Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, this shutdown is not a negotiation situation. This is a hostage situation.

The President of the United States has taken 800,000 Federal workers, tens of thousands of Federal contractors, and thousands of small businesses hostage to extort money for his vanity wall.

We have all heard from our constituents about the pain the shutdown is causing. This Friday many government employees will miss their first paycheck as a result of the shutdown. Most of us live in a world where we need paychecks, and it is obvious that our constituents shouldn't have to ``make adjustments,'' as the President frames it, for the President's shutdown.

Our 800,000 Federal workers aren't the only people in our country feeling the impact of the shutdown. The situation is inflicting unnecessary pain on our government contracting community and small businesses that rely on the day-to-day operations of the Federal Government, not to mention the millions of Americans who request government services.

Let me just tell one story. Michelle Baker is a Federal contractor in Waikiki who helps the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agencies to write reports in a way that is accessible to the public. Michelle told Honolulu Civil Beat that she and her husband have resorted to taking out a payday loan with an exceptionally high interest rate to pay for their food this week.

Let me be clear. There are two people who can end the pain of the shutdown right now--Donald Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. The President has demonstrated repeatedly that his word is not good. He is an amoral hostage taker, and you cannot and should not negotiate with a hostage taker.

Senator McConnell, on the other hand, has not held back in exercising his power when he saw fit to do so. Senator McConnell had no problem using his power to unilaterally deny Judge Merrick Garland to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Senator McConnell had no problem using his power to lower the number of Senators it would take to confirm nominees to the Supreme Court, starting with Neil Gorsuch. Senator McConnell had no problem using his power to force the Senate to come within one vote of denying healthcare to millions of Americans by bringing forth a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Senator McConnell had no problem using his power to ram through a huge tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and corporations at the expense of middle-class families.

Senator McConnell has the power to end the shutdown by bringing up the legislation that the House has sent us--the same legislation that passed the Senate last Congress--to get the full government open and running again.

We should all be asking: Why won't Senator McConnell use his power to help 800,000 Federal workers and tens of thousands of government contractors get their paychecks? No one needs to remind Senator McConnell that Congress is a separate branch of government. The Senate can act without the hostage taker President's consent or assent.

Since the amoral President has hunkered down with his hostage strategy, I call on Senator McConnell to use his power to do his job as Senate majority leader. More Members of his own caucus are coming forward every day and calling on him to act, regardless of whether the President threatens or promises a veto.

It is time for Senator McConnell to stand up to Donald Trump and for the Senate to do our job and end this shutdown.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank my friend, the Senator from Florida,

for speaking out on the critical importance of the Affordable Care Act for millions of people in our country and for calling upon this administration to support healthcare for all instead of what they are doing to the healthcare of millions of people in our country.

Turning to another matter, nearly 12 years ago, on December 7, 2006, President George W. Bush nominated Thomas Farr to be a U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Today, 12 years and three nominations later, his name is again before us for confirmation to the very same vacancy, which has remained unfilled all this time.

When Mr. Farr was nominated for this vacancy in 2006 and 2007, his nomination did not receive a vote in the Judiciary Committee. It was known at that time that Mr. Farr had spent his professional life engaged in restricting minority voting rights and defending companies alleged to have discriminated against African Americans, women, and others.

In the 1980s and in 1990, Mr. Farr represented Senator Jesse Helms, notorious for his opposition to civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, workers' rights, and LGBTQ rights--in other words, individual rights.

Mr. Farr also helped corporations fight off their employees' discrimination claims. In 2003, Mr. Farr defended Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina against claims by a female employee who alleged that the company had compelled her to resign because of her sex and age. To win this case, Mr. Farr convinced the North Carolina Supreme Court to strike down the county's antidiscrimination law.

Given this history of restricting minority voting rights and defending companies in discrimination claims, Mr. Farr's nomination did not proceed at that time, and rightly so.

In the 12 years since his first nomination, Mr. Farr has become notorious for his defense of the North Carolina legislature's attempts to disenfranchise African-American voters.

His current nomination is opposed by nearly every civil rights group in North Carolina and nationally, and the Congressional Black Caucus, or the CBC, has fought Mr. Farr's nomination.

In a 2017 letter to the Judiciary Committee, the CBC wrote: ``It is no exaggeration to say that had the White House deliberately sought to identify an attorney in North Carolina with a more hostile record on African-American voting rights and workers' rights than Thomas Farr, it could hardly have done so.''

This district court vacancy was not filled by President Obama in his two terms, but not for lack of trying. President Obama nominated two different African-American women for this vacancy, one an assistant U.S. Attorney and another a State court judge. Neither nomination moved forward because the Republican home State Senators withheld their blue slips. Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy and, later, Chairman Grassley both, at that time, abided by the blue-slip process during that period, as I said, and no hearings were ever held for these two Obama nominees.

At the same time, both of my colleagues from North Carolina persisted in their desire to confirm Mr. Farr to the Federal bench. Of course, now, the return of a blue slip is no longer a barrier to pushing nominees through the Judiciary Committee.

So, on the recommendation of my Senate colleagues from North Carolina, Donald Trump nominated Mr. Farr yet again to the seat that had been kept open in the Eastern District of North Carolina. In fact, when Mr. Farr's nomination was returned at the end of a session of Congress last year, the White House decided to renominate him this year.

The history regarding this judicial vacancy and Mr. Farr is key to understanding why I and so many of my colleagues will vote no. We will be accused of obstruction and wanting to deprive the people of North Carolina of a judge in the Eastern District. We will hear how this is the longest open vacancy on the entire Federal bench, but, in fact, this vacancy has remained open so long because of Republicans' refusal to confirm qualified minority women and their insistence on filling this vacancy with a man whose career is filled with examples of his using the law to advance a racist, obstructionist, plainly un-American agenda.

Had the Republicans not blocked the nominations of qualified minority women in 2013 and 2016, this district, which is about 27 percent African American, would have had its first African-American judge.

By contrast Mr. Farr has spent decades opposing the rights of African Americans, women, and workers. Let me highlight a few examples.

When Mr. Farr was working as legal counsel for the 1990 campaign for Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, the Justice Department filed a Federal lawsuit against the campaign for trying to intimidate thousands of African Americans from voting. How did they do this? The Helms campaign staff sent postcards suggesting that the voters were ineligible to vote and warning that they could be prosecuted if they voted. Although Mr. Farr denied any involvement in these racist voter intimidation efforts, the Justice Department attorney who investigated the matter confirmed that Mr. Farr ``was certainly involved in the scheme as it was being developed.''

That is not the only time Mr. Farr has opposed the rights of African- American voters. When the North Carolina legislature decided to restrict or dilute the votes of African Americans over the past 10 years, Mr. Farr fiercely defended these efforts as a private attorney.

In 2013, for example, he defended the North Carolina legislature's voter suppression efforts that a court found were enacted with racially discriminatory intent--racially discriminatory intent. In other words, the North Carolina legislature was totally upfront about what they were up to.

After the Supreme Court effectively struck down the part of the Voting Rights Act that required North Carolina to preclear any changes to their voting laws, the North Carolina State legislature passed a law that eliminated or cut back on voter mechanisms that African Americans disproportionately used. This is the law that Mr. Farr defended. The Fourth Circuit in that case determined that these voting changes ``target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision.'' In other words, blatantly discriminatory intent was found by the Fourth Circuit.

Between his efforts to support suppression of voters, Mr. Farr has helped companies avoid accountability for discrimination against African Americans, women, and minority groups. In 2003, Mr. Farr argued that female employees at Pfizer were not protected under Federal civil rights law from condescending, sexist, and sexual comments from their manager because they were not ``severe'' or ``pervasive'' enough.

