Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to honor a former Member of this Chamber, Senator John Tunney, whose seat I now hold.

Senator Tunney passed away on January 12 in Brentwood, CA, at the age of 83. His family and friends will gather on Monday to celebrate his life.

The son of a world heavyweight boxing champion, Senator Tunney was born in New York in 1934. After graduating from Yale in 1956, he went on to study law at the University of Virginia.

While attending law school, he was roommates with Senator Ted Kennedy, and the two became lifelong friends.

After graduating in 1959, he began his career in public service as a JAG lawyer in the Air Force. He was eventually stationed in California, where he settled after leaving the military.

He first ran for Congress in 1964, winning a House seat representing Riverside and Imperial Counties. After three terms in the House, when he was only 36 years old, John challenged Senator George Murphy in 1970.

It was highly contested election. Senator Murphy shared the ballot with his good friend, then-Governor Ronald Reagan, who was seeking reelection.

Despite the Governor's popularity, Senator Tunney was able to win and by a wider margin of victory than the Governor. That campaign would serve as the inspiration for Robert Redford's movie, ``The Candidate.''

Ever the statesmen, Senator Murphy went to Sacramento to meet with Governor Reagan immediately after the election. The two pledged to work together for the betterment of California.

That willingness to reach across the aisle allowed Senator Tunney to be an effective legislator during his career in the Senate.

A champion of civil rights and environmental causes, he passed several major bills, including the Noise Pollution Act in 1972 and an extension of the Voting Rights Act in 1975.

He also authored the landmark Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act, commonly referred to as the Tunney Act. The antitrust bill gave the Justice Department oversight of corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Senator Tunney also played a key role in keeping the United States out the Angolan civil war, pushing to end the Pentagon's covert operations there.

As a freshman Senator, he authored more than 38 bills, a record few of us here today could claim in our first term.

That success can be attributed in part to the talented staff he hired, including future Congresswoman Jane Harman and Hadley Roff, who later served on my own staff.

Despite his successful record, Senator Tunney lost his reelection bid to S.I. Hayakawa during the anti-incumbent wave that followed Watergate.

Upon leaving office, he continued to practice law, becoming a partner at Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Tunney in Los Angeles.

He also served on the boards of several nonprofits, including Living With Wolves and UCLA's Hammer Museum.

After retiring, Senator Tunney spent most of his time in Idaho, enjoying poetry, reading, fishing, skiing, and hiking with his family.

Senator Tunney is survived by his second wife, Kathinka Osborne Tunney, his six children and stepchildren, and two grandsons.

After his defeat in 1976, Senator Tunney famously said, ``When you get into public life, you've got to be prepared to take your knocks.''

On behalf of all Californians, I am grateful he was willing to take those knocks and thankful for his life of public service.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the introduction of the ``Age 21 Act'' by Senator Flake and myself.

Two weeks ago, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, our Nation experienced yet another horrific mass shooting that has shocked the conscience of us all.

The shooter--a 19-year old former student of the high school--used an AR-15 military-style assault rifle that he legally purchased at a gun store, to kill former classmates and educators. Along with 14 wounded, 17 beautiful lives were lost in this horrific attack. Many of them were children and young adults. Their whole lives were ahead of them.

The overwhelming agony so many victims and their loved ones are experiencing is all too familiar to gun violence victims and survivors all across America. This palpable agony and grief has emboldened students from Parkland and all across this Nation to speak out about gun violence and demand that we as lawmakers act. I am deeply inspired by the courage of these young people, and I hope my colleagues will join me in working with them.

The bill that Senator Flake and I are introducing is straightforward and simple--it raises the minimum age to purchase a military-style assault rifle and high capacity ammunition magazines to age 21. In so doing, this legislation closes the loophole in current law that allows teenagers to legally walk into a gun store and buy an AR-15. It further prohibits private individuals from selling or transferring AR-15s to teenagers under the age of 21. In this way, it brings the minimum age requirements for buying handguns and military-style assault weapons into parity.

It makes perfectly clear that in America, if a person is not old enough to buy a handgun--or, for that matter, old enough to buy a beer--they should not be able to purchase a military-style assault weapon. In my view, this bill is one small step in the right direction. It was developed following the attack in Parkland that had students asking ``why was this teenager able to legally walk into a gun store and buy an AR-15?'' In fact, one student named Samuel Zeif, who lost his best friend in the shooting, asked President Trump why a young person in America ``can still go in a store and buy a weapon of war?''

So we worked in the spirit of bipartisanship to let Samuel, and these students, know that as lawmakers we hear them. And we will work together to make sure that they feel safe in their schools and in their neighborhoods.

So I'm proud of this bipartisan piece of legislation and would urge that this body take it up and pass it immediately. However, I would be remiss not to mention that so much more remains to be done. Already this Congress, I have introduced legislation to ban bump stocks and assault weapons from our streets. I've also introduced legislation that would provide states with a legal framework for courts to issue gun violence restraining orders to prevent dangerous individuals from accessing firearms. Additionally, nearly 100 percent of Americans support legislation that would require universal background checks on all gun sales, something that ordinary Americans are shocked is not already the law.

I ask my colleagues to work with us on these common-sense, broadly supported proposals. I strongly believe that lives are at stake. We can't continue to watch our children get slaughtered.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that ``we are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late'' and ``we must move past indecision to action.''

Today, as students and communities all across our nation cry out for stronger gun laws, this message continues to ring true. Now is the time for us to act, and to show the American people that we can come together when they are looking for leadership.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the introduction of the ``Age 21 Act'' by Senator Flake and myself.

Two weeks ago, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, our Nation experienced yet another horrific mass shooting that has shocked the conscience of us all.

The shooter--a 19-year old former student of the high school--used an AR-15 military-style assault rifle that he legally purchased at a gun store, to kill former classmates and educators. Along with 14 wounded, 17 beautiful lives were lost in this horrific attack. Many of them were children and young adults. Their whole lives were ahead of them.

The overwhelming agony so many victims and their loved ones are experiencing is all too familiar to gun violence victims and survivors all across America. This palpable agony and grief has emboldened students from Parkland and all across this Nation to speak out about gun violence and demand that we as lawmakers act. I am deeply inspired by the courage of these young people, and I hope my colleagues will join me in working with them.

The bill that Senator Flake and I are introducing is straightforward and simple--it raises the minimum age to purchase a military-style assault rifle and high capacity ammunition magazines to age 21. In so doing, this legislation closes the loophole in current law that allows teenagers to legally walk into a gun store and buy an AR-15. It further prohibits private individuals from selling or transferring AR-15s to teenagers under the age of 21. In this way, it brings the minimum age requirements for buying handguns and military-style assault weapons into parity.

It makes perfectly clear that in America, if a person is not old enough to buy a handgun--or, for that matter, old enough to buy a beer--they should not be able to purchase a military-style assault weapon. In my view, this bill is one small step in the right direction. It was developed following the attack in Parkland that had students asking ``why was this teenager able to legally walk into a gun store and buy an AR-15?'' In fact, one student named Samuel Zeif, who lost his best friend in the shooting, asked President Trump why a young person in America ``can still go in a store and buy a weapon of war?''

So we worked in the spirit of bipartisanship to let Samuel, and these students, know that as lawmakers we hear them. And we will work together to make sure that they feel safe in their schools and in their neighborhoods.

