Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the annual Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo, an important part of the Western culture and history of the Pikes Peak Region. This year marks the 77th rodeo, making it one of the oldest and most prestigious in the county.

The Pikes Peak Region plays a significant role in our American history. For centuries, this area was home to Native Americans, pioneers, miners, farmers and ranchers, and other explorers. The Pikes Peak region became a prime location for trade and, eventually, the home of the ``Pikes Peak or Bust'' gold rush in 1857. Thousands of prospectors scrambled to the area for their piece of the gold fortune. This area became the pinnacle of the American frontier, which spurred development and innovation.

Today community-wide events, including the Pikes Peak or Bust rodeo, celebrate the adventurous spirit of the Pikes Peak region and its Western heritage. In addition, the rodeo donates all proceeds to charities that support military members and their families, such as the Fort Carson Outreach Program and the U.S. Air Force Academy's Operation Warm Heart. Thank you to the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo leadership and entire El Paso County community for keeping these longstanding traditions alive.

Thank you, Mr. President.

It is great to have our colleague from Georgia on the floor of the Senate once again, doing the outstanding job that he has always done for the people of Georgia, recognizing the great individuals back home who make Georgia such a great State, and we are just blessed to have him here. I thank him for his continued service for the people of Georgia and the people of this country.

I am also grateful to be standing at a desk that is next to the desk of our colleague Thom Tillis, the Senator from North Carolina. I am glad he is ``up and at `em'' today after a little bit of a startle this morning.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the recent impact of prairie fires in northeastern Colorado. A lot of times when you turn on the national news in the spring, summer, or fall, you might see fires in Colorado, but most of the time those fires are located in western Colorado in the mountains.

We have had some horrible fires in recent years. The past decade has been littered with far too many fires of great consequence to our environment, to families, and to homes--and the damage they have caused. Oftentimes we don't see as much in the news about fires in other parts of the State, including the Eastern Plains of Colorado, the Great Plains and prairies.

At the end of March, Logan and Phillips Counties saw a blaze that burned 32,000 acres, destroying homes, harming cattle and farm operations, and shutting down a key interstate corridor. To put 32,000 acres into perspective, in 2016, the largest fire in Colorado was the Beaver Creek fire near

Walden, burning tens of thousands of acres over the course of 3 months. The fire burned about 38,000 acres. The fire burning 32,000 acres in northeastern Colorado took only about 24 hours of time. So we had 38,000 acres burn in 3 months, and 32,000 acres in northeastern Colorado burned in 24 hours. In both cases, these were incredibly dangerous situations to land, people, and those around them.

These images from the Denver Post paint a frightening picture of the devastation the area faced. We can look at these pictures here. You can see what happened with the dirt, debris, smoke, and weather that was created by the fire, and you can see the damage and what happened. You can see the damage to property here.

I want to go back to the earlier picture and talk about some of the other impacts we saw. You can see the firemen from eastern Colorado working to protect property, trying to stop the fire before it reached the homestead.

You can see someone with a tractor, and they are trying to disc up the ground, trying to create a firebreak. People from around eastern Colorado, northeastern Colorado were getting into their tractors, getting their tillage equipment, their chisels, discs, and sweeps to try to break up the ground to create a firebreak so that maybe they could stop the fire. I commend the first responders for containing this fire and preventing any loss of life while also preventing other fire hotspots from breaking out into larger, devastating blazes because of the work they did.

In the middle of these fires, I remember talking to a county commissioner from Logan County, and he described the situation where they had tried to create a firebreak with their road graders and the farmers in the field trying to disc up the ground to stop the fire from moving.

I remember vividly when the county commissioner told me that at a certain time of the day he had to make a phone call that he would never forget in his life. He called the county commissioners from the neighboring county and said that the fire was moving that way. He said: Hey, I want you to know, Logan County is unable to stop the fire. It is coming your way. I am sorry; it is in your hands now.

Imagine that phone call. This horrible thing that has happened in your county is also spreading to the next county, and you can't do anything about it, despite the incredible efforts and acts of heroism to try to stop it.

Fire departments from across Colorado came to northeastern Colorado in that part of the State to stand alongside local firefighters to get this fire under control. Dozens of agencies and departments responded.

Being from Yuma County, south of where this fire took place, I know how alarming and unforgiving these fast-moving prairie fires can be on the farmers, ranchers, and communities in their path. I fought prairie fires as well in northeastern Colorado and know how fast they move and how indiscriminate they are in their destruction.

