Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I would like to comment a bit on the nomination of Judge Roberts. I wish to make a political observation. This is certainly a political body, and the nomination process has politics to it. That is not a bad thing. That is to be expected.

From a Republican point of view, this is an easy vote. We are inclined to support a President when he is in power making a nomination. But that is not always the case, that every Republican votes for every nominee. I expect that will be the case here. Most of us on our side of the aisle are pleased with the nominee, someone of extraordinary intelligence and legal abilities and seems to be an all around good guy who has served his country well in every capacity that he has been called upon to serve. We will all vote en masse. It is an easy vote for us.

To our Democratic colleagues, it is not so easy. Any time you are in the minority, and the Court being an important part of American life and politics, there is a lot of pressure on my Democratic colleagues to say no for different reasons by special interest groups on the left. We certainly have them on the right. Our day will come. If there is ever a Democratic nominee, we will face the same pressure.

I would like to compliment my Democratic colleagues. Every one has taken the process seriously. There will be a healthy number of Democratic votes for Judge Roberts. To those who have decided to vote for him, history will judge you well. You have based your votes on the qualifications test. You have seen in Judge Roberts someone who loves the law more than politics. Over time, history will judge you well. One of the highlights of the Bush administration will be the selection of Judge Roberts to be the Chief Justice of the United States.

For those who vote no, to a person everyone has struggled with it, thought about it, cast your vote. Generally speaking, the debate in committee and in the Chamber has lived up to the best traditions of the Senate. A few months ago, we were at each other's throats, about to blow up the place. There is plenty of blame to go around, but we have sort of broken that cycle. We have had a confirmation process that is in the best tradition of the Senate. We will go forward, and I hope he gets a healthy number of votes. It looks as if he will.

One thing I wanted to take some time to discuss is some of the reasoning given to vote no and make a cautionary tale about some of the suggestions why a ``no'' vote would be appropriate. There seems to be some suggestion that if he does not have an allegiance to a particular line of cases, particularly the right of privacy cases centering around Roe v. Wade, that you can't vote for him. That one case or that line of legal reasoning is so important that without some commitment on his part to uphold Roe v. Wade or the concept of Roe v. Wade, a ``no'' vote would be in order. I would argue that could be applied on our side. Most of us are pro-life. I would say 90 percent of the Republican caucus is pro-life. Probably 90 percent of the Democratic caucus is pro-choice. The country is pretty evenly divided. If we have a litmus test about Roe v. Wade or any other case, that is not doing the judiciary a good service because you are putting a judge in a bad spot.

Senator Harkin mentioned the Americans with Disabilities Act, something he should be very proud of. He fought hard to make it part of law, and we are a better Nation for it. There are some cases involving the Americans with Disabilities Act that will come before the Court. Senator Harkin did not think that he could vote yes because he wasn't assured that Judge Roberts would uphold the Americans with Disabilities Act in a way that he felt comfortable with in that States have been exempted from the act. We are all dealing with that issue.

The only thing I can say about a guarantee with Judge Roberts, if you are a conservative and would like to see certain Court decisions reversed, if you are a liberal and would like to see certain decisions sustained, the one thing I can promise you about Judge Roberts is he is going to make his decision based on the facts, the briefs, the record in the particular case, and the arguments made by litigants. If he overturns a precedent of the Court, he will apply the four-part test that has been the historical analysis of how to overturn a standing precedent. He is going to do it in a businesslike fashion. He is going to apply the rule of law. If you are looking for an outcome- determinative judge, someone who is going

to see things your way before they get your vote, you are going to be disappointed. To be honest, the law is better off for those answers. He is not the only one to refuse to bargain his way on the Court.

Justice Marshall was asked by Senator McClellan: Do you subscribe to the philosophy expressed by a majority of the Court in Miranda?

That is a major league constitutional case in our Nation's history where police officers have to inform a criminal defendant of certain rights they possess under the Constitution. That was a big deal. When Justice Marshall was coming along, that case had not been long decided. He said: I cannot answer your question because there are many cases pending that are variations on Miranda that I will have to pass on if I were confirmed.

Senator McClellan: Do you disagree with the Miranda philosophy?

Justice Marshall: I am not saying whether I disagree or not, because I am going to be called to pass on it.

Senator McClellan: You cannot make any comment on any decision that has been made in the past?

Justice Marshall answered: I would say that on decisions that are certain to be reexamined in the Court, it would be improper for me to comment on them in advance.

I couldn't say it better. This idea that Judge Roberts has been evasive, that he will not give you a detailed answer of how he will decide the concept of the right of privacy or how he might rule on interstate commerce clause cases that will certainly come before the Court, he is doing exactly what Justice Marshall did when he was in the confirmation process. He was not going to bargain his way on the Court.

Justice Ginsburg gave a very famous quote: I am not going to give you hints, any previews, no advisory opinions about matters that I believe will be coming before the Court.

If that is your test, that you have to have a guarantee in your mind that a certain line of cases or a legal concept will be upheld or stricken down, Judge Roberts is never going to satisfy you. It is good for the country that he not try to do that, just as Justice Marshall avoided that dilemma.

This is a question by Senator Kohl to Justice Souter: What was your opinion in 1973 on Roe v. Wade?

Justice Souter: Well, with respect, Senator, I am going to ask you to let me draw the line there, because I do not think I could get into opinions of 1973.

Senator Leahy: You do not have the same sense, to whatever degree you consider privacy in Griswold settled--which is the ability to engage in birth control practices--to whatever extent that is, you do not have in your own mind the same sense of settlement on Roe v. Wade; is that correct?

Justice Souter: Well, with respect, sir, I think that is a question that I should not answer. Because I think to get into that kind of comparison is to start down the road on an analysis of one of the strands of thought upon which the Roe v. Wade decision either would or would not stand. So with respect, I will ask not to be asked to answer that question.

He said it better than I read it. Bottom line is, he is telling Senator Leahy and Senator Kohl that if you start asking me to compare one case with another that has viable legal concepts, that could be a foreshadowing of how I might rule on matters before the Court, and you are putting me in a bad spot and I like not to do that. I can talk about Griswold, but if you ask me to say am I settled about Roe v. Wade as I am Griswold, then you are basically getting a preview how I might rule on a Roe v. Wade-type scenario.

So the idea that Judge Roberts did not want to make such comparisons with the interstate commerce clause is not unknown to the confirmation process. Justice Souter did not want to go down that road with the right of privacy.

Judge Roberts was asked probing, hard, clever questions to try to get him to tip his hand. I think what he said was the right answer: I will follow the rule of law. There is a process of how to overturn a case. There is a process of how to decide a case. That process is, you look at the facts, you look at the record, you listen to the arguments of the litigants, and you don't prejudge. I think that will serve the country well.

The other concept that is coming into play is what burden does the nominee have, what deference should the Senate give to the President, what is the standard for confirmation. I have always believed that the idea that the President's nominee should be given deference by the Senate is a longstanding concept in our country. I am not the only one who believes that.

There is a lot of information out there from our Democratic friends who have gone down that same road and have come to the same conclusion. There are prominent law professors out there who have suggested that there is a presumption of a nomination by the President that the Senate should give great deference to the Presidential nominee and that our advise-and-consent role does not replace the judgment of the President but simply to see if the person is qualified, has the character and integrity and will wear the robe in the way that is consistent with being a judge and not turn it into power grab.

Professor Michael Gerhardt, who has advised our Democratic friends about the confirmation process established now and in the past, says:

The Constitution establishes a presumption of confirmation

that works to the advantage of the President and his nominee.

He also said:

The presumption of confirmation embodied in the

Constitution generally puts the onus on those interested in

impeding a nomination to mobilize opposition to it.

So the general idea that the President should be given deference, in Professor Gerhardt's opinion, is accepted in terms of the practice of the Senate.

Senator Biden, on past nominations, has said: First, as a Member of the Senate, I am not choosing a nominee for the Court. That is the prerogative of the President of the United States and we, Members of the Senate, are simply reviewing the decision he has made. Second: Our review, I believe, must operate within certain limits. We are attempting to answer some of the following questions: First, does the nominee have the intellectual capacity, confidence, and temperament to be a Supreme Court Justice? Second, is the nominee of good moral character and free of conflict of interest that would compromise her ability--in this case it was Justice Ginsburg--to faithfully and objectively perform her role as a member of the Supreme Court? Third, will the nominee faithfully uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States of America? We are not attempting to determine whether the nominee will address with all of us--being the Senate--every pressing social or legal issue of the day. Indeed, if that were the test, no one would pass this committee, much less the full Senate.

I could not agree with Senator Biden more. If that is the test, we are OK. If it becomes some subjective test where you have to adopt our view of a particular line of legal reasoning, then I think you have undermined the role of the President, I think you put the Judiciary at a great disadvantage, and I think you will be starting down a road that will not pay great dividends for the Senate.

I argue that whatever votes you cast, let's not create standards that will come back to haunt the judiciary. Let's not put people in a bind, in trying to get on the Court, by making decisions or answering questions that will compromise their integrity and violate their judicial ethics to get votes.

I do not think anybody is intentionally trying to do that, but there are some disturbing comments about what the standard should be. There have been a couple of occasions on the Judiciary Committee where people have looked at Judge Roberts and said: Convince me, the burden is on you to convince me you will not do the following or you will do the following. I don't think that is helpful.

There have been some occasions in the committee where people have acknowledged the great intellect of Judge Roberts. His preparation for the job is not in question. I said in committee: If you question his intellect, people are going to question yours. He is a genius. There is no way of getting around that. He is one of the greatest legal minds in the history of the country, and I think he will be a historic choice by the President.

People have suggested: I don't know if he has the real-world experience; I know about your brain, but I don't

know about your heart. I suggest it is dangerous for us in the Senate to begin judging other people's hearts. That gets to be a slippery slope.

Senator Wyden's statement, I thought, was dead on point. He understands the deference the body gives to the President. He pointed out, in fact, that Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer, two Clinton nominees, received 87 votes and 96 votes, respectively. If you start applying heart tests, I can tell you that gets to be so subjective and so political, and I think it is dangerous for the judiciary and not healthy for the Senate.

One of the issues Justice Ginsburg wrote about was the idea that prostitution should be a legal activity because to restrict women from engaging in prostitution is basically restricting a woman's right to engage in commerce.

You can agree or disagree, but from my point of view, looking at the world as I know it to be as a former prosecutor and former defense attorney who has had some experience in criminal law, if I am using the heart test or the real-world experience test, I would argue that from the experiences I have seen as a criminal defense lawyer and as a criminal prosecutor, that prostitution is hell for women; that if you really understood the life of a prostitute, it would not be a good business endeavor to uphold. It would be something we would want to deter.

That is my view based on life as I know it, having been involved in the criminal law business for 20-something years.

She said she supported the idea of Federal funding for abortion. If you wanted to try to question someone's heart from a pro-life perspective, I think it would be pretty tough to take taxpayers' dollars and use them for a procedure that millions of Americans find morally wrong.

So if we start going down the road of whether we believe a person before us has the right heart or the right real-world experiences, then you are taking the objective qualification, intellect, and character test, not an ideologue--which I think is an appropriate thing--and you are beginning to put subjective elements in it that will not be good for the judiciary and will not be good for the Senate. I can assure you, if we started looking at those type of tests for Justice Ginsburg or Justice Breyer, who was a Democratic staffer, if we started looking at their philosophy or trying to judge their heart or having their value system equate with ours to the point we feel comfortable, then they would not have gotten nearly the votes they did because it is clear to me that not too long ago Republicans, during the Clinton administration, overlooked all the differences they had with Ginsburg and voted for her 96 to 3 and overlooked all the differences they had with Justice Breyer and gave him 87 votes. It is clear to me that Democrats and President Bush 1's administration overlooked all the differences they had with Justice Scalia, and he got 98 votes.

It has been mentioned that the President has politicized this process, and there have been all kinds of veiled and direct threats about the next nominee: If you pick so and so, you are going to get a fight. If you pick Priscilla Owen, if you pick Janice Rogers Brown, you are going to get a fight, bringing back the specter of the filibuster.

What did the President do when he ran in his campaign? He talked about the Supreme Court and how important it was to him. He said, basically: If I am the President of the United States, on my watch, I am going to nominate well-qualified, strict constructionists to the Court with no litmus test, who will interpret the law and not become legislators themselves. He showed praise and admiration for Scalia and Thomas.

I would argue that something is wrong with the Senate if they can vote for someone 98 to 0 and say, If you pick someone like him, they are out of the mainstream and desiring a filibuster. How can you go from 98 to 0, someone similar to the person a decade later, and you filibuster? I would argue that if you do that, it is more about politics than it is about qualifications.