So I'm proud of this bipartisan piece of legislation and would urge that this body take it up and pass it immediately. However, I would be remiss not to mention that so much more remains to be done. Already this Congress, I have introduced legislation to ban bump stocks and assault weapons from our streets. I've also introduced legislation that would provide states with a legal framework for courts to issue gun violence restraining orders to prevent dangerous individuals from accessing firearms. Additionally, nearly 100 percent of Americans support legislation that would require universal background checks on all gun sales, something that ordinary Americans are shocked is not already the law.

I ask my colleagues to work with us on these common-sense, broadly supported proposals. I strongly believe that lives are at stake. We can't continue to watch our children get slaughtered.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that ``we are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late'' and ``we must move past indecision to action.''

Today, as students and communities all across our nation cry out for stronger gun laws, this message continues to ring true. Now is the time for us to act, and to show the American people that we can come together when they are looking for leadership.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a Senate Resolution recognizing February 7, 2018 as ``National Girls & Women in Sports Day''. Since the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, our Nation has taken many big steps toward achieving equality for women in our Nation's athletic institutions. In fact, since then, participation by high school girls in athletic programs has increased more than six fold. And in college sports, participation by women athletes has nearly tripled since the passage of Title IX.

However, many disparities still exist between male and female athletic programs in our Nation today. Because there are simply fewer athletic opportunities and programs for girls, there are lower levels of participation in sports amongst present day high school girls than there were for high school boys in the 1970s.

Across college campuses, women athletes still comprise only 44 percent of the collegiate athlete population. And in some instances, the numbers have even shrunk over time. In 1972, women occupied more than 90 percent of coaching positions with collegiate women's teams. Today, women occupy less than half of these coaching positions.

This resolution recognizes how far we have come, but more importantly, it acknowledges how much farther we still have to go to achieve equality for our female athletes. In looking to the future and resolving together that more must be done to provide girls and women equal opportunity in sports, we also celebrate and recognize female athletes from the past who have faced difficult obstacles in their lives to advance the participation of women in sports.

We honor athletes like Althea Gibson, who was the first African- American athlete to break down racial barriers in international tennis and who, in 1956, became the first person of color to win a Grand Slam tennis title with her victory at the French Open.

We celebrate ``Babe'' Didrikson Zaharias, who, in addition to the Olympic medals she won at the 1932 Olympic Games in track and field, challenged conventions in the sport of golf to become the first woman in history who attempted to qualify in the U.S. Open tournament.

We salute Wilma Rudolph, who in the 1960s was considered the fastest woman in the world and, with her performance at the 1960 Olympic Games, was the first American woman to achieve three gold medals at any single Olympics event in history.

Each of these women faced tremendous difficulties to break down barriers in their respective sports to change not just the culture of sports in our Nation, but ultimately, to improve our country. Their names were inscribed in sports history, and in the process they became positive role models for entire generations of female athletes who continue to inspire us all with their talents. Finally, this resolution recognizes the importance of supporting girls and women in sports by holding to account those who use their positions of power--both individual and institutional in nature--to abuse and exploit.

Mr. President, our Nation continues to struggle with the revelations that hundreds of young female athletes were sexually abused within USA Gymnastics affiliated institutions. The stories of these survivors, who endured such horrific abuse at the hands of professionals entrusted to develop their athletic talents, are absolutely heartbreaking and our Nation must do more to prevent these crimes from ever happening again. To put an end to this abuse, on January 30, 2018, Congress passed the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017, which I had authored and introduced to require all Olympic sports organizations and amateur sports organizations to immediately report allegations of sexual abuse to law enforcement.

As the Winter Olympics begin this week in South Korea, our Nation must continue to do everything we can to enforce this legislation and advocate on behalf of these young athletes whose lives have been turned upside down by the abuse that they endured.

I would also like to thank the National Women's Law Center and the National Girls & Women in Sports Day Coalition for their support of this resolution. All young people in our Nation deserve equal access to freely participate in athletic programs and to feel safe and secure so they can thrive within their chosen sports. With these goals in mind, I call on all of us to examine the progress we have made and

commit ourselves to addressing the inequalities we must still overcome to empower female athletes in our Nation.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on January 6, 2017, the U.S. intelligence community released a shocking report.

It stated: ``We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016, aimed at the U.S. presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.''

This wasn't just one intelligence agency, it was a unanimous conclusion of the entire intelligence community.

It sent shockwaves throughout our entire government. This isn't about Republicans versus Democrats, it is about a foreign President ordering an attack on our democracy.

President Putin's goal was clear: to sow division and discord and to undermine public faith in our democratic processes and the rule of law.

Almost immediately we saw concerns and calls for action from both sides of the aisle.

Bipartisan congressional investigations were initiated to figure out exactly what happened and how to prevent it from happening again.

However, despite this promising beginning, the commitment to uncover the facts and protect our country from outside attacks has devolved into an inside attack on our own democratic institutions.

Sadly, rather than serving as a unifying force, President Trump has done all he can to undermine the intelligence community's assessment.

What is worse, he has utterly failed to take strong actions against Russia--and in some cases has rewarded Russia by changing U.S. policy.

Instead of supporting a robust and independent investigation into what Russia did and who was involved, the President instead is working to halt the investigations altogether.

Unfortunately, the President hasn't been alone in these efforts.

Last week, Congressman Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, pushed for the declassification of a transparently political memo written by his staff.

Here are some things we know about the memo and the process to release it: We know that the memo confirms the FBI's Russia investigation was not triggered by the dossier or by Carter Page.

In fact, the investigation started because another Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadapolous, was told in April that Russia had ``dirt'' on Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.

We also know that, while Carter Page was not the reason the Russia investigation started, the government had a reasonable belief that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.

We know that Congressman Nunes did not review the underlying classified documents himself.

These documents include the FISA warrant renewal applications, which must show what the government was learning about Carter Page.

Instead of reviewing these documents himself, the chairman relied solely on his staff, who may or may not have been coordinating this campaign with the White House. We don't know because Congressman Nunes refuses to answer that question.

We know that Chairman Nunes refused to allow the Department of Justice and FBI to brief all Members on the underlying documents before and after the memo's release.

We know that Congressman Nunes refused to allow Democrats to issue their own analysis of the classified documents along with his memo.

And we know that Russian social media bots assisted in the efforts to influence American public opinion concerning the memo.

The drafting and release of this partisan, misleading memo was particularly disturbing to me.

As Senator McCain stated last week, ``If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin's job for him.''

Intelligence and law enforcement oversight should never be used as a political weapon.

I have served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for 17 years, and I can't recall a single instance when an intelligence report was handled in this manner or a situation where additional views were actively blocked from being released.

This has been true even with the most controversial issues like the Intelligence Committee's investigation of the Benghazi attacks or the report on the CIA's use of torture.

In both of these instances, the committee held bipartisan meetings and shared drafts of report language between the majority and minority.

For the torture report, the CIA was offered and accepted opportunities to respond and request changes. The committee revised its report where appropriate and even cited disagreements in footnotes.

Once public, the committee included additional views from Republicans on the committee. The CIA's response was made public. There was a very thorough declassification process to ensure the summary was safe to release.

In fact, even though the final report was completed in 2012, the executive summary wasn't made public until December 2014 in order to ensure the process was properly followed.

There were disagreements, but the minority party was not cut out of the process.

That is not how the Senate works, that is not how democracy works, and it is not how any congressional committee or investigation should operate.