He even tried to undermine the plaintiff's claim by arguing that she failed to point out that her manager ``harassed her because of her gender on a daily or weekly basis.'' That was the standard he applied: You have to have been harassed on a daily or weekly basis. Mr. Farr ultimately convinced the court to dismiss the employee's claim as untimely.

A person who has devoted decades of his legal career to furthering oppression and injustices against minorities and women has no business being confirmed to a lifetime position as a judge, where his ideological agenda will certainly be reflected in his decision.

I will not vote for Mr. Farr's nomination, and I urge my colleagues to do likewise.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ariel Caspillo, a legislative fellow in my office, be permitted floor access for the remainder of the 115th Congress.

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

Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States. Based on an in-depth examination of his legal career, academic writings, and judicial record, I conclude that he has a long pattern of misstating facts and misapplying the law in order to further his partisan political agenda.

His partisan, ideologically driven agenda is particularly troubling in cases involving women's intimate personal decisions.

Roe v. Wade and its progeny represent an acknowledgment in American law and life that women ought to have control over whether and when to bear children, but it is more than that. As Justice O'Connor explained in Casey v. Planned Parenthood, ``It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.''

The Supreme Court's jurisprudence on reproductive rights is based on case law going back decades that has assured Americans the right to educate their children as they see fit; to marry anyone, no matter their race; and to decide whether to use contraception inside or outside of marriage. It is part of a jurisprudence of privacy and autonomy that became a bedrock of American society that we have all relied on to create families, choose professions, and raise children. But Brett Kavanaugh, through his political choices and affiliations, as well as his legal and judicial writing, has told us loud and clear that he does not respect a woman's right to make her own intimate, personal decisions and will do whatever he can, once confirmed, if confirmed, to narrow and overturn Roe v. Wade.

A recent speech Kavanaugh delivered gives us further insight into his own legal views on the topic. In 2017, at the American Enterprise Institute, Kavanaugh gave a speech in tribute to the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist. In his remarks, Kavanaugh praised Rehnquist's dissent--dissent--in Roe v. Wade where the late Chief Justice found no constitutional right to abortion because the right was not ``rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people.'' Thank goodness the rest of the Supreme Court did not follow Chief Justice Rehnquist.

To learn about Brett Kavanaugh's own legal views on reproductive rights, we need only look at his dissent in last year's DC Circuit case Garza v. Hargan. Here, a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant sought release from government custody to obtain an abortion.

Kavanaugh's first fundamental misstatement in this case was mischaracterizing it as a ``parental consent'' case. It was not. The young woman had already received a proper judicial bypass from a Texas judge and therefore did not need parental consent.

For a judge applying for a promotion to the Supreme Court to completely misstate the issue in the case was astounding to me. In my view, a first-year law student would not have deemed the Garza case to be a parental consent case, but that is what he said.

Then, when applying the legal test under Roe and Casey to determine whether the young woman's rights were being subject to an ``undue burden,'' Judge Kavanaugh would have ruled against her. He thought nothing of keeping a 17-year-old as a prisoner of the government Office of Refugee Resettlement instead of releasing her to get an abortion that was entirely within her rights to seek.

Compare that to the ease with which Judge Kavanaugh found that religious employers, in the case of Priests for Life v. Department of Health and Human Services, were burdened by filling out a two-page form. The employers there were seeking to avoid paying for any employee's health insurance that covered contraception, saying it burdened their free exercise of religion.

The majority of the DC Circuit held that asking the employers to fill out a brief form to let the government know of their objection was not a substantial burden, but Judge Kavanaugh disagreed and would have ruled to deny the female employees their proper health coverage, siding with the Priests for Life. Judge Kavanaugh's colleague on the DC Circuit went out of her way to write a concurring opinion to directly rebut Judge Kavanaugh's dissent and correct his misstatements of the case.

To Judge Kavanaugh, holding a woman in government custody unnecessarily and against her will does not represent an undue burden on the exercise of her constitutional right to an abortion, but when it comes to a religious employer opting out of providing contraceptive coverage to an employee, a two-page form is too great a burden.

The pattern of Judge Kavanaugh's views on the right to abortion is clear. Anyone who feels assured he will uphold Roe v. Wade is living in a fantasy world.

Laws that narrow women's reproductive rights in States like Texas, Iowa, and Louisiana are currently making their way to the Supreme Court, and all evidence shows that Judge Kavanaugh will side with them. Advocates for women's reproductive rights are against Judge Kavanaugh's ascent to the Supreme Court with good reason.

Another aspect of his judicial record that argues against confirmation is Judge Kavanaugh's pattern of dissents. Dissents are revealing. It is where judges go out of their way to voice their disagreement with the majority on the court to show what their views are. Judge Kavanaugh has the highest dissent rate among active DC Circuit judges at 5.1 dissents per year.

One study I introduced at his hearing showed that he consistently sided against workers and immigrants and only once favored consumers in his dissents.

Another study showed he consistently sided against protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink. So environmental and consumer rights groups are against Judge Kavanaugh's ascent to the Supreme Court with good reason.

Yet another study analyzed his dissents and found that Judge Kavanaugh tended to dissent more often along partisan lines than his colleagues and his ``divisiveness . . . ramped up during political campaigns'' before Presidential elections. This is more than mere coincidence. It also found that he had the highest rate of what the study called ``partisan dissents''--where the other judges in the majority were appointed by the opposing party; in other words, by Democratic Presidents. Again, this is not the sort of fairminded consideration of the facts and the law necessary for a Supreme Court Justice.

His partisanship was clearly on display for all to see at his Thursday hearing.

For me, as a Senator from Hawaii, Judge Kavanaugh's pattern of misstating the facts and misapplying the law is evident in his work on the case of Rice v. Cayetano and the rights of Native peoples.

President Trump has demonstrate through signing statements, budget proposals, and proposed regulations that he views programs for our indigenous communities as unconstitutional racial classifications, and he found a like-minded Supreme Court nominee in Brett Kavanaugh.

Brett Kavanaugh has a long history of misstating facts and misapplying the law in order to curtail the rights of indigenous peoples--Native Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and American Indians.

As an attorney in private practice in 1999, Brett Kavanaugh coauthored a friend-of-the-court brief in support Harold ``Freddy'' Rice's challenge to the voting structure of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs--a State office established in Hawaii to work for the betterment of Native Hawaiians. Mr. Rice sued then-Governor of Hawaii Benjamin Cayetano, and the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judge Kavanaugh coauthored his amicus brief with other highly conservative legal advocates, including Robert Bork--a harsh critic of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it was proposed. Judge Kavanaugh separately, in addition to working on this amicus brief, wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled ``Are Hawaiians Indians?'' that made false and offensive arguments.

In his op-ed and amicus brief, Judge Kavanaugh relied on incorrect facts and misstatements, ignoring obvious truths that contradict his position. He relied on these incorrect facts in order to reach his political conclusion that Native Hawaiians and arguably other indigenous communities who do not fit his limited view of Tribal structure are not afforded any special protections by the Constitution.

He called OHA's voting structure into question under the 14th Amendment, calling it a ``naked racial spoils system.'' In describing the Native Hawaiian community, he went out of his way to ignore their history, cobble together blatant falsehoods, and call into question their status as an indigenous people.

His op-ed argues that Native Hawaiians are not entitled to constitutional protections given to indigenous Americans because, as he put it, ``They don't have their own government. They don't have their own system of laws. They don't have their own elected leaders. They don't live on reservations or on territorial enclaves. They don't even live together in Hawaii.''

Judge Kavanaugh is saying that Native groups in the United States derive their rights from having been herded onto reservations and cheated out of their land and that they surrender their rights when they move outside of these artificial boundaries. It is not only factually wrong but deeply offensive. Kavanaugh argues that an indigenous community must have its own government, system of laws, its own elected leaders, and live together on a reservation to be considered indigenous. By that, he means that only federally recognized Tribes in the lower 48 States are afforded any protections.