I hope we don't do that because the one thing I can assure you, knowing the President reasonably well, is that he is going to fulfill his campaign promise. He is going to send over to this body a well- qualified, strict constructionist, and to expect anything else, you ignored the last two elections. We are not going to sit on the sidelines and watch the election be overturned because of political pressure from the left. That is not going to happen.

I do expect the President to listen, as he did before he nominated Judge Roberts. I expect him to consult, as he did before he nominated Judge Roberts. I was very pleased and proud of his pick. I am encouraging the President to listen to our Democratic colleagues, listen to us all. But the most encouragement I could give the President is: Fulfill your campaign promise. Do what you said you would do when you ran for President. Send us over a well-qualified, strict constructionist conservative with no litmus test attached. If you do that, then you will have done a good service for the American people because you got elected twice telling them what you are going to do.

I have about 5 minutes, and I will let my other colleagues speak.

There were a couple of other comments about concerns with this nominee. It goes back to the memos. This nominee worked for the Reagan administration. He was in his midtwenties, and that has gotten to be a bad thing. Working for Ronald Reagan, I think, is a good thing. Justice Breyer was a Democratic staffer. No one held that against him. He worked for the Democratic side of the aisle in the Senate, and I don't remember anyone suggesting that was a bad thing.

Presidents pick people they know and with whom they are comfortable. Clinton was comfortable with Ginsburg, the executive general council for the ACLU, someone we would not have picked. He was comfortable with Justice Breyer, a former Democratic staffer, someone this President would not pick. This President picked someone who worked for his dad, President Bush 1, and Ronald Reagan.

There is an argument out there that adopting the Reagan position on extending the Civil Rights Act in toto, without a change, that would lead to a reverse discrimination test called ``proportionality'' and is out of the mainstream. Ronald Reagan won 49 States. If you can win 49 States and be out of the mainstream, I would argue the person saying you are out of the mainstream is out of the mainstream. If you picked someone similar to Scalia and that would justify a filibuster and the guy got 98 votes, there is a disconnect going on here.

One of the memos that is in question is a memo that Judge Roberts wrote about the Reagan administration's decision to grant amnesty, for lack of a better word, to illegal aliens in this country. He was writing a memo to suggest how the President should respond to an inquiry by Spanish Today, a Latino, Hispanic newspaper. He talked about the idea that it would be well received in the Hispanic community to grant amnesty. And he said to the effect that Spanish Today would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their illegal amigos.

Somehow that one phrase has been suggested that this young man, working for the Reagan administration, committed some kind of a wrong that would deny him the ability to be fairly considered for the Supreme Court 20-something years later. I argue, No. 1, that if you read his writings in terms of what he was talking about, it was not meant to be slanderous, it was not meant to be a derogatory remark--he answered the question fully--that it was not meant to be that way at all. That was a commonly used term in the White House, the term ``amigos,'' and he made a correct observation: that certain Hispanic groups did welcome President Reagan's decision.

Bottom line is, if we are going to take a phrase that a person wrote when they were 26, and that is going to be a reason to vote no, woe be to anybody else coming before this committee. I would not want that to be the standard for me.

He never apologized because he did not think he had anything to apologize about. So this is much ado, in my opinion, about nothing. You have read his writings. He used Latin, French, and Spanish terms all over the place. He is kind of a witty guy. You may not like his sense of humor, but I think it is given sometimes in that vein. The idea about, you know, more homemakers becoming lawyers, who said we need more homemakers than lawyers--and I

think a lot of people agree with that, and his wife happens to be an attorney, by the way--taking these phrases out of context and not looking at life in total is not fair. Not one person came before this body or the committee to say Judge Roberts has lived his life in any way, shape, or form to demean any group in America or individual. It is quite the opposite. He has received praise from everybody he has worked with on both sides of the aisle because he is basically a very good man. So I hope we will not make that the standard in the future.

Final thoughts. The vote is not in question in terms of confirmation. The process is in question. And that to me is as important as the vote total. The President is going to get another pick. That is the way it has happened. He has had a lot of things happen on his watch historic in nature. Whatever you think about President Bush, whether you like him or not, he has had to deal with some major league events. Let me tell you, some will go down good and not so good in history. That is the life of a President. But one thing I can say for certain is that his decision to make John Roberts Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court will go down well in history. It will be one of the greatest things he has done as President of the United States because he has picked one of the most uniquely qualified men in American history to serve on a Court that needs all the unity it can find, and this guy will be a consensus builder. The next one is coming and it is coming soon. There is all kind of jockeying already about what the President should do and what he should not do. I hope and pray we will remember the best traditions of the Senate, that we will listen to the Joe Bidens of the past, when he informed us that our role is to give deference to the Presidential nominee, look at their character, intelligence, and qualifications; that we will remember what Senator Kennedy said about Justice Marshall: it is not your job, we shouldn't hold someone's political philosophy against them. We should look at who they are and what kind of judge they would be, would they be fair.

So as the next pick is about to be made, the Senate can fight if we want to or we can recognize that elections matter, we can judge the nominees based on their qualifications, integrity, and character, whether they are going to wear the robe in some improper fashion, or we can start putting political tests on the Presidency that will come back to haunt everybody and every party. If you want someone such as O'Connor--President Clinton did not think 1 minute about replacing Justice White with Justice Ginsburg. No one asked him to think about that. This idea that you have to have an ideological match is something new. What is old and stood the test of time is that Presidents get to pick once they win, and our job is to make sure they pick wisely in terms of character, integrity, and qualification. And if we will stick to that test and not substitute our political philosophy for that of the President and not require a political allegiance of the nominee to our way of thinking about a particular line of cases or a particular concept in law, but judge the entire person, we will have served the country well. If we get into the mud and start fighting each other over the second pick, because some people don't like how the election turned out, then we will set a trend that will come back to haunt this body, haunt all future Presidents, and we will be worse off as a nation.

With that, I am going to end with the idea I am optimistic that we will not go down that road, we will give the next nominee the respect and deference this nominee has, and we will vote our conscience, and the vote will come and the vote will go. And the worst thing we could do is politicize the judiciary any more than it has been politicized. If you are selected to be on the Supreme Court, there will be millions of dollars to run you down and destroy your life, and that is going to happen on both sides of the aisle if we do not watch it. The best thing the Senate can do is use this opportunity to stand up to those people who want to run down somebody and ruin their life unfairly, because our day will come as Republicans. If we can unite around the idea we are not going to let special interest groups take over the Senate, the country will be stronger.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the outstanding service and dedication in the field of economic development of Mrs. Patricia M. Dixon, this on the occasion of her retirement from the Economic Development Administration, United States Department of Commerce effective today, September 28, 2005.

Mrs. Dixon has served honorably at the Economic Development Administration for 33 years, most recently and prominently as the Economic Development Representative to the State of South Carolina. Her contributions to economic development in South Carolina are numerous and have greatly contributed to the economic progress of the most distressed areas of the State. Her work has been widely recognized most notably by the South Carolina Association of Regional Councils, which awarded her their highest honor, the Outstanding Staff Award in 1991.

Mrs. Dixon has demonstrated her work in disaster recovery and base closures, saving jobs, solving solid waste problems, expanding job opportunities and rebuilding tax bases. Her innovative approaches to economic development problems and issues have been replicated in other communities. She also served as the first Federal cochair of the South Carolina Rural Development Council under the President's Initiative for Rural Development. Mrs. Dixon continues to serve on the executive committees of both the North and South Carolina rural development councils. In addition, she was instrumental in the original establishment of revolving loan funds for economic development districts in South Carolina.

Mrs. Dixon has garnered the personal and professional respect and admiration of her friends and colleagues at the Economic Development Administration and elsewhere. She represents the finest of qualities in a public servant and has been an incomparable asset to the greater effort of improving quality of life for the people of South Carolina. In conclusion, the retirement of Mrs. Patricia M. Dixon will be a great loss to the EDA and the State of South Carolina, but I wish her great success and happiness in her future.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 174, S. 1281.

I ask unanimous consent that the Hutchison amendment at the desk be agreed to; the committee-reported amendments, as amended, if amended, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I would like to be recognized to speak on behalf of Judge Roberts.

Mr. President, as Senator Hatch indicated, I do not think we are ``rolling the dice'' at all to vote for this uniquely qualified man. It is not about whether he gets confirmed. He will be confirmed in the Senate by the close of business on Thursday, unless something major happens that no one anticipates now. Judge Roberts will then become the 17th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and his confirmation will receive somewhere in the range of 70-plus votes probably. So his nomination is not in doubt.

But I think this whole process will be viewed by scholars of the Court and those who follow the confirmation process, in the Senate particularly, in a very serious way because the vote totals do matter. He will get well over 50 votes, but the reasons being offered to vote ``no'' I think suggest a change in standard from the historical point of view of how the Senate approaches a nominee.

One of the things I think they will look at in the Roberts confirmation process is: What is the standard? If it is an objective standard of qualifications, character, integrity, has the person lived their life in such a way as to be able to judge fairly, not to be ideologically driven to a point where they cannot see the merits of the case, then Judge Roberts should get 100 votes. The reason I say that is, not too long ago in the history of our country President Clinton had two Supreme Court vacancies occur on his watch. One was Justice Ginsburg, who sits on the Court now. I believe she received 96 votes. The other was Justice Breyer, who sits on the Court now, who received well over 90 votes. Shortly before that, under President Bush 1's watch, Justice Scalia--a very well-known conservative--received 98 votes.

What is the difference between then and now? I think that is a very important point for the country to spend some time talking about. If he receives 70 or 75 votes, then, obviously, there has been a reduction in the vote total for someone who I think is obviously qualified. But in terms of qualifications, I am going to read some excerpts from what some Senators have said about Judge Roberts.

Senator Biden: Incredible. Probably one of the most schooled appellate lawyers . . . at least in his generation.

Senator Boxer: A brilliant lawyer. Well qualified. Well spoken. Affable. Unflappable.

Senator Corzine: Eloquen[t]. A great lawyer. A great litigator.

Senator Durbin: A judge [who] will be loyal and faithful to the process of law, to the rule of law. A great legal mind.

Senator Feinstein: Very full and forward-speaking. Eloquent. Very precise.

Senator Kennedy: An outstanding lawyer. A highly intelligent nominee. Well-educated and serious. A very pleasant person. Intelligent.

Senator Kerry: Obviously qualified in his legal education and litigation experience. Earnest. Friendly. Incredibly intelligent. A superb lawyer.

Senator Landrieu: Very well credentialed.

Senator Obama: Qualified to sit on the highest court in the land. Humble. Personally decent. Very able. Very intelligent. Unflappable.

Senator Reid: A very smart man. An excellent lawyer. A very affable person. A thoughtful mainstream judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Senator Schumer: Brilliant. Accomplished. Clearly brilliant. A very bright and capable man. Very, very smart man. Outstanding lawyer. Without question, an impressive, accomplished and brilliant lawyer. A decent and honorable man.

There is more, and I will read those later. I would hope half that could be said about me in any job I pursued. The reason those testimonials were offered is, it is obvious to anyone who has been watching the hearings and paid any attention to what has gone on here in the last week or so that we have in our midst one of the most well- qualified people in the history of our Nation to sit on the Supreme Court--probably the greatest legal mind of his generation or maybe of any other generation. I think when history records President Bush's selection of Judge Roberts, it will be seen historically as one of the best picks in the history of this country.

The man is a genius. I was there in his presence a whole week. He never took a note. He never asked anybody how to say something or what to say, or get any advice from anyone as to how to answer a question. He had almost complete total recall of memos from 20-some years in the past. Not only did he understand every case he was questioned upon without notes, he understood how the dissenting opinions did not reconcile themselves. I have been around a lot of smart people. I have never been around anyone as capable as Judge Roberts.

Now, why would he not get 96 or 98 or 100 votes? Well, some people have said all these glowing things but said that is not enough. There comes the problem. If him being intelligent, brilliant, a superb lawyer, the greatest legal mind of our generation, and well qualified is not enough, what is? What are some of the reasons that have been offered in terms of why anyone could not support this eminently qualified man?

Most of the reasons I think have to do with a subjective analysis of the nominee that apparently was not used before. Because if a conservative went down the road of something other than qualifications, character, and integrity, I doubt if a conservative could have voted for Justice Ginsburg or Justice Breyer, if you wanted to use some subjective test as to how they might vote on a particular case or if you had a philosophical test in place of a qualifications test. I will talk about that a bit later.

One of the reasons people have offered for a ``no'' vote is that during the questioning period he would not give complete answers to constitutional issues facing the country. I think Senator Kerry said: He is a superb, brilliant lawyer, but I can't vote for him because I don't know how he will come out on the great constitutional issues of our time.