What I have described so far was the process and political implications of the Nunes memo, but it is just one part of an extensive pattern of abuse of power.

What we are seeing is a sustained, coordinated effort to diminish, weaken, and destabilize our top law enforcement officials, and we all should take exception to that.

Both the rushed manner and the disputed contents of the Nunes memo are a case in point.

After the memo was released on Friday, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff hit the nail on the head.

He called the public release of misleading allegations against the FBI and the Justice Department ``a shameful effort to discredit these institutions, undermine the Special Counsel's ongoing investigation, and undercut congressional probes.''

He is absolutely right.

And this is just the latest in a long pattern of attempts to undercut the FBI and Justice Department.

Some of the efforts were blatant.

After FBI Director Comey refused to pledge his loyalty to the President, the President fired him, an action the President himself admitted was tied to the Russia investigation.

The President has engaged in a series of tweets attacking the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Director of the FBI, among others.

There have also been media reports that the President has considered firing both Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, but many of the efforts by the President and his team weren't quite as obvious.

We have seen multiple reports that the President demanded personal loyalty from top law enforcement officials including Comey and Rosenstein.

In fact, President Trump frequently calls the Attorney General ``his'' Attorney General and refers to ``my FBI'' and ``my Department of Justice.'' In fact, they aren't his, they are American people's.

Media reports also say that President instructed White House Counsel Don McGahn to keep the Attorney General from recusing himself from the Russia investigation.

Two heads of intelligence agencies, DNI Director Dan Coats and NSC Director Michael Rogers, said they felt pressure from the President to say there was no collusion with Russia.

And it has become apparent that many of the actions taken by the White House, Congressman Nunes, and others have been coordinated with conservative media like FOX News.

Objectivity and nonpartisanship are core components of the FBI and the Justice Department. To either attempt to co-opt them or punish them for not kowtowing to the President's political whims is egregious.

Our Founding Fathers placed enormous trust in the legislative branch to serve as an effective check on the President, and it is time to do our job.

Congress needs to work alongside Special Counsel Mueller to get answers for the American people.

The Nation deserves to understand exactly what happened and who was involved, and all of us need to believe the President isn't above the law and will not be allowed to abuse his position for personal gain.

Mr. President, I wish to speak in opposition to President Trump's proposal to open all offshore waters in the country to oil drilling.

This proposal has been met with outrage from every corner, as my colleagues are making clear here on the Senate floor today.

I would like to take a minute to remind everyone of what is at stake.

Before the Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez spills, Santa Barbara, CA, experienced the worst oil spill in U.S history.

In 1969, an offshore oil rig in Federal waters spilled more than 3 million gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean.

The environmental disaster killed thousands of marine mammals and birds. Our local beaches were coated by a thick layer of oil. Tourists were turned away, and commercial fishing operations were shut down, hurting the local economy.

After that spill, California decided that enough was enough. State agencies blocked all new offshore oil drilling in State waters up to 3 miles from the shore. The State reinforced this ban with the California Coastal Sanctuary Act in 1994.

Through a combination of local ordinances, congressional opposition, and moratoria imposed by Presidents from both parties, our State has also fought off any new drilling in Federal waters beyond 3 miles from the shore since 1984.

The Trump administration has now proposed undoing our progress by opening all Federal waters, including the waters off California's coast, to new gas and oil drilling.

If his proposal is allowed to go through, it would lead to the first new offshore oil drilling leases sold in the Pacific Ocean in more than 30 years.

So far, an exception has been made for Florida, hastily announced by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in response

to concerns from Florida's Republican Governor.

That is completely arbitrary and not acceptable.

It is clear California also staunchly opposes this plan. According to the latest polling, nearly 70 percent of Californians oppose new drilling off our coast.

Senator Harris and I, together with our colleagues in the House of Representatives, have repeatedly shared our concerns with Secretary Zinke.

The Secretary has even received statements of opposition from California's Governor, senate, assembly, attorney general, coastal commission, fish and game commission, State lands commission, and more than two dozen counties and cities.

So why are we not being given the same deference as Florida?

Unlike this administration, California understands that offshore oil drilling belongs in the past. We are making smarter investments in clean energy and renewable sources. Our State is on target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050.

The President's proposal would undermine that progress.

The Trump administration's proposed six new lease sales off the California coast would lead to new oil rigs that would continue to produce oil for decades to come.

That is well past the time we will need to have moved away from fossil fuels altogether.

Even though California has fought off new Federal drilling for three decades, there are still 43 leases that remain active from Federal lease sales prior to 1984.

In State waters, there are still nine active rigs that were built before the Santa Barbara oil spill.

We are still dealing with the legacy of last century's drilling, but it is our responsibility to leave a better legacy for the next century.

California won't allow new offshore oil rigs to create another generation of dirty carbon emissions and disastrous oil spills.

California, along with our coastal State friends, has rejected President Trump's offshore drilling proposal.

It is time to respect our local opposition and completely scrap this plan.

Mr. President, nearly a year ago, I met with six gymnasts. All of these young women were world-class athletes. All of them had put their faith in USA Gymnastics. And all of them were sexually abused by an adult who had earned their trust.

It was one of the most difficult meetings I have held as a Senator. Listening to their stories of abuse and how the system let them down left me with equal parts sadness and rage.

These young women weren't telling me their stories to get legislation passed, but that afternoon, I promised them I would do all I could to make sure no one else ever experienced the agony that they had.

I am proud that the Senate will come together and pass the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act in order to send it to the President's desk.

This bill is intended to protect young athletes who participate in amateur sports from the sexual abuse that these gymnasts had to suffer.

In the House, Representative Susan Brooks from Indiana and Representative Lois Frankel from Florida, who cochair the Women's Caucus, partnered with us on this bill. They have been strong champions in protecting young women from abuse.

This bill wouldn't have been possible without the courageous survivors who shared their stories.

Some of the same women who I spoke with in February came back to Washington in March to speak about the bill. It was a very powerful hearing that touched many of us.

One of those brave women was Jamie Dantzscher, who won a bronze medal in 2000.

Jamie told the Judiciary Committee in moving testimony that she fell in love with gymnastics at a very young age. Her parents had to beg her to leave the gym after practice because gymnastics brought her such joy.

While she competed with the national team led by USA Gymnastics, team doctor Larry Nassar was assigned to provide her with medical treatment.

As any young woman would, Jamie put her faith in Nassar, who was employed by USA Gymnastics, but her faith was turned on its head in horrifying ways. In Jamie's words: ``What I have only recently come to understand is that the medical treatment he performed for my back pain and other injuries was sexual assault. Dr. Nassar abused me at the USA National Training Center in Texas. He abused me in California and at meets all over the world. Many times the abuse took place in my own room, in my own bed. Worse, he abused me in my hotel room in Sydney at the Olympic Games.''

Jamie went on: ``When I first spoke out about my abuse at the hands of Dr. Nassar, I thought I was the only one. I was disbelieved and even criticized by some in the gymnastics community for bringing this disturbing issue to light.''

It is impossible to imagine the horror that Jamie felt, but what we do know is that Jamie wasn't the only victim.

Jessica Howard was a 15-year-old rhythmic gymnast when Nassar began abusing her. She testified that her first few years of training were ``pure bliss.'' Eventually, she was sent to Nassar for hip problems. Nassar told her she shouldn't wear underwear for her treatments.