After Judge Kavanaugh made his troubling and misleading arguments in the amicus brief and op-ed, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Rice v. Cayetano. They ruled that Hawaii's voting structure for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs violated the 15th Amendment's voting rights guarantees. The Supreme Court, in Rice, relied only on the 15th Amendment. It did not address the 14th Amendment argument Judge Kavanaugh made in his amicus brief, which claimed that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs' voting structure was an unconstitutional ``racial voting set-aside.'' But Judge Kavanaugh and his conservative allies continued to misstate and misconstrue the holding in Rice for their own political purposes.

In the Bush White House, Judge Kavanaugh continued to misapply the law in Rice to argue that Native Hawaiians could not be the beneficiaries of targeted programs, when clearly the case stands for a much narrower proposition having nothing to do with government benefits.

In fact, the Supreme Court declined to address Judge Kavanaugh's question of whether the Office of Hawaiian Affairs' voting structure could be an unconstitutional, race-based classification under the 14th Amendment.

In one email, when he was in the Bush White House, Kavanaugh wrote: ``I think the testimony needs to make clear that any program targeting Native Hawaiians as a group is subject to strict scrutiny and of questionable validity under the Constitution.''

In another, he wrote: ``White House Counsel objects and raises questions

about the constitutionality of this bill, including but not limited to the portions that refer to Native Hawaiians. See Rice v. Cayetano.''

At his hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee, when I asked him about his misapplication of the law, Judge Kavanaugh again misstated the holding of Rice and refused to correct his misstatement when I asked him to clarify. He testified before the Judiciary Committee that Rice ``was a straightforward violation of the 14th and 15th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.'' He was wrong, but when I pressed him on this point and asked him to show me where the majority decision in Rice cited the 14th amendment, he refused to answer. Why? Because he was clearly wrong.

It is deeply troubling to have a Supreme Court nominee for a lifetime position who doesn't adhere to facts or correctly present the law. Judge Kavanaugh's answers on this topic fit his pattern of evading and skirting the truth.

His reliance on these stereotypes and bigoted tropes about Native Hawaiians, as well as his misapplication of the law, represent a clear and present danger to Native people all over this country, including in Hawaii.

Notably, in his writings against Native Hawaiians, Judge Kavanaugh completely avoided any reference to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, ANSCA. Under ANSCA, Alaska Natives organized themselves not as a tribe in Judge Kavanaugh's understanding of the word but as village and regional corporations with shares that individual Alaska Natives hold. This is a novel and unique system for facilitating the U.S. trust responsibilities and arguably not at all in keeping with what Judge Kavanaugh believes deserves constitutional protection. That is why Native communities across the country, including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, Alaska Federation of Natives, and the National Congress of American Indians have come together to express deep concern over Judge Kavanaugh's nomination.

In the context of his views on Native peoples, I no longer find it curious that Judge Kavanaugh devoted so much time back then to writing an amicus brief and an op-ed on a case that involved Native Hawaiians.

I will have more to say tomorrow about other aspects of this nomination--in particular, what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's account of her attack by Brett Kavanaugh reveals about the nominee, the Senate, and the American culture.

For now, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jeffrey Hantson, a law fellow, and Kai Bostock, a law clerk in my office, be permitted floor access for the remainder of debate on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Mr. President, I have to say I am sick of this. I am sick of everyone who wants to rewrite the history of what happened in the Senate with the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States. It isn't even over yet, and they want people to believe that what we have witnessed over the past weeks was what they call a ``political hit job perpetrated by Democrats with a grudge.''

That is the story the nominee himself tried to sell in his testimony on Thursday. He accused Democrats of lying in wait. He twisted Ranking Member Feinstein's respect for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's wish for privacy. He falsely claimed Democrats had her accusation ``ready,'' that Dr. Ford's accusation ``was held in secret for weeks,'' because the Democrats, as Judge Kavanaugh put it, ``couldn't take me out on the merits.''

What a paranoid fantasy.

Brett Kavanaugh's entire performance was an hour's long rant. I am quoting him. He said:

This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and

orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up

anger about President Trump and the 2016 election.

Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial

record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of

dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.

Unbelievable, in my view. He claimed to have written this screed on his own without showing it to any of his handlers. I find that hard to believe, given that he was reported to have spent 10-hour days at the White House preparing for this hearing.

We heard Dr. Ford's raw and sincere account of that night as a drunk teenaged Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge attacked her. The nominee called it a ``grotesque and coordinated character assassination.'' But this isn't a conspiracy, Judge Kavanaugh. It is real.

Look at what Dr. Ford's coming forward has triggered. People believe her for many reasons. Her recall of events is consistent with the way survivors of trauma remember things. Her demeanor was forthright and open. She had everything to lose and nothing to

gain by coming forward, and despite what many are saying, there is quite a bit of collaboration of her story.

She knew Brett Kavanaugh. She socialized with his circle of friends. She had told people in her life what happened to her long before Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court. His calendar attests to him having attended at least one gathering consistent with her recollection.

But another reason so many people believe Dr. Ford is that her account is so familiar. It has echoes in so many of our own stories, our own experiences. So many women have survived some version of what happened to her, along a spectrum of experiences that range from creepy looks or catcalls to rape and other violent attacks. So many women have kept their stories to themselves for fear of not being believed, for fear of retaliation or humiliation, or shunning.

In a column written by Monica Hesse in the Washington Post, entitled ``Dear dads: Your daughters told me about their assaults. This is why they never told you,'' Ms. Hesse writes about all the reasons why survivors don't even tell people closest to them about what happened to them.

She writes:

For all the stereotypes that linger about women being too

fragile or emotional, these past weeks have revealed what

many women already knew: A lot of effort goes into protecting

men we love from bad things that happen to us.''

She writes to fathers who are only now finding out about the daily indignities women endure and explains why they were never told and why their loved ones were now writing to Hesse herself.

I am going to quote extensively from this article:

To the father of the young woman who was assaulted by the

student athlete she was hired to tutor: She never told you

because she didn't want to break your heart. But she told me,

in a long email, because the memory of it was breaking her

own heart and she'd spent five years replaying it.

To the father of the junior high student who was pinned

down and undressed at a gathering 30 years ago: She didn't

tell you because she didn't want to see you cry. But she told

me that she still remembers every detail.

To the father of the teenager who was raped at a party: You

don't know about this, because she was certain that if you

knew, you would kill her attacker and go to prison, and it

would be her fault.

To the father of the son who was assaulted by an older man:

I wish I could tell you more about what happened to him, but

he wouldn't tell me, and he definitely won't tell you,

because manliness is important to you, he says.

To all the fathers of all the silent victims: Your children

are quietly carrying these stories, not because they can't

handle the emotions but because they are worried that you

can't.

They are worried that your emotions will have too many

consequences. Or they fear you won't think of them the same

way. Or that you'll be distraught because you didn't protect

them.

These words and stories are powerful, and Ms. Hesse is right. So many survivors want to protect their loved ones, but Ms. Hesse is also right that they shouldn't keep their stories in. She urges them, saying:

So, to the rest of you: If you could tell your father in a

way that feels safe, and in a way that would bring you

comfort, tell your father. Tell your brothers. Let them be

uncomfortable; let them share some of your pain. Don't let

them be ignorant.

And once women are able to share their experiences, what should we do with them? I agree with the author Rebecca Traister, who captured so much of what I have been thinking lately in a piece called ``Fury Is a Political Weapon, and Women Need to Wield It.'' This is in the New York Times. I want to read some of it to you.

Ms. Tracer wrote:

Outside the room where Christine Blasey Ford forward was

testifying on Thursday morning, women were incandescent with

rage and sorrow and horror.