Well, I would say that is good. You are not supposed to know how he is going to decide the great constitutional questions of our time because that is done in a courtroom with litigants before the judge. It is not done in a confirmation process where you have to tell people before you go on the Court how you are going to rule.

At least one Senator has said: I can't vote for this man because he won't tell me if he will buy into the right of privacy and uphold Roe v. Wade. If that becomes the standard, the hearing could be limited to one question: Will you uphold Roe v. Wade, yes or no? And that is the end of the deal.

I would argue if we go down that road as a nation, using one case, an allegiance to one line of legal reasoning, or a particular case, whether you uphold it or whether you will reverse it, then you have done a great disservice to the judiciary because we are not looking for judges to validate our pet peeves as Senators in terms of law. We are looking for judges to sit in judgment of our fellow citizens who will wait until the case is being litigated, listen to the arguments, read the briefs, and then decide.

That is not unknown to the Senate. The idea that Court nominees in the past would refuse to give specific answers to specific cases is not unknown at all.

Mr. President, I have excerpts from past nominees and questions that were asked.

I will read some of these excerpts.

This is an abortion question by Senator Metzenbaum to Justice Ginsburg: After the Casey decision, some have questioned whether the right to choose is still a fundamental right. In your view, does the Casey decision stand for the proposition that the right to choose is a fundamental constitutional right?

That is a very direct question: Do you buy into the precepts of Roe v. Wade?

Ginsburg: What regulations will be permitted is certainly a matter likely to be before the Court. Answers depend in part, Senator, on the kind of record presented to the Court. It would not be appropriate for me to go beyond the Court's recent reaffirmation that abortion is a woman's right guaranteed by

the 14th amendment. It is part of the liberty guaranteed by the 14th amendment.

She recited the current law and said: There will be lines of attack on the right to privacy. I am going to wait until the record is established.

Good answer.

Voting rights. Senator Moseley-Braun: I guess my concern in Presley really is a matter of your view of the language of the statute, the specific language of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and given the facts of that case whether or not the Court gave too narrow an interpretation of the language in such a way that essentially frustrated the meaning of the statute as a whole.

That is a topic before the Senate now.

Ginsburg: I avoided commenting on Supreme Court decisions when other Senators raised that question, so I must adhere to that position.

The death penalty. Senator Specter: Let me ask you a question articulated the way we ask jurors, whether you have any conscientious scruple against the imposition of the death penalty.

Ginsburg: My own view of the death penalty I think is not relevant to any question I would be asked to decide as a judge. I will be scrupulous in applying the law on the basis of the Constitution, legislation, and precedent.

Who does that sound like?

Ginsburg: As I said in my opening remarks, my own views and what I would do if I were sitting in the legislature are not relevant to the job for which you are considering me, which is the job of a judge.

A very good answer.

Ginsburg: So I would not like to answer that question any more than I would like to answer the question of what choice I would make for myself, what reproductive choice I would make for myself. It is not relevant to what I will decide as a judge.

Now, within that answer she does two things that I think are important. She refuses to give a personal view of the death penalty based on the idea that: My personal views are not going to decide how I will judge a particular case. And for me to start commenting in that fashion will compromise my integrity as a judge. She also said: I am not going to play the role of being a legislator because that is not what judges do.

So I would argue not only did she give the right answers, but that is all Judge Roberts has done. When he is advising the President of the United States about conservative policies initiated by the Reagan administration, he is doing so as a lawyer, advising a client. He several times indicated that his personal views about matters are not going to dictate how he decides the case. What will dictate how he decides the case are the facts presented, the law in question, and the record.

All right, more about the death penalty.

Senator Hatch: But do you agree with all the current sitting members that it is constitutional, it is within the Constitution?

Again, talking about the death penalty. This is Senator Hatch trying to get Judge Ginsburg to comment on sitting members of the Court.

Ginsburg: I can tell you that I agree that what you have stated is the precedent and clearly has been the precedent since 1976. I must draw the line at that point and hope you will respect what I have tried to tell you, that I am aware of the precedent and equally aware of the principle of stare decisis.

Now, who does that sound like? That sounds like Roberts on Roe v. Wade, but she is talking about the death penalty.

Hatch: It isn't a tough question. I mean I am not asking----

Ginsburg: You asked me what was in the fifth amendment. The fifth amendment used the word ``capital.'' I responded when you asked me what is the state of current precedents. But if you want me to take a pledge that there is one position I am not going to take, that is what you must not ask a judge to do.

So Senator Hatch was trying to draw her out on the death penalty and follow a particular line of reasoning. She says, no, I am not going to pledge to get on the Court to tip my hand there.

Hatch: But that is not what I asked you. I asked you, is it in the Constitution, is it constitutional?

Again, he was talking about the death penalty.

Ginsburg: I can tell you the fifth amendment reads, no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless, and the rest. But I am not going to say to this committee that I reject the position out of hand in a case as to which I have never expressed an opinion. I have never ruled on a death penalty case. I have never written about it. I have never spoken about it in a classroom.

Specter, on women's rights: Would you think it is appropriate for the court to employ in general terms the original understanding of the 14th amendment which you wrote about in the Washington University Law Quarterly as interpretive to women's rights?

Ginsburg: I have no comment on that, Senator Specter. I have said that these issues will be coming before the Court. I will not say anything in the legislative Chamber that will hint or forecast how I will vote in cases involving particular classifications.

It goes on and on. I have 30 pages here. I will put them in the Record. The idea that Judge Roberts, during his time before the committee, was evasive or unresponsive, different than people who came before him, is not supported by the record. What we have in this confirmation process is a frontal assault on the nominee in terms of pledging allegiance to Roe v. Wade, something that didn't happen to Ginsburg as directly.

There is at least one Senator who appears to be basing her vote on the idea that he won't tell me whether he will uphold Roe v. Wade; therefore, I can't vote for Judge Roberts. Again, I argue if that is the standard for a yes or no vote, the standard has changed dramatically. It will be unhealthy for the country as a whole. It will do great damage to the judiciary. It will be a standard Democrats would not want to be applied in the future, I can assure my colleagues.

The other issue is about the idea of civil rights, that somehow Judge Roberts' position during the Reagan administration was unfriendly to civil rights to the point that we can't vote for him. Bottom line is, of all the reasons given, that is the most distorted. That is a reason, that is a cut-and-paste job we have seen too much of to try to cast someone in a bad light for doing what their job required of them. John Roberts was in his 20s, working for the Reagan administration. The idea that he would be advising President Reagan about conservative policy initiatives shouldn't surprise anyone. That was his job.

The issue of civil rights is important to all of us. One of the worst things you can do is try to question someone's character, integrity, to the point that it puts a shadow of who they are in terms of being sensitive to other people based on race or any other difference. The idea that John Roberts, when he was working for the Reagan administration, showed a hard heart and insensitivity to people's ability to fairly vote is a shameful attack, not supported by the record. It is a cut-and-paste job. It is a distortion of what he said then, what he said now, and we ought to reject it.

The issue that was being discussed was whether Ronald Reagan's position of reauthorizing the Civil Rights Voting Act as written was extreme. The Reagan administration said: We will reauthorize the Voting Rights Act as written. The problem in the early 1980s was that you had a Supreme Court decision, the Boulder case, where the Supreme Court said that when it comes to section 2, where you look at the effects of voting patterns and whether there is discrimination being applied based on race and voting and representation, the test to determine that would be the intent test. Did the people who drew the lines setting up the voting procedures and the voting districts, was it their intent to racially discriminate and undermine African-American voting rights in the States in question. That was the test the Supreme Court applied.

Senator Kennedy and others wanted to change that test to the effects test, where you would look at the effects of how the lines were drawn and how the districts were set up. It was an honest debate.

The third concept no one has talked much about is proportionality. The Reagan administration was against

proportional representation which is basically an electoral quota. You look at a district based on race, and you come to the conclusion that the elected officials within that district have to mirror the population. In other words, you will have a racial quota. If 40 percent of the district is of a particular race, then 40 percent of the people have to be of that race. I don't think most Americans want that. What we want is people to have a chance to run for office, be successful and vote their conscience, without anything interfering and without bad forces standing in the way. I don't think most Americans want to decide the election based on race before you cast any ballot.

That was the debate in the 1980s. The Reagan administration was against proportionality. They were standing for the Civil Rights Act as written in the 1960s. Then you had the Supreme Court case that interjected a new concept. What Judge Roberts, then a lawyer in the Reagan administration, was advising was that the current law was the intent test. The Reagan administration was supporting the Supreme Court's intent test. How that has been twisted and turned to show or to make the argument that John Roberts is insensitive to people's ability to vote and has stood in the way of people having their fair day at the ballot box, to me is a complete distortion of who he is and the position he took.

At the end of the day, here is what happened. There was a legislative compromise. The Supreme Court intent test was replaced by a totality of the circumstances test which is somewhere between the effects and intent test. I know this is a bit hard to follow, but the bottom line is, there was a compromise legislatively dealing with a Supreme Court decision. John Roberts' legal advice to the Reagan administration was very much in the mainstream of where America is, very much in the mainstream of the Reagan position. To say his legal memos arguing that proportionality was inappropriate and the intent test was based on sound legal reasoning, to somehow go from that legal reasoning to the idea that the man, the person, is insensitive to people's voting rights, again, is quite shameful.

He said in the hearing, it is the right of which everything else revolves around, the ability to go to the ballot box and express yourself.

This has happened to Judge Pickering, and it is going to happen to the next nominee. I will put the Senate on record from my point of view, coming from the South, there have been plenty of sins where I live in the South. The Voting Rights Act has cured a lot of those sins. But one of the things we should not lay on John Roberts is the idea that because he represented the Reagan administration, arguing that the Supreme Court was right, somehow he, as a person, is insensitive to minority rights.

The reason that is a bogus argument is because there is not one person who came before the Senate Judiciary Committee or otherwise to say John Roberts has ever lived his life in a way that would suggest he is insensitive to people's rights based on race. As a matter of fact, one of the witnesses before the committee analyzed the cases Judge Roberts presented to the Supreme Court dealing with civil rights. They found out he won 71 percent of his cases dealing with civil rights issues. That says not only does he understand civil rights law well, he is arguing mainstream concepts. When he looked at how Justices agreed or disagreed with him, apparently Thurgood Marshall agreed with John Roberts, the advocate, over 60 something percent of the time. So if you look at the way he has lived his life, the way he has argued the law and who he has represented, there is not one ounce of evidence to suggest John Roberts the man is in any way insensitive to people's ability to vote based on race.

Tomorrow we will come back and we will look at the other reasons to say no to this fine man. I think we are getting into a dicey area, if we are going to play this game of voting no based on ``you won't tell me how you will vote on a particular case'' or that we take someone's legal advice and use the client's position against that person, that you are going to set a standard that will chill out a lot of people wanting to be members of the Court. There are other things being said about this fine man that would be dangerous if the Senate adopted as the test in the future. I will talk next time about how the sitting Justices would not fare so well. The bottom line is there is a reason that Scalia, Ginsberg, and Breyer received well over 90 votes apiece. They were well qualified. They were people of good character and good integrity.

If this man, John Roberts, after all that has been said about him in terms of his qualifications, doesn't get 90-plus votes, the Senate needs to do some self-evaluation because we have gone down the wrong road.

I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator for yielding.

The reason I am supporting this bill, from a 30,000-foot view of it rather than getting down into the weeds, is I think this is a defining ``cultural moment'' in the history of our country--when under what circumstances can someone get in your wallet, hold you responsible financially for an event, no matter how unfortunate it might be. Generally speaking, in the law of negligence, the first thing you have to establish in civil liability is a duty. You have to prove that the person being sued had a duty and violated that duty and the violation was the proximate cause and the damages flow from that event.

Here is what this bill does not do. It does not let a gun manufacturer off the hook from the duty of producing a reliable and safe gun. If you defectively produce a weapon, you can be held liable. It doesn't let a seller or a distributor off the hook for violating a statute or making a sale illegally because it says, if you violate the law that exists, then you have broken a duty. Duty can be established by relationships. It can be established by a statute. So this bill does not allow someone to sell a gun without following the procedures that we have set out to sell a gun. It doesn't allow someone to make a gun that is unsafe. You are on the hook, and you can be held accountable based on a simple negligence theory or a negligence per se theory, if you violate a specific statute during the sale of a gun or manufacturing of a gun.

But what this bill prevents, and I think rightfully so, is establishing a duty along this line: That you have a responsibility, even if you do a lawful transaction or make a safe gun, for an event that you can't control, which is the intentional misuse of a weapon in a criminal fashion by another person.

