caregivers, I know all the

members would echo my requests. Many people actually need

further assistance to purchase the needed drugs as their

policies do not cover them adequately presently. Often the

medication prices are prohibitive for folks. They have to

constantly check to see which drug plan will allow their

medication at an affordable price.

In addition, specific supports for caregivers is another

very important need for the Parkinson disease population.

Please consider assistance for these people who require

assistance throughout the day.

Let me tell you, this is a person writing to say keep what we have and make it better because it is still not enough to meet the challenges. Instead, we are considering making someone the Secretary of Health and Human Services who doesn't want to improve, build upon, get better but wants to throw out.

Take Tom, who believes that for his family, their lifeline to health care access is an intrusion. This is Tom Price--excuse me, who believes that this is an intrusion. He writes: ``I can attest that nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare.''

I want to put these words up. This is what the nominee to Health and Human Services is saying about one of the most valued parts of our health care in America. He is saying: ``I can attest that nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare.''

I would like to tell you that is an insult to Myra and her husband, millions of American seniors, those on disabilities who rely on what he calls an intrusion. Someone who is calling for an end to a program that millions of Americans rely on, that the President himself swore that he would do nothing to disturb, we are now putting the chief architect of the destruction of Medicare from the House into a position where they can wreak havoc on the health care of millions.

I want to go into that area of preexisting conditions. Imagine yourself as someone who has a child with diabetes or that you are a survivor of cancer and an insurance company can now look at you and say: I am sorry. I am not going to cover you. The people driven by the market, driven by profits, driven by the bottom line are going to look at you and your humanity and simply say: Sorry, I am not going to cover you. And you live in that place in America, that dark, painful place where you know you are one illness away from destitution.

This is what Maureen wrote to me recently. She said:

Please do not repeal the Affordable Care Act. My 18-year-

old son has been fighting cancer for over a year. I am scared

to death of what his future will hold without the protections

of the ACA. He may be subject to a lifetime cap on insurance

payments or be rejected for health insurance entirely on the

basis of a preexisting condition. He is only 18. He could be

financially ruined before he even gets his adult life

started. After fighting cancer as a teen, it scares and

upsets me to think that his battles will continue throughout

his life in the form of financial hardships from the loss of

protections he currently has through the ACA.

She ends saying:

Please consider my family when voting on the ACA.

Please consider my family. There are millions of Americans who now are living in this state of fear, looking at the rising and the ascendancy of Congressman Price to a position--someone who has tried again and again to end insurance for people with preexisting conditions.

I don't understand what we are trying to achieve with putting someone who believes that somehow the free market will take care of these folks. I began with our history as a country: booming industrial economy. The free market didn't take care of ensuring that our waters and rivers were cleaned up. The free market didn't take care of eradicating polio. We are a nation that has learned from our history that we have a responsibility to each other, and in our common civic space and in the

governments that are established amongst men and women, we have to do better for folks who are victims or vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the free market.

That is why we are stepping up to say that we can create a system that serves all. We are the richest country on the planet Earth. What even makes this worse than Medicaid under assault, Medicare under assault, people with preexisting conditions, which are issues that are simply around contraception.

Congressman Price would be expected to uphold protections currently in place that prohibit insurance companies from charging women more because of their gender and ensuring that insurance companies abide by the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive care.

All that talk about preexisting conditions, many insurance companies saw gender as a preexisting condition. As something as critical as having access to contraception, Tom Price has voted time and time again to restrict access to essential health care services and limit reproductive rights.

Before the Affordable Care Act was passed, cost was a major barrier for women seeking access to birth control. Congressman Price has repeatedly opposed the provision requiring insurance plans to cover contraception. This is what he said in an interview in 2012:

Obviously one of the main sticking points is whether

contraception coverage is going to be covered under health

insurance plans and at hospitals, and whether or not they're

going to be able to pay for it, especially low-income women,

where do we leave these women if this rule is rescinded?''

That is the question. Price's response was simple:

Bring me one woman who's been left behind. Bring me one.

There's not one.

I am sorry, in this case, Price is not right; Price is wrong. There is not just one you could bring. There are millions of women who were left behind and struggled with access to coverage before the Affordable Care Act. For this man to stand there and cast a shadow over the basic commonsense understanding that when you allow women to make their reproductive health decisions and have access to contraception, you give them power over their lives and their destinies. You actually reduce unwanted pregnancies dramatically. This is an economic issue. This is an empowerment issue. This goes to the core freedoms as a country.

The Center for American Progress reported in 2012 that before the ACA contraceptive provision went into effect, that ``a recent study shows that women with private insurance paid about 50 percent of the total costs for oral contraceptives, even though the typical out-of-pocket cost of non-contraceptive drugs is only 33 percent. Surveys show that nearly one in four women with household incomes of less than $75,000 have put off a doctor's visit for birth control to save money in the past year.'' Because of the ACA's contraceptive provision, America has changed. According to the National Women's Law Center, 55 million women have saved $1.4 billion on birth control pills alone since 2013.

Listen to Rachel from West Orange, NJ, a couple towns over from where I live. She benefited from the contraception provision of the ACA as well as access to Planned Parenthood. This is what she wrote:

The Affordable Care Act is something that has made a huge

impact on my life. I come from a poor background, and there

is no additional money to spare on things like birth control,

which I take for my independence and legitimate medical

issues. Without birth control, I'm unable to get out of bed

for days at a time because of painful periods. This means

losing out time off work and opportunities because of a

serious medical malady.

I never thought I would be able to normalize my life

because I can't afford a $40 copay every month, in addition

to my expensive transportation passes, student loan payments,

and helping my parents pay their bills. However, with the

Affordable Care Act, I have access to free birth control that

allows me to live my life and succeed. It enables my

independence, and makes me a healthier individual. I am

terrified that any repeal of the Affordable Care Act will

harm my health, my career and my ability to lead a normal

life.

We want people to lead the life of their dreams--their health, their careers. What she is asking for is not a luxury. It actually benefits us all because we are empowering her to succeed. That makes this country greater. Yet Tom Price, this nominee, has voted 38 times on measures that would restrict women's access, including 10 times voting to defund Planned Parenthood. At a time when there are fewer unwanted pregnancies, when women have more power, more control over their lives, Tom Price wants to roll things back.

Struggling women are fighting to raise families and go to college and pay the bills and run businesses or be entrepreneurs, that they are having constrictions placed on their lives--you empower women, you empower this Nation.

In New Jersey, Planned Parenthood's 26 health centers provide access to lifesaving care for women across the socioeconomic spectrum. I will fight tooth and nail with all that I have for not rolling things back. We are not going back. And a Congressman who has pledged to do just that should not be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Tom Price has spoken out against sex education. I am a believer. I said this when I was mayor, all the time. In God we trust--I am a man of faith--but everybody else, bring me data. Sex education is actually something that has a powerful economic benefit. When it comes to advocating for better health options and outcomes, we know this is not an idea or theory, but there is a connection between poor, incomplete, or absent sexual education and increasing rates of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual assault. Young people are also disproportionately infected, without sex education, with HIV, and HIV rates among young adults are truly problematic in this country. Kids who are granted full information live healthier lives. But Congressman Price advocates against that. He thinks sex education doesn't reduce rates of teen pregnancies--it does; doesn't reduce rates of sexually transmitted diseases--it does; doesn't reduce rates of sexual assault-- it does; doesn't reduce rates of HIV--it does. But he thinks that it promotes promiscuity among young people.

I want to end with my last point. All of this is enough, but this is the more astonishing part of my opposition because in this, I would at least think we could get my Republican colleagues to join with me because if you look at past Presidents, something less than this has sunk nominations before. This doesn't have to do with health policy; this has to do with conflicts of interest.

There was a great Senator who pulled himself out of consideration for what, compared to this, is a mild issue that he moved to correct on paying taxes on a benefit that he received. He pulled himself out of consideration. He had that kind of dignity to say: You know what, I have this small issue. I am pulling myself out of consideration.

But Tom Price is charging right ahead, while people in the House are calling for his investigation. Some of my colleagues have already addressed this, so I won't go into it much, but the SEC investigation should be there. An independent watchdog from the Office of Congressional Ethics should be there. We don't know because these organizations, the SEC and the Office of Congressional Ethics, don't announce when they are investigating somebody. But there are a whole bunch of people saying that Congressman Price has potentially violated something called the Stock Act, which was basically put in place so that Congresspeople, who know things about regulations or issues affecting companies, can't benefit off of that insider information to profit themselves. I don't understand why, at a time that this is all hanging over his head, that there should be an investigation, that we should get to the bottom of it before we put him in the President's Cabinet, Democrats and Republicans here, given past history and past nominees who had to withdraw, why aren't we joining in a bipartisan way and saying: Hey, there is a lot of smoke here, and the facts are kind of screaming for attention.

Let me just be clear. As an example, last March Congressman Price bought between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of shares in a company called Zimmer Biomet. They are a medical manufacturer that specializes in hip and knee devices. House ethics disclosures show that he invested in the company just 6 days before introducing a bill that would have directly benefited hip and knee replacement companies like Zimmer Biomet, H.R. 4848. Let's do this

again. He invests in a company 6 days before he introduces legislation that would have benefited such a company. That is astounding, to me, and it should raise alarms in terms of the codes of conduct of a potential Cabinet nominee. He invested in a medical manufacturer of hip and knee devices and shortly thereafter introduces a bill, the HIP Act.

What is more, though, is while Congressman Price has said that he was unaware of the stock purchase because it was bought by a broker, his financial disclosure forms show that he initialed the purchase to note an error. He initialed the purchase. So to say he had no knowledge of it is a stretch.

Congressman Price then added nearly two dozen cosponsors to the bill over the next 3\1/2\ months. I am sorry, if a Senator here did that-- knowingly buying stock, then introducing a bill--I know this body would look askance on that. More than that, I don't think you need to explain much of this because it is so obvious that American folks at home are knowing that you should not introduce legislation to self-deal to yourself.

Let me give another example. Price also bought stock in an obscure Australian biopharmaceutical firm called Innate Immunotherapeutics through a private offering that was not made available to the public. The private stock offering gave Congressman Price access to hundreds of thousands of discounted stock.

At his Senate confirmation hearing, he asserted the stocks were ``available to every single individual that was an investor at the time,'' but this is how the Wall Street Journal reported it--not quite a liberal periodical. It said:

In fact, the cabinet nominee was one of fewer than 20 U.S.

investors who were invited last year to buy discounted shares

of the company--an opportunity that, for Mr. Price, arose

from an invitation from a company director and a fellow

Congressman.

The shares were discounted at 12 percent off the traded

price in mid-June only for investors who participated in a

private placement arranged to raise money to complete a

clinical trial. The company's shares have since tripled

during the offering.

I am sure that Americans at home who are saving for their retirement would love to have an insider deal like this, would love to be clued in by company heads to an opportunity to triple their money, but clearly something is wrong when a Congressman is doing that. That should cause us to pause as a nation before we put him in as a Cabinet Secretary over all of our health care.

It is a disturbing pattern when Congresspeople use their position of power for personal gain with no regard for public interest. This type of behavior would be unacceptable in most industries. It should be unacceptable to Congress, to Senators on both sides of the aisle who have to advise and consent.

Look, we are at a point in our country where we have taken steps forward on health care. It has been controversial, I understand, but there is no arguing with the fact that we are now at a point in America where someone with a preexisting condition is not stopped from having health insurance, where young people all over our country have the security of knowing they can stay on their parents' health insurance until they hit 27. We are at a point now where being a woman is not a preexisting condition, where we have expanded access to contraception. We are at a point in our country where the uninsured population has gone down dramatically.

We cannot have someone whose attitude is not what I would hope it would be, one of ``Hey, we accomplished a lot. Let's figure out a way to make it better. Let's build on it.'' Instead, they not only want to take back the gains I just mentioned, but they want to go further and take back Medicaid and Medicare, privatize them, gut them, block-grant them.

So this is not a close call. This is a Congressperson who for years has told America what his intentions are. He just didn't have the power to do it then because he was 1 out of 435. Frankly, if you include the Senate, he was 1 out of 535 and had a Democratic President also to get through. He couldn't get done what he wanted to get done. Now he is going to go from being one voice on the fringe, yelling for getting rid of Medicaid and Medicare, yelling against women's access to contraception, yelling to put insurance companies back in charge of your life, your destiny, and your health care--he is going to go from a fringe voice, 1 out of 435, to now being the head of the Department of Health, advising the President on things, frankly, that he has said, at least, that he doesn't want to do: gutting Medicare, gutting health care for seniors.

So I go back to where we came from--a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the first head of the Health Department, an incredible woman, World War II--served soldiers in World War II. And they had a vision for this country, that, hey, what we have is not good enough. Let's figure out a way to do better because a healthy society is an economically strong society. A healthy society is a prosperous society. A healthy society lives up to our common values.

We are the United States of America. We should set the national standard for health care. When it comes to the most vulnerable amongst us, whether it is a poor kid on a farm, whether it is someone in an inner city, whether it is an immigrant, we are a country that believes--like the old African proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.

One of the great singers and artists and inspirations in my State is a guy named Bruce Springsteen. He has a song where he says: We take care of our own. Well, we have done well on that idea. We have gotten better. We have made strides toward that standard.

We have work to do. We should be working together, both sides of the aisle, to make our health care better, more inclusive, more accessible, and more affordable. We have a lot more work to do. But I don't want to go back. So help me, I will fight every day to prevent us from going backward where there will be fewer people covered, more people, because they can't afford things, suffering untold health crises.

I don't want to go backward to where women are denied coverage or access to empowering things, basic things, fundamental things like contraception.

I don't want to go backward with senior citizens who are in the sunsetting years of their lives, when they should be free of stress and worry and strain but suddenly are worried again and struggling and suffering. I don't want to go back to those days; therefore I will vote a resounding, full-throated no on Congressman Price because, as the poet Maya Angelou said, if someone tells you who they are, believe them. He is someone who has told us what he wants to do. We should stop him from doing it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of my staff: Juan Gomez.

Mr. President, I know the night is going on. I just want to take a moment to express my appreciation to all the staff members and Senators who remain here on the floor. A lot of folks who work here, from the gentleman typing very quickly, all the way to a lot of the folks working, I just want to express my gratitude for the long night, particularly to the pages. It is their second week here, and they suddenly are being forced to grapple with not just school but the long nights of the Senate. I really do respect them and am grateful for their, how should I say, endurance tonight as well.

I rise today, as many of my colleagues have, to speak to the nomination of Betsy DeVos and to speak specifically in opposition to her nomination to serve as Secretary of Education. I have listened to as many of my colleagues' words as I can. I want to say that particularly those on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee have and will and continue to expand upon many of the concerning elements of Mrs. DeVos's record, concerns that I share about her lack of support for critical accountability measures, her lack of familiarity with many of the basic financial aid policies and programs which are so essential for people to have access to higher education, her inability to say that guns should not be in school, and her seeming lack of understanding of many of the fundamental yet critical education policy perspectives that I think are necessary for a job of this magnitude.