They were getting angry in a new way, a public way, an

unapologetic way--a way that is typically reserved for men,

and that would again serve men well, when afternoon came.

Brett Kavanaugh bellowed; he snarled; he pouted and wept

furiously at the injustice of having his ascendance to power

interrupted by accusations of sexual assault.

He challenged his questioners, turned their queries back on

them.

What happened inside the room was an exceptionally clear

distillation of who has historically been allowed to be angry

on their own behalf, and who has not.

And outside the room was a hint of how it might be

changing.

Most of the time, female anger is discouraged, repressed,

ignored, swallowed. Or transformed into something more

palatable and less recognizable as fury--something like

tears. When women are truly lived, they often weep.

Maybe we cry when we're furious in part because we feel a

kind of grief at all the things we want to say or yell that

we know we can't.

Maybe we're just sad about the very same things that we're

angry about. I wept as soon as Dr. Blasey began to speak.

On social media, I saw hundreds of messages from women who

reported the same experience, of finding themselves awash in

tears, simply in response to this woman's voice, raised in

polite dissent.

The power of the moment, the anxiety that it would be

futile, the grief that we would even have to put her--and

ourselves--through this spectacle, was intense.

Tears are permitted as an outlet for wrath in part because

they are fundamentally misunderstood.

One of my sharpest memories from an early job in a male-

dominated office, where I once found myself weeping with

inexpressible rage, was my being grabbed by the scruff of my

neck by an older woman--a chilly manager of whom I'd always

been slightly terrified--who dragged me into a stairwell.

``Never let them see you crying,'' she told me. ``They

don't know you're furious. They think you're sad and will be

pleased because they got to you.''

This political moment has provoked a period in which more

and more women have been in no mood to dress their fury up as

anything other than raw and burning rage.

Many women are yelling, shouting, using Sharpies to etch

sharply worded slogans onto protest signs, making furious

phone calls to representatives.

Many of the women shouting now are women who have not

previously yelled publicly before, many of them, white

middle-class women newly awakened to political fury and

protest.

Part of the process of becoming mad must be recognizing

that they are not the first to be furious, and that there is

much to learn from the stories and histories of the lived

women--many of them not white or middle class--who have never

had reason not to be mad.

If you are angry today, or if you have been angry for

awhile, and you're wondering whether you're allowed to be as

angry as you feel, let me say: Yes. Yes, you are allowed. You

are, in fact, compelled.

If you've been feeling a new rage at the flaws of this

country, and if your anger is making you want to change your

life in order to change the world, then I have something

incredibly important to say: Don't forget how this feels.

That is Rebecca Traister's article.

Traister ends her article by endorsing anger and telling women not to let go of it. She says:

What you're angry about now--injustice--will still exist,

even if you yourself are not experiencing it, or are tempted

to stop thinking about how you experience it, and how you

contribute to it.

Others are still experiencing it, still mad; some of them

are mad at you. Don't forget them; don't write off their

anger. Stay mad for them, alongside them, let them lead you

in anger.

That is what I am left with, Mr. President. Anger. Fury. Disgust. At a process that could not see the truth of what Dr. Ford tried to tell us.

The rewriters of truth are already at it. In column after column, on cable news shows across the country, and even here on the Senate floor, they are casting Judge Kavanaugh as the victim.

I was asked a few days ago whether the four Democratic women on the Judiciary Committee had a special responsibility to address the question of sexual assault. I reject the premise of that question. It is not just up to the women in this country to stand up. Men have to join us. They have to hold themselves and other men accountable. They have to push back against the fear that those with power feel when they are challenged. We saw some of the ways that this kind of fear operates just this week among some of my Senate colleagues.

When approached by survivors of sexual assault who waited to talk to them about the Kavanaugh nomination, they said things like ``Grow up,'' insinuating that the women sharing their painful, traumatic accounts were there to enjoy themselves. Enjoy themselves?

We saw the President of the United States sink to a level I didn't think possible. The mocker-in-chief mocked Dr. Ford, a survivor of sexual assault. He mocked her for not remembering some peripheral things about the attack. But the thing she said she was 100 percent sure of was that it was Brett Kavanaugh who attacked her.

In case some of my colleagues don't get it, sexual assault survivors often

don't remember how many steps, how many rooms, the kinds of things the President mocked Dr. Ford about. But they remember the attack itself with 100 percent accuracy. They remember how it felt, the fear, the laughter of the attackers.

The kinds of insults that have been hurled at Dr. Ford and others in her situation are cruel and unnecessary. I am left with anger and determination, just like millions of people across the country.

I will take Rebecca Traister's advice and commend it to the women of America and the men who understand their stories. I will stay mad and let that anger propel us to change. Going forward, I will continue to listen to women who have shared their stories. I will tell them that I hear them, I see them, and I want all of us to be the change that needs to happen in our country.

Before I yield the floor, I want to read a statement from Debbie Ramirez dated October 6, 2018. She says:

Thirty-five years ago, the other students in the room chose

to laugh and look the other way as sexual violence was

perpetrated on me by Brett Kavanaugh. As I watch many of the

Senators speak and vote on the floor of the Senate I feel

like I'm right back at Yale where half the room is laughing

and looking the other way. Only this time, instead of drunk

college kids, it is U.S. Senators who are deliberately

ignoring his behavior. This is how victims are isolated and

silenced.

But I do have corroborating witnesses speaking for me,

although they were not allowed to speak to the FBI, and I

feel extremely grateful for them and for the overwhelming

amount of support that I have received and continue to

receive during this extremely difficult and painful time.

There may be people with power who are looking the other way,

but there are millions more who are standing together,

speaking up about personal experiences of sexual violence and

taking action to support survivors. This is truly a

collective moment of survivors and allies standing together.

Thank you for hearing me, seeing me and believing me. I am

grateful for each and every one of you. We will not be

silenced.

We stand in truth and light, Debbie Ramirez.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, yesterday, we heard our colleague from Maine express the hope that his ``nomination is where the process has finally hit rock bottom.'' On this, I agree. I hope we never again reach a place where women are as disrespected, ignored, and disregarded, as they have been throughout this confirmation process.

My colleague also observed that ``[w]e live in a time of such great disunity'' that ``people bear[ ] extreme ill will toward those who disagree with them.'' While that may be true for some, I think many of us who have strongly spoken out about our concerns about Judge Kavanaugh's nominations do not bear any ill will against those who disagree with us. In fact, being able to strongly disagree with others and voice our opinions without being told to ``grow up'' or called a ``loud mouth'' reflects a respect for the American values of democracy and respecting women. It is in that spirit, I would like to clarify several misunderstandings raised by my colleague.

As my colleague from Maine noted, she cares about protecting women's reproductive rights. Given this concern, I feel compelled to clarify her description of Judge Kavanaugh's record on

reproductive rights. She referenced, without naming, Judge Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion in favor of a religious organization, Priests for Life. In that case, he argued that religious employers could deny their women employees access to healthcare coverage of contraception because filling out a 2-page form was too burdensome for them.

Despite this conclusion, my colleague described Judge Kavanaugh's decision as ``seeking to ensure the availability of contraceptive services for women while minimizing the involvement of employers with religious objections.'' It is hard to see how blocking access to contraceptives for women by finding a 2-page form too burdensome is truly seeking to ensure access to contraceptives.

She claimed that his critics ``frequently overlook'' the fact that he wrote that ``Supreme Court precedent `strongly suggested' that there was a `compelling interest' in facilitating access to birth control.'' But that ignores the fact that regardless of this rhetoric, Judge Kavanaugh has consistently demonstrated hostility to women's reproductive rights, including in the very case that she referenced, Priests for Life v. Department of Health and Human Services. Moreover, if he is confirmed to the Supreme Court, Judge Kavanaugh can make clear to the entire country that facilitating access to contraceptives is not a compelling interest.