That is the heart of this bill. It doesn't relieve you of duties that the law imposes upon you to safely manufacture and to carefully sell. But we are not going to extend it to a concept where you are responsible, after you have done everything right, for what somebody else may do who bought your product and they did it wrong and it is their fault, not yours. So it does not matter whether you use a gross negligence standard, a simple negligence standard, you have blown by the concept of the bill in my opinion. The debate should be, is there a duty owed in this country for people who follow the law, manufacture safely, sell within the confines of the laws we have written at the State and Federal level to the public at large if an injury results from the criminal act of another? If that ever happens, this country has made a major change in the way we relate to each other and a major change in the law.

There are other efforts to make this happen. There is an effort, on the part of some, to hold food manufacturers liable if you choose to buy a lawful product and misuse it by eating too much of it, creating a duty on the part of the people who sell food to manage your own behavior, the behavior of another. Once you leave the store, if you follow this out, they should go home with you and make sure you are doing everything else right.

That to me is why this amendment from my good friend from Michigan should not be adopted and why we need to pass this bill. I am all for legal duties where there is a reason for them to exist. Safely manufacture a gun? You better believe it. If you put it in a stream of commerce and it hurts somebody and it is your fault, you will have a day in court.

If you sell a gun and you don't do it right and you have it in the wrong hands, then you will have your day in court.

The bill even has a negligent provision. If you negligently entrust a weapon to someone you know or should know should not have that gun, you will have your day in court. What we are not going to do, under a gross negligence or simple negligence standard, is create a duty on the part of sellers and manufacturers for an event that they can't control, which is the intentional misuse of a weapon to commit a crime or something akin to that, something that you can't control, nor should you be required to be responsible for the actions of others in that area of life. If we ever hold people who make products accountable for the misdeeds and the mistakes of others when there is no rational relationship or no rational ability to control it, then we have fundamentally changed America. This bill is very important, I say to Senator Craig. We have to pass this bill and stop this kind of legal reasoning because it is going to undermine our country.

With that, I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

This has been a fascinating legal discussion. May I have a minute or two to answer?

I missed it. I think the fact pattern goes along the lines of a criminal goes in with a girlfriend or some other person and tries to purchase a weapon. What responsibility would someone have there?

If the dealer or the seller or the person in question had a reasonable opportunity to know a crime was afoot, or this was a sham deal, then I argue the bill would cover it under negligent entrustment. But here is what we would not want to do, in my opinion. You wouldn't want to hold the seller or the distributor liable if he had no reason to understand that a criminal conspiracy by two people he is not responsible for

was about to happen. Because that would be unfair. But if he had a reason to know, a reasonable opportunity to know, then that would be a totally different scenario.

That is a classic example of what we do not want to do. If a person, about to make a sale, should have known something was afoot to violate the law, they can be held responsible. But if you as a dealer are a victim of a criminal conspiracy you had no part or knowledge of, we are not going to make you responsible. That is the essence of this bill. Because to do so would undo legal concepts that stood 200 years, would put people out of business, and makes no sense.

I yield back to Senator Craig.

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

Mr. President, it is my understanding that the majority has control of this next hour under the agreement.

At this time, I will yield to Senator Cornyn 15 minutes.

Madam President, I rise to speak in support of S. 397, protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits that basically would hold the manufacturer liable if someone bought a gun and intentionally committed a crime with it, was irresponsible in its use. I believe everybody should have their day in court for a legitimate grievance. But it is not legitimate, in my opinion, to sue someone who makes a gun lawfully, that is not defective, and that person is held responsible in court because some other person who bought the gun decides to misuse it, to commit a crime with it. That would ruin our economy. It would fundamentally change personal responsibility in America. This bill is a cultural moment in American history.

The second amendment gives us a right to bear arms, but it is not unlimited. We have to be responsible. We have to responsibly use that right. The idea that you could sue someone who is lawfully in business because someone else chooses to do something bad will destroy the way America works. It is a ridiculous concept.

Suing gun manufacturers for defective products is included in this bill. Everyone should stand behind what they make and put in the stream of commerce. That has not changed. The only thing that has changed is we are cutting off a line of legal reasoning that has extended to fast food now: ``The reason I have health problems is because you served me food that was bad for me.'' The bottom line is, if we go down this road, we are going to make America noncompetitive in the 21st century, and we are going to rewrite the way America works--to our detriment.

The rule should be simple. If you make a lawful product and someone chooses to buy it and they decide to misuse it, it is not your fault, it is theirs. You are not going to have your money taken because somebody else messed up. Madam President, $200 million in legal fees have already been incurred by gun manufacturers because of this line of reasoning. You win in America; you still lose.

If you want to make sure our country is secure in the future, let's make sure people can manufacture arms in America and we are not dependent on foreign sources for arms for the public or the military. There is a lot at stake here. I enthusiastically support this limitation on what I think would be not only a frivolous lawsuit, but a dangerous concept that will change America for the worse.

Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator McCain's amendment. The point that Senator Warner is making, I fully understand. But I think we are at a crossroads in the war on terror. Guantanamo Bay has great potential to make us safer as a nation. But one of the problems we have experienced in this war is a problem of image. It is a new kind of enemy with a lot of nuances. But one thing we cannot do as a nation is forget who we are, what got us here for 200-something years. We can fight this enemy aggressively, no-holds-barred, go after them, and not lose who we are.

Senator McCain is addressing one of the problems we have found crop up in different areas of the world when it comes to noncitizen foreign terrorists, and that is how you interrogate and stay within the boundaries of who you are as a people and not getting your own people in trouble by cutting corners.

So the reason I am supporting his amendment--and we are not just saying: Secretary of Defense, come up with a solution here--is because, after a lot of thought and study, it is clear to me that the Army Field Manual gives you everything you need to aggressively interrogate and seek good intelligence from foreign noncitizen terrorists held at GTMO and any other place under DOD control.

Mr. President, I would like to submit for the Record several memos that have just been recently declassified. They were requested on October 7 of last year by myself, Senator Levin, and Senator McCain. The first one is a 27 February 2003 memo from BG Kevin M. Sandkuhler, U.S. Marine Corps, Staff Judge Advocate to CMC. The next one is from MG Thomas J. Romig, U.S. Army, the Judge Advocate General, dated 3 March 2003. The next is from MG Jack L. Rives, Deputy Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Air Force, dated 6 February 2003. The next is from RADM Michael F. Lohr, Judge Advocate General, U.S. Navy, dated 6 February 2003. The next is Rear Admiral Lohr, dated 13 March 2002. And the final memo is from Major General Rives, Deputy Judge Advocate General, U.S. Air Force, dated 5 February 2003. I ask unanimous consent those memorandums be printed in the Record.

Now, over time, we are going to learn more about what these memos tell us, but basically these memos are telling us that the proposed interrogation techniques dealing with the war on terror, suggested by the Department of Justice, sent over to Department of Defense, were such a deviation from the normal way of doing business that it would get our own people in trouble. It was such a deviation from the normal way of doing business that we would lose the moral high ground in fighting the war on terror.

General Rives sums up:

Finally, the use of the more extreme interrogation

techniques simply is not how the U.S. armed forces have

operated in recent history. We have taken the legal and moral

``high-road'' in the conduct of our military operations

regardless of how others may operate. Our forces are trained

in this legal and moral mindset beginning the day they enter

active duty. It should be noted that [the] law of armed

conflict and code of conduct training have been mandated by

Congress and emphasized since the Viet Nam conflict when our

POWs were subjected to torture by their captors. We need to

consider the overall impact of approving extreme

interrogation techniques as giving official approval and

legal sanction to the application of interrogation techniques

that U.S. forces have consistently been trained are unlawful.

He talks about a slippery slope that we are about to embark on that will result in some of our own people being subject to being court- martialed because the Uniform Code of Military Justice has many provisions dictating how you will treat someone who is in your custody as a detainee. And they were trying to tell the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense civilian lawyers: Do not go down this road. You are going to bite off more problems than it is worth.

Admiral Lohr says that some of the techniques would violate the torture statute. I will read in more detail later what these memos are telling us the rules of the road are. But these are not from the ACLU. These are not from people who are soft on terrorism, who want to coddle foreign terrorists. These are all professional military lawyers who have dedicated their lives, with 20-plus year careers, to serving the men and women in uniform and protecting their Nation. They were giving a warning shot across the bow of the policymakers that there are certain corners you cannot afford to cut because you will wind up meeting yourself.

What Senator McCain is trying to do is build upon their advice by putting in

place an interrogation technique that this country can be proud of, that we all will understand, and that can be implemented to make us safer without having a black eye throughout the world.

I asked the question--when I went to GTMO with the chairman about a week or 2 ago--to all the interrogators there: Is there anything lacking in the Army Field Manual that would inhibit your ability to get good intelligence? And they said no. I asked: Could you live with the Army Field Manual as your guide and do your job? They said yes.

The reason the Army Field Manual is a good source is because it has been part of who we are for years. People are trained on it. What was happening is, the Department of Justice, understandably, after September 11, wanted to come up with the most aggressive techniques possible to deal with foreign terrorists. But the JAGS are telling us you cannot look at this one event in isolation. You have to understand what we have been standing for for 60 years and what the law actually says. The DOJ's interpretation of the torture statute from a lawyer's point of view was absurd. And the JAGS were telling the policymakers: If you go down this road, you are going to get your own people in trouble. You are on a slippery slope. You are going to lose the moral high ground. This was 2003. And they were absolutely right.

To Secretary Rumsfeld's credit, when he heard about the working group having problems with the DOJ's suggested interpretations of ``interrogation,'' he reconvened and the techniques changed. But as Senator McCain has said very well, we need to bring certainty to this process of interrogating foreign terrorists to make sure we can get good, reliable information. We can do it in a way that people understand, our troops will not get in trouble, and we can show the world we are truly a rule-of-law nation.

There is nothing inconsistent with interrogating people to get good information to protect our country and using the Army Field Manual. What has got us in trouble is when we try to make it up as we go, when we forget who we are, when we will not listen to people who have worn the uniform, who are in uniform, telling us: Do not go down this road, our people are trained to do it one way, you are confusing the heck out of them.

What have we learned in the last 2 years? If you know what the rules are about interrogating anybody, come tell me because I can't figure it out. I have spent 20 years as an Air Force lawyer myself. There is much confusion, and confusion in war is dangerous. Anyone who misunderstands what we are doing here in terms of our view of terrorists is playing politics. No one supporting this amendment wants a foreign noncitizen terrorist not to be aggressively detained, prosecuted, if appropriate, and interrogated to make our country safer. We can prosecute, we can detain, and we can interrogate aggressively, but we have to have rules that our people can understand and don't deviate from who we are as a Nation. That is why I am supporting this amendment.

Everyone who works at GTMO dealing with the 500 foreign noncitizen terrorist suspects, enemy combatants, has told me, because I asked the question, if you use the Army Field Manual, we have everything within that manual we need to do the job right. If you use the Army Field Manual, we will be back in a good place with the law. We will be back in a place where our people can understand what is going on. We will again capture the moral high ground which is the ultimate way to win this war.

There is no downside to this. The upside is huge. We are able to get good information, not get our people in trouble, and have a better image in the world. That is why I am supporting this amendment.

I have included these memos for the record. It would serve every Senator well to spend 5 or 10 minutes reading through them because these people were telling us in 2003, if you go down this road, the road we chose initially, you are going to get everybody involved in trouble. That is exactly what happened.

I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 1556, As Modified

I would like at this time to submit it to the desk if I may.

I don't want to stop Senator Sessions from finishing. I can come back.

That is acceptable to me.

Reserving the right to object, I would like to be able to state some general areas of agreement and disagreement concerning Senator Sessions' statement. Is that possible when I introduce my amendment?

Mr. President, I would like to build on what Senator Sessions said. If this amendment did the things suggested, I would support it. One, the Army Field Manual is being revised, as we speak, with two groups in mind--lawful combatants and unlawful combatants. The amendment says that the Army Field Manual be the guide in whatever form it is in. It does not lock in this version. They are going to have a version part of it classified so our enemy does not have a chance to prepare for interrogation techniques that deal with lawful combatants and unlawful combatants.

The reason we are doing that is because what the JAGs told us over 2 years ago. The common thread among our recommendations is concern for servicemembers.

If we put people on the line in this war in terror, we want to give them everything they need as far as equipment. If we put people on the line in terms of handling detainees, we want to give them everything they need, the tools to get good information, but what we do not want to do is put our own people at risk.

We are trying to armor all our vehicles. What we are trying to do with the people who are holding these terrorists and interrogating them is not getting them in trouble. The Office of Legal Counsel, on 27 February 2003, from a Marine general, not exactly the ACLU, said:

The common thread among our recommendations is concern for

our service members. The Office of Legal Counsel does not

represent the services, thus understandably concern for

service members does not reflect in their opinion. Notably,

their opinion is violent on the foreign views of

international law.