I know there has been much said and there will be many more issues brought up of concern to many of the Democrats who spoke tonight, but tonight I would like to focus on an area that is very personal to me and also very personal to millions of Americans, that is essential to this role but one that may not be immediately understood when you talk about a Secretary of Education, but it is absolutely critical to that Department. In fact, I think it is one of the more critical roles of that Department when it comes to fulfilling the ideals of our Nation.

Within the Department of Education is the Office for Civil Rights. That office is profoundly important, but it is one that many people don't have a full understanding of. What I would like to do right now is highlight four areas in which the Office for Civil Rights functions and also talk as it relates to my concerns about and my opposition to Betsy DeVos to serve as Secretary of Education.

First, I would like to talk about what is at stake for children with disabilities and their families and their parents. About 13 to 14 percent of our American school-age children--about 6.5 million kids and young adults in America--are students with a disability.

Here in the United States, I am so proud that we have a deep belief and, in fact, our laws, passed by people of both Houses, both parties, dictate that all children be treated with dignity and respect and that they will get the educational opportunities all children deserve. Indeed, our laws reflect that, but the spirit of America is to see that in this Nation all of our children have unique gifts, all of our children have beauty, and we as a nation collectively believe they all deserve a strong pathway to the fundamental American ideal. They deserve pathways to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that when we say ``justice for all,'' we really do mean all children.

But unfortunately, as the work of the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights demonstrates, the Federal Government is often at odds with some school districts that do not properly enforce protections granted to students with disabilities under the Federal law, again passed by both Houses, passed by both parties. Within our country, thousands of parents do not believe their children are receiving justice in their local school systems for their children with disabilities. They reach out to the Federal Government for help, for relief, for that justice.

Take the example of one child, the case of a 9-year-old child in California whose name is withheld for privacy. This child--and let's call her Jane--is a student like so many others. She has the same dreams and aspirations, has hopes, has promise, and has untapped, unlimited potential.

At the age of 9, this child, ``Jane,'' had been physically restrained in her school more than 92 times during an 11-month period by her school because of her disability. As a part of that restraint, she had been held facedown for a total of 2,200 minutes.

The Office for Civil Rights at the Federal level, the Federal Government, it took them to investigate this case, and they found that the district was in violation of the Federal law and required the school district to stop using these kinds of restraints on students and to actually take the time and energy to invest the resources in training the staff on alternative intervention methods, methods that recognize the dignity of that child and show that we have the potential and power to elevate that child, not to so savagely restrain them.

This was not only unconscionable treatment that the Federal Government intervened in, but clearly it was illegal within the bounds of Federal law. This is not the way that anyone here, anyone in this body with a child with a disability, any of us would want our children to be treated.

If I had a child, I know it is not the way I would want them treated. Frankly, when it comes to the children of America, they are our children. Whether Republican or Democrat, we know that our children, our kids, American children--all children, frankly--deserve better than this kind of physical abuse. It is for these kinds of reasons

that I believe we need to have an aggressive Office for Civil Rights because the story of Jane, of a 9-year-old, is not an anomaly. It is not something that is rare.

Unfortunately, as we are seeing, there are many violations of Federal law that go on when it comes to our children with disabilities. There is tremendous evidence that this kind of abuse still goes on in our country, and there needs to be an ultimate authority that can investigate this abuse and, if necessary, hold those people accountable who are the abusers. And the additional step that the Office for Civil Rights does is it gives advisement, gives instruction on how to make sure the abuse does not happen in the future.

We need our Office for Civil Rights to work with school districts to establish those policies and procedures to prevent that abuse.

When Mrs. DeVos, during her testimony, was given the opportunity to speak to the millions of parents who have real, legitimate concerns about their children with disabilities and the treatment they receive in school--she was given the opportunity to speak to the vital role of the Federal Government in protecting our children and affirming those rights, about the role of the Office for Civil Rights, and instead of taking that opportunity, instead of seizing the moment to talk about what she would be doing to lead, she actually denied a role for the Federal Government. When asked about protecting students with disabilities, she simply said: ``It should be left up to the States.''

Well, I will tell you right now, for that 9-year-old child physically restrained more than 92 times, held facedown for hours, the Federal Government clearly had an important role to play for that mom, for that family, for that child in making sure this kind of atrocity doesn't happen and will not happen for more children.

Secondly, I would like to talk about what is at stake with the Office for Civil Rights as it relates to children who are different, whether that be the color of their skin, whether they wear a hijab to school as an expression of their faith or if they are a minority or, again, a child with a disability.

For example, I have spoken much as a Senator about the school-to- prison pipeline and often how certain categories of children experience different types of discipline for the same act in school just because of how they look.

School disciplinary policies, we know, play a big role in a child's success, and those disciplinary policies are clearly treating different children in different ways. There will be different outcomes for those categories of kids.

We know that children who have out-of-school suspensions often graduate at significantly lower rates, have significantly higher run- ins with the law. I am one who believes we cannot allow discrimination to happen in that manner in our school.

These are the facts. This is the data. Take, for example, the fact that Black students are 3.8 times more likely than their White peers to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions, while students with disabilities actually are twice as likely as those without to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions.

Let me give you the specific case of Tunette Powell, who wrote about her son who is Black. His name is Joah. He was suspended five times in 2014. He was 3 years old.

She said: ``One after another, White mothers confessed the trouble their children had gotten into. Some of the behavior was similar to JJ's,'' her son's. ``Some was much worse. Most startling'' to her was that ``none of their children had been suspended.''

She continues to write. ``After that party,'' where she had heard this from other White parents, ``I read a study reflecting everything I was living. Black children represent 18 percent of preschool enrollment but make up 48 percent of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension, according to the study released by the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights in March,'' she writes.

One of the critical things about the Office for Civil Rights is that they have been proactively collecting data about differences in treatment in our schools.

Now there are many people who actively assert that the role of the Office for Civil Rights has grown too large, that they are poking around in local matters too much, that even collecting such data, as was relied on by this mother, is an intrusion into States' rights. I believe, when it comes to civil rights, when it comes to religious freedom and the treatment of our children, I do not believe that the Office for Civil Rights has grown too large. I believe they are offering critical transparency into the workings of our schools; that they are collecting data that parents and policymakers and civil rights groups can use to see who is being left behind, who might be facing discrimination, who is not receiving justice.

What do we have to be afraid of even on just the collection of data to allow ourselves to have that transparency, to create an environment of accountability?

I worry that if this is not a priority for the next Secretary of Education, then closing the achievement gap, shutting down the school- to-prison pipeline, and empowering all children to have an equal opportunity to learn will be undermined.

These are real problems in our country, and they aren't just going to go away. The Federal Government, especially when they insist upon data transparency, is an active partner in helping us to receive the justice that we deserve and need and pledge allegiance to as a country.

I had hoped during the hearings of Mrs. DeVos that I would hear more; that even if I had the opportunity to talk to the nominee myself, I would have asked for more information around these issues, but I didn't have that opportunity, and in the very rushed hearing, the issue wasn't raised.

I believe, though, that based on the testimony that was given, that the nominee may not see this as a vital function of the Office for Civil Rights and, in fact, may shrink that office and the ongoing proactive investigations that we see right now into such matters.

We know that the school-to-prison pipeline, particularly for young people of color, isn't just real; it is actually pervasive. But during Mrs. DeVos's confirmation hearing, when asked about the Office for Civil Rights within the Department of Education that is responsible for rectifying such unjust situations, she refused to comment. She refused to comment. She refused to commit herself even to directing the Office for Civil Rights to investigate such civil rights violations. I don't understand why it is difficult to even commit the Department to continuing such investigations, but that commitment was denied.

I want to next talk about the serious problem we have in America with sexual assault and sexual violence in schools and on college campuses. Mr. President, 1 in 5 women and 1 in 16 men are sexually assaulted in their college years, but only 1 percent of assailants on college campuses are arrested, charged, or convicted.

We still know that too many people on college campuses who have been sexually assaulted, who are survivors, are routinely denied justice and are forced to even live or even go to class with their attackers.

The Office for Civil Rights has risen to this challenge and this crisis. They have opened investigations in over 200 schools in America. There is a crisis of campus sexual assault in America, and now the Office for Civil Rights is expanding their work. They have stepped up to that challenge. In addition to that, they have issued guidance to all college campuses on preventing and combating sexual assault.

Mrs. DeVos, again, during her testimony--many of us were hoping she would rise to the occasion, that she would speak to this issue. She was given a chance, given a chance not just to speak to the issue but to talk to the Federal role in meeting this crisis, to acknowledge that this is an issue our Nation must grapple with and must end, but she did not speak to the concerns of parents. She did not speak to the concerns of survivors. She did not speak to America about the urgent need for all of us to be engaged in dealing with the crisis for which there has been silence for too long.

More than this, she did not speak to the role of the Office for Civil Rights, to the expanding role they have been taking, to the expanding investigations on college campuses all across the country, giving no confidence to me or

to others that this will be a role that will continue--in fact, a role that I believe should be expanded.

Again, even when she was specifically asked about upholding guidance within the Department of Education on combating and preventing sexual assault--not asked to commit on the investigations, not asked to commit to expanding the efforts but just asked about upholding the guidance within the Department of Education on combating and preventing sexual assault, she refused to commit to maintaining that guidance.

I would like to speak to another area. Before I do, I do believe in this idea of transparency that my previous colleague talked about when it comes to donations. Some of the charities that have received donations from Mrs. DeVos have a history of fighting against efforts to combat sexual assault, and some of these organizations worked to make it more difficult for sexual assault victims to seek justice.

That brings me to an area in which I have a deep level of concern. I hope Mrs. DeVos will take the opportunity to set the record straight because much has been written even before the hearings involving an area where there is a clear crisis in our country. It is the crisis involving the safety and security of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in America.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth face a stunning level of discrimination inside and outside of schools starting at a very young age. We know that LGBT youth are two times more likely than their heterosexual peers to be physically assaulted in schools. LGBT youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide. According to youth risk behavior surveys, 34 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender students were assaulted on school property. More than one-third of LGBT school students were bullied on school property, and 13 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students did not go to school because of concerns for their safety. We know in America that this kind of harassment has no place in our classrooms, no place in our schools, and it has no place anywhere in our country, but it is all too common and all too often unaddressed.

I would like to talk about a parent. Her name is Wendy Walsh. The harassment against Wendy's son Seth began for him in the fourth grade when his classmates suspected he was gay. By the time he reached the seventh grade, the bullying, the verbal and physical abuse in person and online was so bad that he was afraid to walk home from school. This child lived in terror of just going to class. After one bullying incident in a local park, his mom says that 13-year-old Seth came home from school. She talked to him. He asked to borrow a pen from his mom. That conversation will be the last time she would see her son alive. The next time Wendy saw her son Seth, he had hanged himself on a tree in their backyard.

After Seth's death, Wendy, experiencing a level of grief and agony I cannot imagine, decided to file a complaint with the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. When the Office for Civil Rights came in and investigated, they found that Seth's school district was in violation of several Federal laws, that they failed to intervene and stop the bullying and harassment and torment that this child endured from a precious age until his death, that their actions could have potentially prevented the death of one of our children, an American child, a child of beauty and of worth and of dignity and protection.

Wendy went to the Federal Government to the Office for Civil Rights, and they took her concerns seriously. They aggressively investigated. Because of their investigation and because of Wendy's courage in her time of grief, the school district, in violation of Federal law, was required to take steps--though not there to prevent her child's death-- they were required to take steps to prevent the kind of harassment, tormenting, and bullying from happening to other students. I am not sure if any of that is solace to a mother who lost her child. I am not sure if it gave her comfort, but I am hopeful that with an active Office for Civil Rights at the Federal Department of Education, at a time where more than 10 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are missing school because of that kind of fear, when one-third are reporting bullying and harassing in person or online, at this level of unconscionable treatment for any child, there is a role for the Federal Government to protect our children. I believe if we take these matters seriously that we can insure that this kind of bullying and harassment will come to an end in America. It is unacceptable in a country this great. There are laws against this, and there are folks who have an obligation to enforce those laws; that is, the Office of Civil Rights.

I believe things will get better, but they will not get better automatically because we hope for them, because we pray for them; they will get better because we are a country that loves our children, and love is not a being verb. It demands action. We see time and time again that children aren't seeing the kind of action where they are, and thank God right now there is a place for parents to go. They can appeal to the Federal Government. The Department of Education, the Office for Civil Rights, has to be led by someone who takes this seriously, who sees the calls for justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth as valid, that sees the crisis, that sees the problem.

It was widely reported, when Mrs. DeVos's nomination was made--widely reported--that her family had given support, significant support, and that she herself gave significant support to discriminatory extremists, dangerous and hateful groups that promote ideas that say a child who is gay is somehow lesser than a child that is not; groups that have supported things like conversion therapy, something that has been resoundingly condemned--dangerous ideas that are hurtful to children. With all of that, with all the articles that have been written, this was a chance for Mrs. DeVos to sit before the American public knowing that these concerns are out there, and it is understandable, even if she doesn't hold them, it is understandable that this was a moment for her to allay the fears of the thousands and thousands of children who are being isolated and hurt by bullies, the people who are assaulting their dignity--these children have suicide rates that are unconscionably high--for the parents mourning their kids, with all that swirl, the hearing was her chance to set the record straight to say: I will uphold the value and dignity of these children, but more than that, I recognize there is a crisis in our country, and I will work with the Office for Civil Rights to do something to address this evil in our country. We have so many kids being hurt and harmed. This was her chance to go beyond just denying that she believed in conversion therapy, to go beyond just words in asserting that she values equality. This was her chance. It should have been understood that because of the record and the charitable donations that there was a degree of suspicion; that there was an understandable degree of legitimate fear that she would not continue the courageous work of the Office for Civil Rights in combating discrimination, harassment, and physical abuse of children across our country. She had the opportunity.

Given the fears and concerns that have been expressed, I would have hoped she would have spoken directly to the work of the Office for Civil Rights to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender teens who are factually experiencing some of the highest levels of hate crimes and violence and bullying of any children in America; that she would have made some affirmation that she would be a champion for their equality, for their dignity, and the Office for Civil Rights would continue its needed work, but she didn't.

I hoped she would stand up and say: We have violence on our college campuses; that right now silence is allowing insidious realities to exist. We have a problem with reporting rates. We have a problem with reports being made and not being taken seriously; that she could have used that as an opportunity to speak against what is happening to an unconscionable level of young women on college campuses--something that we would never want to have happen to any of our daughters; to make a pledge that the Office for Civil Rights would not just continue campus advisories but would fight to hold those college campuses accountable, but she didn't.

For students and families across the country, this may not be a celebrated

part. We may not all know in America that the Department of Education has an Office of Civil Rights, but for so many families with children on college campuses and preschools, grade schools, high schools, the Office for Civil Rights has been the difference--the difference makers between injustice and justice, the difference makers between violence and security, the difference makers between who we say we are as a nation, liberty and justice for all, and experiencing a terrible, awful lie.