I also know the challenges people now face in Phillips and Logan Counties as they try to recover in the spring, but I can confidently say that the community is recovering. According to local agronomist, Dave Gibson:

Within six days of the fire, 85 percent of the cropland was

planted with oats to prevent soil erosion with neighbors

volunteering to help and donate. It was an amazing effort.

My office has been in communication with State and Federal officials, along with those impacted, to ensure we are doing everything possible to assist in this process.

Those from northeastern Colorado are dependent upon agriculture for their way of life. Two-thirds of Colorado's agricultural production comes from the South Platte River valley, those areas considered to be in northeastern Colorado. I have spoken on the Senate floor about the difficult times these farmers are facing outside of the context of national disasters. When times are already tough, seeing your land and cattle operation burned up in a prairie fire makes things even worse. It is during these challenging times in agriculture, whether it is the impact of fire or low commodity prices, that we are reminded of the need for effective leadership.

I was pleased this last week when the Chamber came together in a bipartisan fashion to confirm Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia as our Secretary of Agriculture. Senators on both sides of the aisle recognized that supporting our Nation's farmers and ranchers is not a partisan issue.

It is my hope that we can support Secretary Perdue to expeditiously confirm the rest of his team at USDA because we need it in agriculture. Whether it is the FSA or a crop insurance issue as a result of a fire or a situation relating to trade and how we are going to address low commodity prices, the Secretary of Agriculture needs a team around him. Congress must work with Secretary Perdue to address this crisis in agriculture.

In Colorado, we have seen net farm incomes drop 80 percent since the record highs of 2011. If you look at this headline, this was in the Wall Street Journal some weeks ago. The headline says: ``The Next American Farm Bust Is Upon Us.'' That is because if you look at just the State of Colorado alone, there has been a drop of 80 percent in farm income from the record highs of 2011. That is net farm income down 80 percent.

I believe this Congress needs to act with a four-pronged approach.

First, we need a long-term farm policy in place. With the farm bill expiring in September of 2018, Congress must begin negotiating about how we are going to move forward in a responsible fashion. I commend the Senate and House Agriculture Committees for holding hearings on the next farm bill, and I look forward to conducting our own roundtables and listening sessions to talk about and to learn about and to listen to how we can make a difference. Federal policy certainty with a long- term farm policy is essential for farmers and ranchers.

The second thing we must do is to provide regulatory relief. We have already repealed about $85 billion worth of regulations over the last 3 months. That is an incredible feat to relieve the American economy from the harm and pressure of $85 billion worth of regulatory overreach. By relieving the American business community of that $85 billion worth of regulations and relieving the American family of that pressure as well, it also means we have been able to reduce paperwork by 54 million hours.

Imagine that: $85 billion worth of regulatory reductions means there is 54 million hours of paperwork that no longer has to be completed. Instead, that money, time, and effort can be invested in growing opportunities and following up on sales leads and making that money work for the business and family instead of just for the government.

When it comes to agriculture, the regulatory relief to address this next American farm crisis--some of that regulatory relief, the $85 billion, includes measures such as repealing the Bureau of Land Management 2.0 rule or finally getting the waters of the United States regulation out of the way. That is the kind of regulatory relief we have to continue to pursue.

To those who may not know what waters of the United States regulation did, let's take an example in Colorado. Under the EPA's own study, two- thirds of Colorado waterways are described or defined as intermittent flow. Intermittent flow means they don't have water in them year-round. But according to the government, they would be considered navigable waterways. I don't know how you get anything to float down a dry river, but apparently the EPA can. That $85 billion of regulatory relief includes stopping the waters of the United States rule. We have to continue to peel back the burdensome regulations on American agriculture.

The third thing we have to address is access to finance. Finance is critical to any farmer. There is an old joke, an old saying that if you go out to a farmer--and they may know this already--and ask: How do you make a small fortune in agriculture? The answer is that you start with a large one. I think it is time we fixed that.

Wouldn't it be nice if people weren't just relying on the bank, but they could actually produce enough money to help them into the future, to help them thrive, prosper, grow, and bring in new generations of family? During difficult economic times, when we are facing incredible challenges and low commodity prices, we do need to have

access to financing. Whether it is through the community bank or banks on Wall Street or the Farm Credit Union or farm credit system, farmers, ranchers, and those in agriculture need access to financing to get through this difficult time.