This is what the judge advocate general of the Army said:

I recommend the aggressive counterresistant interrogation

techniques under consideration be vetted with the Army

intelligence community before a final decision on their use

is made. Some of these techniques do not comport with Army

doctrine as set forth in the Field Manual, FM 34-52,

intelligence interrogation, and may be of questionable

practical value in obtaining reliable information of those

being interrogated.

What we are trying to do is have a guide our troops can understand with

two parts--one for lawful combatants and one for unlawful enemy combatants. We will know what the rules of the road will be. We are putting congressional approval on those rules.

We have had the White House, Congress, and eventually the courts saying you can aggressively interrogate prisoners not covered by the Geneva Conventions. We have been all over the board for the last couple of years. We are trying to bring it together in symmetry where the military can write the rules. They know better than I do. I am not saying I am an expert on interrogations. They are going to write the rules the way they need to be written, and Congress is going to say you are good to go.

These JAGs were telling us you have confused concepts, so we are trying to do away with that confusion to make it stronger, not weaker, to make us better at gathering intelligence and avoid the problems we have had in the last 2 years.

I think it is a very smart thing to do. I look forward to trying to help change it if it needs to be changed, but nobody is locking the military into a set of rules that does not allow them to aggressively get what they need to make us safe. We are trying to provide the military and all those in charge of detainees clear guidance so they will have the flexibility they need and we will not get our people in trouble. That is what we have been working on for 2 years. We are at a point where we can actually accomplish something that will be good for this country, good for the military, and help win this war on terror. Part of this war is about image.

Yes, I yield.

Absolutely.

And it will be. There will be a section that is specific for unlawful enemy combatants. That is not a traditional way to deal with them versus POWs.

Less than 10 minutes.

Fifteen minutes, and the Senator from Virginia can have 5; yes, sir.

I ask unanimous consent at this time to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 1505 and send it to the desk with a modification.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Very quickly, I appreciate the patience of the Senator from Florida and Chairman Warner.

Mr. President, this amendment deals with the concept called unlawful enemy combatant, a concept being used to detain about 500 people at Guantanamo Bay who have been captured throughout the world, many of them on battlefields. It is a concept that goes back to World War II where the Supreme Court, during World War II, coined the phrase ``enemy combatant'' to deal with some German saboteurs who were caught coming into America in civilian clothes, with a plan to disrupt American life in the war operations.

These individuals--I think there were seven of them--were tried by military tribunals. A couple of them were put to death. Some were given lengthy prison sentences. Then the Court recognized the concept of enemy combatant.

Fast forward 60 years. What do we find? We find ourselves in a war with a group of people who are not part of a state or a nation. They do not wear uniforms. They are terrorists. They hide among civilians. They cheat. They do anything one can imagine to have their way. They do not abide by any international regimes.

When we capture these people, we have made a decision as a nation to house them at Guantanamo Bay, a place run by the military. It has three functions: To interrogate foreign terrorists to get good information to make sure that we are safer as a nation. Senator McCain has an amendment to standardize the interrogation techniques. I think the country would be well served to have everything dealing with unlawful and lawful combatants in separate categories.

We want the Geneva Conventions to apply to people who are under it. We do not want the Geneva Conventions to apply to terrorists. We want to do it right. We want our troops to not be confused. Senator McCain has an amendment that would basically allow the Army Field Manual to be the one source of law to deal with both categories, which would be a great benefit to the military and the country at large, in my opinion.

I have an amendment that gets Congress involved for the first time. In a general way, the Congress authorized the President to go to war after 9/11. A lot has happened since then, some good, some bad. I think it is now time for the Congress to weigh in on the issues that affect this Nation in the war on terror. My amendment allows Congress to define ``unlawful enemy combatant'' in a very flexible way similar to what is being used at Guantanamo Bay now. It incorporates the procedures that are used to classify and review enemy combatant status.

The way it works now, if the military or appropriate authority sends someone to Guantanamo Bay, the first thing that happens is there is a review process where a determination will be made as to whether that person fits the definition of ``unlawful enemy combatant.'' We are codifying that procedure. We are accepting most of it. We are tweaking the definition in line with Supreme Court cases that have reviewed this whole subject matter.

That is another point I would like to make. There are about five cases in Federal court now dealing with issues like enemy combatant status, military commissions to try noncitizen foreign terrorists. The Government has won on most of these cases. But enemy combatant status needs to be defined, in my opinion, by the Congress working in conjunction with the administration because courts will defer to a statute much quicker than it will defer to anything else.

In one of these opinions, Justice Scalia has been telling us that Congress has been AWOL. Congress needs to get involved. So this amendment allows the procedures in place at Guantanamo Bay to make the initial determination, if one is an enemy combatant, to be authorized to be utilized by the President. Every year, a review is made of each person's case. Every year the Government has to come and show that the enemy combatant status is still justified, that the person who is being detained is not dangerous to us or our allies, or they no longer have any intelligence capability or intelligence value. At that point, they can be released. Two hundred and something have been released. What we are trying to do with this amendment is to get Congress involved in that process so that the courts will understand that Congress agrees with the concept of unlawful enemy combatant and that the review process in place is a good process. I have made two changes.

One, I have addressed the issue of using statements that are derived from foreign interrogations. I do not think anybody in this country wants our Nation to be using evidence that may be tainted by torture or undue coercion. So I have a provision in there that says if a statement or information is used that comes from a foreign detention or a foreign interrogation, we have to simply prove, where practical, that it is reliable, that it is not as a result of coercion. The courts will appreciate that, and I think the American public would appreciate that.

Second, we have a provision that the releasing authority, the person who decides if someone can be released, should be confirmed by the Senate. Under Secretary England performs that function right now, but I think it would be a good relationship to have the Senate involved in picking that person who has the ultimate authority to determine to let these people go because 12 of them have gone back to the fight. Some people who have been released have gone back to the war. Some people who have been picked have probably been misidentified.

We are trying to get a procedure that the courts will accept, that will be good for the country, that will keep terrorists off the battlefield, that would withstand legal scrutiny and live up to the ideals of who we are.

If Congress will get involved and legitimize unlawful enemy combatant status, it will pay great dividends to the operation at Guantanamo Bay because we will have the administration and the Congress on the same sheet of music and the courts will soon follow.

My goal is to strengthen Guantanamo Bay, make sure that abuses in the past never occur again, have standardization of interrogation techniques so our troops will not get in trouble so that we can get good, reliable information. The military commissions are on track to be approved by the Supreme Court. We need a place to try these terrorists for their crimes. If they are not being tried, they need to be kept off the battlefield. Enemy combatant status does that. We need due process rights. We are a nation of laws. This amendment incorporates the due process that already exists with some improvement.

If we will do these things, Guantanamo Bay will be more effective in the future. It will be a forward-looking, reform-type process. We will not be captured by the mistakes of the past, and we will be a safer nation.

I appreciate Senator Warner's support and leadership on this issue. We are trying in concert to make sure that we are stronger as a nation, not weaker. We learn from our problems. We clean up some of the problems we have had in the past and Congress finally gets involved. I think the courts will appreciate that. I know the American public will.

With that, I will yield to Senator Warner.

That is correct.

That is a very good point. Under the procedure in place now, a military representative is provided to the enemy combatant initially. When the determination is made whether someone is an enemy combatant, our own rules provide a military representative. In an annual review, a military representative is given to the enemy combatant to make their case that they are no longer a danger. What I wanted to do at the annual review is make that person a military lawyer because the potential of keeping these people there for a long period of time is great because unlike other wars dealing with traditional POWs, there is nobody to sign surrender documents.

I can understand the Senator's concerns. We can deal with that issue later. So we will go back to the old way of doing business. The lawyer requirement will be taken out and we will go back to the procedures that are in place now.

Right now, every unlawful enemy combatant has a military representative to help them make their case about their status. We will not make that person a military judge advocate. I think it would help us in court, but I do not believe it is that important. It will pass muster with the courts in its current form, so that has been changed.

The Geneva Convention would govern how we treat the lawful combatant. That is something we all understand and have been working with for 60 years. The unlawful enemy combatant can now be detained for an indeterminate period of time, once that determination has been made, with an annual review required to see if they should be kept based on danger to our country that the person presents, and any intelligence data that they present.

So this legitimizes what the courts have been telling us to do. The courts have said that an unlawful enemy combatant status determination is an appropriate legal concept as long as the person is given notice and the right to challenge. So what we are doing in this statute is taking the court's directive and we are giving them notice and we are giving them a right to challenge. A lawful combatant already has that under the Geneva Conventions.

The Senator has made my day.

I say to the chairman, he is absolutely correct. It is a very simple concept we are trying to achieve. There are two problems, there are two groups of people we worry about for two different reasons. One group I worry about is the Americans in charge of these detainees because we have all kinds of laws that we have adopted, for 60 years, directing our people in how to treat folks who are captured-- whether they are lawful or unlawful. We have had policy statements and directives that are at best inconsistent, that are all over the board, floating out there in legal cyberspace. We are trying to put into one document, the Army Field Manual, the rules of the road for both groups, lawful combatants and unlawful combatants.

We are not writing the field manual, we are not telling the experts what to put in the manual, how to write it, we are saying, for the sake of our own troops, you have one document you can go to now. And we are saying to the world we are going to standardize our techniques. We are not going to have inconsistent messages. The JAG memos we were talking about a while ago that were 2 years old now are telling us if you get too far afield from what we have been doing for 60 years, you are going to get yourself in trouble. So the Army Field Manual will be one-stop shopping for all those responsible for detainees in both categories, and it will standardize procedures that will allow us to get good information, be aggressive, without losing who we are as a people. That is why we need this, in my opinion.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It becomes a statute----

That is absolutely right. It uses the terms the Senator has just uttered and makes it a statutory

prohibition to engage in that conduct. It takes what the President said, we are going to treat people humanely, gets the Congress involved, and we are putting parameters around what we do with foreign terrorists, noncitizens. We can interrogate them, but we are not going to change who we are as a people, and the interrogators tell us that the Army Field Manual--as we were down there a week ago--gives them all the tools they need to aggressively pursue the interrogations. You really don't get things out of torture. They do not believe it is good practice, to begin with, so you are absolutely right. There will be a prohibition in law as well as rhetoric.

This is absolutely giving clarity. What had been confusing will now be clear, and it will be protection for the troops who are having to administer the detainees, in terms of interrogation. That is what Senator Warner said, in terms of detention.

The Marine Corps Judge Advocate, who was part of a review process 2 years ago, said the one thing he thought policymakers were missing, or misunderstood, was the effect on our own troops. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it is a crime to abuse a detainee. So you are creating a new model for interrogation, and you may be getting your own people in trouble if you don't understand how the law exists already.

We are trying to reconcile those concepts; let the military tell us what they need and not put our own people at jeopardy. This will help GTMO in two regards: Get better, more reliable information that will not give us a black eye and help the troops understand what their duties are.

It is not only my understanding, it is also part of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There is a specific section that makes it a crime to abuse a detainee or a prisoner.

It is my understanding that the Army Field Manual, as written--and it is being revised--rejects that concept in interrogation of abusive and degrading behavior. I am not an expert on the terms of it. But the whole point of these amendments also is to make sure that we have standardized interrogation techniques that get good information without having to be abusive and degrading. But you can be forceful. You can be stressful. You can be psychologically and physically stressful under the Army Field Manual without crossing the line that we are all concerned about.

That is exactly what we did. We had confusing messages--if I may continue for a second--to our troops. We had a DOJ memo that was a basic departure from the way we have lived as a nation for 60 years. Understandably, after 9/11 we wanted to be aggressive. But the JAGs in question told us: Don't go down this road too far because we have trained people for 60 years to do it one way. It works that way. And you are going to confuse our own troops.

Lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. So we are trying to get it back to where we have been.

We fought World War II, Hitler--a pretty bad guy--using these concepts. We can fight these terrorists using these concepts.

My goal, and I am sure it is your goal, is to kill them if we have to, capture them, interrogate them, detain them and prosecute them and do all that without giving up who we are as a nation.

We can do that. This is a step in that direction.

Is 20 minutes OK?

Let us make it 30 minutes so that we can get everybody in, equally divided. I believe Senator Leahy wants to speak on it.

Supporter.

That would be great.

I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I will try to keep this very short. This amendment is not new to the body. This is something that I have been working on with Senator Clinton and other Members for a very long time. It deals with providing the Guard and Reserves eligibility for military health care.