I feel compelled to speak out on the vital importance of the Education Secretary, regardless of party, regardless of background. I feel a personal responsibility to assure that if I cast my vote as a Senator, that whoever takes that office will be tireless in the defense of all the rights, privileges, and liberties of our students because I personally stand here today because of the role of the Federal Government in enforcing civil rights laws. I stand here today because of the courageous Federal laws that were put in place--bipartisanship, Republicans and Democrats, great battles on this floor for civil rights and disability rights, for title IX protections for women. I am a product of these kinds of fights over the Federal role when it comes to civil rights. I stand here today because of our collective history. I stand here today because of our dramatic history. I believe in States' rights. It is enshrined in our Constitution, but I cannot ignore the role of the Federal Government. Brown v. Board of Education is perhaps one of the most famous Supreme Court cases affirming the Federal role.

I hung a picture in the front of my office. I come out of my office into where my assistant sits, and the first thing I see on the wall in front of me is a Norman Rockwell painting. There is this young girl in that painting, and she is striding proudly to school, and behind her are racial epithets, a tomato smashed against that wall. She is a little girl--God, her courage--named Ruby Bridges. There are these White men surrounding her walking just as tall, and they are escorting that girl to school. There is clearly hate swirling around. You can look at that picture, and you can feel it. But I don't care what your background or religion is, you look at Norman Rockwell's painting--as I make sure I do every day as I leave my office as a U.S. Senator and I see that picture--and I am reminded that sometimes when there is hate, sometimes when there is violence, sometimes the State doesn't get the job done. Sometimes, the most vulnerable child needs a little help--not just from a loving teacher or a loving parent but from a government that stands behind her and says: You matter.

I can't stand here today without recognizing that this is my history, that this is your history, that it is all of our history, and that our Federal Government has a role to play. I drink deeply from the wells of the freedom and the struggles and the sacrifice. I reap the harvest from Ruby Bridges and her courage.

Our country has come so far. There is so much love, so much more recognition of the dignity of all children. But, come on, we are not there yet. Children are often harassed because they wear a head scarf. I recently heard about a Sikh child wearing a turban who was still harassed; a mother concerned that her kid, no worse than another but seems to get suspended more for the same behavior. As to children with disabilities, parents are still concerned that even though we have affirmed their rights and dignities in law, those laws aren't being carried out like they should.

God, there are young women on a college campus today who rightfully question whether their campus is committed to eradicating sexual violence.

With all of these things going on, we have to have champions here. We have to have people who understand that public education is a right for everyone. Some of the most profound battles in our country have been fought to get equal access for children to school, so that they can stride toward that school door knowing that they will get a quality education, free from bullying, free from harassment, free from the binds of hatred or discrimination that might hold them back in their lives.

Now, I have faith in who we are as a Nation. I know we are a loving country and a good country, but we haven't got it perfect yet. So I stand here today in opposition to this nomination because I believe we need a champion. I wish I had a chance to meet with the nominee. I wish the hearings had been longer. I have never seen them so rushed. But there is too much at stake right now. There are too many problems that still exist.

Sadly, there still is a need for an Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education that is aggressive when it comes to the defense of freedom and our rights. I did not hear such a commitment from this nominee. There are millions of parents who didn't hear her speak to the concerns they have about their gay child, the concerns they have about their child with a disability, their concerns about their children going off to college. We did not hear that commitment. In fact, what we heard was a belief that States can figure it out. There was a failure to commit to even the most basic continuance of the Office of Civil Rights.

I am glad I hung that picture in front of my office. I may not be able to get what I consider an open hearing and answers to these questions because I walk by Ruby Bridges. I feel I owe her a duty to not vote for someone who has been silent on the issues that are so critical to this country being who we say we are.

There is a child, I think, who wonders right now. Somewhere in America, that child is wondering if this country will prove itself true to them. They are probably enduring some things I never had to endure. They are probably worried about their safety. They are probably being put in a situation where they are questioning their worth. They probably feel alone and isolated. My prayer is that this child knows that, even though it isn't perfect and it won't be easy, that child somehow knows that they are not alone, that there will be people fighting for them. I was taught, in the words of a great poet, that there is a dream in this land with its back against the wall; to save the dream for one, we must save it for all.

May the Office of Civil Rights in the years to come remain vigilant, remain strong, and remain expansive in their efforts. I have no confidence it will do so under this person and, therefore, I oppose this nomination. Thank you very much.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of my staff: Erin Robinson.

Mr. President, I rise this evening to continue the dialogue of the conversation about the candidate, the nominee for Attorney General. I rise to join my colleagues in opposition to the nomination.

I witnessed earlier tonight something that greatly disappointed me. One of my colleagues, as was mentioned earlier, stood up to read into the Record a letter, as we just saw, that has been a part of the record of this body for decades--to read that letter into the Record. That was then stopped through the Chair because it was said to impugn another sitting Senator.

As Chuck Schumer said, that is selective enforcement, but to me there is that going on and a lot more.

I used to preside in the first months I was in the U.S. Senate and sat and listened to the speeches of many of my colleagues. I have to say, I am proud to be a Member of the body, where folks on both sides comport themselves with a level of comity that is admirable.

I heard some people tonight decry the descending of this body into unfortunate places, but the reality is, my experience has been, on the whole, very positive. The respect and the collegiality here is something that makes this place incredibly valuable to work. Though the public might not see it, there are a lot of bills that get worked on together and even get to the floor, many of them get votes, many of them get passed. I am proud to have passed many of those bills with my colleagues, colleagues whom I don't just consider colleagues; frankly, I consider them friends.

But within that context, I have to say I have watched when I sat in the Chair and had to listen many times when people said things that made me feel they were unfortunate. I watched the President of the United States talk about his character and his motives in ways that I thought were disparaging, but amidst all of this, in my 3 years, I have never seen someone stopped from speaking on the Senate floor when, as the Democratic leader said so clearly, there could have been many other times where that rule was used, and that is a frustration.

But what makes it more of a frustration is the context in which it happened tonight. You see, Senator Warren stood up and was speaking with a passion about this nomination. And in the midst of her speaking her truth, in the midst of her speaking her heart, she was stopped as she read something into the Record that had been there for decades. To me that is problematic not just because it was a regular speech but because this had to do with her constitutional duty of providing advice and consent. She wasn't just quoting someone, something that she heard on the street, some hearsay. She was actually quoting Coretta Scott King, a civil rights hero, the wife of the slain Martin Luther King, who we, as Americans in our Nation--we don't have many of them-- literally recognize with a national holiday. So that makes it all the more disturbing to me that Senator Warren would stand up, exercising what is one of her specifically constitutional, mandated duties and was stopped because of a rule being enforced that in my opinion, as well as Leader Schumer's, is selectively enforced. But let's go further into the fact that the contents of that letter, much of it shared, are actually substantive and have bearing on the thoughts and feelings of many people in the Senate.

I was raised by a family who made very clear to me something that I think Elie Wiesel said: The opposite of love is not hate, it is silence. It is a profound sin to witness injustice, to see something wrong, and to simply be a bystander, to not speak up.

What I respect about many of my colleagues, even those with whom I disagree--and what I respect about Senator Warren--is that they embody a tradition that I was taught by my parents: to speak truth to power, to speak truth even if your legs are shaking, even if your voice quivers. Speak truth. Do not be a bystander. Do not sit in indifference. Stand up and speak your truth. Do not let your soul be silenced.

We are here as a country because at a time of rife moral injustice, people didn't remain silent. This idea of speech in this country is so important that it is enshrined in the Constitution that we should have freedom of speech, and, yes, it is not always comfortable to hear.

I sat where the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Alaska, is sitting, and

there were many times I heard things that were uncomfortable, that I disagreed with, that I thought were wrong, but this body should respect the idea of free speech.

Tonight, I am proud of Senator Warren. She stood and told her truth. To see this body act as it did tonight is disappointing to me, and it is not a violation of the ideals of comity. It is not.

I heard great conversations from people I revere. Senator Hatch spoke tonight. He is a great man. I don't agree with him all the time. I think some of his ideas--I actually think sometimes they are dangerous ideas, but I respect him. He and Teddy Kennedy--two men who argued with each other, sometimes with voices raised in a lack of comity--had a love for each other.

I was told by other senior Senators when I first arrived: Yeah, give it all you have got in debates. Argue and fight, but understand that in the end we are all people who love our country.

Nobody is questioning Jeff Sessions' love of country. Nobody here is questioning his kindness and collegiality. I experienced that. I have spent 3 years in the Senate. He is far senior to me, and there is no time that we connected on the floor or in the Senate gym in which he didn't show me kindness and respect. Let's put that aside.

He and I even stood together and passed a resolution here in this body to give the Medal of Freedom to marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. One of those marchers was John Lewis.

Does that mean that if John Lewis believes strongly that to have Jeff Sessions ascend to the most powerful law enforcement office in the land, he should remain silent? Does that mean he should be quiet about that? No. In fact, John Lewis testified in the hearings in the Judiciary Committee against Jeff Sessions. Why? Because that is our tradition.

So I start my remarks tonight, aggrieved by what I saw happen to Elizabeth Warren. In fact, it stunned me. I didn't even believe it when I heard that a U.S. Senator would be silenced by another U.S. Senator from reading something that had been in the record for 30 years, as if somehow we are afraid to hear that truth on that paper or in her heart. God bless her for standing up and speaking up and refusing to be silent, and then, in the tradition of the King family, taking the consequences.

I want to state that what she did respects a difference that is worth analyzing for a moment. We have colleagues here with whom we disagree. We are part of the U.S. Senate. There is a lot of respect back and forth. Again, the senior Senator from Utah is a giant in my eyes. The eulogy he gave at Senator Teddy Kennedy's funeral was one of my favorite U.S. Senate moments, even though it didn't happen on this floor. But it did show that two men could fight and disagree and could still have respect for each other; two men could raise their voices at times and have passionate arguments about what they believed in. This body was designed to bring people of diverse geographies--thank God, eventually diverse racial backgrounds, diverse gender--all together to represent our States and to have it out.

No one Senator has supreme power. This is not the Executive branch. Both sides have to want things. We have to meet a 60-vote threshold on some occasions. That is the type of power we have here.

When someone from here leaves this position and moves to the executive branch and is heading an agency, they have tremendous power. In fact, the Attorney General is one of the most powerful positions in America and actually even in some sense is independent of the Presidency. The idea of the Attorney General is that when the President is wrong, the Attorney General has a role and lets the President know that, taking the appropriate action.

So while Jeff Sessions is a valued colleague as a Senator, there is a moral obligation that all of us have enshrined in the Constitution of the advice and consent power to tell our truth because here our power as individuals is made manifest by our ability to develop coalitions. But in the executive branch, especially in the Attorney General's position, that power is residing in the individual, that power is real, that power has dramatic effects on the lives of everyday Americans. So when that is happening, we cannot remain silent.

I am so proud that Senator Elizabeth Warren actually did not just read a letter of Coretta Scott King; she honored that Martin Luther King tradition. King said: ``Our lives begin to end the day we begin to be silent about things that matter.'' King also wrote: ``There comes a time when silence is betrayal.''

I can't betray my values or my ideals. This body is in many ways a testimony to the ideals of freedom of speech in America, a body that is exhibiting in many ways to this country why fervent debate is so important in the marketplace of ideas.

To silence a voice, to silence a Senator--that is unconscionable under the pretext that somehow she was impugning the character of another Senator. That is unacceptable, especially in light of so many things that have been said on the Senate floor that weren't checked, weren't called out. But at a time when a Senator is standing strong for what she believes and speaking her truth, there is what is tantamount to a censure.

I came to this body on a very auspicious day. It was Halloween. I was sworn in on Halloween, 2013. It was October, and my election was just days earlier. Six days before I had been elected to the U.S. Senate, my father died.

I confess, on that day I was feeling a sense of pride, standing right over there with the Vice President. I was feeling pride, but I was also hollow in my heart. I was hurting because I knew my dad would have wanted to see me become a Senator. This guy who was born poor in a segregated community in the South, in the mountains of North Carolina, could never have imagined that one day his son would be sworn in as a U.S. Senator.

My dad taught me lessons, as so many of our fathers did. I learned about hard work. I learned about sacrifice. Jane Baldwin said it best: Children are never good at listening to their elders, but they never fail to imitate them. I thank God to this day that I had models to emulate.

But if there is anything my father taught me, it is: Son, you didn't get where you are on your own. That is interesting for me to hear from a guy who, by every other measure, was a self-made man. To watch my dad go at his craft, to watch him work and sacrifice on snow days in New Jersey, when I was a grade school kid, the first sound I would hear would be him shoveling the driveway because he was going to be the first person at work, no matter what. Often I would come home from school or go to my games and my dad wouldn't be there because he was going to make sure to be the last one to leave the office, setting the bar as a manager.

But here was a self-made man, looking at me every step of the way, and letting me know: Son--sometimes it would be boy--you didn't get here on your own. I would walk around my house, staring in the refrigerator, and he would say: Boy, don't you dare walk around this house like you hit a triple. You were born on third base.

Well, yes, I got it after years because my father said: Son, you are where you are because of this Nation, not just the values and ideals. I mean, come on, I want to tell the truth. This is a country that was formed with a level of genius that I can't take away from, a level of ascendant thought in the span of human history that is remarkable, and my father respected that, but he knew that what makes this country real was not just what our Founders did, it is what average Americans did to make real the promise of this democracy. Even when challenges occurred in this country, they didn't think they befell themselves, they somehow fought to make this country more real.

As great as our Founders are and as great as our Constitution is, let's look at those documents and be honest with each other. Native Americans are referred to as savages in our Declaration of Independence. Women aren't referred to at all. African Americans were fractions of human beings. What was the spirit that took an imperfect document and founding ideals and made them more perfect? What was that spirit?

(Mr. SCOTT assumed the Chair.)

I want to read the words of Thurgood Marshall. He delivered them in May of 1987. I was a high school student. It was

on the vacation of the bicentennial of the Constitution itself. This is what he said:

The year 1987 marks the 200th anniversary of the

Constitution. A commission has been established to coordinate

the celebration.

He goes on:

Like many anniversary celebrations, the plan for 1987 takes

particular events and holds them up as the source of all the

very best that followed.

He writes:

Patriotic feelings will swell, prompting proud

proclamations of the wisdom, foresight and sense of justice

shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now

yellowed with age. This is unfortunate--not the patriotism

itself but the tendency for the celebration to oversimplify,

and overlook the many other events that have been

instrumental to our achievements as a nation. The focus of

this celebration invites a complacent belief that the vision

of those who debated and compromised in Philadelphia yielded

the ``more perfect Union'' that is said we now enjoy.

This is Thurgood Marshall:

I cannot accept this invitation, for I do not believe that

the meaning of the Constitution was forever fixed at the

Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight,

and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly

profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was

defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a

civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the

system of constitutional government, and its respect for the

individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental

today. When a contemporary American cites ``The

Constitution,'' they invoke a concept that is vastly

different from what the Framers barely began to construct two

centuries ago.