That production loan, that operating loan is how they make it from season to season, harvest to harvest, and planting to planting to make sure they have the ability to stay on the farm. Right now we have a system that I am worried about--a financial regulatory system in place that perhaps a farmer walks into a bank one day, a bank they have been doing business with for 100 years, and they have never missed a payment, but all of a sudden, based on some Washington, DC, formulary, they can no longer get the loan they need to keep them into the next year, even though that bank in their hometown on Main Street knows they will be able to make that payment.

What we have created is a system and financial regulations that are going to make it impossible for some of these farmers to work out the crisis that is upon them. I sent a letter 2 weeks ago to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, requesting a review of all regulations potentially inhibiting rural access to finance.

The fourth thing we have to get right is trade opportunity for American agriculture. With corn and wheat prices near 10-year lows, the most obvious solution is to open up more international markets for agriculture to continue to look for new opportunities to export American agricultural products overseas. The price of commodities for a bushel of corn is about the same price today as it was back when I was born in 1974. Opening up trade opportunities, opening new markets will give us the value-added opportunity to help get more for that bushel of corn.

Some of the greatest opportunities lie in Asia--50 percent of global population, 50 percent of GDP in the near future. Those are markets we have to open up in U.S. agriculture. Those are markets that already have access in many cases to U.S. markets, but if we want to sell products there, sometimes we are hit with tariffs. That is not fair. We have to make sure we are reducing the tariffs we face when we go into their markets because they seem to have unfettered access into ours much of the time.

Those are all measures we can address. The four things are long-term farm policies, regulatory relief, access to financing, trade opportunities that work for the American farmers and ranchers.

Those recent fires in northeast Colorado, as well as fires in past years in Colorado and across the West, are another reminder of the need to address wildfire borrowing. Wildfire borrowing is a process where the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service spends money that it has budgeted for the fires. It runs out of money because it didn't budget enough money to fight the fires, and it turns around and starts cannibalizing other areas of spending that could actually have been used to help reduce the next forest fire. We have to end the practice of fire borrowing, and we have to work with Secretary Perdue as head of the U.S. Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture to end wildfire borrowing and to improve forest and land management to prevent these uncontrollable fires that we have seen.

Supporting those impacted by fires, whether it is in the forest or around the prairie, is something we should all be able to get behind. In Logan and Phillips Counties, neighbors banded together. They worked to recover and rebuild from the devastation shown on these images. It has happened for generations in eastern Colorado and across this country. When there is a crisis, when there is a tragedy, neighbors help their neighbors. You can see it in these pictures. But we can also help our neighbors here in Washington, DC, and across our country's vast farmlands by doing what is right in addressing these challenges. Just as Logan County and Phillips County banded together, we should band together with American agriculture.

It is my hope that Congress can learn from the lessons taught in the aftermath of these difficult situations to come together, support rural communities, support agriculture, and make sure we support our fire response efforts, importantly, to prevent that next catastrophic fire.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, in Denver today, the Colorado General Assembly will gather to pay tribute to Colorado State University professor John Straayer, whose 50-year teaching career included 37 years of managing a legislative intern program during the spring semester. Every Tuesday and Thursday, rain or snow, Dr. Straayer, a van or two, and an over caffeinated, sleep-deprived, ambitious crew of college juniors and seniors would travel to Denver from Fort Collins under the tutelage of Dr. Straayer to learn the ``art of legislation.''

After publishing several seminal books on Colorado politics, accumulating roughly 140,000 miles back and forth to the State capitol, and supervising over 1,000 interns over the years, he is retiring from his service as Colorado's legislative professor emeritus.

Dr. Straayer has a true love of politics--the process, the policy, the people, and the place. He has a passion for every ounce of it, the kind of healthy obsession with a place that means so much to the lives of its citizens. He has seen it all--the good and the bad, the fights and the endearing moments. He watched the impacts of constitutional battles, term limits, and reforms, and 50 years later, he has never lost his passion.

To be a part of his intern program, students were required to take his class on the legislative process. As a young CSU Ram myself, I remember his class vividly, absorbing his drive and drawn into the intrigue of policy. We talked about the cowboy coalition and the Sagebrush Rebellion; about Speaker Bev Bledsoe and Roy Romer; about Anne Burford, who served in the legislature as one of the self- identified ``House Crazies,'' who in the 1980s became known as Ronald Reagan's EPA Administrator but who this past month became known as Neil Gorsuch's mom. We talked about the high-water mark of rural power and the rise of the suburban legislator.