As a setting or a background, of all the people who work for the Federal Government, surely our Guard and Reserves are in that category. Not only do they work for the Federal Government, sometimes on a very full-time basis, they are getting shot at on behalf of the Federal Government and all of us who enjoy our freedom. Temporary and part-time employees who work in our Senate offices are eligible for Federal health care. They have to pay a premium, but they are eligible. Of all the people who deal with the Federal Government and come to the Federal Government when they are needed, the Guard and Reserve, they are ineligible for any form of Federal Government health care. Twenty-five percent of the Guard and Reserve are uninsured in the private sector. About one in five who have been called to active duty from the Guard and Reserve have health care problems that prevent them from going to the fight immediately.

So this amendment will allow them to enroll in TRICARE, the military health care network for Active-Duty

people and retirees. Under our legislation, the Guard and Reserve can sign up to be a member of TRICARE and have health care available for them and their families. They have to pay a premium. This is not free. This is modeled after what Federal employees have to do working in a traditional role with the Federal Government. So they have to pay for it, but it is a deal for family members of the Guard and Reserves that I think helps us in three areas: retention, recruiting, and readiness.

Under the bill that we are about to pass, every Guard and Reserve member will be eligible for an annual physical to make sure they are healthy and they are maintaining their physical status so they can go to the fight.

What happens if someone has a physical and they have no health care? To me, it is absurd that we would allow this important part of our military force's health care needs to go unaddressed, and it showed up in the war. We have had problems getting people into the fight because of health care problems. If we want to recruit and retain, the best thing we can do as a nation is to tell Guard and Reserve members and their families, if they will stay in, we are going to provide a benefit to them and their families that they do not have today that will make life better.

I ask unanimous consent that a USA Today article entitled ``Army Finds Troop Morale Problems in Iraq,'' be printed in the Record.

This is a survey. It states: A majority of U.S. soldiers in Iraq say morale is low, according to an Army report that finds psychological stress is weighing particularly heavily on National Guard and Reserve troops.

The last paragraph states: National Guard and Reserve soldiers who serve in transportation support units suffered more than others from depression, anxiety, and other indications of acute psychological stress, the report stated. These soldiers have often been targets of the insurgents' lethal ambushes and roadside bombs.

Last month and the month before last were the most deadly for the Guard and Reserve since the war started. The role of the Guard is up, not down. It is more lethal than it used to be, and families are being stressed.

What we did last year, thanks to Chairman Warner, was a good start. We provided relief for Guard and Reserve members who had been called to active duty since September 11, and their families. If you were called to active duty for 90 days since September 11 to now, you were eligible for TRICARE for 1 year. If you served in Iraq for a year, you would get 4 years of TRICARE. The problem is, some people are going to the fight voluntarily and don't meet that criteria. Two-thirds of the air crews in the Guard and Reserve have already served 2 years in some capacity involuntarily. They keep going to the fight voluntarily and their service doesn't count toward TRICARE eligibility.

The bottom line is we have improved the amendment. We need to reform it even more. We have reduced the amount of reservists eligible to join this program to the selected Reserves. Since I am in the indefinite Reserve status as a reservist, I am not eligible for this, nor should I be. But if you are a selected Reserve under our amendment, you are eligible for TRICARE. We have reduced the number of reservists eligible. We have reduced the amount of premiums the Reserve and Guard member would have to pay. We have reduced it from $7.1 billion to $3.8 billion over 5 years. We have made it more fiscally sound.

But the bottom line is for me, you cannot help these families enough, and $3.8 billion over 5 years is the least we can do. What does it cost to have the Guard and Reserve not ready and not fit to go to the fight? What does it cost to have about 20 percent of your force unable to go to the fight because of health care problems? This is the best use of the money we could possibly spend. There is all kinds of waste in the Pentagon that would more than pay for this, and our recruiting numbers for the Guard and Reserve are not going to be met this year because the Guard and Reserve is not a part-time job any longer. It is a real quick ticket to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The people who are in the Guard and Reserves are helping us win this war just as much as their Active-Duty counterparts, who are doing a tremendous job. Their families don't have to worry about health care problems; guardsmen and reservists do.

I have statements from the National Governors Association, the National Guard Association of the United States, the Military Officers Association of America, the Fleet Reserve Association, the Reserve Enlisted Association, and the Air Force Sergeants Association that I would like to submit for the Record, saying directly to the Congress:

This is a good benefit. If you will enact it, it would improve the quality of life for our Guard and Reserve members and their families. It will help recruiting and retention, and it is needed.

I ask unanimous consent to have those letters printed in the Record.

We are building on what we did last year. This fight is going to go on for a long time in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can't leave too soon. The idea of having a smaller involvement by Guard and Reserves is an intriguing idea, but it is not going to happen anytime soon either. This benefit will help immeasurably the quality of life of guardsmen and reservists, take stress off of them and their families, and it is the least we can do as a nation who are being defended by part-time soldiers who are really full in every capacity and die in every bit the same numbers, if not greater, than their Active-Duty counterparts.

I will yield the floor to Senator Clinton, who has been with us every step of the way. We have made a great deal of progress. We are not going to stop until this provision becomes law.

To my friends in the House, the House Armed Services Committee passed this provision with six Republicans joining with the Democratic side of the aisle to get it out of the committee and, through some maneuvering on the floor, this provision helping the Guard and Reserve families was taken out of the bill. There has been one vote after another in the House where over 350 people have supported the concept.

To my friends in the House, I appreciate all you have done to help the troops, but we are going to fight over this issue. This is not going away. We are not quitting until we get it right for the Guard and Reserves.

I yield the floor to Senator Clinton.

I would like to acknowledge what Senator Clinton has done on behalf of this amendment. Without her, I don't think we would be as far as we are. She has been terrific. To Senator Warner, you and your staff have been terrific to do what we did last year.

How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have 15 minutes more because, what I would like to do is give Senator Coleman 4 minutes, Senator Leahy wants 4 minutes, and Senator Allen wants 4 minutes. I am not good at math--whatever we need to get that done.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for all our assistance. I now recognize Senator Coleman and yield him 4 minutes.

I yield 4 minutes to Senator Leahy, who has been chairman

of the Guard caucus, and who has championed this legislation. I am honored to have him as a partner.

I would like to yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Virginia, who was one of the original founders of this whole idea, fighting before this became popular, and he has been a terrific advocate for the Guard and Reserve. I yield 4 minutes.

At this time, Mr. Chairman, if I may, I yield to Senator Thune, one of our newest members, 3 minutes. He has been a strong advocate of this legislation.

Mr. President, how much time do I have?

I thank the Chair. Thanks to all Senators, and thanks to the Guard and Reserve because we need them the most.

One of the problems that Guard and Reserve families have to face is the lack of continuity of health care. If you are called back to duty, you have health care. Once you are released from active duty, with its health care program, you go back into the civilian health care network. That means you have to change hospitals and doctors. If you are experiencing a pregnancy, that means your hospitals may change, the doctors may change because you bounce from one health care network to the other.

This bill would provide a health care home for guardsmen and reservists, taking stress off their families if they choose to join. They never have to worry about bouncing from one doctor to one hospital to the next. They would have a continuing network. The Guard and Reserve have to pay a premium, unlike their Active-Duty counterpart. It is not a free benefit. I think this is a fair compromise. At the end of the day, this will help the Guard and Reserve.

I am proud of what we have done. I thank the chairman for his willingness to work with us. Time will tell how we will do this, but I am optimistic Congress is going to rise to the occasion to help these men and women who risk their lives to protect our freedom.

Mr. President, I believe my time should come from Senator Dorgan because I oppose the bill.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Baucus. Senator Baucus made some very telling points that I think we should all listen to in trying to get a game plan.

I rise today as a ``no'' vote to CAFTA. I do not think that surprises many people. The point I am trying to make with my vote is many of the things being said about the benefits of CAFTA are very true. I think it will help the Central American countries, the CAFTA nations that are trying to emerge as democracies in some regard. There will be some benefit to the economy. There is no doubt there is some benefit in any trade agreement. But my concern is of a geopolitical concern dealing with China.

The trade agreement we negotiated with Central America, the CAFTA agreement, has many loopholes that China will exploit, just as they have exploited every other trade agreement we have done. The cumulative effect of China on our trading situation throughout the world and our relationship is becoming devastating.

In April, the U.S. trade deficit was $62.2 billion. With China it grows $7.83 billion per month. Since we gave PNTR status to China in 2001, the trade deficit with China has gone from $100 billion to $162 billion. It is 47 percent greater this year than it was last year.

It has been devastating to the textile and other industries. During the first quarter of 2005, imports from China have grown 1,250 percent for cotton knit shirts and blouses, 1,500 percent for cotton trousers, and 300 percent for cotton and manmade underwear.

The bottom line is products coming in from China are not conforming with international trade regimes. They are not conforming with the standards we would like to see throughout the world.

The bottom line is they are cheap. They take advantage of trade agreements negotiated--NAFTA and eventually CAFTA--through transshipments. What is going to happen very clearly, to me, is Chinese companies will move into the CAFTA. They will take material made in China with slave-wage conditions, horrible conditions, throw a label on it as if it were made in CAFTA, and get it into our country in a way they could not do directly from China. It is called transshipment.

Particularly, this agreement is poorly drafted. It does not realize exactly with whom we are dealing. The combined effect of the CAFTA nations, in terms of a market for us, is the size of San Diego. So those who sell this agreement as a major way to create export opportunities for America I think are not realistic. If you took all the combined countries' economic buying power, it is the size of San Diego, and that is not going to fuel the American economy.

We are going to see goods from the CAFTA nations cheaper than we can produce here. It is going to have an effect on manufacturing in my State and other States that will be part of an overall trend that is getting to be more than we can bear.

China will take advantage of this. It has many loopholes for China. The rule of origin provisions requiring a yarn for arrangement is only for the essential fabric of the garment. What that means in English is we are trying to lock down the fabric and the yarn to be tied to our country, to give a benefit to our textile manufacturers, and that is a good thing. That helps us get into that market.

It does not deal with pockets, collars, and nonvisible jacket liners. They are exempt from that yarn for arrangement. There is a side deal having to do with pockets to address what will happen in my State. I have about 500 to 600 workers who make pockets for garments. The Chinese companies are going to put them out of business because the pockets to be made in a CAFTA nation are not going to come from South Carolina or other places in the United States. They are eventually going to come from China because the pocket agreement, trying to protect the pocket part of a garment, requires all six CAFTA countries to ratify it. That is just not realistic. It is not going to happen. So there are going to be people in my State, unfortunately, if this gets passed, who are going to be put out of a job because China is going to come into the CAFTA region and they are going to put American manufacturing, when it comes to textile goods with regard to pockets, out of business.

There are other loopholes. The single transformation provision allows for pajamas, boxer shorts, and bras to be imported into the U.S. duty free regardless of origin so long as they are assembled in a CAFTA country. In other words, you can have all the material made in China for these products and do the sewing in CAFTA, and they come into our country, and that is going to be devastating to Fruit of the Loom and other people who have come by to talk about it.

This agreement, like all other agreements I have voted for, except Australia, which I thought was a pretty good deal for America, has major loopholes within it to allow China to take advantage of it even though they are not party to it.

The problem we have with China and the way they manipulate their currency, the way they have no regard for intellectual property, the way they transship by cheating, sending goods from China into other regions of the world where we have existing trade agreements, is having a cumulative effect.

We have lost 21.6 percent of the manufacturing jobs in South Carolina in the last 5 years. Some of it is due to modernization. Some of it is due to factors beyond international trade. But a lot of it has to do with international trade that is not being fairly policed.

We have a 6.5-percent unemployment rate in South Carolina. We are fifth in the Nation. Our State has a manufacturing-based economy. The side deals that are being touted for people in this agreement are going to be like most other side deals when it comes to agreements in the last 15 years. Eighty-three percent of these agreements, according to a report by Public Citizen, a watchdog group, were not kept, reversed, or became meaningless.

So my concern about CAFTA is my concern about trade in general. Until we regulate and get buy-in by the Chinese to live within the family of nations when it comes to trading and doing business, every time we expand an area of trade, it becomes another portal for China to enter into our marketplace and to do things they could

not do in a direct relationship with the United States.

They will be able to do things in the area of textiles in the CAFTA countries they could not do directly with the United States. It is just not going to be textiles. Eventually it is going to be other products.

The buying power of these nations, again, combined is the size of San Diego, but what will happen is the ability of China to exploit this agreement is going to be much larger than the buying power of San Diego.

I do believe that trade can help emerging democracies and that there is a logic to the idea the President is proposing for these emerging democracies for which we could create economic opportunity.

However, unfortunately, I believe the way this deal has been negotiated, the way it will be implemented, and the way it will be exploited is not going to improve the democracies in Central America because they are going to lose jobs to China eventually. It is going to hurt the manufacturing base of this country, which is already in jeopardy. That is why I will choose to vote no.