For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we

need look no further than the first three words of the

document's preamble: ``We the People.'' When the Founding

Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind

the majority of America's citizens. ``We the People''

included, in the words of the Framers, ``the whole Number of

free Persons.''

On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example,

Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for

representational purposes as three-fifths each. Women did not

gain the right to vote for over 130 years.

Thurgood Marshall writes:

These omissions were intentional. The record of the

Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear:

The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England

States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce,

in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade.

The economic interests of the regions coalesced; New

Englanders engaged in the ``carrying trade''--and it

continues.

Thurgood Marshall goes on:

Even these ringing main phrases from the Declaration of

Independence are filled with irony, for every draft of what

became the Declaration assailed the King of England for

suppressing legislative attempts to end the slave trade.

The final draft adopted in 1776 did not contain this

criticism. And so again at the Constitutional Convention,

eloquent objections to the institution of slavery went

unheeded.

Thurgood Marshall goes on to so eloquently discuss the evolutions it took to come to where we are today. He writes that the men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 could not have envisioned the changes that have taken place that resulted in the world in which he was living here in 1987.

He writes:

I could not have imagined, nor would they have accepted,

that the document they were drafting would one day be

construed by the Supreme Court, to which had been appointed a

woman and the descendant of an African slave--

Thurgood Marshall himself--

that ``We the People'' no longer enslave, but the credit does

not belong to the Framers, it belongs to those who refused to

acquiesce an outdated notion of liberty, justice, and

equality, and who strived to make them better.

So when I swore my oath, days after my father died--after the man who taught me that the liberties and the freedoms and the privileges and the abundance that I enjoyed when I had the fortune of calling myself an American--that those liberties, those freedoms, the justice, the opportunity that I enjoy--yes, I may be a hard worker; yes, I may sacrifice; yes, I may struggle; but all of this was made possible because of the fights and the struggles and the courage of others. It was made possible by people who did not sit on the sidelines of history, who understood that democracy is not a spectator sport; that even though it is not comfortable or convenient or easy, sometimes, in the course of human events, for the cause of your country, you have to stand up and fight.

So before I swore that oath, my mom--before I hit the Senate floor and became a Member of this august body, she took me across the Capitol to meet with another man because she wanted the last thing that I did to be a humble recognition of upon whose shoulders I stood. The last thing I did before I became a U.S. Senator was to meet with John Lewis.

Congressman Lewis, if you know him, you are shaken by his goodness and his decency. You are shaken by his kindness. I don't want to elevate him. He is not a perfect man, but this is a hero to me and to so many Americans. He is someone who lives his values, doesn't just preach them. And when I sat to have a meal with him--he had put a spread together--he told me that when I was sworn in as the fourth popularly elected African American in the history of this body, it was a triumph for him, that it made him proud. Here I am standing before my mom's classmate, my parents' generation, and he is elevating me and telling me how important this day is to him.

What is fascinating to me was he didn't just speak those words. I looked around his office and it was like a civil rights museum--people who marched for me and you and others; people who went on freedom rides for me and you and others; people who fought for voting rights for me and you and others. All the while I am sitting there, and he will not even let me get up. He is serving me food. That is his spirit.

What is incredible to me is it gives incredible testimony to this truth that this Nation is great not because it was easy to get here, not because it was destined to be so but because Americans all along in our history did the challenging thing to try to move this democracy forward.

So does John Lewis love Senator Sessions? Yes. John Lewis is an embodiment of love. He is a man who has forgiven his attackers, who literally has had people who beat him years later become people he embraces. And even though we love each other and respect each other, love is difficult and hard. It is a hard thing to do. Sometimes love requires telling the truth. Love requires not being silent. Love isn't politic, and sometimes love breaks traditions.

I chose to testify against a Senator, and I took criticism for it-- probably deservedly so--but I did so because when I testified, what made it more evidently clear or highlighted my decision is that I was sitting next to John Lewis. He never asked if it was convenient or politic for him to freedom ride. He didn't ask if it was safe to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He didn't ask if it might make people feel uncomfortable or be the subject of scorn. He was telling people to go out and register to vote. He decided to do it because it was the right thing to do.

I want to read from his testimony. On that day, I was privileged to sit next to my hero in a judiciary hearing. This is what he wrote. This is what he spoke:

Millions of Americans are encouraged by our country's

effort to create a more inclusive democracy the last 50

years, but what some of us call a beloved community, a

community at peace with itself. We are not a minority. A

clear majority of Americans said they want this to be a fair,

just, and open Nation. They are afraid that this country is

headed in the wrong direction. They are concerned that some

leaders reject decades of progress and want to return to the

dark past when the power of the law was used to deny the

freedoms protected by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,

and the amendments. These are the voices I represent today.

We can pretend that the law is blind. We can pretend that

it is even handed. But if we are honest with ourselves, we

know that we are called upon daily by the people we represent

to help them deal with unfairness in how the law is written

and enforced.

Those who are committed to equal justice in our society

wonder whether Senator Sessions' call for law and order will

mean today what it meant in Alabama when I was coming up back

then. The rule of law was used to violate the human and civil

rights of the poor, the dispossessed, people of color. I was

born in rural Alabama, not very far from where Senator

Sessions was raised. There was no way to escape or deny the

choke hold of discrimination and racial hatred that

surrounded us. I saw the signs that said ``White Waiting,

Colored Waiting.'' I saw the signs that said, ``White Men,

Colored Men;'' ``White Women, Colored Women.'' I tasted the

bitter fruits, the bitter fruits of segregation and racial

discrimination. Segregation was the law of the land to order

our society

in the Deep South. Any Black person who did not cross the

street when a White person was walking down the same

sidewalk, who did not move to the back of the bus, who drank

from a White water fountain, who looked at a White person

directly in their eyes, could be arrested and taken to jail.

The forces of law and order in Alabama were so strong that to take a stand against its injustice we had to be willing to sacrifice our lives for our cause. Often, the only way we could demonstrate that a law on the books violated a higher law was by challenging that law, by putting our bodies on the line and showing the world the unholy price we had to pay for dignity and respect. It took massive, well-organized, nonviolent dissent for the Voting Rights Act to become the law. It required criticism of this great Nation and its great laws to move toward a greater sense of equality in America. We had to sit in, we had to stand in, we had to march. And that is why more than 50 years ago a group of unarmed citizens, Black and White, gathered on March 7, 1965, in an orderly, peaceful nonviolent fashion to walk from Selma to Montgomery, AL, to dramatize to the Nation and to the world that we wanted to register to vote, wanted to become participants in a democratic process. We were beaten, tear-gassed, left bloodied, some of us unconscious, some of us had concussions, some of us almost died on that bridge.

But the Congress responded. President Lyndon Johnson

responded, and the Congress passed a Voting Rights Act, and

it was signed into law on August 6, 1965. We have come a

distance. We have made progress. But we are not there yet.

There are forces that want to take us back to another place.

We don't want to go back. We want to go forward. As the late

A. Philip Randolph, who was the dean of the March on

Washington of 1963, often said, ``maybe our forefathers and

our foremothers all came to this great land in different

ships, but we are all in the same boat now.''

It doesn't matter how Senator Sessions may smile, how

friendly he may be, how he may speak to you. But we need

someone who is going to stand up, speak up, and speak out for

the people that need help, for people that have been

discriminated against. And it doesn't matter whether they are

Black or White, Latino, Asian, Native American, whether they

are gay or straight, Muslim, Christian, or Jews. We all live

in the same house--the American house. We need someone as

Attorney General who is going to look out for all of us and

not just for some of us.

Now, he speaks:

I ran out of time. Thank you for giving me a chance to

testify.

John Lewis had 5 minutes before the Judiciary Committee--5 minutes to enter words into one of the greatest historical records of all time-- the record of this body, the record of the Judiciary Committee. He brushed on issues that aren't a passing fancy to him. He has lived for these issues. He has fought for these issues. He has dedicated his life to these issues. This man, this champion, chose not to be silent. He had a window of opportunity.

That doesn't mean he doesn't love Jeff Sessions. I know he does. It doesn't mean that he doesn't think he is kind and collegial when the two meet. I have watched them. Senator Jeff Sessions and I were there to present him with the Congressional Medal. But what it means is that he has real concerns about the cause of our country, because this Nation has made such dramatic strides towards freedom and justice. It has made those strides because people like him, folks from all different backgrounds didn't just pledge allegiance to the flag. They didn't just say the words ``liberty and justice for all.'' They put their lives on the line to make it happen.

I have seen this kind of patriotism made real in my lifetime by the men and women who put the uniform on to serve us overseas, all the way to men and women putting uniforms on to protect our neighborhoods, who make rational choices every day to fight for our safety, our security, for our liberty, and for our justice.

I stand here now to speak out against Jeff Sessions becoming the highest law enforcement officer of the land, not because of any personal feelings I have about him--because I too, like I was called to do as a little boy in Sunday school, believe in the ideals of love thy neighbor. It doesn't detract from that love to speak up, to speak my heart, to speak my mind.

Senator Elizabeth Warren stood up speaking the words of Coretta Scott King. It doesn't detract from the collegiality of this institution for her to speak her mind, especially when those are issues that are at the core of our Constitution.

Take voting rights. I don't have the authenticity to speak on voting rights that someone like John Lewis has. But I have watched what is happening in my country--all this talk coming from the highest office in the land about voting fraud. The chances of encountering in-person voting fraud in this Nation is about the chances of getting struck by lightning. You might even have a better chance of going and playing the lottery tonight and winning than in encountering voter fraud. But the real issue is voter suppression.

Now, I am not just saying that as a partisan spouting. I am actually referring to actual judicial inquiries of the Federal Government. In the State of North Carolina, as soon as the Shelby decision came and before the ink got dry, States like North Carolina, Texas, and others started to change their voting laws. It is hard to do things in the cover of night without the power to investigate what actually happened. A Federal judge saw in North Carolina, and said that they were discriminating against African Americans, that they had tailored this law--I think the quote exactly is--with surgical precision to discriminate against African-American voters. This is not fiction. This isn't made up. These are the facts.

There are still people in this country in positions of power who are seeking to pervert the law to discriminate against certain populations and advantage themselves politically. It is not just cheaters. But it is clearly discriminatory in this case on race.

Now, if we know that is going on, John Lewis, myself, millions of Americans, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents believe that we should investigate these things. But the problem is we now have someone that is nominated to the very office, the Justice Department, who has said that the activities around voting rights to investigate these issues are intrusive. This is at a time when we still have issues with voting where States are moving not to open up the access to voting, not to make it easier, not to make it more free and fair. There are folks who are trying to create laws that are choking it, and some of these laws factually have been designed to disadvantage certain populations.

The highest law enforcement officer in the land has an obligation to aggressively investigate these potential violations of law. But we have listened to what the priorities are of Senator Sessions. It is not to investigate what is real, what is substantive, what has happened and likely will happen. It is to investigate the fiction created, documented, that somehow millions of Americans woke up in the morning and said: Do you know what I am going to try to do? I am going down to a polling place and fake my way into voting. It is hard to get millions of Americans to vote, period, sometimes, but somehow this fiction is the highest priority when it comes to voting of this Attorney General.

I will not be silent on this issue. I am here and we are here because people fought to stop violations of voting. We as Americans should have confidence that the highest law enforcement officer in the land won't criticize any efforts on voter suppression but will actually work to do something about it.

Something else that was spoken about in John Lewis's testimony that is a real issue in America and this has to do with the prevalence in this country of ongoing hate crimes. Senator Sessions, as a Senator, again in a body in which one Senator does not have the power to pass legislation, failed to stand with the majority of Senators when it came to issues of laws that were designed for dealing with bias-motivated crimes that target specifically people's sexual orientation and gender identity.

There was a specific law, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., law. These are two Americans who were targeted because of their respective sexual orientation and race. Senator Sessions' comments at the time were that this law would ``cheapen the Civil Rights Movement.''

You have in the testimony a civil rights hero talking about the challenges facing the LGBT community, a civil rights hero who is joined with me and others, decrying the fact that in this country right now you may have

the right to marriage equality, but still in most States in America if you get married, you post it on your Facebook page, you go to work the next day, your boss says you are fired because you got married to someone of the same sex, and there is no legal recourse.

Senator Sessions on same-sex marriage even went as far as to say it is not disputable that adopting a same-sex marriage culture undermines and weakens marriage. I don't even know what to say about a same-sex marriage culture. I would never question that love and that bond between two Americans that now is the law of the land.

I don't know what it means to someone when they criticize a law that is going to work against violence. Please understand, this violence is not a rare thing like in-person voter fraud. We know that today still too many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans feel unsafe in their communities. A significant percentage of gay and lesbian children report missing school because of fear.

The data from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs shows that 20 to 24 percent--about one in five--of lesbian and gay people experience hate crimes and that LGBT Americans of color are particularly at risk. Often those hate crimes are utterly tragic.

In 1998, Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming. He went to the bar that evening, like many 21-year-olds do. Two men offered him a ride home, and he accepted. Instead of bringing him home, they brought him out into a field. They taunted him with epithets, hatred directed at him because he was gay, and then they beat him savagely and left him for dead.

This is what one of our Nation's magazines, Vanity Fair, wrote:

A passing cyclist saw what he thought was a scarecrow

lashed to a wooden buck fence on a remote plot of land. The

scarecrow turned out to be Matthew, unconscious, a huge gash

in his head, his face drenched with blood except where his

tear trails had washed it clean. His shoes were missing.

After police questioning, Aaron McKinney confessed that he

and his friend Russell Henderson had met Matthew at the

Fireside Bar & Lounge on Tuesday night and posed as gay to

lure him into their truck. Then they drove him to an out-of-

the-way location, bound him to a fence, pistol-whipped him,

and taunted him while he begged for his life. Then they

banded the gentle five-foot-two, 105-pound freshman to hang

there for 18 hours, losing blood as the temperature dropped.

That same year, James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old African-American man, was walking home from his parents' house in Texas when he was also offered a ride home. They didn't bring him home either. They brought him to the middle of the woods where he was beaten and then chained to a pickup truck and dragged along the road for 2 miles. He had been targeted by three White supremacists.

The Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice Jocelyn Samuels wrote the following in 2013: But while the men responsible for the Shepard and Byrd killings were later convicted of murder, none of them were prosecuted for committing a hate crime. At the time these murders were committed, neither Wyoming nor Texas had hate crime laws, and existing Federal hate crime protections did not include violent acts based on the victim's sexual orientation and only covered racial violence against those engaged in a federally protected activity, such as voting or attending school. Four years ago today, President Barack Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act. This landmark legislation, championed by the late Senator Ted Kennedy, greatly expanded the Federal Government's ability to prosecute hate crimes. The law enables the Justice Department to prosecute crimes motivated by race, color, religion, and national origin without having to show that the defendant was engaged in a federally protected activity. The Shepard-Byrd Act also empowers the department to prosecute crimes committed because of a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, gender or disability as hate crimes. The law also marked the first time that the words ``lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender'' appeared in the U.S. Code. Under the leadership of Attorney General Holder, the Criminal Section of Civil Rights Division and U.S. attorney's offices around the country have used that law to address the most serious hate crimes. Over the last 4 years, 44 people in 16 States have been convicted under the Shepard-Byrd act for their discrimination in crimes against others on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

This is what we expect from the Department of Justice. Hate crimes against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender are tragically common in this country. Discrimination, hate, and violence is not rare in this community. It is real. It is a scourge. It must be stopped, and the highest law enforcement officer in the land must follow the Federal law, must see it as a priority, must see it as an urgency, must use their prosecutorial discretion to put resources toward those prosecutions.