Jessica was confused, but she was fearful to say anything to anyone. She believed she would be prevented from pursuing her dreams if she said anything. This is how so much of this abuse was conducted, under a shroud of fear that the athletes' dreams would be quashed.

Later in her life, Jessica served on USA Gymnastics' board of directors. In Jessica's words: ``As an adult, I spent years serving on the USA Gymnastics Board of Directors with a mission of protecting children in my sport from the psychological abuse that I endured. But the meetings seemed to revolve around two things: money and medals. When a sexual abuse case came up during my time on the board, the concern was about the reputation of the coach, not the accusation of the athlete. As I have attempted to come to terms with what happened to me as a teenager, it has become glaringly obvious that USA Gymnastics has not done nearly enough to protect athletes from any form of abuse.''

Jessica and others like her were silenced by a culture of complicity where those in power refused to promote a safe environment and survivors could report abuse. That is what the bill we will pass aims to change.

Finally, I would like to talk about another gymnast we heard from more recently. Aly Raisman, one of the most decorated Olympic gymnasts ever, revealed that she, too, was sexually abused by Larry Nassar, starting when she was 15 years old.

As Aly said, ``I didn't know anything differently. We were told he is the best doctor.''

As a result, Nassar used this trust to manipulate hundreds of victims so they couldn't fully understand that they were being abused.

When telling her story, Aly asked, ``Why are we looking at why didn't the girls speak up? Why not look at what about the culture? What did USA Gymnastics do, and Larry Nassar do, to manipulate these girls so much that they are so afraid to speak up? I am angry.''

I think we should all be angry by what we have heard from these brave young women. When I heard these stories, I found a common theme: The very institutions tasked with protecting these athletes allowed this egregious conduct to occur.

In my view, these governing bodies were, at best, complicit in the devastation wrought on these young children

and their families. They did far too little to prevent abuse from happening in the first place, and when they saw signs of abuse, they did little to stop it.

In fact, USA Gymnastics, which oversees more than 3,000 gymnasiums nationwide, had bylaws that actually made it more difficult for survivors to report abuse.

For example, the only way for a member athlete to ``effectively'' make a complaint about a coach was through a signed, written complaint. Not only is this an ineffective way to prevent sexual abuse, it actually serves to protect the abusers by making it harder for child victims to come forward.

USA Gymnastics didn't even require that sexual abuse be reported to law enforcement when it was discovered. It was a disgusting abuse of power, to say the least.

After we introduced our legislation, USA Gymnastics hired former Federal prosecutor Deborah Daniels to conduct an independent review of USA Gymnastics' policies and procedures. Needless to say, they were found to be woefully ineffective and insufficient. After reviewing documents and interviewing nearly 160 individuals, Daniels recommended nearly 70 policy changes, including a recommendation that USA Gymnastics ``undergo a complete cultural change, permeating the entire organization and communicated to the field in all its actions.''

In one damning finding, Daniels stated, ``The overall impression received externally is that the athlete protection function is, at best, secondary to the primary focus: winning medals.'' That is completely unacceptable.

The legislation we will soon pass does three main things to help protect sex abuse victims and reform institutions like USA Gymnastics.

First, the bill makes it mandatory for anyone affiliated with USA Gymnastics, or any other national governing body or amateur sports organization that crosses State lines, to immediately report sexual abuse to local and Federal law enforcement or social services agencies. This requirement would apply to USA Gymnastics and each of the other 47 national governing bodies that oversee a variety of Olympic sports, including USA Taekwondo, USA Speed Skating, USA Swimming, and USA Cycling. It is absolutely imperative that a firm line be drawn for everyone working with national governing bodies and amateur sports organizations. Once there is suspicion of abuse, a report must be made as soon as possible to law enforcement. This bill mandates that.

Second, the bill strengthens the law that allows victims of sex abuse to file suits against those who abused them to commit crimes such as sex trafficking, sexual exploitation, and child pornography. It clarifies, for example, that victims of child sex crimes are entitled to statutory damages of $150,000, as well as punitive damages, due to the heinous nature of the crimes.

The bill also extends the statute of limitations so that victims can sue their abusers 10 years after they become aware of their abuse. This is important because, tragically, survivors often do not fully become aware of their abuse until later in life. The statute of limitations extension is part of legislation that Senator Cornyn and I have worked on over the past couple of years, called the Extending Justice for Sex Crime Victims Act.

Third, the bill makes reforms to the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which establishes ``national governing bodies'' like USA Gymnastics. When I first contacted USA Gymnastics about its poor handling of sexual abuse allegations, the group cited the Stevens Act as a shield, saying that it prevented them from doing more to protect athletes from sexual abuse. The bill we are passing is a direct response to that claim.

It requires the newly created U.S. Center for Safe Sport--championed by Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune and Ranking Member Bill Nelson--to establish strict policies and procedures for handling abuse allegations, as well as oversight procedures to make sure these policies are adhered to by every national governing body.

The reforms in the bill ensure that national governing bodies and amateur sports organizations will adopt five baseline policy prescriptions.

First, specific policies and procedures for mandatory reporting of sex abuse to law enforcement. Second, policies and procedures to keep track of coaches who leave one gym only to repeat the cycle of abuse at another gym. Third, policies to avoid circumstances where minors and adults are in one-on-one situations. Fourth, policies to facilitate reporting of sex abuse allegations to national governing bodies and other authorities. And fifth, stronger oversight and enforcement policies so that complaints are dealt with uniformly and with fairness and due process.

These new provisions give national governing bodies like USA Gymnastics no excuse not to prevent abuse or to report it when it occurs.

All over the country, survivors of sexual abuse are coming forward to tell their stories of abuse and exploitation. Multiple survivors from around the country have contacted my office and described with great courage their pain and anguish. Each of these stories represents an untold amount of pain and suffering that has generational ripple effects. It is absolutely devastating.

This is why I am so encouraged that my colleagues in this body will soon pass this important legislation to protect abuse victims.

I would also like to acknowledge the list of 270 organizations and individuals who have contributed to and supported this bill. Their names are listed on our website.

I would also like to recognize my staff who have worked on this bill, including Peter Hyun, Ashley Schapitl, Sarah Chang, Matthew Halek, Jennifer Duck, and Tom Mentzer.

I would also like to thank Peter Feldman and Ashok Pinto from Senator Thune's staff, Christian Fjeld and Ioana Gorecki from Senator Nelson's staff, Evelyn Fortier and Kyle McCollum from Senator Grassley's staff, Rob Hicks from Representative Susan Brooks' staff, Meg Barr from House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte's office, and Yana Mayayeva from Representative Lois Frankel's staff

Finally, I would like to recognize two individuals who recently passed away. Both were fierce advocates on behalf of survivors of abuse.

Barbara Blaine, who founded SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, passed away in Utah, and Kristine Ward, the cofounder of National Survivor Advocates Coalition, passed away in Ohio. Both of these extraordinary women spent much of their lives giving a powerful voice to those who have been sexually abused.

This bill attempts to do what both women so powerfully advocated for throughout their lives: speak for the voiceless and demand the change necessary to protect our children, our most precious resource.

Thank you very much.

Mr. President, in the last few years, I have watched attempt after attempt to restrict a woman's right to choose. This legislation bans a woman's access to abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, regardless of the risk to her health, and it weakens the protections for women who are victims of rape and incest. It would also allow for criminal prosecution of doctors and nurses who provide healthcare to a woman in these most difficult circumstances.