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

Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for allowing me to have this time. I acknowledge all his hard work to bring us to having votes. And that is true of the minority leader. The Senate is back in business and we are voting in the fashion of 214 years of our history and some good people are getting voted on. That is all we can ask or hope for.

I rise to speak on behalf of Justice Janice Rogers Brown. I intend to vote for her tomorrow when the vote is called. Being from the South, being from South Carolina, about to turn 50, I can say it is a long way from Greenville, AL, as a daughter of a sharecropper to the Supreme Court of California; an African-American female who grew up in the segregated South, daughter of a sharecropper in Greenville, AL, growing up, listening to stories from a grandmother about famous NAACP lawyer Fred Gray, who defended Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.

It is a long way--and most of it is uphill. But she made it. And we ought to all be proud of the fact that someone such as Janice Rogers Brown has accomplished so much in her life. Not only did she go from Greenville, AL, to the Supreme Court of California, she served with distinction.

California has a unique system in the sense that the voters can decide whether they want to retain a judge. The last time she was up for retention vote in California she received 76 percent of the vote. We can talk about this as long as we would like, and apparently 30 hours is as long as we are going to talk about it. I find it hard to believe that someone could be out of the mainstream to the point they are a rightwing judicial fanatic and still get 76 percent of the vote in California. The last time I checked, it is not exactly the haven of rightwing people.

The reason she received 76 percent of the vote in California is because nobody made a big deal about her being a judge. The fact is, she decided a lot of cases with a variety of issues and a consistent manner that made it so that people who came before her did not feel the need to go out and try to get her beat. Only after the fact, only when she gets in this political whirlwind we are in now, where every Federal court nominee is getting attacked in a variety of different ways, mainly on the lines that you are out of the mainstream because you happen to be conservative, only then has she gotten to be a problem.

This is politics, pure and simple, because if it was about competency, if it was about professional qualifications, she would never have been on the Supreme Court in California to start with. She would not have stayed 7 or 8 years, and she would not have gotten 76 percent of the vote. To say otherwise defies common sense.

We are going to take a vote tomorrow. She is going to be confirmed to the Federal bench on the court of appeals. She is a good candidate for that position. Not only is the California Supreme Court a good training ground for such a position, her story as a person is a great reservoir for her to call upon.

The idea that she cannot relate to people who suffer and who have been dealt a difficult time is absurd given her life circumstance. She will be an ideal court of appeals judge because

she was a very solid supreme court justice.

Is she conservative? You better believe it. The last time I checked, that is not a disqualifier. As a matter of fact, I think that is exactly what the country needs right now. We need Federal judges who will interpret the law and not make it. The Federal judiciary has lost its way on many occasions. She will be part of the solution, not the problem.

For 25 years she has been a public servant. She has worked for the legal assistance folks in California doing things for people who are less fortunate. She has been an outstanding jurist. She is a smart lady. She graduated near the top of her class and has given back more than she has taken.

The road from Greenville, AL, to the Supreme Court of California now leads to the Federal bench. We all should be proud of the fact that someone like this has done so much for so many people. Instead of picking apart every word she said, we should celebrate her success because come tomorrow, she will be a Federal judge. The country will be better off for it. We will be a stronger nation having someone like her on the Federal bench.

I am very proud of what she has accomplished as a person. I am very supportive of her judicial tenure, her judicial reasoning. She will bring out the best in our Nation's legal system.

One final thought: Politicians live in a world of 50 plus 1. We think of the most awful things we can say about each other just to get these jobs and to hold on to them sometimes. More and more people are turned off by politics because it is 24/7, running each other down. I wish we could stop.

Let me tell you about the present Presiding Officer. He has the perfect demeanor, as far as I am concerned, about a political figure. The Presiding Officer has had many jobs, and he has carried himself well. But we are adrift in politics. We are trying to find who is the least bad among us. By the time we get through with each other, nobody wants to vote for anybody. That needs to be corrected. At least we volunteer for this. We go in it with our eyes wide open. If we continue to do to judges what we have embarked on for the last 15 or 20 years, we will do great damage to the judiciary.

This lady has been called a Neanderthal. She has been called some names you would not call your political opponent. There is a lot that has been said about Janice Rogers Brown that is over the top and is unfair. But she stuck it out and she will have her vote and she will win.

Let me state to all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, whatever our Democrat friends have done, we are capable of doing the same on our side. If we do not slow down, take a deep breath and reassess what we are doing to judicial nominees, we will destroy the independence of the judiciary because it has become another form. If you have ever had a thought in your life and you have expressed it, it will be used against you in a political fashion, not a qualification fashion.

I hope we will learn from the past 15 or 20 years and declare a cease-fire on the judiciary. If you do not like people, vote against them. If they have bad character or bad ethics, bring it up and we will come together and deal with that. I hope we will stop declaring war on these people in such a personal fashion because the downside of this is good men and women of the future who would want to be judges are going to take a pass. Who in their right mind in the future is going to put their family and themselves through what these nominees have gone through? They do not have to. They have decided not to get in the political arena. They decided to devote themselves to the rule of law.

The difference between my business and the courtroom is the difference between very loud and very quiet. Pack your political agenda at the courthouse door, at the courthouse steps. The courtroom is a quiet place where you are judged based on what you do, not who you are. You do not have to pay in the American legal system because you have a big wallet. In the American political system, we hit the rich pretty routinely. In the American political system, the unpopular have zero chance because they do not poll well.

In a courtroom, we do not take any polls. We look at what you do, not where you came from, and we let your peers, the citizens of the community, decide your fate, with somebody presiding over the trial with no ax to grind. What a marvelous system.

The jury is not special interest groups. They are not out raising money. They do not get rewarded or punished. They leave when the case is over, and they get a few dollars for their time. And do you know what. It works marvelously well. And that person in a black robe is nobody's campaign manager. They are there to call the balls and the strikes. This has worked well for 214 years. And if we do not watch it, we are going to ruin it.

Hopefully, over the next coming weeks, we can get back to the traditions of the Senate, treat people with the courtesy they deserve, and if you do not think they will be a good judge, vote against them. I think that is your obligation. The name-calling needs to stop.

So come tomorrow, at 5 o'clock, Janice Rogers Brown is going to continue her journey from Greenville, AL, and she is going to wear the robe of a Federal court judge. I think that is something we all should celebrate.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I appreciate Senator Voinovich allowing me to speak a moment or two on the John Bolton nomination.

No. 1, when it comes to how and why Members vote, every Senator has to make a decision they feel comfortable with, that is good for the Nation, good for the Senate, good for the White House, good for the American people.

One thing I am confident of: Senator Voinovich, of all the people I know in the Senate, is right at the top of the list of those who make decisions based on conscience and principle. Whatever problems he has with this nominee have come from soul searching, thinking, and looking. He will articulate why he feels the way he does and vote his conscience. That is exactly what he should do. I am all for that because that is what makes the Senate great. That is what makes America great.

In terms of myself, I would like a moment or two to express why I have come to the conclusion that I think John Bolton will make an outstanding ambassador to the United Nations. We have heard a lot about his disposition, about his temper, about his working relations. Everyone will make a judgment about where they come down on that. I made a judgment that, obviously, some of the things about his working relationships can be troubling. The idea that he has been confirmed four times, has served his country for well over 20 years in a variety of posts and done an outstanding job, is what I will base my vote on-- not a conversation here or there but 20-plus years of serving the United States at the highest level of Government, with a great academic background.

But why him and why now? Are there other people who can be United States ambassador to the United Nations? There are a lot of good people out there. What drove the President to pick him now? The honest truth is, I haven't talked to the President about why he picked John Bolton, but I have a pretty good idea what was on his mind. The President sees very clearly the need for the United Nations. This world is in tremendous conflict. We are splitting along religious lines. We are having all kinds of problems getting along with each other and trying to find out how to fight the war on terrorism. The United Nations provides a hope for the world, a place where we can come together and have good people stand up to bad people. Sometimes it is hard to determine who is good and who is bad, but many times it is not, and it should be a place where people of good will can deal with problems for bad people such as Saddam Hussein and others, the Osama bin Ladens of the world, a place where they can be controlled and checked.

The President sees from the American conservative perspective that the United Nations has lost its way. From a conservative point of view, being a conservative Republican, I hear continuously of problems with the United Nations from people I represent and people I know. The worst thing we can do is to allow the good will of the American people to slip away from the United Nations and reject that body.

What will it take to repair the damage done from the Oil-for-Food Program, the corruption at the United Nations, the, at the least, inconsistent approach to regulating dictators such as Saddam Hussein? How can we get the United States and the United Nations back together where we can work as one team? It will take a person Americans have faith in. And that is a big problem with the United Nations right now.

American conservatives need to feel better. John Bolton will provide that assurance from a conservative point of view that the United Nations would be pushed to reform itself. From a moderate and liberal point of view, I can assure members that the policies John Bolton will fight for will be those policies directed by President Bush, who won the last election. And some may not agree with the policies, but that is where he will get his marching orders.

He sees the United Nations as a value-added product to the world. He sees clearly where it has gone astray. He has the credibility with the American public, particularly among conservatives, to be a force for change.

The worst thing that could happen is for the United Nations to slip away, in the eyes of Americans, as an effective body. It surely has gone that route.

The best thing that can happen from this nomination is that John Bolton goes to the U.N. with an attitude of: I will work with you, but you have to be better--and to effectively articulate President Bush's policies. I think that can happen. I think it must happen. Not only am I enthusiastic about his nomination, he clearly--given the dynamic our country has with the United Nations--is the right person at the right time and can do things no other person could do; namely, repair the image of the U.N. with a large percentage of the American people, who believe it has lost its way. That is why I will support this nominee with enthusiasm.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I will take up where my colleague left off. Before she leaves the floor, I acknowledge what a pleasure it has been to work with her and other members of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party to do something for our Guard and Reserve Forces. She has outlined very well what we are trying to do. It shows what can happen when the body will come together on an issue that should never divide us. Whether you are Republican or Democrat or independent, this war affects us all. No one asked the young men and women fighting the war their party identification or affiliation or their political background when they went off to serve our Nation.

The least we can do as a body is stand behind them and their families to provide a benefit they need.

We had a hearing yesterday, to build upon what Senator Clinton said. We had the chief of the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Reserve components, and the Naval Reserve, and we talked about the stress on the force in terms of the Reserve community. We have 175,000 people today who have experienced duty in this war from the Guard and Reserve. Forty percent of the people in Iraq and Afghanistan are guardsmen and reservists. We could not fight without them.

This is the biggest utilization of the Guard and Reserve since World War II. The skill set they bring to the fight is indispensable. There are civil affairs people helping Afghan and Iraqi officials set up a democracy. We have medical personnel and many others who are indispensable. The military police are predominantly guardsmen and reservists, and they are indispensable in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have done a terrific job.

The reason we are involved in this legislation and we have so much bipartisan support for what we are trying to do is the Guard and Reserve is the only group of part-time Federal employees--and as a guardsman or reservist, you work for the Federal Government. You also work for the State government, but you have a dual status. Reservists are part of the Federal military, the DOD. They are the only group in the whole Federal Government that is not eligible for some form of health care from the Federal Government.

A temporary employee in your office or my office, somebody working in a temporary capacity, is able to sign up for Federal health care benefits that we enjoy. They have to pay a premium. A part-time worker is able to sign up for Federal health care benefits. The only group that works part time and doesn't get any benefits is the Guard and Reserve. The one thing we found from the hearing is that is a mistake. At least 10 percent of the people being called to active duty from the Guard and Reserve are unable to be deployed because of health care problems. About 30 percent of the people in the Guard and Reserve have no private health care insurance. So from a ratings point of view, about 10 percent of the force is taken out of the fight without a shot being fired. That makes no readiness sense. The health care network for the Guard and Reserve today is not doing the job in terms of making the force fit and ready to serve.

When a person is deployed from the Guard and Reserve, they leave behind a family more times than not. Half of the people going into the fight from the Guard and Reserve suffer a pay reduction, having no continuity of health care or predictability of what the benefits will be in a continuous fashion.

How long you will be gone and when you are coming home matters in terms of recruiting and retention. Sixty-eight percent of the Army Reserve's goal is being met in recruiting. The Guard and Active Forces are suffering in recruiting because this war has taken a toll. The more attractive the benefit package is, the more we can appreciate the service, the more likely we are to get the good people and recruit patriotic Americans.