So when Civil Rights leaders like John Lewis understand the truth that the Civil Rights Movement wasn't about Black people, it was about American people, it was about justice for all, it was about freedom from violence for all, it was about equal rights for all, that he cannot be silent when someone is discriminated against because of how they pray or how they love.

None of us can be silent if we believe in those words: liberty and justice for all. At a time where this is a real problem, we should trust that the highest law enforcement officer would do something about it, would vigorously and seriously defend and fight against the kind of horrific crimes that are still being perpetrated in America. That is not all.

We see that in his testimony. We see that Jeff Sessions spoke at length about this idea of law and order. I respect that idea of law and order, but the call of our country isn't law and order. We have seen totalitarian States. We have seen dictatorships. We have seen all kinds of countries that restrained freedoms and liberties, found the repression and oppression. We found that law and order can be established in many ways. This country was founded with a higher ideal to pursue. It is what has called so many Americans forth in pursuit of this high ideal.

It is not just law and order. It is the pursuit of justice. It is an understanding that as King said, ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'' One of those fundamental principles of justice is this idea of equal protection under the law.

The Attorney General has an obligation to pursue this idea of equal justice. I used to be a mayor. In the city in which I still live, in Newark, NJ, we were always looking to fight crime, and we knew lowering crime didn't just have to do with police. Sometimes police are busily working on the symptoms of the deeper problems, and we as a society have to address them. That is why drug treatment is such a critical way of delivering justice and fighting crime. That is why programs that help people coming home from prison help to lower crime. That is why mental health care is so important for fighting crime, but you cannot take it away from any American.

The truth is there is so much of a need to celebrate our law enforcement in this country. I have watched law enforcement officers do acts of heroism and courage that shows they are worthy of the highest celebrations, and so many Americans don't know this. They don't understand that so many law enforcement officers every single day risk danger, and our law enforcement officers should be lauded for these great women and men who, every single day, are out in our communities entering into difficult circumstances.

I still remember my police director--one time he was on the phone. There was an awful hostage situation, and we were discussing how to deal with it. Then over the phone I heard gun shots go off, and suddenly in the background I heard officers yelling, ``Go, go, go, go!'' These officers, hearing bullets firing, had no situational awareness whatsoever and stormed into that building. Most of us hearing gun fire would drop down; these men and women stood up. Most of us hearing gun fire might run in the other direction; these men ran toward that problem.

As the mayor of a city working directly with police officers, I could give countless examples and great testimony as to the strength and courage of

officers. I commend Jeff Sessions for talking about how important our police officers are, but understand that it does not diminish our respect and our love and our admiration and our gratitude toward police officers, toward law enforcement in this country to ask that we make sure, through systems of accountability, that we are holding law enforcement officers to the highest levels of professional conduct. There is not an officer I know that has any problem with that.

This is what concerns me: We know in this country that we have challenges with an equal application of the law. One recent study from researchers at the University of Louisville and the University of South Carolina documented that unarmed Black men were shot and killed in 2015 at disproportionately higher rates. We have seen other challenges with poor communities and African-American communities having unjust usage of the law directed toward them. We all know about Ferguson, MO, where the city's law enforcement practices disproportionately impacted African Americans. It was the Justice Department that investigated the Ferguson Police Department and found that from 2012 to 2014, Blacks accounted for 85 percent of vehicle stops, 90 percent of citations, and 93 percent of arrests. This is in spite of the fact that Blacks made up only 67 percent of the total population. The information came to light because of the Justice Department's investigation.

In Baltimore, the Department of Justice found that the Baltimore Police Department targeted policing of certain Baltimore neighborhoods with minimal oversight or accountability, disproportionately harming Black residents; the Baltimore Police Department stops African-American drivers at disproportionate rates. African Americans accounted for 82 percent of all vehicle stops compared to 60 percent of the driving age population in the city and only 27 percent of the driving age population in the greater metropolitan area. Racial disparities in the Baltimore Police Department's arrests are more pronounced for highly discretionary offenses. Blacks accounted for 91 percent of the people charged solely with failure to obey or ``trustpass.'' Blacks were 89 percent of the 1,353 people charged for making a false statement to an officer; 84 percent of the people were arrested for disorderly conduct.

These challenges with policing are complex. Even communities very conscious of and sensitive to these issues struggle with the equal application of justice. I don't just say this; I experienced it.

When I was mayor of Newark, we were making a very conscious effort to improve, yet we still found difficulties. When the Department of Justice came to our city, they were able to do data gathering that we did not do. Perhaps we didn't have the resources, didn't understand the urgency. But when the Department of Justice came in and pulled that data, put a lot of resources into analyzing it, they found about 80 percent of the Newark Police Department stops and arrests involved Blacks, while the population is 53.9 percent Black. Black residents of Newark were at least 2.5 times more likely to be subjected to a pedestrian stop.

The data that was pulled by the Department of Justice helped us to step up our work with the ACLU and others and begin to address these issues. The Department of Justice's investigations, accountability, working with local law enforcement departments have helped make changes in Newark and Ferguson and will help make change in Baltimore and all around our country.

But Senator Sessions has aggressively criticized the use of these kinds of consent decrees, this kind of intervention. This is a critical tool that the Justice Department is now using to curtail patterns and practices of discrimination within police departments. But Senator Sessions calls them an end run around the democratic process.

During his confirmation hearings, Senator Sessions said: ``I think there is a concern that good police officers and good departments can be sued by the Department of Justice when you just have some individuals within the department doing things wrong.'' That is problematic to me because it is a failure to understand the larger challenges we have with policing in America: This is not something; it is just a few bad officers. And even that construction of this idea that it is somehow bad officers versus good officers--when it comes to implicit racial bias, and how it is impacting law enforcement in America, sometimes people don't even feel comfortable with those terms, ``implicit racial bias,'' as if it is somehow calling people racist, which it is not. It is actually this idea that we, at the Federal Government, the Justice Department, working with localities, can actually help departments begin to address the reality in this country that we have a justice system that does not have equal application of law enforcement. This is a real problem in this country. And when I say it is a real problem, again, this is not a partisan issue.

FBI Director James Comey, one of our highest law enforcement officers, to my knowledge, is a Republican. This law enforcement officer speaks with clarity about the urgency and the need to address this issue within American policing. He says that, unfortunately, in places like Ferguson and New York City and in some communities around this Nation, there is a disconnect between police agencies and many citizens, predominantly in communities of color. Serious debates are taking place about how law enforcement personnel relate to the communities they serve. This is Director Comey in a speech he gave:

Serious debates are taking place about how law enforcement

personnel relate to the communities they serve, about the

appropriate uses of force, and about real and perceived

biases, both within and outside of law enforcement. These are

important debates.

Every American should feel free to express an informed

opinion--to protest peacefully, to convey frustration and

even anger in a constructive way. That is what makes our

democracy great. Those conversations--as bumpy and as

uncomfortable as they can be--help us understand different

perspectives, and better serve our communities. Of course,

these are only conversations in the true sense of that word

if we are willing not only talk, but to listen, too.

Director Comey continues in his speech:

I worry that this incredibly important and incredibly

difficult conversation about race and policing has become

focused entirely on the nature and character of law

enforcement officers, when it should also be about something

much harder to discuss. Debating the nature of policing is

very important, but I worry that it has become an excuse, at

times, to avoid doing something harder.

Much research points to the widespread existence of

unconscious bias. Many people in our white-majority culture

have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a

white face than a black face.

We simply must find ways to see each other more clearly.

And part of that has to involve collecting and sharing better

information about encounters between police and citizens,

especially violent encounters.

The first step to understanding what is really going on in

our communities and in our country is to gather more data

related to those we arrest, those we confront for breaking

the law and jeopardizing public safety, and those who

confront us. ``Data'' seems a dry and boring word but,

without it, we cannot understand our world and make it

better.

How can we address concerns about ``use of force,'' how can

we address concerns about officer-involved shootings if we do

not have a reliable grasp on the demographics and

circumstances of these incidents? We simply must improve the

way we collect and analyze data to see the true nature of

what's happening in the all of our communities.

The FBI tracks and publishes the number of ``justifiable

homicides'' reported by police departments, but again,

reporting by police departments is voluntary and not all

departments participate. That means we cannot fully track the

number of incidents in which force is used by police, or

against police, including nonfatal encounters, which are not

reported at all.

Without complete and accurate data, we are left with

``ideological thunderbolts.'' And that helps to spark unrest

and distrust, and does not help us to get better.

Because we must get better, I intend for the FBI to be a

leader in urging departments around this country to give us

the facts we need for an informed discussion, the facts all

of us need, to help us to make sound policy and sound

decisions with that information.

This is the FBI Director talking about the urgency of collecting data and what the Justice Department has been doing for departments where people are making a case for bias in policing. I know this because it happened in Newark. The Justice Department comes in and collects data, analyzes the data, and comes to objective conclusions that are not, as Director Comey says, ``ideological thunderbolts.'' And what they seem to be finding where they do these investigations is: Do you know what? Yes, a lot of

these communities have a right to be upset because the policing practices do reflect bias, and there is not an equal application of the law.

If we are to breathe understanding and cooperation--trust me, I know this--to lead to even more effective policing, better police-community relations, we need to get the data out there. But we now have someone who is nominated to the highest law enforcement office in the land who has criticized this kind of work during a time over the last few years that we have seen cities erupting in protests. We have seen the call of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people trying to talk about Black Lives Matter, at a time when people are questioning law enforcement. What Director Comey and others are saying is: Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's not talk from sentiments or feelings; let's talk from experience and data.

So Senator Sessions' views on this are out of date. They run contrary to where criminal justice reform is moving. They are in direct conflict with the people whom his office obliges itself to serve.

Given what he has said on the record, we can have no confidence that the issue of policing will be a priority if he is leading the Justice Department. In fact, we actually, with some certainty, can be confident that the Justice Department will not do this kind of aggressive data collection to understand the facts--the kind of work the FBI Director is calling for.

But it is not just the FBI Director. Listen to a letter from a group of over 160 law enforcement officials that was sent to the Senate about the need for comprehensive criminal justice reform. They write:

As current and former leaders of the law enforcement

community--police chiefs, U.S. Attorneys, federal law

enforcement, and heads of national law enforcement

organizations--we believe that protecting public safety is a

vital goal. Our experience has shown us that the country can

reduce crime while also reducing unnecessary arrests,

prosecutions, and incarceration. We believe the Sentencing

Reform and Corrections Act will accomplish this goal and

respectfully urge you to support it. We appreciate your

leadership on and concerns for the important criminal justice

issues facing the country today.

Our group, Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and

Incarceration, unites more than 160 current and former police

chiefs, district attorneys, U.S. Attorneys, and attorneys

general from all 50 states. Our mission is to replace

ineffective police policies with new solutions that both

reduce crime and incarceration. To achieve this goal, we

focus on four policy priorities--one of which is reforming

mandatory minimum sentences.

Let me pause there for a second. The wisdom in law enforcement now understands that you have to build faith and legitimacy in a department, and you do that through police-community relations. Law enforcement officers know that data collection is important.

When I was mayor of Newark, we made CompStat stronger and better-- analysis of crime patterns and data. We use it to more effectively fight crime. But at a time of heightened suspicion and concern, at a time when leaders are talking about the reality of implicit racial bias, the highest law enforcement officer in the land should respect the truth and direction of criminal justice reform. But it is not just in policing; it is also in how we are looking at overall criminal justice reform.

In the United States of America, we have seen now that our criminal justice system since about 1980 on the Federal level has grown close to 800 percent, costing us as taxpayers billions and billions of dollars to lock up nonviolent offenders. We are disproportionate with the rest of planet Earth. We only have 4 to 5 percent of planet Earth's population, but one out of every four imprisoned people on the planet Earth is right here in the United States of America.

Do not tell me that when it comes to human beings on the planet Earth, Americans have a greater proclivity for criminality. That is just not true. Yet our so-called War on Drugs took us from being on par with the rest of planet Earth and suddenly shot us up with an 800- percent increase on the Federal level--500 percent overall in our Nation in throwing people in jail. This is disproportionately overwhelmingly nonviolent people.

This drug war, incontrovertibly, has been persecuted on the poor. Drug laws are not equally enforced in this country, leading one great legal mind in our country, Bryan Stevenson, to say: We have a nation that seems to sometimes treat you better if you are rich and guilty than poor and innocent.

Well, let me tell you, in America, if you just use the lens of race, there is no difference between Blacks and Whites for using drugs or dealing drugs--none whatsoever. But if you are African American, you are about 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for those nonviolent drug crimes. But the truth is, if you use just race, socioeconomic status, you look at these issues, you see the poorest Americans disproportionately filling our jails and prisons. But what is worse than that, disproportionately you see addicted Americans not getting treatment, getting jail time; mentally ill people not getting health care, getting jail time.

All of this is running up the bill to a point in American history--at around the time I went to law school to the time I became mayor of Newark, we were building a new prison--about one every 12 days. The rest of the world was building better bridges, faster trains, better infrastructure than us. Our infrastructure has been crumbling, but, hey, as we are battling it out for infrastructure bills in this body-- or hopefully will be--the reality is that we have been building out infrastructure like crazy, putting the rest of the Earth to shame when it comes to building one type of infrastructure: prisons-- overwhelmingly, disproportionately warehousing poor people, addicted people, mentally ill people, and people of color.

What is beautiful about this issue amidst all of the negativity that I am expressing is that there is a bipartisan coalition of Americans that range from Grover Norquist, to Newt Gingrich, the Koch brothers, Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute--these are all folks on the right--who believe we need to reform our criminal justice laws, joining with people like me who are Democrats and Independents, Christian Evangelicals who know what the Bible says about people in prison. All of these coalitions, from libertarians, to Christian Evangelicals, even some vegetarians--we all are coming to a national consensus on criminal justice reform.

In this body, you have Patrick Leahy and Dick Durbin partnering with the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley; Mike Lee; the Senator from Texas, Senator Cornyn--all came together to put together a bill that was talked about by these law enforcement officers, a bill that would help us to bring justice to our criminal justice system, a bill that would help us reduce the level of incarceration but empower people to be more successful.

What is astonishing about this is this was not a bill showing leadership; it was showing followership because similar bills are being passed in States all across our country, from Georgia to Texas. Guess what they are finding out. When they lower their prison populations, they lower crime as well.