For years we have seen politicians at the Federal and State levels push to limit a woman's access to reproductive healthcare. The goal is to completely eviscerate this right. From 2010 to 2016, States adopted 334 restrictions on women's access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare. These include laws that require mandatory waiting periods which have no medical basis, force doctors to give patients inaccurate medical information, and restrict access to contraceptives.

In just 1 year, the Trump administration has attempted to restrict women's access to birth control, attempted to defund Planned Parenthood, supported legislation to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and its protections for women's health, created new government offices to undermine women's healthcare, and nominated judges who openly oppose women's privacy rights under Roe v. Wade.

This bill is yet another attempt to harm women by criminalizing their healthcare, even threatening the doctors who care for them with years in prison.

Think of a pregnant woman who is planning for her family's future, and then something goes terribly wrong. She is experiencing a miscarriage. This happens to women every day. It is not just scary medically, it is extremely painful and emotional. Under this bill, a woman's health is put at risk, and her doctor could be threatened with criminal prosecution. If a woman's miscarriage hasn't completed, her health could rapidly deteriorate from fever and infection. If this bill passes and a woman goes to the hospital, no doctor could help her. Because under this legislation, there is no exception to protect a woman's health. None.

Only if a doctor can be certain that a woman is close to death could they legally intervene, and that I think is unconscionable.

I have heard from women in California who were thrilled to be pregnant, only to receive the devastating news that their babies had fatal anomalies and would not survive. Let me give you an example. Rosalie, from Northern California, wrote to me and stated:

Our baby's heart was severely deformed. He was missing

parts of his brain, and his lungs likely would not have

supported him breathing on his own, ever.

We found all of this out at 19.5 weeks. . . . If we were a

few days late under this bill, we would have been forced to

carry our baby to term only to have him suffer for a few

minutes, days, weeks, and then die.

Families dealing with situations like Rosalie's deserve compassion and support for this heart-wrenching situation. But instead, this legislation leaves them with no options.

Last Congress, at a Judiciary Committee hearing, we heard from Christy Zink, who learned late in her pregnancy that her baby was missing the central connecting structure of the two parts of his brain. She told us in public testimony:

At no point in this decision and the resulting medical care

would the sort of political interference under consideration

have helped me or my family.

What happened to me during pregnancy can happen to any

woman.

This bill is not only harmful to women like Rosalie and Christy, but it is unconstitutional, and it violates Roe v. Wade. Look at the challenges to two States that enacted 20-week bans--Arizona and Idaho. Both were struck down at the circuit court level as unconstitutional.

Let me read that again. Two States, Arizona and Idaho, with this legislation--it was struck down at the circuit court level as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court refused to review Arizona's case. Idaho didn't appeal.

It is also important to point out that this bill weakens protections for women who have been victims of rape or incest. Rape victims would no longer be able to access healthcare unless they could show proof that they received medical treatment or counseling for the rape or reported the assault to law enforcement. I find this shocking.

Think of a young girl who is a victim of sex trafficking. She is beaten, imprisoned, and raped by multiple men each night. She gets pregnant. This law would require this rape victim to go to law enforcement or a government official to access medical care. These girls don't have control over their own bodies. They have no freedom. To deny medical care to rape and incest victims because they don't have the right paperwork or have not reported their assault to police is unworkable and, I believe, cruel.

It is deeply troubling that we are using valuable floor time for this dangerous bill. The current funding bill expires in 10 days, and we still don't have a legislative solution for Dreamers. That is what we should be taking up right now. Instead, Republicans have chosen to spend the Senate's time trying to turn back the clock, debating on legislation that would drive us back to pre-Roe v. Wade.

I remember those days. I know what it was like. We knew then and we still know today that banning abortion does not end it; it just means that women undergo unsafe procedures, and lives are lost.

It is 2018. Women are more than half the population of this country. We run Fortune 500 companies. We are leaders in government. We are the heads of households. The Constitution of the United States guarantees our right to privacy and our right to access to reproductive healthcare. I, for one, will not see these rights stripped away.

Thank you very much.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a resolution in observance of National Trafficking and Modern Slavery Prevention Month, to bring awareness to the terrible scourge of modern slavery and human trafficking around the world.

In 2016 alone, the National Human Trafficking Hotline received 26,727 calls to report incidents of human trafficking in the United States. From those calls, 7,793 victims were identified. These individuals were trafficked across various sectors, economies, and geographical regions under conditions of force, fraud, or coercion.

The United States must not turn a blind eye to this scourge. The State Department estimates that 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. each year. Amongst federally identified trafficking victims in 2016, the top three countries of origin include the United States.

Importantly, more than a quarter of the trafficking cases identified by the National Human Trafficking Hotline involved U.S. citizen victims. According to a recent study by Polaris, modern slavery and trafficking operates throughout a range of U.S. industries including our factories, our agricultural centers, as well as our hospitality and domestic work businesses.

We must all, as Americans, raise our awareness of this pernicious crime that often goes unnoticed and undetected in our communities.

Part of the reason it is undetected is that traffickers prey on vulnerable populations--like those in the juvenile justice system--and use numerous physical and psychological techniques to control their victims behind closed doors: isolating them from the public, exploiting language and cultural barriers, and threatening victims with violence.

These techniques are specifically designed to prevent victims from coming forward to authorities and they are extremely effective. This is why we must do better. We must do everything we can to raise public awareness so that we can all recognize the warning signs.

I have been heartened that in recent years, various private entities, such as hotels, the travel industry, and recently those in the convenience-store industry, have all come together to commit to training their employees to better detect human trafficking and modern slavery.

In addition to raising awareness, January is also a month to renew our commitment to enforce--and enact laws to help eradicate modern slavery and trafficking.

Back in 2000, Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which marked a strong commitment to prosecute traffickers and better aid victims. This Congress, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and I authored the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2017, which was complemented by the Cornyn-Klobuchar Abolish Human Trafficking Act of 2017, to update our trafficking laws to better aid victims.

These bills passed the Senate in November, and the House should adopt these measures quickly so they can be signed into law.

Finally, in introducing today's resolution, I would like to thank Senator Grassley, Senator Cornyn, and Senator Klobuchar for cosponsoring the resolution, and for all of their leadership in this area.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the Floor.

Mr. President, on rollcall No. 19, I voted yea. It was my intention to vote nay. I, therefore, ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome of the vote.

Mr. President, I and the Acting President pro tempore have been on the Select Intelligence Committee for a considerable period of time--I much longer than he. However, I think we are both well experienced with the subject, and I would like to make a few comments on section 702. For 6 years, I was chairman of the committee, and the ranking member for 2 years. What I came to see is that, in my view, there was no more significant content collection program than section 702, and I want to give a couple of examples and explain why I think it is so important that 702 be reauthorized.

A little more than a year ago, on December 31 of last year, approximately 500 people gathered in a popular Turkish nightclub on the banks of the Bosphorus to celebrate New Year's Eve. Tragically, shortly after midnight, a gunman entered that club and opened fire, killing 39 innocent civilians and wounding 69 others. At least 16 of those killed were foreign nationals, including an American who was shot in the hip. Many people inside reportedly jumped into the water in an attempt to protect themselves from the gunfire. After committing this act, the gunman changed his clothes and fled the scene.