Dr. Straayer introduced new generations of students to oatmeal with vanilla ice cream and topped with maple syrup.

Dr. Straayer introduced people to public service, including congressional and legislative staffers and many members of my own staff. According to a recent article in the Denver Post, those staffers and interns included former Democratic Governor Bill Ritter, Democratic State Senator Matt Jones, and Republican State Representative Dan Nordberg. They were all proteges of Dr. Straayer's. The article goes on to state that Straayer had arranged these internships, monitored them, and graded the reports of their experiences. Dozens of Straayer interns have risen to high electoral office or become key legislative lobbyists--and not just in Colorado; one of his former students is a city alderman in Chicago.

I remember visiting Dr. Straayer when I first joined the program and was getting ready to be assigned to a legislator. When I received the assignment, I was disappointed to learn that I hadn't been appointed to the legislator I was hoping to be assigned to. Instead, I was assigned to a legislator from the Western Slope of Colorado. I am from the Eastern Plains, and I wasn't used to the Western Slope issues. Soon I would discover that Dr. Straayer had placed me with an incredible legislator named Russell George, who went on to become Colorado's speaker of the house--an individual who Dr. Straayer knew would be an incredible tutor and an inspiration to me. Dr. Straayer was right. Speaker George taught me about issues I work on each and every day here in the U.S. Senate--about public lands, water, and the West. He was and is an inspiration to me, and it is because Dr. Straayer had the discernment to go above and beyond for his students.

After graduation, Dr. Straayer invited me to speak to his class and later would tease me in the State legislature that perhaps I talked too much from the well. He provided me interns from the very same program I was a part of 10 years before. Most of all, he reminded me of the good that comes from our teachers and mentors, those who look out for us because, from a special place in their heart, they know that through the gift of their teaching, they will have a lasting impact for generations to come.

Congratulations, Dr. Straayer. Thank you for your service to Colorado State University and to the State of Colorado, and thank you for impacting the lives of so many people. From this U.S. Senator, thanks for being that life-changing spark.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for the work he carried out over the past several months as this nomination proceeded.

Mostly, I want to congratulate Judge Neil Gorsuch on his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

While people in this Chamber voted yea or nay--some voted yes and some voted no--we all recognize the heavy obligation that now falls on the shoulders of Judge Gorsuch as a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

We will lean on Judge Gorsuch to make sure our Constitution is enforced. The American people will lean on Judge Gorsuch to make sure justice is dispensed impartially, with equality--that justice is indeed blind.

To Judge Gorsuch and his family, congratulations.

To the people of this Chamber who worked so hard over the past several weeks and months to assure this moment happened, thank you.

To the great State of Colorado, it is an honor to have a fourth- generation Coloradan--a man of the West, with grit and determination-- join the Nation's High Court.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to come to the floor today in support of Judge Neil Gorsuch's confirmation to the Supreme Court. As a Coloradan, it gives me great honor to be here to talk about his nomination, the exceptional qualities of Judge Gorsuch, and how he will make us proud from the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court.

I also commend my colleague, Chairman Chuck Grassley, for his work on the Judiciary Committee presiding over a very fair series of hearings, giving members on both sides of the aisle time to learn about Judge Gorsuch, to question Judge Gorsuch, and the time to present their side of the argument depending on whatever side that was going to be. Because of the fairness of the hearings, because of the fairness with which Chairman Grassley executed the hearings, it is quite obvious that this Chamber is faced with a very exceptional judge, a very exceptional nominee, and a nominee there is really no excuse to vote against.

Neil Gorsuch really is about the story of the West. He is a fourth- generation Coloradan. It is nice to stand here and talk about somebody who shares so much of our western experience and western heritage and somebody who serves on the Tenth Circuit Court in Denver--a circuit court that represents 20 percent of the land mass of the United States.

Neil Gorsuch's background and upbringing in Colorado represent the hard work of westerners. His maternal grandfather, Dr. Joseph McGill, began his adult life by working in Union Station, the main railway terminal in downtown Denver. Dr. McGill put himself through medical school and went on to become a prominent surgeon. His grandmother, Dorothy Jean, raised seven children, all of whom he gave a better life and put through college because of his work in Colorado.