What this legislation is designed to do is fill in that gap and solve the problem that faces the Guard and Reserve families, and that is lack of health care. Every Reserve component chief says that when they talk to the troops, the one thing that means the most to them, on top of every other request, is continuity of health care. So we are proposing a benefit for the Guard and Reserve that they will have to pay for, but we will allow, for the first time, Guard and Reserve members to sign up for TRICARE, the military health care system, like their Active-Duty counterparts have, with one major difference: they will have to pay a premium, unless they are called to active duty, similar to what we pay as Federal employees.

I believe that is a fair compromise. It will allow uninsured guardsmen and reservists to have health care at an affordable price. It will allow people who have uneven health care in the private sector to get constant health care. We will have a system where people, when they are called to active duty, will have the same set of doctors and hospitals that service the family as when they are in the Guard and Reserve status. We think it desperately will help recruiting and retention and readiness, and it will make people ready for the fight.

We have worked on the costs. We are looking at cutting the cost of the program in half by requiring a slightly higher premium from the force and offering TRICARE standard versus TRICARE prime. I believe it fiscally makes sense but still achieves the goal of the original legislation of providing continuity of health care.

The reason we are not offering the amendment on the supplemental is that because of the cost saving we have achieved in redesigning the program, there is no cost to be incurred in 2005. We are working in a bipartisan manner with the chairman of the Armed Services Committee to go ahead and offer a full-time military health care benefit to guardsmen and reservists that they can sign up for, to give them continuity of care at a fair premium. It is a good deal for all concerned. The reason we are doing this is obvious: We are utilizing the Guard and Reserve in a historic fashion. If we don't change the benefit structure, we are going to drive the men and women away from wanting to serve. After a while, it gets to be too onerous. I hope we will be able to produce a product in committee in the authorization bill that will allow this program to be offered to the entire force.

Here is what we did last year. I will end on this note. The body reached a compromise last year. Last year, we came up with a program that for every person in the Guard and Reserve who was mobilized for 90 days or more, from September 11, 2001, forward to today, for every 90 days they served on active duty, they would get a year of TRICARE for themselves and their families. That program goes into effect April 26 of this year, a few days from now. I have the brochure called TRICARE Reserve Select. About a third of the force would be eligible. It will cover the Selective Reserve, drilling reservists. That is one change we made.

I am still in the Reserves, but I am in an inactive status. I do my duty over at Bolling Air Force Base. I am not subject to deployment, so I will not be included. The bill we are designing covers people subject to being deployed and being sent to the site. The compromise of last year will allow a year of TRICARE for every 90 days you are being called to active duty.

There are thousands of reservists who will be eligible for this program, and this brochure called TRICARE Reserve Select will be available to your unit, and you need to inquire as to whether you and your family would be eligible to join TRICARE because of your 90-day- plus deployment. The goal this year is to build upon what we did last year by offering the program to the entire drilling force.

The other two-thirds of the Select Reserves who are subject to being deployed, who drill and prepare for combat-related duties so that when they get called, if they do, they will be ready to go to the fight, it will be a benefit for their families that I think most Americans would be glad to provide.

So we have a program in place for those who have been called to active duty for 90 days or more since September 11, 2001. It goes into effect in a week. It will make you and your family eligible for TRICARE a year for every 90 days you serve. So if you serve a year in Iraq, you get 4 years. The goal this year is expanded to total drilling Selected Reserve force. We cut the program in half by increasing the benefit payment required of the Guard and Reserve member and reshaping the benefit package. I think it is more affordable than ever, but the cost of having 10 percent of the force unable to go to the fight is financially and militarily very large. The cost of lack of continuity of health care for Guard and Reserve families is emotionally devastating.

With about two-tenths of 1 percent of the military budget, we can fix this problem and reward Americans who are doing a great job for their country. The likelihood of the Guard and Reserve being involved in a deep and serious way in the war on terror is probably unlimited.

The last fact I will leave with you is this: We talked to the Reserve commander yesterday about the utilization of the Air Reserves. Fifty percent of the people flying airplanes in terms of transport into the theater of operation and servicing the theater of operation with a C- 130 are Reserve or Guard crews. I have been to Iraq 3 times now, and I have flown about 16 or 17 flights on a C-130 from Kuwait into Iraq and Afghanistan. Every crew except one has been a Reserve or Guard crew.

There is a rule in the military that a Guard or Reserve member cannot be deployed involuntarily for more than 24 months. That rule has served the force well because it takes stress off the force, it keeps people gainfully employed because if you are gone all the time, it is hard to keep a civilian job. So we put a cap of 24 months of involuntary service into the theater of operations, into the war zone.

What astonished me was that two-thirds of the pilots and the aircrews in the Guard and Reserve have already reached that mark. Two-thirds of those who serve in the Guard and Reserve have already met their 2-year involuntary commitment.

One fact that keeps this war afloat is that they are volunteering to go back. Legally we cannot make them go back, but they are volunteering to keep flying. And God bless them because two-thirds of 50 percent statutorily do not have to go to this fight. They choose to go to this fight. This benefit package is a recognition of that commitment.

I am very optimistic--to all those Guard and Reserve families who may be listening today--that help is on the way, that this body is going to rise to the occasion, and we are going to improve your health care benefits because you earned it.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

We are trying to do the debate within 40 minutes. That was our goal.

Mr. President, first, I acknowledge that it has been a pleasure to work with Senator Schumer and others to develop this amendment. We have been involved in this effort for 2 years. We come from different ends of the political spectrum on many issues, but we found common ground here because we hear the comments, whether it is in South Carolina or New York, from manufacturing entities and other business people basically saying China has a business relationship that we cannot compete with. The political dynamic here is real.

Senator Lugar explained how this amendment affects this bill. I want to let him know I totally understand that. We are now basically running out of options. As Senator Schumer said, whether this amendment becomes law is probably not the point. The point is that the Chinese need to understand where the Senate and House stand. The President spoke numerous times about trying to get China to change the value of the currency. Secretary Snow has been to China and brought up this topic. There has been a begrudging movement in words but none in deeds. Talk is literally cheap with the Chinese. Their money is cheaper and it is having an effect on our economy and world relationships that need to be met with decisive political action, because the truth is, for the last decade we have had a very mixed message when it comes to China--both Republicans and Democrats. The only thing the Chinese understand is resolve. The one thing this country has had, when it comes to China in terms of trade, is the lack of resolve.

No one is advocating building a wall around our country. China presents a great opportunity for American business. What we are advocating is allowing China to become part of the world community under the same set of rules we all abide by. They are missing the mark by miles. The money they are making off these trade agreements, where they cheat, is not going into the hands of the everyday Chinese worker; it is going into their military. If we had the same approach during the Soviet Union era by having trade deals with the Soviet Union that would be constantly violated, enriching the government, the Soviet Union would never have collapsed.

China's Communist government is taking the benefit of these trade deals and enriching their military and growing in economic and military strength in the way that I think hampers freedom. It doesn't help spread it. Here are the facts. Since March, 2002, the U.S. dollar has fallen 30 percent against the euro. You know what that has done against the yuan? Not one change. Thirty percent against the euro, but no change against the yuan. They always create an advantage. When we passed normal trading relations with China in 2001, the trade deficit was $100 billion; today it is $160 billion--a 60-percent increase of a trade imbalance since PNTR was passed.

Now, is our market access improving? There is a 5-percent increase of American goods going to China. If you don't believe me and Senator Schumer, and you think we are advocating a protectionist philosophy that is antiquated and outdated in the 21st century, maybe you will believe the U.S.-China Commission, which was authorized and empowered by the Congress, the Senate and the House, to investigate China's business dealings, their trade policies.

I ask unanimous consent to have this document printed in the Record.

What do they tell us? There was a general consensus among the witnesses--they held 2 days of hearings--that China remains in violation of its WTO obligations in a number of areas impacting vital U.S. economic interests:

It has become increasingly clear that China is not meeting

key commitments it made when joining the WTO and that our

trade laws have to date been insufficient in addressing these

problems.

They lay out the problems: China currency manipulation, intellectual property theft; treating China as a nonmarket economy; lack of enforcement of U.S. trade remedies that are on the books; China subsidies to businesses that are in violation to WTO.

We have had a very tepid response to China's cheating across the board and we are paying a huge price. Many Americans are losing jobs not because they are being outworked, or because the Chinese are smarter, but because they are being cheated out of their jobs. One way is that the Chinese have taken the value of their currency and artificially suppressed it, creating a discount on every product coming out of China to the detriment of American manufacturing and the world community at large, and all we do is talk to China.

A lot of people are depending on us to do something about China in a constructive fashion. Is this the best way to have done it? No. This is the only way I know of, after 2 years, to get anybody's attention, our attention or China's attention. We passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution in 2003 that was a compromise that Senator Schumer and I made. OK, let's get the Senate on record. It was a sense of the Senate, and no one objected that China is manipulating its currency in violation of international norms and it costs Americans jobs. That was 2 years ago.

Last year, we were going to put it on the FSC/ETI bill. Everybody said you are going to mess up the bill. So we had a colloquy with Senator Grassley, who is a good friend, and we talked about holding hearings and we talked about engaging China anew, because we didn't want to mess up the bill by bringing this bill forward. That was over a year ago. Not one thing has changed--not one hearing--and the problem gets worse and worse. The balance of trade between us and China is absolutely shameful. We are doing nothing about it other than talking.

Well, this amendment does something about it other than talking. Let me tell you what the U.S.-China Commission said about currency manipulation.

The commission recommends that Congress pursue the

following measures to move China toward a significant near-

term upward reevaluation of the yuan by at least 25 percent.

We look moderate compared to the United States-China Economic Security Review Commission.

Consider imposing an immediate, across-the-board tariff on

Chinese imports unless China significantly strengthens the

value of its currency against the dollar or against a basket

of currencies.

The experts tell us the yuan is 15 to 40 percent below its true market, causing havoc on American manufacturing.

Reduce the ability of the Treasury Department to use

technical definitions to avoid classifying China as a

currency manipulator. . . .

They have a list things for us to do. One is imposing an across-the- board tariff. What I and Senators Schumer, Bunning, and others are suggesting we do is put China on notice: In the next 6 months, allow China to move toward reevaluation in a way that will help the American economy, will make China a true, fair member of nations, and if they do not act in the next 6 months in some significant way, then we will look at the ability of this country to protect ourselves against a Communist dictatorship that cheats. And if the Senate is not here to protect the American worker against a Communist dictatorship that cheats, what the heck are we here for?

I hope we will send a message to China they can understand because apparently they do not understand what we are saying any other way.

I have enjoyed this experience working in a bipartisan fashion to stand up for American business interests that are being cheated out of jobs because of a Communist dictatorship that cheats and is building up their military at our expense.

To the American manufacturing community, there are a million other ways we can help. I talked with Governor Engler today. We are going to do more domestically and internationally to level the playing field, but this is a significant start. Will it solve all the problems? No. Will this put China on notice as they have never been put on notice before? Yes. And if we fail to adopt this message, we are also sending a message to China. I am not sure that is a message the American worker can stand having sent to China.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Burr be added as a cosponsor.

I do not believe we have any more speakers on deck.

Mr. President, I add my voice to the millions of people throughout the world as we try to put in perspective the passing of Pope John Paul II.

As has been said many times in many ways, probably more than anything what struck me the most about the Holy Father was his ability to understand what could be when other people only saw what couldn't be. He understood that communism was an oppressive system. He lived under Nazi rule, and as he had the power to bring about change, he used that power for the

good. He went back to his home country of Poland and challenged his people to expect better and to demand better. That is what he did for the world.

He tried to challenge his church, to stick to the principles of the church as he saw those principles to be. He challenged the world to do better when it came to the less fortunate. He was consistent. He saw war as a bad thing. He understood that life was sacred and that the state should not take life. He was in opposition to the death penalty. There I may disagree, an honest disagreement.

But he had a consistency about him. When we try to put his beliefs in secular terms of being liberal or conservative, we totally miss the mark of understanding the Pope. He understood the past, he changed the present, and the future will be better because of his time on Earth.

His passing has left a void in a great religion. The Catholic faith has lost a great leader. The world has lost a great voice for humanity, for decency, for love, for caring, and that voice will echo throughout the ages. As the Catholic Church embarks on picking a new Pope, I can understand the legacy that will have to be fulfilled.

The great religion called the Catholic faith is in mourning for the loss of a great leader, but all of us are in mourning for the loss of a great leader. Anyone who loves freedom, anyone who believes that there is a right and wrong when it comes to certain issues, has lost a great guidepost. I believe his legacy will be in challenging the status quo for the common good, seeing pain and hearing the cries of the oppressed when other people only heard faint noises, and having the courage of his convictions. He said, Be not afraid, and that is a lesson for us all.

He has gone to his eternal home. He deserves all the accolades he has been given. The world is better for his time on Earth.

I yield the floor.