I am also very concerned that my colleague failed to mention the key case addressing Judge Kavanaugh's views on women's reproductive rights, Garza v. Hargan. In that case, a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant sought release from HHS custody to obtain an abortion. In his dissent, Judge Kavanaugh mischaracterized the case as one of ``parental consent'' case to reach his desired outcome, denying this young women access to her constitutional right to an abortion. Parental consent was not at issue at all in that case. The young woman had already received a proper judicial bypass from a Texas judge. That case is troubling not only because it shows Judge Kavanaugh's complete disregard for a woman's right to make her own decisions about the most intimate aspects of her life, but also because it reveals his willingness to misrepresent the law and facts to reach his partisan, desired outcome.

Although some of my colleagues have tried to hang their hat on Judge Kavanaugh's generic statements about his respect for precedent, even his own colleagues have criticized him for ignoring precedent, when expedient. In one case, United States v. Anthem, his colleagues in the majority sharply criticized his dissent, stating that their ``dissenting colleague applies the law as he wishes it were, not as it currently is.''

My colleague from Maine also noted Judge Kavanaugh's ``rave reviews . . . as a judge, including for his judicial temperament.'' She pointed to the fact that the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, ABA, ``concluded that `his integrity, judicial temperament, and professional confidence met the highest standard.' '' But I would be remiss if I didn't further note that the ABA informed the Judiciary Committee yesterday morning that it was reopening its evaluation of Judge Kavanaugh because of ``[n]ew information of a material nature regarding temperament during the September 27th hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.'' This new information includes Judge Kavanaugh's angry, partisan screed on September 27, when he accused Senators of ``orchestrat[ing] a political hit'' as ``revenge on behalf of the Clintons'' and ominously said, ``what goes around comes around.''

These statements, which were not mentioned by my colleague, directly contradict Judge Kavanaugh's statements of nonpartisanship that my colleague quoted in her remarks. But the most important clarification that I feel compelled to make is my colleague's discussion of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony. My colleague stated that she ``found [Dr. Ford's] testimony to be sincere, painful, and compelling.'' She also said that she ``believe[s] [Dr. Ford] is a survivor of a sexual assault and that this trauma has upended her life.''

But these statements of support were followed in the caveat, ``Nevertheless.'' ``Nevertheless,'' it was said, ``the four witnesses [Dr. Ford] named could not corroborate any of the events of the evening gathering where she said the assault occurred.'' My colleague raised questions about the fact that no one came forward from this small gathering in the summer of 1982 to say that they were at the party or that they gave Dr. Ford a ride home that night. Point by point, these statements sought to poke holes in Dr. Ford's testimony based on little details.

In the midst of the questions raised about these little details in Dr. Ford's testimony, the bottom line message was clear: Dr. Ford was not to be believed. She was mixed up, mistaken. By contrast, Judge Kavanaugh was to be believed because he ``forcefully denied the allegations under penalty of perjury.'' But there was no mention of the fact that Dr. Ford also testified until penalty of perjury and said she was ``100 percent'' certain it was Brett Kavanaugh who sexually assaulted her in the summer of 1982.

In contrast to the claim that there was a ``lack of corroborating evidence,'' there was significant corroborating evidence, as my colleagues have already entered into the Record. To highlight just a few, Dr. Ford's account was corroborated by Dr. Ford's therapist, results of a polygraph examination, and other witnesses who were told about Dr. Ford's account of her sexual assault, even before Judge Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court.

In contrast to my colleague's description of this process as a dysfunctional ``frenzy'' of special interest groups spreading ``outright falsehoods,'' I believe what we have heard over the past few weeks is democracy in action. Across America, women and men have been sharing their painful experiences of sexual assault and why it matters that someone who commits sexual assault should not be rewarded with a seat on the highest court in the land. They are saying character, credibility, candor, and temperament matter. Those are the American values we will be rejecting today, if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Mr. President, tomorrow we will cast a very important vote on whether to end debate on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Should he be confirmed to this position of awesome responsibility, Judge Kavanaugh would be just one of nine people with the power to change the American Government and the American way of life for at least a generation. He would be hearing and deciding cases that touch all facets of our lives, including the healthcare we receive when the Texas case involving the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate makes its way to the Supreme Court. This particular case is very important because if Texas wins, that means the ACA's protections for those with preexisting conditions--one out of four people in this country--would be done away with.

The Supreme Court will also probably get a lot of immigration cases and many cases about DACA, sanctuary sites, temporary protective status, and family separation that are pending in the lower courts, and also abortion, as courts weigh the burden imposed on a woman's right to choose by laws limiting abortion in States like Texas, Iowa, and Louisiana. It doesn't really matter? Of course it matters whether Roe v. Wade is overturned, but even if Roe v. Wade is not overturned, with Judge Kavanaugh's record, all of these limiting laws by States that I just talked about will probably be supported by him, and at some point, the right to an abortion that we have under Roe v. Wade will be pretty much a nullity.

The Supreme Court will also be faced with cases that will address the right of workers to bargain collectively with their employers, as litigation comes up to the High Court in the wake of the Janus decision, and many other important topics, including voting rights, gerrymandering, the census, race-conscious college admissions, and environmental laws.

The Supreme Court's decisions touch every aspect of American life. With so much at stake, the Senate has an obligation to closely scrutinize every nominee to the Supreme Court. We need to know that they have the qualifications for the job. Do they have the proper education? Do they have the necessary breadth of experience? Will they treat everyone in the Court--including Court employees, law clerks, and lawyers--with an even temperament? Can they keep their cool under pressure and make reasoned decisions when the stakes are high? Can they listen to the facts and apply the law without fear or favor, or will they let the experiences they bring with them override objective judgment? Will they insert their personal preferences where they don't belong? We need to know if they can rule fairly. Will they give every litigant who comes before the Court a fair hearing? Will they acknowledge and put aside their biases, inherent and otherwise? These last two considerations are especially important because the Trump administration outsourced the vetting of Supreme Court nominees to the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. These ultra-rightwing groups have spent decades supporting people like Brett Kavanaugh and their ideological, outcome-driven jurisprudence.

After months of scrutinizing Judge Kavanaugh's record and evaluating his performance before the Judiciary Committee in two hearings, it is clear that the answer to most of these questions is no. His judicial record is deeply ideological and outcome-driven, he remains a fierce political partisan operative, and he holds troubling legal views on Native Hawaiians, Native Americans, and Alaska Natives.

These patterns were clear based on the weeks I spent reviewing Judge Kavanaugh's writings, his judicial decisions, and the small fraction of his records made available from his time as a key White House aide to President George W. Bush. I became even more certain of my decision to oppose his nomination after his first hearing in the Judiciary Committee and after reading the mostly dismissive non-answers he gave to our followup written questions.

There are plenty of substantive reasons to oppose Brett Kavanaugh's nomination, and I will continue speaking out about many of these reasons in the coming days, but over the past 2\1/2\ weeks, we have learned new information that underscored my concern that Brett Kavanaugh lacks the character, candor, credibility, and temperament to serve on the Supreme Court.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh about Dr. Ford's account of an attack on her by the nominee and a friend when they were all teenagers. Dr. Ford conducted herself with grace and courage, recounting the terrifying experience that has had a lasting effect on her life.

In his testimony, Judge Kavanaugh dropped the polite veneer he presented at his first hearing, during which he complimented all the Senators he had met with and told the committee that ``[t]he Supreme Court must never be viewed as a partisan institution.'' That was then, but last Thursday, he launched into a partisan political screed that contradicted everything he has ever professed to believe about the way judges should behave. He said: ``This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.''

I have to say, sitting there listening to him be so totally partisan was bizarre. What he said was bizarre. He was angry, he was belligerent, he was partisan, he went on the attack, and he argued with Senators. He forgot who was

there to ask the questions and who was there to answer them. These are not qualities to look for in a Supreme Court Justice.