Neil's paternal grandfather, John Gorsuch, was his legal inspiration. After serving in World War I, John Gorsuch put himself through undergrad and law school at the University of Denver by driving a trolley car back in the trolley car days of Denver. John, his grandfather, helped to build a private law practice that focused on real estate law. He made time to help Denver's welfare department and participated in Kiwanis and numerous other civic organizations, building a legendary law firm in Denver known as Gorsuch Kirgis.

This is the kind of upbringing that made Neil Gorsuch who he is. In his younger days, Neil moved furniture, shoveled snow, like so many of us in Colorado, mowed lawns. It was the kind of upbringing that brings grit and determination to any person who knows hard work. It is that work ethic, combined with his family's appreciation of higher education, that helped Neil consistently realize academic excellence. It has been debated on this floor numerous times, his academic credentials that he would bring to the Supreme Court--his background and education at Columbia, law school at Harvard, his Ph.D. at Oxford, and of course, most importantly, the summer he spent at the University of Colorado and the teaching he carries out at the University of Colorado School of Law.

This week, we are going to see a lot of finger-pointing and hear a lot of accusations. We are going to hear a lot of blame. The one thing we may not hear too much about is the person we are debating--Neil Gorsuch. That is because when it comes to Judge Gorsuch, people understand the highly qualified judge that he is. People understand the incredible legal mind he would bring to the Supreme Court. Instead of debating the merits of the nominee, they are going to debate how we got to the place we are today, and by the end of this week, architects of obstruction may force this Chamber to vote along partisan lines on something that should be a bipartisan effort.

In Colorado, if you go to downtown Denver, you will see an area known as Confluence Park. Confluence Park is a great place in Colorado where people go to spend an afternoon and perhaps a weekend on a hot summer's day. It is where two rivers join together. There at Confluence Park, Colorado's poet laureate, Thomas Hornsby Ferril, has a poem inscribed on a plaque, which reads:

I wasn't here. Yet I remember them, the first night long

ago, those wagon people who pushed aside enough of the

cottonwoods to build our city where the blueness rested.

It is a poem that reminds us in Colorado that we are always looking up, that we are always looking toward the mountains and to that great blue sky. That is what Neil Gorsuch has done his entire life. He is somebody who is forward-thinking, somebody who understands the optimistic sense of Colorado, who understands the majesty of our West, and who understands the majesty of our form of government--a system that has three separate but equal branches of power. He has led a life that is dedicated to the majesty of our Constitution. He is somebody who understands the pillars of our government in that no one branch of government should gain an unfair advantage over the other. That is what we ought to be debating this week. Instead, we are going to live the consequences of decisions that were made over a decade ago.

It is interesting that Judge Gorsuch serves on the Tenth Circuit Court because one of his fellow judges on the Tenth Circuit Court was nominated by President George Bush in the early part of 2001, 2002, 2003. It was Tim Tymkovich who was nominated by President Bush and who was caught up in the very first round of filibusters that changed the way this Chamber worked on nominations.

It was a calculated determination by some in this Chamber to use a tool that had never been used before in such a lethal, partisan fashion that it would bring down judges and ultimately lead to a corrosion of Senate custom--a corrosion of over 200 years of Senate practice--when it comes to judges' confirmations. Ultimately, this week, we will see whether it leads to the disruption of how we confirm Supreme Court Justices.

Make no mistake about it, over the past 200 years, we have not seen this moment before--a successful partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court Justice. People are going to talk about this around the country as they read the news, as they listen to the radio, as they watch on TV what is happening in the Senate. Most will just wonder, is the nominee qualified? If the nominee is qualified, then why are we trying to have an argument about ``he said, she said'' 15 years ago, 16 years ago? Because the nominee is well qualified, he should be confirmed. Why are we going to change 200 years of Senate practice and custom if the nominee is highly qualified, has what it takes to serve on the Supreme Court? That is the choice Members of this Chamber will have to make over the next several days as we work to confirm Judge Gorsuch.

In 2006 when Judge Gorsuch was confirmed to serve on the Tenth Circuit

Court in Denver, this Chamber did so unanimously by voice vote. There are a dozen Members in this Chamber who served then and did not oppose his nomination, many of whom seem willing today to block his nomination to the Supreme Court.