Almost immediately, Turkish law enforcement and American intelligence officials began cooperation to identify and locate the shooter. Part of that effort included intelligence collection under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The information derived from the 702 collection ultimately led the police to an apartment in the Esenyurt district neighborhood of Istanbul. There, law enforcement arrested an Uzbek national, named Abdulkadir Masharipov, at a friend's apartment, along with firearms, ammunition, drones, and over $200,000 in cash.

Thanks to the work of Turkish and American law enforcement and intelligence agencies, just 16 days after this horrific attack, police had the prime suspect in custody. Mr. Masharipov is currently awaiting trial in Turkey.

Section 702 of FISA is the most important foreign content collection program that we have. It allows the government to quickly and efficiently collect phone call and email content from non-U.S. persons who are located outside of the United States. Information collected under section 702 informs nearly every component of our Nation's national security and foreign policy.

Section 702 was used by the CIA to alert a partner nation to the presence of an al-Qaida operative who was turning into a cooperating source. Section 702 was used to intercept al-Qaida communications about a U.S. person seeking instructions on how to make explosives in the United States. It was also used to understand proliferation networks used by adversary nations to evade sanctions, including military communications equipment.

In 2014 the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, or what we call PCLOB, reported: ``Over a quarter of the NSA's reports concerning international terrorism include information based in whole or in part on section 702 collection, and this percentage has increased every year since the statute was enacted.''

The law expressly prohibits the targeting of U.S. persons or the targeting of persons located in the United States. Section 702 is a foreign content collection program.

I also believe it is equally important that reauthorization include reforms to ensure that the program continues to operate consistently with the statute's original intent and our Constitution.

Perhaps the most important among these reforms is the issue of U.S. person queries. U.S. person queries refer to the process by which the government searches the 702 database for the content of U.S. persons' communications.

U.S. persons cannot be targeted under section 702, but they can be collected incidentally if the individual is communicating with a non- U.S. person who is located overseas and is targeted under section 702. If an American's communications are collected incidentally, they are added to the 702 database. The government can later search, or query, that database for any American and gain access to the contents of any phone calls or emails that may have been swept up in the section 702 collection. Each of these queries results in the government's accessing the contents of a U.S. person's communications without ever going before a judge or securing a warrant.

The Fourth Amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before accessing those communications, and the Supreme Court has been clear: Americans have a right to privacy in the content of their phone calls and emails. The same standard should apply to communications incidentally collected under section 702.

During the Senate Intelligence Committee's markup of section 702, I offered an amendment with my colleague from California, Senator Harris, that would require the government to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court prior to accessing the content of any U.S. person's communications collected under section 702. Unfortunately, our amendment did not succeed in the committee.

I have also filed our warrant requirement as a floor amendment to the bill that is currently under consideration. This amendment has been cosponsored again by Senator Harris as well as by Senators Leahy and Lee. I really do believe that a warrant requirement will eventually be important as people become more concerned with the need to reform some of these longstanding provisions.

The House-passed bill that is currently before us has a number of positive reforms. First, it does have limited warrant authority that would require the FBI to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court prior to accessing the contents of the U.S. person's communications that are associated with a query that was not related to foreign intelligence or national security. The warrant provision in this bill is not as strong as the one I offered in committee, but it was the result of a bipartisan compromise in the House, and I do believe it is a step in the right direction.

The House bill also includes other important reforms. It establishes a required congressional review process before the government is permitted to restart ``abouts'' collection. It requires the DNI to declassify minimization procedures. It provides greater flexibility to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to meet and hire staff. It also directs the inspector general to assess the FBI's section 702 practices so that we can continue to provide oversight for that program.

In conclusion, section 702, by its numbers and by its covering, is our Nation's most important foreign content collection authority. I would like to see more reforms to this program, and perhaps that is something that those of us on the Select Intelligence Committee can strive for. I believe this is the best we are going to do at this time, and I look forward to supporting its passage.

I thank the Acting President pro tempore.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Republican continuing resolution.

In addition to the many, many problems I have with how this bill was secretly written without any attempt to work with Democrats, I also cannot support it because of the absence of the Dream Act and long-term funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program.

On four occasions, Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act with bills they drafted in secret. These bills had no input from Democrats--or really anyone who would have actually been affected by repeal.

Then they drafted a so-called tax reform bill, again entirely in secret, not consulting anyone outside a small group of Republican lawmakers.

So it is not a surprise that the bill they jammed through is actually nothing more than a tax cut for the richest Americans and large corporations, and all at the expense of American families, who will actually pay higher taxes.

Now, doubling down on their failed strategy of secrecy, Republicans came up with a government funding bill at the very last minute that ignores many of our highest priority needs, including passing the Dream Act and coming up with a long-term solution for CHIP.

I hope that Republicans will finally realize that this isn't the right way to govern. You are not representing the country when you govern 1 month at a time and rush through poorly written bills that only benefit certain special interests.

It is time to return to regular order.

Now I would like to speak about the absence of the Dream Act in this bill, a negligent decision that even the majority of Republicans in this country disagree with.

To say that Republicans have sent mixed signals on DACA is an understatement.

During his campaign, Donald Trump said he supported deporting all undocumented immigrants, including those who had registered for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program.

Later, he said DACA recipients had nothing to worry about. Then, in September, the Justice Department canceled the DACA program. I can't even imagine the uncertainty that DACA recipients have felt since Donald Trump's election.

DACA was put in place in 2012 by President Obama to remove the crushing fear of deportation experienced by hundreds of thousands of young people. These are outstanding individuals who were brought into the country through no choice of their own, at very young ages, and who know no other country than the United States.

In fact, the average DACA recipient was brought into the United States at the age of 6.

Now, there are nearly 700,000 individuals with DACA in the United States, approximately 220,000 of whom live in California. Each day, more than 100 lose their DACA protection, plunging them back into the uncertainty that President Obama relieved.

These young people study, they work, they pay their taxes. They are patriotic. They are American in every way that counts, and to leave them in such uncertainty is nothing less than cruel.

One family in particular has really brought this issue home for me, and that is the Sanchez family from Oakland.

Maria and Eusebio Sanchez lived in the United States for more than 20 years before they were deported in August.

Maria was an oncology nurse, and Eusebio was a truck driver.

They had no criminal records, they paid their taxes, they owned a home, and they contributed to their community.

They also had four children, three of whom are U.S.citizens.

Little Jesus is just 12.

Elizabeth is 16 and currently enrolled in a community learning center.

Melin is 21 and is currently enrolled at UC Santa Cruz, studying molecular cell and developmental biology. She wants to be a pediatrician.

Their oldest daughter, Vianney, is 23, and she is not a citizen.

She is, however, protected under DACA. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in psychology, and today Vianney is taking care of her three siblings.

Imagine being thrust into the role of caregiver to your three siblings after your parents are kicked out of the country, but your own ability to remain here also remains uncertain.

Vianney will lose her DACA status in August. Imagine the fear and stress she carries with her every day.

All DACA recipients have to register with the government, so immigration officials know where Vianney lives and works. They could show up any day and deport her, leaving her three younger citizen siblings behind with no one to care for them.

Sadly, the experience of this family isn't rare. There are families like this across the country, people who came to

America looking for a better life, who work and follow the law and contribute.

By ignoring their plight, by not prioritizing the Dream Act, Republicans are telling them they are just not important enough.

I simply can't accept this and ask my Republican colleagues to look into their hearts and find their compassion. Tell these young people they are safe. Tell them they deserve to stay and the Dream Act will pass.