These mandatory minimums in our country have perverted our criminal justice system. In fact, most people still think that criminal justice is about courts and judges and juries, but that is not the case. Since we have seen this War on Drugs, this race to put more and more mandatory minimums, what has actually happened is, now most criminal convictions happen through plea bargain--about 98 percent are done through plea bargain--not trials any more.

There was a great book about why innocent people plead guilty. That is because you suddenly have a nonviolent drug offense for doing things that past Presidents have admitted to doing, but you have a mandatory minimum charge thrown at you that you either plead guilty to or we are going to take you in for 5 years or more.

Well, our law tried to do the obvious: Lower these mandator minimums. Stop wasting taxpayer money by putting nonviolent criminals in jail for extraordinarily long times.

I was just at a Federal prison in New Jersey. I had the warden walking with me, telling me: There are people in here way too long. They are not a danger, but we are paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to lock them up. Meanwhile, our kids can't get money for public schools. We can't get money for fixing our roads.

So this bipartisan coalition came together and put together legislation that reflects what is happening in the States. That would have brought more justice to our criminal justice system, but it was fought against and criticized by Jeff Sessions.

But even beyond that, the Justice Department, acting on its own, has been lowering mandatory minimums, has been giving instructions to prosecutors on nonviolent drug offenses not to use mandatory minimums.

So with all of this, from policing, to sentencing, to rehabilitation, to access to drug treatment, all of this reform that is going on--not in a partisan way at all--one of the few people standing against this bipartisan work, not just criticizing the legislation but criticizing the Justice Department for their work, has been Jeff Sessions.

Why is this an issue that, just like voting rights, LGBT, freedom from fear, freedom from violence, women's rights--why is this issue important? Why is it an issue that should be seen as so fundamental to our country? What we are seeing is the issue of mass incarceration affect our Nation in ways that most people don't fully understand.

It affects voting rights. One in five Black folks in Florida has lost their right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement overwhelmingly involving drug crimes, often doing things that people in Washington, in elected offices, have admitted to doing. That affects voting rights.

It affects poverty. One study came out that said we would have about 20 percent less poverty in America if we had incarceration rates that were similar to other nations. Why would we have 20 percent less poverty if we didn't have one-fifth of the global prison population? Well, because when you make that mistake for doing something that George Bush or Barack Obama admitted to doing, when you create that felony crime, what happens is you come out of prison and you can't get a Pell grant. You come out of prison and you can't get a job. You come out of prison and you can't get food stamps. You have door after door closed to you.

So these issues, taken together, are more than just about incarceration. It is about public safety. It is about empowering communities. It is about equal justice under the law.

The most powerful law enforcement office in the land sets priorities and has to drive forward the ideals of our country.

We are a nation that is great not just because, as I said earlier in my remarks, of our founding document, which, as Thurgood Marshall wrote, took a civil war and amendments, took an expansive vision of who is included in the ideal of ``we the people,'' but it is the spirit of America that has pushed forward, where people in positions of power as well as grassroots folks embody that great American spirit.

I want to read from one of our great Americans, a man named Learned Hand. Judge Learned Hand wrote a speech called the ``Spirit of Liberty.'' He hand-delivered the speech during World War II to 1.5 million people. It was a time when a whole bunch of naturalized citizens were there. He spoke to first-generation Americans and folks who could have traced their lineage far, far back.

He writes:

We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a

common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion.

Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption;

the rest have come from those who did the same. For this

reason, we have some right to consider ourselves a picked

group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the

past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange

land. What was the object that nerved us, or those who went

before us, to this choice? We sought liberty--freedom from

oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This

then we sought; this we now believe that we are by way of

winning.

What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek

liberty?

I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much

upon constitutions, upon laws, upon the courts. These are

false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes.

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies

there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no

constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.

While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no

court to save it.

And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of

men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it

is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of

liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in

which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes

a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage

few, as we have learned to our sorrow.

What then is the spirit of liberty?

I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The

spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it

is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to

understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of

liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside

its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that

not even a sparrow falls to Earth unheeded; the spirit of

liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years

ago, taught mankind that lessons it has never learned, but

has never quite forgotten--that there may be a kingdom where

the least shall be heard and considered side-by-side with the

greatest.

And now in that spirit, that spirit of an American which

has never been, and which may never be--nay, which never will

be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create

it--yet in the spirit of America which lies hidden in some

form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that

America for which our young men are this moment fighting and

dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America so

prosperous, and safe, and contented, we shall have failed to

grasp its meaning, and shall have been truant to its promise,

except as we strive to make it a signal, a beacon, a standard

to which the best hopes of mankind will ever turn; in

confidence that you share that belief, I now ask you to raise

your hands and repeat with me this pledge:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of

America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation

under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

It is this spirit that, to me, must be emboldened in our country. We still have work to do. We still have challenges. We still have unfinished business. We have a position of Attorney General because there is still injustice. It is not just the fact that we still have crime in communities, still have people who live in fear of violence. That is a reality. But there are also people who live in fear of hatred and in fear of discrimination. There are people who often don't have people at the local level to go to, and only the Federal Government can play that role of strident actor for justice.

There are still people who, for all these years, have their basic American freedoms--like their right to vote--being undermined, where people in power are trying to craft ways to discourage, to stop them from exercising that franchise. We still have a nation in which people are striving for justice.

I am proud of the voices we have heard tonight. I am proud of my colleague Elizabeth Warren, who felt the need to stand up and speak her truth. I am proud of heroes like John Lewis who testified and told his truth.

I realize that the hour is late, but the Senator from Hawaii is now here.

I oppose the nomination of Jeff Sessions and will vote no on the floor, and I hope my colleagues will join me in doing so as well.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor the life and service of New Jerseyan John Salamone. John is a World War II veteran, a beloved member of the Lyndhurst community, and an inspiration to many.

A native of Hoboken, John Salamone began his service upon enlistment in the U.S. Navy in 1943 at the age of 17. After basic training, he was assigned to the medical corps and deployed to the Pacific Theater on the hospital ship the U.S.S. Haven. John's service in the Pacific took him to the Battle of Okinawa, to the liberation of POWs in the Philippines, and to the destroyed city of Nagasaki.

John's experiences during the war changed him. For several years following his return, he used his training to assist others as a volunteer emergency medical technician in his community. After seeing the devastation of the atomic bomb released over Nagasaki, John became passionate about sharing his war experiences with others in the hopes that the United States might never again deem atomic war necessary. To this day, he still prays for peace.

John is treasured by all who have been fortunate enough to meet him, and thanks to his outgoing and affable nature, almost everyone in the township of Lyndhurst knows him. John is a fixture there: he was a Little League coach, a member of the Elks Lodge and the Knights of Columbus, and a member of St. Luke's Roman Catholic Church, where he still attends mass every Sunday, just as he has for more than 50 years. For 68 years, until her death, John was the loving husband of Mary Salamone, and he is the proud father of Robert Salamone, Maureen Hirsch, and Mary Ann Osgoodby. In his retirement, after a 40-year career in sales with Chemical Bank, John spends his time doting on his seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, advocating for the veterans community, and sharing his unique story as a U.S. Navy corpsman during World War II.

John's remarkable commitment to his community and our Nation is an example for all who seek to serve. It is an honor to formally recognize him for his tremendous contributions to his fellow citizens and thank him for his faithful service.

Mr. President, I rise in gratitude for the opportunity to speak on the Senate floor. I want to express a lot of gratitude toward the Senator from Massachusetts. She has been an advocate for the truth of our country. She has spoken here on this hallowed floor. I have now watched her speak in the streets, at airports, at rallies. She is one of those people--like so many Americans, literally millions of Americans over the course of these last few weeks--who is saying with the force of conviction that they will not be silent when the cause of our country is at stake.

I join with her tonight, along with some of my other colleagues, to stand up and really speak from the heart. I think this floor has seen many partisan speeches, but this is not going to be about Republican or Democrat. This is not a speech I ever imagined I would be giving in the U.S. Senate. I never thought I would be here today talking about something that quite honestly was unimaginable to me just months ago.

This is a time I could not have foreseen, and I fear my generation of Americans maybe, perhaps, should have known that moments like this are possible; that we who believe in the values of our Nation, we who believe in the ideals enshrined in our Constitution, such as religious liberty, we should know that every generation of Americans has to prove worthy of these ideals and stay forever vigilant in their protection and never get so complacent as to think that this could never happen. The ideals we enjoy were fought for and struggled for and often bled for and died for. We of our generation who have the privileges we enjoy, the blessings of liberty that we luxuriate in, we have the obligation to stay the course to ensure that these moments never come, and when they do, that we stand with conviction to speak out against them, work against them to resist any retrenchment of American values.

What Donald Trump did in this Executive action issued this past Friday is, in no uncertain terms, a break with American policy. I believe it is a violation of our very Constitution, that it is illegal, unconstitutional, as well as immoral. More than this, it very specifically makes this Nation less safe and not more so. I want to repeat that. It makes this Nation less safe and not more so.

The ban was put forth in a climate of fear, intending to try to appeal to people's fears, trying to tell people that doing this Executive order was going to make us safer, but in its essence it is illogical when you look at the facts. Not only should it be known that it blocks immigration from seven majority Muslim countries--seven countries. Not a single perpetrator of terrorist attacks on American soil has come from these countries, dating back to well before 9/11. In fact, well before 2000, well before the nineties, well before the eighties and, in fact, not since the seventies, in over 40 years, no American has been killed on American soil by any of these countries in terrorist attacks.

In addition to that, what this ban is doing is it is shutting down the Refugee Resettlement Program for about 4 months and suspends the Syrian refugee program indefinitely, despite the fact that individuals entering the United States as refugees undergo the most heavily vetted resettlement process of anybody traveling into the United States.

So understand this. If you are trying to come into this country through student visas, Visa Waiver Programs, there are so many ways to come into this country without going through the refugee process, which takes between 1 year and 3 years, and you are not just going through the vetting of the Department of State but also the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, numerous agencies for over up to 3 years are vetting you. Let me tell you right now, again, people who go through this

program, history is showing, you have not seen in any recent years that folks going through these programs pose a terrorist threat or are taking American lives. So the very argument being used to push this ban is illogical and has no basis for any of the experiences we have had in this country.

A former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration services remarked that no competent terrorist would choose the U.S. refugee process as a preferred strategy for gaining entry into this country. Subjecting yourself to the 1 to 3 years of vetting from multiple agencies, more than any other way to enter, is not a way for terrorists to try to gain access to this country at all.

What we see is that this terrorist ban is putting focus--excuse me, this Executive order is putting focus in areas that do not produce safety but do have the collateral consequence of making us less safe.

The order indefinitely suspends the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States. The majority of these folks are women and children who are fleeing barrel bombs, chemical attacks, military attacks on homes and schools. They are fleeing famine, they are fleeing starvation, they are fleeing the same violent extremism that we ourselves are trying to fight against. While the Syrian people face violence, terror, and oppression, the President has chosen to equate helpless refugees with those who are actually perpetrating the terror. Despite the fact that we have this stringent years-long vetting program for Iraqis and Afghans who risked their lives to help Americans by acting as interpreters, the ban ends--astonishingly, it ends a Special Immigrant Visa Program and substitutes it with nothing.

What is this Special Immigrant Visa Program that many of my colleagues have spoken about? It is a program that is specifically there for Iraqis and Afghans who helped America and put their families in danger, who put their necks out for us. They put themselves out there to assist our servicemen and servicewomen. It actually is there to help people who, because of their service to us and our country, now have their lives endangered where they are.

I want to read a series of tweets just yesterday from Kirk Johnson, a former USAID Administrator in Iraq who wrote about these folks who put themselves on the line for Americans who are our allies and our friends. This is what Kirk Johnson wrote:

I served in Iraq as USAID's man in Fallujah. Lived

alongside Marines and interpreters as they fought terrorists.

Over 100,000 of these Iraqis risked their lives for us

during the war. They bled for our country.

You said, before signing--

He is talking about President Trump--

``We only want to admit those into our country who will

support our country, and love deeply our people.''

And what Kirk Johnson wrote follows:

I'd like you to know [Donald Trump] about some of these

people.

``Homeboy'' lost his leg dragging a wounded U.S. SSgt from

MN out of the field of fire. He spent 4 years being vetted

before coming here.

Hossam helped us build schools. When insurgents found out,

in Oct `06, they left a severed dog head on his front step

that said ``run.''

Faisal, an interpreter for the troops you command [Donald

Trump], died of a suicide bomb on 3/14/2008.

Mohammed was assassinated when terrorists, who wanted to

kill the ``traitor'' booby-trapped his house in Jan 2008.

Ali had both his legs amputated by an IED blast while

working as an interpreter in Nov 2007.

Hameed died of a gunshot wound to the head while helping

our troops in July 2007.

I could do this all day, sadly.

He wrote in his remarks. He goes on to say:

Those that helped us were Christians, Muslims, Yazidis,

atheists, you name it.

These people in Fallujah and the surrounding areas were our allies.

When they ran through gunfire to save our troops, they

didn't think about such labels.

These Iraqis believed in America. They loved our country.

They lost their country as a result of the choice they made

to help us.

Your signature [Donald Trump] just banned them.

He continues:

I have heard from many, many soldiers and Marines (some of

extremely high rank) who believe this is a huge mistake.

One senior military officer with extensive experience in

Iraq and Afghanistan told me it was ``heinous and

counterproductive.''

Now why is it counterproductive? Well, for one, when we are conducting dangerous missions, when we are relying on people in country to assist us with our counterterrorism efforts, if they are going to take that risk, put their lives on the line, be subjected to terrorism themselves, there should be a process that allows them, after proper vetting, to get into this country. That has been American policy. Even people who have been threatened, victimized, and persecuted can't just walk into our country because some of our high-ranking Marines say so. They still go through vetting that often takes years. That is the process. It is a process that Donald Trump has now stopped.

Yesterday a report noted that radical jihadists--the people we are fighting against, the terrorists intending to kill us--were already using this Executive order as a victory, proof that the United States is at war with Islam. Now some people say that claim is hard to make. This is just banning people from seven countries. Well, look a little closer at the Executive order. There are exceptions made for non- Muslims in those countries.

Imagine this. We are the United States of America. Enshrined in our Constitution is this idea of freedom of religion; that there is no religious test to vote, there is no religious test to have citizenship, there is no religious test to enjoy the richness of a nation that believes in religious liberty. But in one action by the President of the United States, who claims to be concerned about terrorism from these countries, he says: I am going to stop people from entering. Oh, wait a minute, only Muslims. Christians are welcome. If that is not a violation of core principles of freedom of religion that there should be religious tests to enter from these countries--that is an assault on all we proclaim in our country to be our core values.

This is not missed by our enemies. They are now trying to say this isn't a war between America and ISIS. This isn't a war between America and radical jihadists. They want, as a propaganda tool, for people to believe that this is a war between the United States and Islam, between America and a religion. That is a lie. But when Donald Trump takes actions like this that specifically target people because of their faith, he is playing into the hands of the propagandists who seek to hurt us.