One thing has changed in the intervening years; that is, who serves in the Presidency, who serves in the White House, who serves as President, and whether that nomination came from a Republican or a Democrat. The nomination, of course, in 2006 came from a Republican. Still, he was confirmed unanimously. Judge Gorsuch, now nominated to serve on the Supreme Court, was appointed by a Republican. Yet those very same people who supported him 11 years ago are now objecting to his service on the High Court after his exemplary decade of service on the Tenth Circuit Court.

It was service that showed Judge Gorsuch's joining in over 2,700 opinions, and with the majority the vast number of times. It was service in which he got to know the Colorado legal community. As we have discussed over the past several days and several weeks and the past month, the people who know Judge Gorsuch the best are the people who served with him and who worked with him at the Department of Justice, who practiced law with him, and who serve in the Colorado legal community. I thought it was important that we spend some time in talking about the people who know Judge Gorsuch the best because I think their opinions matter in this--those of the people of Colorado who want Judge Gorsuch confirmed.

Let me start with a series of quotes from Judge Gorsuch's supporters back home in Colorado--again, those people who know him the best.

This particular quote comes not from a Republican, not from a conservative; this quote comes from Steve Farber, who served in 2008 as the Democratic National Convention cochair. Again, he is not a conservative and he is not a Republican; he was the cochair of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

We know Judge Gorsuch to be a person of utmost character.

He is fair, decent, and honest, both as a judge and a person.

Steve Farber continues:

We all agree that Judge Gorsuch is exceptionally well

qualified to join the Supreme Court. He deserves an up-or-

down vote.

This is not Mitch McConnell who is saying this. It is not Cory Gardner, Republican Senator from Colorado, who is saying this. This is a very prominent figure in Colorado's legal community and somebody who served in the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

One of those 12 people who supported Judge Gorsuch in 2006 was then- Senator Barack Obama, who was seeking the nomination at Mile High Stadium, at this very convention of which Steve Farber was cochair. Steve Farber says we should confirm Judge Gorsuch with an up-or-down vote.

Norm Brownstein said that Judge Gorsuch deserves a fair shake in the confirmation process. He is another very prominent Democratic lawyer in Denver.

We have heard a lot of people talk about the cases--those 2,700 opinions--that he was a part of. We have heard Senator Grassley talk about arguments against Judge Gorsuch, people who have said that Judge Gorsuch was always against the little guy and that he was siding with corporations.

Here is a quote from a Denver lawyer and Democrat on representing underdogs before Judge Gorsuch:

[Judge Gorsuch] issued a decision that, most certainly,

focused on the little guy.

Why did Marcy Glenn say this? Marcy Glenn said this because she knows that Judge Gorsuch voted with the majority of the court in 99 percent of the cases. In those 2,700 opinions, 99 percent of the time, Judge Gorsuch ruled with the majority. That is not trying to look out for the big guy or the little guy. That is about following the law. That is about a court that recognizes it is not in the business of focus groups or policy preferences, popularity contests or poll testing. It is about a judge who recognizes that the rule of law matters and that you take an opinion where the law leads you and takes you, not where your personal opinion takes you. It was 99 percent of the time that Judge Gorsuch voted to side with the majority on the court, and 97 percent of the time, those rulings were unanimous. Those decisions were unanimous. Of those 99 percent in which he sided with the majority, 97 percent of them were unanimously decided.

This is a judge who is as mainstream as we have seen. He is somebody who understands the obligation and the duty he has to the law. He is somebody who understands what it means to be a good judge.

I want to read a letter Senator Bennet and I received from the Colorado legal community:

As members of the Colorado legal community, we are proud to

support the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to be our next

Supreme Court Justice. We hold a diverse set of political

views as Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

That is bipartisan support back home from those people who know the judge the best.

What does Neil Gorsuch think it takes to be a good and faithful judge? I will just read from Judge Gorsuch:

It seems to me that the separation of legislative and

judicial powers isn't just a formality dictated by the

Constitution. Neither is it just about ensuring that two

institutions, with basically identical functions, are

balanced one against the other. To the Founders, the

legislative and judicial powers were distinct by nature, and

their separation was among the most important liberty-

protecting devices of the constitutional design--an

independent right of people essential to the preservation of

all of the rights later enumerated in the Constitution and

its amendments.

Now, consider, if we allow the judge to act like a

legislator, unconstrained by the bicameralism and presentment

hurdles of Article I, the judge would need only his own voice

or those of just a few colleagues to revise the law, willy-

nilly, in accordance with his preferences, and the task of

legislating would become a relatively simple thing.