This bill also fails to provide long-term funding stability for the Children's Health Insurance Program and for community health centers. Both of these programs are vital to our communities and provide healthcare for millions of Americans.

CHIP provides health coverage for nearly 9 million children. In California, 1.3 million are currently enrolled in the program and around 2 million are covered at some point during the year.

This program is absolutely critical to support children in working families that are moderate income and can't afford private coverage. Around a quarter of kids on CHIP have special healthcare needs.

I have been hearing from my constituents about how important this program is.

Rachel, from Orange, wrote me to say, ``There are many who depend on this assistance to stay alive. I was a type 1 diabetic at 12 with two disabled parents. If not for governmental assistance, I would be dead. Don't leave someone in this same situation hopeless.''

Kathleen from Arcata wrote to me and said, ``I am a single mom and though my kids are grown now, I had the CHIP for them. I can't imagine what it would be like to raise a child living in similar circumstances now without this program.''

CHIP is also an important program for pregnant women. In California, 30,000 expecting mothers depend on the program.

This care is so important for ensuring healthy moms and babies. If funding lapses, these expectant mothers are at risk of losing their coverage.

Funding for community health centers is also at risk.

There are more than 10,400 centers that see more than 25 million patients across the country.

In California, we have more than 1,500 centers that care for more than 4.4 million patients each year in California. If we don't provide long-term funding for these centers, there is no doubt they will have to limit hours, lay off staff, or even close.

Supporting community health centers isn't just the right thing to do for access, but for positive outcomes and cost-effectiveness as well.

Health center patients have an 18 percent lower rate of emergency room visits. Medicaid patients receiving care at health centers have costs that are 24 percent lower, and the quality of care is exceptional. Patients do better, and it costs less.

For all the talk about bipartisan support for these two programs, I am profoundly disappointed that we have not addressed their funding in a meaningful way.

Healthcare coverage for kids and access to basic healthcare services in our communities should be a no-brainer. I strongly support these programs and hope we can provide stability soon.

In conclusion, this has been a bad year for governance, and it is being capped off by yet another disappointing display by Republicans.

All of us saw and heard the thousands of Dreamers who visited our offices. We saw not only their passion but also their desire to make a difference.

Many of these young people live in fear every day.

Congress has a chance to improve their lives and provide for them a positive, productive future.

Republicans have chosen to ignore truly time-sensitive issues like DACA, CHIP, and basic government funding. Instead, they chose to spend months on tax cuts for rich Americans and big corporations.

Tax cuts for rich people aren't time-sensitive. Protecting children is.

Let's get back on track, let's add the Dream Act and CHIP to this bill, and let's return to the good governance that our people expect.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss the three judicial nominations we are considering this week: Steven Grasz, for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and James Ho and Don Willett, both for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Before I talk about those nominees, I would like to offer some background on the importance of circuit courts and remind my colleagues why we have so many judicial vacancies.

The Supreme Court hears between 100 and 150 cases each year out of the more than 7,000 it is asked to review. But in 2015 alone, more than 55,000 cases were filed in Federal appeals courts.

These cases range from crime and terrorism to bankruptcy and civil matters, and the judges who hear these cases will affect millions of Americans.

So it is extremely important who is confirmed to these lifetime positions. Federal judges have a tremendous impact on individuals, businesses, and the law. In a way, circuit courts serve as the de facto Supreme Court to the vast majority of individuals who bring cases. They are the last word.

These nominations are very important. That is why it is so concerning that Republicans for years refused to allow judgeships to be filled.

The simple fact is the rush to fill judicial vacancies is the direct result of Senate Republicans' historic obstruction of judicial nominees during President Obama's administration.

During President Obama's last 2 years in office, just 22 judicial nominees were confirmed. That is the fewest in a Congress since Harry Truman was President. In contrast, during the last 2 years of the George W. Bush administration, Senate Democrats confirmed 68 judicial nominees.

At the end of last year, three circuit court nominees and 20 district court nominees had been approved by the Judiciary Committee and were waiting for votes on the Senate floor. Republicans refused to schedule votes for those nominees, many of whom Republicans themselves voted for, so they could hold those seats open. Four more circuit court nominees and 52 district court nominees were pending in committee and never even received a hearing.

Now, 1 year later, the Senate is voting this week to confirm the 10th, 11th, and 12th circuit court nominees this year. Republicans went from delaying all nominees to cramming them through at a breakneck pace.

The 11 circuit court nominees who have already been confirmed are more than any President in the first year of office since Richard Nixon.

Two nominees we are considering this week, James Ho and Don Willett, lay out the Republican playbook.

These seats on the Fifth Circuit have been vacant since 2012 and 2013, even though the Obama White House tried to work with my colleagues from Texas to fill these seats with consensus nominees.

But once President Trump entered the White House, they wasted no time in rushing to put conservative judges in those seats.

Don Willett was nominated on October 3, James Ho on October 16.

Just a month later, on November 15, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing for both circuit court nominees on the same day, and cloture was filed immediately on both nominations after the committee advanced them.

The speed at which these judges are being rammed through the process is stunning.

In fact, on four occasions in the last 6 months our committee has held hearings for two circuit court nominees at the same time. This happened only three times in all 8 years of the Obama administration.

This is a problem because it gives Senators less time to review each nominee's record and less time to ask each nominee questions. Candidly, it makes it very difficult for us to exercise our constitutional duty to ``advise and consent.''

We are already seeing the ramifications. Just yesterday, the White House announced that two of its nominees would not be moving forward. One nominee, Brett Talley, had already been voted out of the Judiciary Committee, but we learned of troubling undisclosed information while he was pending on the floor. This may not have happened if we had sufficient time and cooperation to fully review these nominees.

In the month of November, the Judiciary Committee had hearings for five circuit court nominees. I have served on this committee since 1993, and we have never held hearings for five circuit court nominees in a single month before. That is during a month when we spent a week at home for Thanksgiving.

Republicans refused to advance seven circuit court nominees last year, but now we are speeding through the process to fill those seats with conservative judges. Fairness aside, we should all be concerned that we are giving lifetime appointments to potentially unqualified nominees.

Now, I would like to talk about the three nominees we're considering this week. This week, Steven Grasz was confirmed to the Eighth Circuit.

The American Bar Association has rated 1,755 judicial nominees since 1989, and only two of those have been unanimously rated ``not qualified'' based on concerns over their impartiality.

One was a nominee for the Fifth Circuit in 2006 who was never confirmed. The other is Steven Grasz.

Let me repeat that. This week, for the first time since at least 1989, the Senate voted to confirm a nominee who was unanimously rated as ``not qualified'' by the American Bar Association.

The ABA doesn't rate nominees based on what the evaluators think. Rather, they review a nominee's written record, talk to the nominee, and interview many people who have direct personal and professional knowledge about the nominee.

Here are just two direct quotes from the ABA's review:

``Mr. Grasz's professional peers expressed concerns about his views of stare decisis, and questioned his commitment to it.''

``[A] number of Mr. Grasz's professional colleagues expressed the view that, in terms of judicial temperament . . . Mr. Grasz is not `free from bias.' Specifically, they expressed the view that he would be unable to separate his role as an advocate from that of a judge.''

These are stunning indictments of a man who was confirmed to a lifetime seat on a circuit court.

Some of my Republican colleagues argue that the ABA is biased. The numbers just don't bear that out.