More than 1,700 law professors across the country agree, including Dean Avi Soifer and 6 other professors from the University of Hawaii and 21 professors from Georgetown University Law Center, both my alma maters. I want to quote what a law professor said:

We have differing views about the other qualifications of

Judge Kavanaugh. But we are united, as professors of law and

scholars of judicial institutions, in believing that Judge

Kavanaugh did not display the impartiality and judicial

temperament requisite to sit on the highest court of our

land.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of this letter from the law professors be printed in the Record.

Judge Kavanaugh also tried to convince us that while he ``liked beer,'' he was basically a choir boy--interested in nothing more than sports, school, and service projects. This carefully painted image has been directly contradicted by Judge Kavanaugh's own words in his yearbook and by many of his high school and college classmates over the past weeks.

These inconsistencies and contradictions were part of the reason I joined many of my colleagues in calling for a full FBI investigation of allegations against Judge Kavanaugh. I wanted the FBI to examine inconsistencies and contradictions between his testimony and that of others who knew him in high school, college, and beyond.

Last Friday, Senators Flake and Coons brokered an agreement to hold off on a floor vote for at least a week while a supplemental background investigation could be completed to look into these allegations. But I was disappointed that as the days went by, it became more and more clear that the White House rigged the investigation. The President claimed to want the FBI to do a comprehensive investigation, but that did not happen.

Our ranking member, Senator Feinstein, wrote to White House Counsel Don McGahn and FBI Director Christopher Wray the day after the investigation began to request a copy of the written directive sent by the White House to the FBI. She got no response. The following day, many other members of the committee also wrote to Mr. McGahn and Director Wray about the supplemental investigation.

In addition to repeating the ranking member's request for an explanation of the scope of the investigation, we also asked that it be comprehensive. We wanted all serious allegations against the nominee to be investigated. Of course, we would expect, in a comprehensive investigation, that all appropriate witnesses would be questioned. We asked that the FBI ``perform all logical steps related to these allegations, including interviewing other individuals who might have relevant information and gathering evidence related to the truthfulness of statements made in relation to these allegations.'' We got no response.

Just yesterday, I joined a letter with many of my committee colleagues asking Chairman Grassley to prevent public mischaracterization or selective leaks of the results of the FBI's previous work. We urged him to ``call for a full Senate briefing by the FBI . . . so that all Senators hear the same information and have the same opportunity to question the FBI before any floor vote on the Kavanaugh nomination.'' These are requests having to do with the most recent FBI investigation. We asked for a meeting between the chairman and the minority members ``to establish bipartisan ground rules for public discussion of the information provided by the FBI'' and this most recent, totally truncated and inadequate investigation--those last were my words--but both requests were rejected.

I had hoped the FBI would exhaust all possible avenues of investigation relevant to whether Judge Kavanaugh had a pattern of drinking that resulted in aggression and belligerence toward women. I had hoped they would follow leads given to them by Dr. Ford and Ms. Ramirez. I had hoped they would be permitted by the White House to do the job we know they can do--the job former Director James Comey said they could do. Instead, as we now know, they were only allowed to do the bare minimum.

As we know from news reports, there are dozens of people with relevant information, some of whom say they have corroborating evidence, who need to be interviewed, but they were not.

It is simply impossible, after seeing the results of the FBI's supplemental work--and I hesitate to call it an investigation--that anybody could think it was in any way, shape, or form the comprehensive investigation the President promised. This so-called investigation is a sham. It is a fig leaf for the Republicans to hide behind. It is a talking point for their continued and predictable criticism of Democrats. They will say: See? You wanted an FBI investigation, and you got one. But now it isn't good enough for you.

Who are they kidding? This is a sham investigation. This so-called investigation wasn't good enough for me, and it shouldn't be good enough to satisfy the American people. Judge Kavanaugh has a burden-- not a burden of proof like in a court but the burden to show us he has not just the credentials for the job but the temperament and the character necessary for this lifetime appointment.

I have said many times that Democrats didn't need to manufacture reasons to oppose Judge Kavanaugh's elevation to the Supreme Court. Based on his record, his opinions and his dissents, his academic writings and speeches, I had concluded before these new reports came forward that he would not be fair and objective on the Supreme Court. His views on reproductive rights, Native rights, legal protections for workers, consumers, and the environment are all of deep concern to me, not to mention his expansive views on Executive power, including protecting a sitting President from criminal or civil proceedings.

Now that we have heard Dr. Ford's account and seen Judge Kavanaugh's angry and combative reaction, it is evident that he should not serve on and should not be confirmed to the Supreme Court for a lifetime, decades of making decisions that will impact our

lives on all of these areas on which he has a very troubling record. We can do better, and the American people deserve better.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh about Dr. Ford's account of an attack on her by Judge Kavanaugh and a friend when they were all teenagers.

Dr. Ford acquitted herself with grace and courage in her recounting of the terrifying experience that has had a lasting effect on her life.

In his own testimony, Judge Kavanaugh dropped the polite veneer he presented at his confirmation hearing when he complimented all of the Senators he had met with and had told the committee ``the Supreme Court must never be viewed as a partisan institution.'' That was then. Last Thursday, he launched into a partisan political screed that contradicted everything he had ever professed to believe about the way judges should behave. He said: ``This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, a fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.''

It reads like a fever dream, a paranoid fantasy. It is simply not true. It arguably violated the Code of Conduct for United States Judges that binds him as a sitting judge on the Federal appeals court for the DC Circuit.

Dr. Ford's own words undercut Judge Kavanaugh's assertion that a vast leftwing conspiracy is out to get him. In her deeply moving testimony, Dr. Ford said: ``I thought it was my civic duty to relay the information I had about Mr. Kavanaugh's conduct so that those considering his nomination would know about this assault.''

She went on: ``My hope was that providing the information confidentially would be sufficient to allow the Senate to consider Mr. Kavanaugh's serious misconduct without having to make myself, my family, or anyone's family vulnerable to the personal attacks and invasions of privacy we have faced since my name became public.''

Dr. Ford was trying to do her civic duty. She was not motivated by revenge on anyone's behalf. She had no part in any organized opposition. She was not fueled by pent-up anger or resentment. In deciding to come forward, Dr. Ford was just a person who thought that if she could only let the President know what Brett Kavanaugh did to her, he would choose someone else.

Yet Kavanaugh attacked and tried to turn Dr. Ford's honest effort into some sort of a dark, ugly ambush. At least he didn't accuse Dr. Ford of being part of the alleged conspiracy that sought to derail his nomination. In fact, when Senator Booker asked Judge Kavanaugh if he blamed Dr. Ford for a coordinated effort against him, Judge Kavanaugh said he bore Dr. Ford no ill will and that people in the hearing room, not Dr. Ford, were against him.

We all saw something about Judge Kavanaugh's temperament and character that day that should disqualify him from serving on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was angry. He was belligerent. He was partisan. He went on the attack against the Senators who were questioning him.

These are not qualities we look for in a Supreme Court Justice or in a judge for that matter. But don't take it from me; listen to Judge Kavanaugh himself. In 2016, in the Catholic University Law Review, he wrote about the importance of judges steering clear of politics. He told his readers that ``a good judge, like a good umpire, cannot act as a partisan.'' He said that while it is good for some judges to come with a background in politics or policy, ``federal judges have to check any prior political allegiances at the door. You have to shed them.'' Based on Judge Kavanaugh's testimony last week, it certainly doesn't sound like he has shed his partisan convictions and connections.

In the same law review article, Judge Kavanaugh wrote:

To be a good judge and a good umpire, it's critical to have

the proper demeanor. It's important to . . . keep our

emotions in check and be calm amidst the storm.

He is not wrong. Indeed, the Code of Conduct for United States Judges backs him up.