Notice too how hard it would be to revise this so easily

made judicial legislation to account for changes in the world

or to fix mistakes. Being unable to throw judges out of

office in regular elections, you would have to wait for them

to die before you would have any chance of change. Even then,

you would find the change difficult, for courts cannot so

easily undo the errors given the weight that they afford to

precedent.

Notice, finally, how little voice the people would be left

in a government in which life-appointed judges are free to

legislate alongside elected representatives. The very idea of

self-government would seem to wither to the point of

pointlessness. Indeed, it seems that, for reasons just like

these, Hamilton explained, that liberty can have nothing to

fear from the judiciary alone but that it has everything to

fear from the union of the judicial and legislative powers.

That is what Judge Gorsuch said makes a good and faithful judge.

Over the course of the next week or over the course of the next several days, we are going to flesh out in detail some of the decisions people may find they disagree with. We will flesh out in detail Judge Gorsuch's temperament and his performance at the committee hearings. Yet there is no doubt that Judge Gorsuch has the support of the American people, who believe he should be confirmed. There is no doubt that Judge Gorsuch has the support of people who cochaired the Democratic National Convention and of prominent attorneys who know him best from Colorado. There is no doubt that his is an upbringing from the West. It is the story of how we built the West.

I hope that over the course of the next few days, Republicans and Democrats alike will come to the conclusion that we will do this country a service. Instead of having partisan fights, we will have the bipartisanship support for a judge who will truly make this country proud, a judge who will truly represent the law, not personal opinion.

I thank the Presiding Officer for this opportunity today. I look forward to being here for the rest of the week as we talk about Judge Gorsuch's qualifications and as we talk about the nomination.

More than anything, let's make it clear that for 200-plus years, we have allowed judges to come to this floor for the Supreme Court and to be confirmed by a simple majority--no threshold, no 60-vote requirement. We have done so without partisan filibusters. I think that if we can maintain that custom, that practice, this country will be better served. There is no reason to change two centuries of practice in this body simply because they have decided they do not like the person who made the nomination.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, it has been an eventful week already. We have seen a number of Members come to the Senate floor and debate the qualifications of Judge Neil Gorsuch, the President's nominee to the highest Court, the U.S. Supreme Court. Many have come to the floor talking about his high qualifications--the fact that he has the highest American Bar Association rating; the fact that he has the support of the 2008 cochair of the Democratic National Convention; the fact that Neal Katyal, a high-ranking former official in the Obama administration, supports the confirmation of Neal Gorsuch.

We have had others come to the floor, of course, and express their opposition. We have had them come and express their opposition to an individual who has proved himself to be a mainstream judge, who has proved time and again that he has the respect of his colleagues on the Tenth Circuit Court--the bench of the Tenth Circuit Court, as well as circuit courts around the country, and that he has the respect and admiration of the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, where Judge Gorsuch clerked for Justice White, the last Coloradan to be on the Nation's High Court, and where he clerked for sitting Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Judge Gorsuch has been known and has become known as a feeder judge-- somebody who provides clerks to the Supreme Court because they understand the quality and caliber of Judge Gorsuch's work.

We know Judge Gorsuch was a part of 2,700 opinions--decisions decided 99 percent of the time with the majority of his court; we know that 97 percent of that time, these decisions were unanimous. We know about his record as it relates to being reversed or overturned.

We know that our colleagues who, for some reason, are opposing Judge Gorsuch continue to come to the floor and talk about the reasons they apparently can't support Judge Gorsuch: because he will not violate judicial ethics--the ethics judges are expected to keep; because he will not preview how he would rule under a certain fact circumstance. George Washington himself could come down from a mountaintop and would be rejected by the U.S. Senate to be a Supreme Court Justice.

It is pretty incredible to see and hear the arguments that have taken place--some lasting all night--because some of these arguments are nothing more than sour grapes. Some of these arguments are nothing more than that two wrongs must make a right, in their minds. They criticize Republicans for invoking the Biden rule or the Schumer rule, and then they decide because of that, they are going to demand the seat be held open--not confirmed--because they believe it was taken from them. In their mind, if you do two things that are wrong, it must be a right. We have taught our children that is not true.

We know, in this instance, that the American people decided who the Supreme Court Justice would be.