Over the last 30 years, during both Republican and Democratic Administrations, the ABA has rated nearly 1,800 nominees and rated only two ``not qualified'' based on their temperament.

I voted against Mr. Grasz's nomination and am very concerned that he was confirmed on Tuesday. He did not have the support of a single Democratic Senator.

Next I would like to talk about James Ho, nominated to the Fifth Circuit.

During his time at the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Ho wrote a legal analysis of the scope of the term ``cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,'' which is prohibited under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Unfortunately, this memo remains classified, and we haven't seen it.

The reason we know this memo exists is because Jay Bybee cited it in one of the so-called torture memos, which were used to justify torture and have since been widely discredited.

The Bybee memo also appears to have relied on Mr. Ho's analysis to argue that because the term ``cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment'' ``appears to . . . have a rather limitless reach,'' conduct that qualifies as torture should be defined more narrowly than what is prohibited under international law.

It is this kind of flawed legal reasoning that allowed the U.S. Government to torture people, and I have argued that no vote should have taken place on Mr. Ho's nomination until we had access to that memo.

The Justice Department has provided us access to similar memos written by nominees for judgeships, so there is no reason to deny us access to the memo James Ho authored.

I can't possibly vote in favor of a nominee to a lifetime appointment who may have helped provide the legal basis for torture, and it is a shame we are voting on this nominee this week.

Finally, I would like to speak about Don Willett's nomination to the Fifth Circuit.

At his hearing, my first question was about his 1998 comments on a draft proclamation for then-Governor George W. Bush to honor the Texas Federation of Business and Professional Women in 1998.

Let me quote from them: ``I resist the proclamation's talk of `glass ceilings,' pay equity (an allegation that some studies debunk), the need to place kids in the care of rented strangers, sexual discrimination/ harassment, and the need generally for better ``working conditions'' for women (read: more government).''

I asked Justice Willett if these were still his beliefs, and he refused to answer. I asked again, and again, he refused to answer. Senator Durbin asked

the same question, and Justice Willett refused to disavow these beliefs.

As the National Women's Law Center wrote, ``Mr. Willett's skepticism of the existence of sex discrimination should disqualify him from the bench. Litigants coming before Mr. Willett . . . would have reason to question whether their claims of discrimination, including sexual harassment and pay discrimination, would be fairly and impartially heard or, instead, treated as `hype' to `debunk.' ''

I could not support Justice Willett's nomination.

Throughout his career, Mayor Lee broke down barriers while approaching public service with tremendous skill, efficiency, and purpose. On behalf of the city of San Francisco, Mayor Lee led the fight to protect our immigrant communities, build and rehabilitate affordable housing, and expand investment in public transportation and critical infrastructure projects, among countless other fights on behalf of his city.

He was our friend, and we will miss his wise counsel and fearless leadership. The thoughts of San Franciscans and Californians are with Mayor Lee's wife, Anita, his daughters, Brianna and Tania, his family, city leaders, and the people of San Francisco at this difficult time.

Mr. President, I wish to speak about the so-called Republican tax reform bill.

When it comes to revising our tax system, I assumed there were two things my Republican colleagues would agree with me on.

First, that tax reform doesn't increase taxes for middle-class families and, second, that tax reform wouldn't balloon the deficit.

Unfortunately, I was wrong on both counts. The bill that is before us does both of those things. Candidly, I'm surprised that anyone can even call this bill tax reform with a straight face.

I think it is clear to all of us and to the American people that this bill is nothing more than a windfall tax cut for big corporations and rich Americans.

There were no hearings on this bill with outside groups. There was no transparency in the drafting of this bill, and much like the healthcare debacle, the result is a mess that not even all Republicans are supporting.

This bill would blow a $1.4 trillion hole in our deficit. This bill would raise taxes on many working families by gutting important deductions like for State and local taxes. This bill would leave 13 million Americans without health insurance. This bill even has riders in it to allow drilling in pristine areas of the Alaskan wilderness.

The bill takes all of these destructive actions just to put more money in the pockets of corporations and the richest Americans.

This bill is one of the most fiscally irresponsible bills I have seen in quite some time.

In fact, I don't ever recall a tax bill on the Senate floor that drives up our deficit this much.

Republicans are trying to convince Americans that these huge tax cuts for the rich will pay for themselves. Well, that is just not going to happen.

If you don't believe me, listen to all the economists who agree that this bill won't accomplish the goals that Republicans are claiming.

While a higher deficit is bad enough on its own, I fear that Republicans will use this as an excuse to gut vital programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to pay for it.

I can think of better ways to spend $1.4 trillion than cutting taxes for the rich. Imagine how many jobs would be created if we invested that money in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure or the jobs created if we invested in clean energy solutions to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. We could invest in education to prepare our students to compete in the new economy, or we could invest in our veterans by improving the care they receive at VA hospitals.

Instead, Republicans want to waste that money lining the pockets of millionaires and billionaires, and it is the middle class who will pay the price.

Every day I hear from Californians who are worried about this bill and what it means for their family's budgets.

Here are some of their stories.

Raleigh is a middle-class retiree in Davis, CA. He wrote me to say that his taxes would go up nearly $4,000 a year. He simply can't afford such a drastic tax increase on his fixed budget.

Mary lives in Berkeley, CA. She said the effects of this bill will be higher health insurance premiums because the bill goes after the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. The increased costs could mean she will have

to choose between buying health insurance or paying for her daughter's college tuition.

Michael is a senior in Los Angeles. He is afraid he will have to sell his house due to the elimination of the property tax deduction.

Carol, who lives in Sacramento, tells me that her family's taxes would go up almost $12,000 a year, making it harder for her to save for retirement.

These are just a few stories about the hardships that Americans will face because of this bill.

In fact, more than half of American households will pay more in taxes under the Republican plan. That is appalling.

Californians will be particularly hurt by the elimination of the State and local tax deduction.

Since the national income tax was created in 1913, Americans have been able to prevent double taxation by deducting state and local taxes.

In 2015, more than 6 million California households claimed this deduction, and the average amount deducted was $18,400.

Even Americans who don't claim the SALT deduction will be hurt by this proposal.

Funding for critical services like schools, and police and fire departments would be in jeopardy as communities bear the impact of the increased tax burden on families.

This bill also renews the Republican's assault on the Affordable Care Act. The bill would drive up healthcare costs by repealing the individual mandate.

If this passes, prices in the marketplace would skyrocket, increasing by almost 10 percent each year, making healthcare unaffordable for many families. The result would be 13 million fewer people with healthcare.

One group, however, is the clear winner, and that is big corporations.

The Republican tax bill permanently slashes the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.

They will get to keep deductions taken away from ordinary people, allowing companies to drive their executive tax rate down further.

For instance, corporations will still be able to deduct State and local taxes they pay, while middle-class families won't be allowed to.

Under the Republican plan, corporate tax cuts are made permanent, keeping their tax rates low. Meanwhile, the lower tax rates for the middle class would disappear, further shifting the tax burden onto American families.

The misplaced priorities in this tax cut bill are bad for families and bad for America. This bill is being rushed through in large part because it is harmful to families. It clearly skews to benefit big corporations and the rich. It explodes our deficit, leaving the middle- class to pay the tab.

I cannot support this bill, and I urge my Republican colleagues to join me in opposing it.

Scrap this fiscally irresponsible legislation, and work with Democrats on true tax reform that puts the middle class first.