National security experts from across the political spectrum, from Republicans and Democrats, have spoken out against this order on this basis and on how it will affect our security as a country.

The former Director of the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, said of this order that it ``inarguably has made us less safe.''

Those people who want to help us, who want to serve with our marines, who want to be interpreters, who want to stand up for America, what are they to think now when America has shut its doors, when they have watched others do this, and now they can't gain access to this country? What about those allies of ours who say that the great United States of America is standing up against terrorism and Muslim leaders in other countries? But it is not about Islam; it is about the people who are conducting vicious terrorism, which is a sin on a peaceful religion. What can our allies say now, when we have specifically targeted an Executive order from our President not at a country but at a people who pray a certain way in that country?

What are we to think in the United States? This great Nation born from the ideas of liberty and freedom--freedom to pray as we want--what are we to think?

Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, just 2 days after President Trump instituted this ban, he remarked: Hey, this ban is going ``nicely.'' Earlier today, President Trump's spokesman referred to those being unlawfully detained as just being ``temporarily inconvenienced.''

We know that the reality of the situation is much different for the families and individuals across the globe who are affected. Many of them are permanent residents and green card holders for whom this Executive order has amounted to a door slammed in their face by the country that is supposed to represent the shining beacon on the planet Earth of liberty and hope.

Hundreds of people of seven different nationalities have been trapped at American airports. Many of them were detained for hours on end without access to lawyers; they were handcuffed and interrogated; some were immediately deported, while many more have been turned away at the doors to their flights bound for the United States. These are people who followed all of the rules, who went through extensive vetting, who upended their lives--doors slammed in their faces.

I am sorry, but this is not an inconvenience. This is a denial of process, a denial of procedure; it is a denial of basic liberty and a violation of our principles.

It is no wonder, though, that judges across the country began issuing stays within hours of this order becoming effective. As we saw in New York, how people like Hamidyah Al Saeedi, the 65-year-old mother of a sergeant--65-year-old mother of a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, who traveled from Iraq to see her son for the first time in 5 years. A mother of a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne--someone who should be honored--lawfully entered the United States, and because of this order, she was detained for 30 hours, denied a wheelchair, and handcuffed, before her release.

On Saturday night and early into the morning, I saw Customs and Border Patrol officials at Dulles. I left Washington, DC, and drove to Virginia to go to Dulles Airport. I saw Customs and Border Patrol officials seemingly defy the orders coming from a Federal judge to at least permit all legal permanent residents in detention access to legal counsel. I held the judge's order in my hands. Because of the kindness of a local law enforcement officer who was stationed in Dulles, I was able to shuttle to Customs and Border Patrol, and I was then able to submit handwritten notes and questions to the officials who refused to meet with me. I did not get much of an explanation as to why they were defying a clear order from a Federal judge. Whether or not this was a case of bureaucratic confusion or a message from the courts getting lost, Federal law enforcement officers, under the supervision of the Department of Homeland Security, ignored and defied the orders of a Federal judge.

To me, this is more reason for outrage. In a Nation with three branches of government, the judiciary with a clear role giving an order to the executive branch, I believe the defiance of that order also was unconstitutional.

Access to counsel is a principle in our democracy. It is about fairness and due process. Failing to allow access to counsel, to me, seems a clear violation of constitutional norms and ideals. The judge obviously believes so, and that is why he ordered counsel to be provided.

Still, right now, we don't know how many people are being detained across the country in the wake of this Executive order or how many were immediately and quietly deported once they came here again, thoroughly vetted, in accordance with the law, but they were still deported upon their arrival in this country. I think Congress deserves answers. I wrote to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly earlier this evening to seek them.

This mistreatment of any legal permanent resident or visitors to this country is wrong. It is un-American. It undermines the truth of who we are. It is patently unacceptable.

This Executive order has treated green card holders and immigrants in this Nation as if they were criminals. It has torn families apart across the world and pulled the rug out from families who were preparing to begin a new life in the United States of America. And this order has betrayed some of our closest allies--men and women who risked their lives to help American servicemembers deployed often on hostile soil. Ending the special immigrant visa programs established to help Iraqis and Afghans who risked their lives to help American forces is unacceptable. The United States cannot turn its back on those who stepped up and stepped in when we needed them most.

Just this morning, I read about an Iraqi man, Sami, who had risked his life to work with the American Government in Iraq. After waiting 7 years to gain entry, going through a laborious process of vetting under the special immigrant visa program, he and his family finally got the OK, and they were ready to start their new lives in America. On Saturday, he and his wife and two daughters had flown from Iraq to Istanbul, and they were sitting in their seats ready to take off when they were removed from the plane by security officials. Foreign Policy magazine reported that, through tears, Sami's 7-year-old daughter asked, ``Why don't they want us in America?''

American servicemembers and veterans are joining a growing core, speaking out against this misguided decision which threatens the commonsense program that helps our military do their jobs.

Take Zachary Iscol, a former Marine infantry officer who wrote about some of the Iraqis he worked with who had risked everything to help the United States. He told the story of one man, Frank, who had served as an interpreter for his Marine Corps unit and, in doing so, had taken a bullet in his leg. Frank had remained in Iraq since then. Zachary wrote:

He was still living in Baghdad with daily fears for his and

his family's safety. After six years of vetting, including

what seemed like countless interviews and background checks

by various government agencies, he had finally been cleared

to come to the United States with his pregnant wife and 18-

month-old son.

Zachary went on to write:

My wife and I began to prepare our guest room for their

arrival. But now, because of a new executive order by

President Trump, Frank is no longer welcome.

This is an American military man, preparing to have these folks who put their lives on the line for him, stay in his home.

This special visa program is why people like Mohammed and Saif Alnasseri, whom I am proud to call Jersey residents--two of my constituents--were able to come to this country. I would like to share a little bit about this family.

Mohammed Alnasseri was finishing high school in Iraq in 2003 when the Americans arrived. As an English speaker, Mohammed began helping the Americans stationed near his neighborhood, working for free as their neighborhood translator. When the unit he had become friends with left, he decided to apply for work as an official interpreter with the U.S. Army. By 2004, he had been sent to Fallujah to work with and help protect American military fighting there. Because of his work with the American military, he recounts receiving hundreds of death notes, threatening not just his life but the life of his mother and his family.

He returned to Baghdad where he worked, despite these threats, as a contractor with an American company until one day he was targeted and almost assassinated in his car. He knew at that point, with the death threats and the assassination attempt, that he had to get out of the country.

After moving to Australia, his sister informed him about America's special visa program, so he applied, and 2\1/2\ years later he was able to join his family in the United States.

In a call with my office just earlier today, he wanted to make it clear that he arrived in the United States on July 3, and by August 10, he had started his job. He remarked to my team that he couldn't understand why anyone would think he was coming to America because it was easy or because he wanted something. He spent most of his savings trying to get to America, and he had never taken any benefit since arriving here.

Mohammed met his wife in New Jersey and now lives in our State, works at Costco, and is working to obtain his citizenship. He shared that this Executive order made him more sad than scared and that it simply didn't make sense to ban regular, hard-working people who are also afraid of terrorists, persecuted by terrorists, almost killed by terrorists, and who had done so much to help our country. It made no sense to them.

This is what he said: ``We ran away from these people. I paid all the money I had to leave.'' He did that for the safety of his family.

Mohammed's brother is now a proud American citizen, father of two, and resident of Scotch Plains, NJ. Saif and his wife had worked as pharmacists in Iraq, but when the war began, he knew he needed to get involved. So Saif worked as a translator and reporter for

the Los Angeles Times during the war in Iraq, providing support and key insights to the American media and the American public. They were able to come to the United States in 2008 through that special visa program--the SIV program--and slowly worked their way through school. Now, as pharmacy technicians, they have their pharmacy licenses.

Saif is a pharmacy manager in Cranford, NJ, a homeowner in Scotch Plains, and a proud father of two girls. He savors this country, this precious Nation. He celebrates our values. He is a glowing testimony to the truth of who we are. His success is our success. His family's security and safety and thriving lives in New Jersey give luster to the greatness of America.

In a phone call yesterday, Saif remarked that this Executive order was embarrassing and hurtful, that it was clear Muslims were being targeted, and that he couldn't understand why those who were so heavily vetted like his family posed such a threat.

Saif and his family are heavily involved in their community in Scotch Plains, and they make sure to offer support to families similar to theirs who come from Iraq seeking refuge. They are not just basking and luxuriating in their good fortune to become American citizens; they are honoring one of the great hallowed traditions of our country, which is service.

At the end of the call, Saif remarked that ``[he] didn't think this would happen in any other country.'' It seemed like he was about to say this kind of religiously targeted ban wouldn't happen anywhere else, and he might have been right. But instead, he said that ``if this kind of executive order from a leader in any other country happened against any group of people, you would never see the kind of resistance and action of so many standing up for them.''

Even in one of the darkest moments in recent history, this man, this patriot, this person who served our Nation's interests and continues to volunteer in service to this day, could have every reason to be angry, upset, and cynical. But what is beautiful from our conversations with this man is that he hasn't given up faith. He still believes in the American people.

The beautiful thing about the conversations my staff has had with those New Jersey residents who once were serving our Nation in theaters of violence and terrorism, standing up for our military, for our press, victimized by terroristic threats, shot at, assassination attempts-- these families now here in America witnessing this Executive order are saddened and embarrassed by it, but they are not giving up in their faith in America. That is our story.

I stand here today--dare I say, all of the Members of the Senate stand here today because of this tradition of our country, that even when we had dark chapters from our past where others in positions of power violated our values, the faith and activism and engagement of American people remained.

I dare say we are the oldest constitutional democracy on the planet Earth. God, the genius of our Founders who put on paper ideals that have been heralded for centuries on planet Earth. Newer constitutional democracies literally would study our Constitution and model their nations after elements of our Constitution. I am sad to tell you that some of those countries' democracies have failed. They had the vaunted words, they put forth the same principles and ideals, but their countries' democracies have been overthrown, have seen despots who destroyed the very spirit of those ideals.

Why has America persisted? It is not just because of the documents that are sacred and so special in the course of human events. But what makes those documents true and real--because those sentiments are not just written on parchment; every generation has had them written on their hearts and have said: No matter what I may be experiencing in this country, I am going to dedicate myself to the principles and ideals, because as great as our Founders were when they founded this country in liberty and in justice and equality under the law, it didn't apply to everyone. It didn't apply to women. Native Americans were referred to as savages. African Americans were fractions of human beings. Yet the faith of a people in every generation worked to expand the concepts of liberty and freedom. They made the Constitution more real. They made our Union more perfect. They made our country's truth more true for more people.

It is why great poets like Langston Hughes wrote:

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath--

America will be!

That is the call to the citizenry of this country.

There have been dark days in our past, but every generation of Americans, despite the dark actions of people in power, understands the truth that the power of the people is greater than the people in power. If we never lose faith in the ideals of this Nation, if we keep standing and working and sacrificing and struggling, every generation could advance the ideals of our country and make us more free and more true and more real for more people.

Last week, we saw yet another American leader shrink the ideals of this country, try to pull us backward to times past when we turned our backs on people fleeing persecution. What Donald Trump did is try to pull back on the ideals inscribed on that great statue that sits right next to New Jersey, the mother of exiles, who says in poetry, among other things, ``give us''--not ``Hey, you can come in'' but a demand:

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning

to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

It is a demand to the world that we will take those who are oppressed, we will take those who are being violated, we will take those who are being victimized. A President turns his back on those ideals. We have seen it before.

Dr. Lauren Feldman wrote to me about chapters of dark pasts. She wrote:

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. I am a Jew. My

relatives were unable to find refuge in our country and were

murdered by the Nazis. My grandmother lost her beloved aunt,

Rokhl Rosnick Gertman, and an uncle and 4 young cousins that

she never met. Had we as a country done the right thing and

welcomed the refugees fleeing the Nazis, Tante Rokhl and

millions of others could have joined their family members in

safety and we could have been proud of our country, instead

of ashamed of the racist paper walls built by the FDR

administration to keep my family and others out.

Please tell Mr. Trump that we cannot go back. We must be a

beacon of safety and refuge for the persecuted. Please do all

that you can to prevent this ban from being enacted. Please

think of my relatives and the relatives of your other

constituents and fellow citizens who were needlessly and

shamefully murdered because of our fear and racism. We are

better than that. You are better than that.

She concludes, ``Thank you for your time and service. Dr. Lauren Feldman, Princeton.''

We are the United States of America. We haven't been perfect, but there has been a striving and a yearning in every generation to be more so.

I am a product of people Black and White, Christian and Jewish and Muslim, who, even though issues didn't affect them directly, knew that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. They marched and they fought. They sat in. They got on buses for freedom rides knowing they would be bombed. They tried to cross bridges, standing up against law enforcement, State troopers, Governors who dared them to try to pass them. There were implacable walls of hatred and racism, but they stood anyway, and they bled the southern soil red--for my freedom, for our freedom, for this Nation's freedom.

I have worked all my career for the safety of communities. Yes, we must make sure our Nation is safe. But don't let fear and concern for safety ever make us ever turn our backs on our values as a nation. When we are threatened by our enemies, it is not a time to surrender our values, it is time to double down on them. The terrorists win if they change our free hearts and our souls set on liberty.

We as a nation are called to be great, to be a beacon of liberty and justice. There are people now pulled off of airplanes, forced to return to communities where their lives are being threatened. We made a bargain with them: Stand for America. Stand with our military. Stand against terrorism.

There are people who went through years and years of vetting by agency after agency, and when they were on the brink of freedom, like people of old who were on ships that came into our harbor, they were turned away, back to

face persecution and injustice. That is not the America I believe in. It is not who we are.

So I say to our President in prayer, in deep abiding faith: Repeal your Executive order. Stand up for our principles. Defend them. Be the champion millions of Americans want you to be.

I say to Americans, to all of us as a country: This is not a time to despair. It is not a time to give up. It is not a time to grow cynical or lose faith in our country or our values. No, remember our history. When dark times come, when it seems that people in the highest points of power are turning their backs on their ideals, it is not a time to retreat or equivocate, it is a time to fight, to stand up, to resist.

We are a great nation not just because of the words printed on a Constitution; we are a great nation because people with great sacrifice and struggle fought to live those words and to make them real in the lives of every single person.

America, we must now stand up. The opposite of justice is not just injustice; it is silence and indifference. This may not affect you or your family directly, but it is a threat to all of our collective values.

Go to the Jefferson Memorial and read those final words. Thomas Jefferson knew that for this Nation to be great, we had to pledge to each other an unusual level of commitment. He said that we must mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

There is no honor in this Executive order. We as Americans now must pledge our sacred honor to do all we can to tear this order down so that the truth of America can rise again.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I join with my colleagues today. I appreciate the Senator from Oregon and his remarks. I join with him and the others who have spoken to express my grave concerns about the nomination of Scott Pruitt as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

It is really unacceptable to me that someone who denies climate change science could be put in charge of an agency that is really tasked with advancing our national strategy to address climate change and the ills resulting. Mr. Pruitt has said--the overwhelming evidence to the contrary--that the debate is far from settled. He denies what is happening in regards to the evidence and the science and the conclusions of the near consensus of scientists.