In 2006, Judge Neil Gorsuch was nominated to serve on the Tenth Circuit Court. A dozen sitting Members of this Chamber didn't object to his nomination then. They didn't oppose him. They didn't come and register their ``no'' vote. In fact, nobody even showed up at his confirmation. Lindsey Graham was the only one. That is how objectionable he was then. So either of a couple of things has happened: Nobody did their work then to find out what kind of judge he was going to be or they have decided that the politics have changed.

To me, the most egregious part of this debate is that the politics of the time are demanding that there be absolute obstruction for the first time in over 230 years of a Supreme Court Justice, trying to defeat a Supreme Court Justice with a partisan filibuster for the first time in two centuries, of a judge who agreed 99 percent of the time with the opinions of the court. Ninety-nine percent of the time, his opinions were made with a majority of the court; 97 percent of the time, they were made unanimously.

This is an individual who has outstanding legal credentials: Harvard, Columbia, and, most importantly, time spent at the University of Colorado.

He is a fourth-generation Coloradan. I think an old joke of the late Justice Scalia was that four of the five boroughs in New York have their own Supreme Court justice. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a Supreme Court Justice from west of the Mississippi River, another western voice on the Supreme Court, a judge who comes from a circuit court that represents 20 percent of the landmass? If you are a Westerner and you have a choice of putting a judge on the Supreme Court who is familiar with Tribal law issues, a judge who is familiar with water issues, a judge who is familiar with public land issues, that is a pretty good pick for the High Court, to represent a vast part of America that is underrepresented on the Nation's High Court.

This institution can seem pretty puzzling at times because you consistently hear the outcry for bipartisan support: Let's work together. Let's have bipartisan support. Then the President nominates a judge who has strong bipartisan credentials from the people who know him the best. Look, most people in Washington, DC, most people in this Chamber have known Neil Gorsuch for just a couple of months since the time of his nomination. Most conversations people in this Chamber have had with Judge Gorsuch have consisted of an hour or two at a judicial confirmation hearing or perhaps when he visited the office prior to the hearing. That is the extent of their relationship and their knowledge and their understanding of Judge Gorsuch.

But the people who know him best--the people out in Colorado, Republicans, Democrats--believe he is well qualified and should be confirmed, that he deserves an up-or-down vote. People like Democratic Governor Bill Ritter believe that Judge Gorsuch should have an up-or- down vote and be confirmed.

Some people find Judge Gorsuch to be so unreasonable or so unfit to serve on the High Court, they might find it hard to believe that the 2008 cochair of the Democratic National Convention is supporting Judge Gorsuch's confirmation.

Jim Lyons, an attorney and close friend of President Bill Clinton, supports the confirmation of Judge Gorsuch.

They know his record. They have reviewed the cases that the opposition has stated that they find so egregious, and they still believe he is worthy of confirmation to the Court.

The standard that has been set by those who oppose Judge Gorsuch is a standard that simply says: No Justice could be confirmed. Why? We know that because Judge Gorsuch's credentials, his academic background, his judicial history, his temperament, his qualifications, his ratings show that he is more than able to serve and deserving to serve on the Supreme Court.

There is a certainly a difference in philosophy that has been presented here, a difference of philosophies that some people believe that a judge should just be a judge who follows the law or rules and makes a decision based on where the law takes them, but there are people who believe that a judge somehow has to be maybe a focus group of opinion or policy preferences, that a judge should be somebody who puts their thumb on the scale of justice to reach an outcome that is preferred by a political party. That is not what our Founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. That is not what justice is about.

Judge Gorsuch believes that you take an opinion, you take a decision where the law takes you, where the law leads you as a guardian of the Constitution.

He understands the separation of powers, but apparently that is not good enough for some. They want an activist judge, but I hope that over the next several hours and the next few days that our colleagues will come realize that those who know him best believe that he is qualified, that he deserves an up-or-down vote, that a judge who votes 99 percent of the time in the majority agrees with them.

I look forward to our conversations as we confirm Judge Gorsuch at the end of this week.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I understand there are two bills at the desk, and I ask for their first reading en bloc.

I now ask for a second reading, and I object to my own request, all en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 118, submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it recess until 10 a.m., Thursday, April 6; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; further, that following leader remarks, the time until the cloture vote on the Gorsuch nomination be equally divided between Senators Grassley and Feinstein or their designees; finally, that the mandatory quorum call with respect to the cloture vote be waived.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume executive session to consider the nomination of Neil Gorsuch.