Canon 2 of the code reads:

A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of

Impropriety in All Activities. . . . A judge should respect

and comply with the law and should act at all times in a

manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and

impartiality of the judiciary.

It further explains in commentary:

An appearance of impropriety occurs when reasonable minds .

. . would conclude that the judge's honesty, integrity,

impartiality, temperament, or fitness to serve as a judge is

impaired. Public confidence in the judiciary is eroded by

irresponsible or improper conduct by judges.

Canon 3 explains that ``a judge should be faithful to, and maintain professional competence in, the law and should not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor, or fear of criticism.''

We need to consider the rules and norms that argue against the kind of intemperate behavior we saw from Judge Kavanaugh because of the allegations brought against him by several sources, all of which deserve a full and fair investigation by the FBI.

I was heartened to see Senators Flake and Coons both in agreement to hold off on a floor vote for at least a week while the supplemental background investigation can be completed to look into these allegations. Since the agreement, questions have arisen about the exact nature of that investigation. Is it limited? If so, how? Will all leads be followed, or will the FBI be hamstrung in some way by instructions from the White House?

In the ensuing firestorm, there has been a lot of debate about whether the FBI investigation will be credible and professional and not a perfunctory effort. There are some indications now that the FBI will be allowed to do its job. I hope that will be the case. I expect the FBI to exhaust all possible avenues of investigation that are relevant as to whether Judge Kavanaugh had a pattern of drinking that resulted

in aggression and belligerence toward women.

Some have said that Judge Kavanaugh deserves the benefit of the doubt and that unless Dr. Ford's account can be proven, he should be confirmed, but that confuses the issue. No one is entitled to be on the Supreme Court. The burden should be on Judge Kavanaugh to show he is fit for the job.

Now the Republicans' hired gun prosecutor, whom they hid behind while Dr. Ford was questioned, has published a memo in which she concludes that she could not bring a case based on the evidence heard at the second hearing. Frankly, this conclusion is meaningless. I am sure that in her previous job as a specialist in sex crimes, she would never have proceeded to a trial before an investigation, and she would not have excluded key witnesses. There was no investigation. Key witnesses were not called. I hope this is not the way she would prepare a case.

I have said many times that Democrats didn't need to manufacture reasons to oppose Judge Kavanaugh's elevation to the Supreme Court. Based on his record, his opinions and dissents, his academic writings, and his speeches, I have concluded that he will not be a fair and objective Justice of the Supreme Court. His views on reproductive rights, Native rights, on legal protections for workers, consumers, and the environment, not to mention his very broad views of Presidential protections, are all of deep concern to me.

Now that we have heard Dr. Ford's account and have seen Judge Kavanaugh's angry and combative reaction, it is evident that he should not serve and should not be confirmed to the Supreme Court. We can do better, and the American people deserve better.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, these are the remarks I would have given at this morning's Judiciary Committee markup after the perfunctory and dismissive way the chairman treated the minority members of the Judiciary Committee. I walked out in protest. Here are the remarks I would have given at the committee markup.

I am in disbelief that we are here today voting on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. Outrageous does not begin to describe the present circumstances. Yesterday we heard from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who spoke with genuine and raw emotional power about being sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh. Even though it was more than 30 years ago, her memory of the assault was clear and vivid. This kind of recall is typical of sexual assault survivors. She was sincere and authentic. She was 100 percent credible, and I believe her.

By contrast, Brett Kavanaugh came to this committee and refused to give us straight answers. He would not call for an FBI investigation. He repeatedly stated that the other people who were at the gathering where Dr. Ford was attacked had ``rebutted her testimony.'' That is not true. His alleged accomplice in the attack, Mark Judge, claimed he didn't remember--a far cry from rebutting her statement. He claimed he didn't remember, refused to testify, and then went into hiding. Patrick Smyth and Leland Keyser said they simply don't remember--again, hardly a rebuttal.

Dr. Ford said yesterday:

I don't expect that P.J. and Leland would remember this

evening. It was a very unremarkable party. It was not one of

their more notorious parties, because nothing remarkable

happened to them that evening.

In fact, even though she doesn't remember, Leland Keyser said she believes Dr. Ford's account.

In addition to making misleading statements--which is a pattern with Judge Kavanaugh--he accused Democratic Senators of coordinating a plot to sabotage his nomination. Clearly, he was speaking to an audience of one: President Trump. A nominee for the Supreme Court so rattled that he would buy into a vast conspiracy theory is astounding and dangerous. Let's not forget his exact words. Judge Kavanaugh said:

This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and

orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger

about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has

been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on

behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from

outside left-wing opposition groups.

With that nakedly political screed, Brett Kavanaugh showed us who he really is: a partisan political operative with an agenda--the very worry that kept him from confirmation to the DC Circuit for 3 years. His own words reinforced a concern that I and many of us here have that he cannot be a fair and impartial judge.

Setting aside the unvarnished political view--from a potential Supreme Court Justice, no less--the crux of the matter before us today is whether Dr. Ford was credible when she said that she is 100 percent sure that Brett Kavanaugh is the person who sexually assaulted her. On that issue, Brett Kavanaugh admitted, even without watching her testimony, that Dr. Ford did not play a part and was not part of any imagined partisan plot. So what we are left with is his own recognition that Dr. Ford has no political motive and no reason to lie. I challenge anyone who watched her testimony to claim that she did not tell us the truth.

Dr. Ford wasn't the only woman to come forward with an account of sexual misconduct against the nominee. Two other women have provided credible accounts that deserve real investigation. But whether it is one woman or three women, my Republican colleagues are letting nothing stop them from plowing through to get Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as soon as possible. Even before the committee had a chance to hear from Dr. Ford, Chairman Grassley had already scheduled today's vote.

By voting to support this nominee, Republican colleagues are sending a message loud and clear: Sexual assault survivors should not come forward because we are not going to listen to you. They will not be believed, and their lives will be up-ended in the process. That is exactly what happened to Dr. Ford.

As far as I am concerned, there was never a serious effort by the committee to get to the truth. Today's vote signals to the men and boys in America that you can demean and assault women--especially if you are in a position of power and influence. There will be no consequences. It won't even prevent you from becoming a Supreme Court Justice.

Yesterday, accusations flew from the other side of the aisle about deliberate efforts to make up accusations and undermine Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, but Democrats didn't need to manufacture additional reasons to oppose Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. As I have maintained before, his record demonstrates a pattern of misstating the facts. He wasn't candid yesterday. He wasn't candid in his testimony to the committee when he testified at his 2004 and 2006 confirmation hearings or when he testified at his confirmation hearing for this nomination in 2018.

I also found his candor lacking in the judicial opinions and legal arguments he authored. For example, as my colleagues have talked about in the past, Judge Kavanaugh was not honest with the committee in 2004 and 2006 when asked about matters that he worked on, and his emails from the White House show that he was not honest about his awareness of receiving stolen documents from Manny Miranda. In a case I am familiar with--Rice v. Cayetano--he demonstrated what could only be called a deliberate misstatement of the facts that he presented to the U.S. Supreme Court. He had to have known that what he wrote about the politics and culture of Native Hawaiians was not true. He filed an amicus brief in that case, and at his hearing a few weeks ago, Judge Kavanaugh misstated the holdings of Rice and refused to correct his misstatement when I gave him a chance to clarify.

I will say that I am one of the few people in the Senate who attended the oral argument in Rice. I know what the Supreme Court based its decision on, and he totally misstated the Supreme Court's decision.

Advocates for our Native communities are stepping up and taking notice. The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and the Alaska Federation of Natives issued statements that strongly urge the Senate to reject the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. They and other groups representing indigenous peoples have come forward to explain how Judge Kavanaugh's views of the rights of indigenous peoples are deeply flawed. These are the kinds of attitudes that he expressed in his amicus brief in Rice v. Cayetano.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following statements in opposition of Judge Kavanaugh's nomination or that criticize his views of indigenous people be printed in the Record. They are from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and the Alaska Federation of Natives.