Time and again, this attorney general from Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt, has filed suits actually to block the EPA's clean air and clean water regulations protocols, which have allowed the United States to lead the efforts to reduce carbon emissions and address the climate crisis we face.

There are few issues, in my opinion, that are as urgent as this, and across the globe that we must meaningfully do something collectively about. America must lead and not have a leader on this issue that is now so far out of step with global consensus. Everyone, from scientists and climate experts to business leaders and even our own military officials, understands that climate change is a real threat, not just to our environment but also to our economy, to the health of our people and our national security.

It is disturbing that, in a way--and it also defies common sense--if you hear the way some people talk about climate change, including our President-elect and Mr. Pruitt, you might think that not only is climate change not a problem but that it is not our problem. This could not be further from the truth. We are already, here in America, dealing with and seeing the very real impact of climate change.

Ask anyone living in my home State along the shore or a family in Louisiana whose home has been destroyed by severe flooding or a farmer whose land has become barren from the droughts in California whether or not these consequences are real for their families. Yet, the President- elect and Mr. Pruitt not only refuse to acknowledge the consequences that we are facing but the dangerous and destructive path ahead. They are failing to face that if we fail to act.

Now, the facts of climate change are worth repeating. Air temperatures are rising. Ocean temperatures are increasing. The ocean is becoming far more acidic. Sea levels are rising, both because of expansion of warming oceans and because of the melting of land-based snow and ice that is now entering our oceans. Many mountain glaciers are melting away and the Arctic sea ice is decreasing.

Climate change is an American issue and it is a global issue. Addressing climate change should be a cause where we find agreement across political and geographic divides. In many ways, it already is. We have seen 36 Noble prize winners come together in 2015 in a historic declaration on the threats of climate change. Brad Schmidt, winner of the 2011 Noble Prize in Physics stated: ``I see this issue as the single greatest threat to human prosperity.''

That is why, in late December 2015, 195 countries signed the Paris Agreement, a historic global agreement to meaningfully address climate change. That is why the Climate and Security Advisory Group, a nonpartisan group of 43 military and national security experts, including former military officials, spoke out to urge the next administration to ``comprehensively address the security risks of climate change at all levels of national security planning.''

That is why more than 300 American businesses--significant economic engines of our economy--sent a letter to the President-elect urging him to address climate change and to continue America's participation in the Paris Agreement, saying: ``Implementing the Paris Agreement will enable and encourage businesses and investors to turn the billions of dollars in existing law-carbon investments into trillions of dollars the world needs to bring clean energy and prosperity to all.''

You see, that is the false narrative--that somehow people's working on the climate change issue is done at the expense of businesses. But business leaders understand that there is a tremendous opportunity in the new economy--in a green-energy economy. There is tremendous agreement that America should be leading on this innovation and these ideas, not following that of others around the globe.

They are health care folks who understand the challenges to American health. That is why the American Lung Association warned that ``climate change threatens the health of millions of people. While everyone is at risk for the harms of climate change and air pollution, those most at risk include infants, children, older adults, and those with lung disease (such as asthma and COPD), cardiovascular disease or diabetes. They are the ones who must rush to the emergency room when they cannot breathe because of worsened ozone pollution during a heat wave, or when smoke blows into their yard from wildfires that may be burning hundreds of miles away.''

When we talk about climate change, we aren't talking about ideology or opinion. We are talking about science and evidence. We are talking about national security. We are talking about creating greater economic prosperity, and obviously we are talking about public health.

America cannot sit idly by. We cannot be sidelined in this effort, not just because we produce such a significant amount of the climate- changing chemicals and byproducts but also because we don't want to shirk the opportunities of being a leader in this space. And the American people really understand this. They understand that this isn't a lose-lose, that this could be a win-win for America and the globe. And that is why, according to a Gallop poll from March of last year--it said clearly that the majority of Americans are worried about global warming, and the majority of Americans believe global warming is a result of manmade pollution.

I understand that for many people climate change is not an immediate urgency and reality, but, again, we should understand that right now, many of our more vulnerable Americans are suffering as a result. I see this when I go home from here in Washington to Newark. Newark has almost an epidemic level of asthma, with kids missing school because of this health and lung risk. The facts are clear: The pollutants kids breathe are real. For families living in communities on the shore in my State who are still rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy, the facts are clear: Their homes are being destroyed by unpredictable weather events. In New Jersey, we have seen the damage up and down our coast, with rising sea levels, flooding, and extreme weather.

We know that those who can least afford it--low-income, hard-working families--are severely impacted around the country. Communities that are poor, often minority populations, disproportionately endure pain and suffering related to changes in the weather due to climate change.

We know that when evacuation orders are given, those who can afford to leave their homes face a far different reality than those who have financial constraints.

Not only is it more difficult for working families to deal with climate-related issues, but the neighborhoods and communities in which they live are often the ones that are more affected by the rising temperatures and the pollution caused by climate change. One researcher who conducted a 2014 study

on the effects of climate change reported that ``generally, higher poverty neighborhoods are warmer, and wealthier neighborhoods are cooler.'' We see that in cities in New Jersey.

Multiple studies continue to show that poorer communities are more likely to be exposed to harmful pollutants than higher income communities. One study from the University of Minnesota found that Americans of color are exposed on average to 38 percent higher levels of outdoor nitrogen dioxide and that disparities in exposure amount to about 7,000 deaths a year from the health problems caused by these realities.

Climate change is already posing real dangers. The most recent National Climate Assessment released in 2014 noted that communities in rural America, as well as urban communities, have already experienced consequences of climate change, including ``crop and livestock loss from severe drought and flooding, damage to levees and roads from extreme storms, shifts in planting and harvesting times, and large- scale losses from fires and other weather-related disasters.'' The report concludes that ``these impacts have profound effects, often significantly affecting the health and well-being of rural residents and communities.''

In States like Oklahoma, for example, where the State legislature mandated a study on the potential impacts of climate change, the group commissioned to do that study, the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, definitively concluded the following:

The Earth's climate has warmed during the last 100 years.

The Earth's climate will continue to warm for the foreseeable

future. Much of the global average temperature increases over

the last 50 years can be attributed to human activities,

particularly increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Oklahoma will be impacted.

Undoubtedly, New Jersey, Oklahoma--where Mr. Pruitt is from--and the rest of our country and the world will continue to be impacted by this problem, especially if America does not lead and falls behind.

We have made great strides, though, in addressing climate change under President Obama, including critical tax credits for wind and solar energy that not only help deal with climate change but also help American businesses thrive and lead, with now more people being employed by solar than coal. We have the historic Paris agreement and EPA regulations to reduce emissions from the electric power and transportation sectors. We are making strides of which we all should be proud, and actually our economy is benefiting as a result.

The United States has now emerged as a global leader in meaningfully addressing climate change. We cannot afford to slow down this progress, but I am afraid that under the leadership of President-Elect Donald Trump, that is exactly where we are headed. Despite scientific evidence, popular concern, and the real-life impacts of climate change being evidenced in communities all across the country, all different backgrounds, from urban to rural, our President-elect and his nominee for the EPA, Attorney General Scott Pruitt, plan to advance special interests ahead of the common interest, of the global interest, of America's interests.

The United States has a long legacy of leading, being a global leader in times of crisis, and at a time when we see the realities of climate change, at a time when we and many scientists are concluding that there is a global crisis and military leaders are concluding that we have a global crisis, at a time when we are seeing the effect of that crisis being made real in regions across our Nation and our planet Earth, America must not waiver in its commitment.

I believe the Environmental Protection Agency deserves a leader who is prepared to lead--not deny, not retreat, not equivocate, not surrender ground that we have gained. We deserve to have an EPA leader who is just that--someone who stands up to lead, who makes the difficult choices and finds ways to unify our country, to pull from the wisdom of the military, the wisdom of businesses, the wisdom of communities like the one in which I live, and chart a course for this country that helps to lead the globe, lead planet Earth out of this crisis and into the strength we can find through American leadership. I believe that is the task: that we can save our environment and create incredible prosperity in the future.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, how am I recorded?

I vote no for New Jersey.

Mr. President, the hour is late, even though you look like you have a lot of work there to do, sir. I think I am going to be merciful and keep this short. I want to thank the Senator from Hawaii, the senior Senator from Hawaii, for his remarks.

I just want to wrap up. We have had multiple speakers now driving home a number of points. Two of them I just want to reiterate, which is the fact that as I look at a lot of more moderate and conservative outlets, from the American Enterprise Institute all the way to the American Medical Association, that did not support ObamaCare in the first place, you have this chorus growing of responsible, thoughtful people who said: Hey, we may want to repeal ObamaCare, but to do it without putting up a plan and showing the American public what you are going to replace it with is not only contrary, obviously, to a lot of the political rhetoric we heard during the campaign season, but it is against the logic, it is not prudent, it is actually reckless, and it is going to hurt a lot of people.

This is what we have to understand. I say it is akin to pushing someone off a ledge and telling them, as they are falling down, that, hey, we are going to get a plan, don't worry. The problem is, people are going to get hurt in the interim. The cost of medical care, not having that kind of business certainty that you need, it is going to spike markets and make things very difficult.

I just want to say that this body, which I respect--and I am happy to hear voices like Senator Rand Paul and others on the Republican side begin to come out and say that we should not be repealing this without replacing it. I want to offer my gratitude to them because I think there are a lot of people--I even heard Chuck

Schumer say himself that he is ready to roll up his sleeves and talk about ways to improve this.

We have heard from the President-elect, saying that he is going to have a health care system that is better and that costs less. I think he used the word ``terrific'' to describe what he is going to bring to the American people.

Well, where is it? Where is the plan? What is the idea? Because there are too many people right now in our country who are fearful of what might happen. When I say ``fearful,'' it is a base fear; for example, some people from my State of New Jersey. This is Martha, who lives in a town called Montclair--not quite the same town that the Senator from Hawaii was speaking of before, which I cannot pronounce yet. I hope he will help me with that. Mahalo; is that right? I am doing all right.

But this young lady from Montclair very dramatically writes:

I want to take a moment to thank you for fighting as hard

as you have to protect those of us who are disabled and

vulnerable to financial ruin, medical crisis, and debt if the

ACA is repealed. I am a psychotherapist in private practice

for over 20 years. I have served my community by keeping one-

third of my caseload no fee or low fee for those who have had

no insurance.

For over 20 years, I have purchased my insurance privately

and paid dearly for my medical coverage. Two months ago, I

was diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer in my central

nervous system. I am fortunate that doctors believe that it

can be controlled, but not cured, by my taking a low dose of

oral chemotherapy for life. I now, as a result of this

condition, have zero chance of being able to afford

reasonable medical coverage purchased from an unregulated

open market.

My life, literally without hyperbole, depends on my being

able to maintain continuity of care and insurance regulations

that eliminate exclusions for preexisting conditions. My

energies are limited due to my illness. So I thank you for

doing all you can to fight for my life and my family. The

idea that people with preexisting conditions aren't

contributing to the economic health of our country is a

distortion. I personally address gaps in our health care

system as a provider by sliding my scale.

The safety net is us, and if I lose my health coverage and

can no longer afford it, I will no longer be able to afford

to devote one-third of my caseload to those who cannot afford

it. It becomes a profound domino effect.

That is where we are right now. I have heard so many of my colleagues, Republican and Democratic, speak to the things they like about ObamaCare or at least they like in the abstract, not giving ObamaCare any credit. They like the fact that people with preexisting conditions can get insurance. They like this idea that there will be no lifetime caps. That means that a child who might have leukemia and beats it and then becomes an adult can't find insurance because nobody wants to insure him because they have exceeded these ideas of lifetime caps. They have gotten rid of this idea that you cannot stay on your parent's insurance just because you have turned 23, 24. Now you can do it until you are 26. There are so many aspects of ObamaCare that people say they like. One thing that even Republican Governors talk about liking is just the idea of Medicaid expansions that have occurred in 32 States and have enabled millions of Americans, hard-working families, their children, people living in nursing homes, those who suffer from addiction, and the poor and the underserved, to get access to quality health care.

That is what is incredible. We have people who are coal miners and sick who have benefited from this. We have folks who are in nursing homes who have benefited from this. We have folks who are suffering in this opioid crisis with addictions who have been able to get access to coverage and access to care. More than this, we have now created a system that equates and understands that mental illness and physical illness is in parity--that insurance companies have to offer that as well.

In addition to all of that, we now have a system that says to anybody that you cannot be denied for the kind of reasons you were denied before and find yourself falling into the trap that so many Americans did; that the No. 1 reason--or at least one of the top reasons people were declaring bankruptcy was because they could not afford their medical bills. These are all things that are universally--or at least the overwhelming majority of Americans want.

So we all agree on many of the basic goals. The question is, How do get there? It has been indicated by the President-elect and others that they have a plan to get there, to preserve all of these things that are now being savored by Americans, that are literally, as Martha from Montclair points out, saving people's lives. The question is, How are you going to get there? By the way, if you try to shortcut it and don't tell us how you are going to get there and just repeal ObamaCare, then you introduce uncertainty to the market. Insurance companies are speaking up. The American Medical Association is speaking up. The American Diabetes Association is speaking up. The American Cancer Society is speaking up. All of these nonpartisan or maybe even conservative folks are speaking up, saying: You can't do the repeal unless you put forward what you are going to replace it with.

Free market folks know you don't introduce uncertainty into the markets without consequences, and those consequences would be a disruption to the individual marketplace, the spiking of prices, people pulling out, and that death spiral.

I believe in the prudence of this body. I have seen it from people on both sides of the aisle--the thoughtfulness that they won't rush to embrace a pure political victory at the expense of real people. Well, this is one of those moments.

What are we going to do as a body? Are we going to repeal and not replace? Or are we going to have a great discussion about what that replacement will be?

So tonight we have heard from a lot of my colleagues. I am really proud that folks have taken to the floor. I am even more proud that, from my office, we are hearing from people on both sides of the political aisle. Not everybody likes ObamaCare. Not everybody voted Democratic. It is people from both sides of the aisle. They do not understand why we would rush forward doing the repeal without the replace.

I want to thank everybody who has spoken tonight. The hour is late, and I just want to thank a lot of the folks who don't normally keep these kinds of hours. There are some pretty incredible people who work up around the President's desk.

We have a lot of pages here who do not get enough thanks on both sides--Republican pages and Democratic pages. I want to thank them, as well, for staying late, even though, technically--and I hate to call them out on this--if they have to stay up past 10 p.m., they don't have to necessarily do their homework and show up for school the next day. That is what I hear. So we might have done you a favor. But either way, I want to thank everybody tonight.

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

Oh, I am sorry. I want to--what do I want to do? I want to just drop the mic.