It is deeply troubling to have a Supreme Court nominee for a lifetime position who isn't candid with us about the facts or straight with us about the law.

In Garza v. Hargan, he did it again. In that 2017 case, he wrote a dissent in which he misapplied the law and treated the case as if it were about parental consent. It was not. The case, which was about whether a 17-year-old undocumented young woman could be released from immigration custody to have an abortion, did not involve the question of parental consent. But he sat there at his nomination hearing, and when I asked him about it, he said that was a case involving parental consent--a total misstatement of the issue in the case. In that case, this young woman had already received a proper judicial bypass from a Texas judge that allowed her to make her own decisions. So that had nothing to do with having to require parental consent; she had already overcome that. But that wasn't good enough for Judge Kavanaugh. He inserted his own views about legal issues not even present in the case. This is just one example of his outcome-driven approach to important cases before him.

At the hearing, I also asked him about the pattern that was revealed in his numerous dissents. In several of those cases, his own colleagues called him out for misrepresenting the facts and the law. Just last year, in United States v. Anthem, the majority said that Judge Kavanaugh ``applies the law as he wishes it were, not as it currently is.'' In a 2008 case, Agri Processor v. NLRB, the majority wrote that Judge Kavanaugh's dissent ``creates its own rule.'' Instead of following Supreme Court rules, they said that Judge Kavanaugh's dissent abandons the text of the applicable law altogether. It is pretty telling when your own colleagues on the court feel so strongly about your dissent that they will actually call you out on it.

When this nomination first came to the Senate, I was skeptical. I said that if the President's nominee to the Supreme Court is anything like the nominees he has been sending to the lower Federal courts, I expect we will see a nominee handpicked by the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation intent on carrying out their rightwing ideology supported by the President. It turned out to be much worse than I imagined. Not only was the nominee someone who fit that description; it became clear that he was someone who lacked candor, credibility, and character. This has been displayed at every turn.

After hearing from Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh yesterday, the editors of America Magazine--a well-respected Jesuit weekly--withdrew. They originally endorsed Judge Kavanaugh. This group withdrew their endorsement of Judge Kavanaugh. They said:

While we previously endorsed the nomination of Judge

Kavanaugh on the basis of his legal credentials and his

reputation as a committed textualist, it is now clear that

the nomination should be withdrawn.

If Senate Republicans proceed with his nomination, they

will be prioritizing policy aims over a woman's report of an

assault.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a portion of a copy of this article be printed in the Record.

In addition, Robert Carlson, president of the American Bar Association, the ABA, issued a letter urging the Judiciary Committee of the Senate to not vote on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination until there is an FBI investigation into Dr. Ford's account of sexual assault. The ABA explained that ``deciding to proceed without conducting an additional investigation would not only have a lasting impact on the Senate's reputation, but it will also negatively affect the great trust necessary for the American people to have in the Supreme Court.''

I agree. Brett Kavanaugh does not have the credibility, candor, character, or, I would say, as we saw yesterday, the temperament to be on the Supreme Court. His presence on the Court under this kind of cloud will weaken the Court. I cannot support this nomination.

I would like to end the remarks I would have given at the markup but am giving on the floor now. I would like to say that my colleague Senator Jeff Flake has said that he would not be able to vote on the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh without an FBI investigation into the current allegations. I support that. I have no idea whether the Republican leadership is going to allow a timeout for that kind of investigation to occur--an investigation that I and other Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee have been calling for, for what seems like months.

Of course, I would want an FBI investigation to be thorough. I do not want some kind of a peripheral investigation to give cover to Senators who are wavering. I would want an investigation by the FBI to be thorough, to be real, to provide us with the kind of information that we need to make a determination as to the credibility, candor, and character of Judge Kavanaugh.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for votes on August 23 and August 27 so I could return to Hawaii to lend my support to the State and Federal preparations for and response to the severe weather conditions caused by Hurricane Lane. I rise today in order to outline how I would have voted on the rollcall votes that occurred on those dates.

For vote No. 190 on August 23, 2018, on the motion to invoke cloture on Senate amendment 3695 to H.R. 6157, Department of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019, had I been present, I would have voted yea.

For vote No. 191 on August 23, 2018, on adoption of Senate amendment 3967 to H.R. 6157, Department of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019, had I been present, I would have voted nay.

For vote No. 192 on August 23, 2018, on the motion to waive the Budget Act with respect to Amendment No. 3695 to H.R. 6157, Department of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019, had I been present, I would have voted yea.

For vote No. 193 on August 23, 2018, on final passage of H.R. 6157, Department of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019, as amended, had I been present, I would have voted yea.

Finally, for vote No. 194 on August 27, 2018, on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Lynn A. Johnson to be Assistant Secretary for Family Support, Department of Health and Human Services, had I been present, I would have voted yea.

Mr. President, I would like to start by thanking Senator Wyden for his leadership in the fight to protect Medicare and Medicaid and for organizing this time for us to speak on this important subject.

I grew up in a three-generation household. My 93-year-old great- grandmother lived with us for over 20 years, and my grandmother lived with us until she was 98. So I, of all people, of course know the importance of Medicare to our seniors.

On May 7, 2015--a full 3 months before he descended a golden escalator to launch his campaign--Donald Trump bragged on Twitter about how he was ``the first and only'' Republican candidate to run for President to state that ``there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.''

He made, and repeated, that promise for a reason.

All across the country, we know Americans across party lines care deeply about healthcare and expect their Members of Congress to protect their healthcare.

Millions of Americans receive their healthcare through Medicaid and Medicare. These two programs have helped tens of millions of Americans since their creation 53 years ago. Medicare provides quality health insurance for millions of seniors, and Medicaid helps them afford nursing home care and other services when they need it.

Medicaid has served working families and the poor who otherwise couldn't afford healthcare coverage, helping to bring our uninsured rate to a historic low, and Medicaid is currently helping tens of thousands of Americans receive drug treatment amidst the ongoing opioid epidemic.

Again, it isn't surprising that Donald Trump pledged to protect these programs while campaigning for President. They are wildly popular programs for a reason, but it also isn't surprising that almost immediately after his election, Donald Trump reneged on his promise to protect Medicare and Medicaid. It began when he appointed Tom Price-- the architect of plans to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid--to serve as his Secretary of Health and Human Services.

It continued when the President and congressional Republicans sought to eliminate the Medicaid expansion and cut hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid funding during the push to repeal the Affordable Care Act--the ACA.

It continued when the administration issued new rules that allowed States to implement arbitrary work requirements for Medicaid. Four States have already taken advantage of this new authority. If the rest of the country follows their lead, between 1 million and 4 million Americans will lose their healthcare coverage.

It continued when the President proposed turning Medicare into a voucher program, converting Medicaid to a block grant, and cutting nearly $2 trillion from both programs as part of his fiscal year 2019 budget.

These changes and cuts would have a devastating impact on the hundreds of thousands of Hawaii residents who depend on these programs for their healthcare and their long-term care needs.

Medicaid, for example, serves around 350,000 Hawaii residents, including 38 percent of all the children in Hawaii and 15 percent of seniors, as well as people with disabilities across our State. These cuts would be particularly devastating to Hawaii residents who access healthcare through our Federally Qualified Community Health Centers, many of which depend on reimbursements through Medicaid to provide high-quality care to those in need.

During the height of the debate to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I spoke with Sheila Beckham, the CEO of Waikiki Health on Oahu. Waikiki Health operates a network of health centers and shelters in Honolulu that cater to high-risk populations, including a significant number of patients living with HIV and AIDS. If the President and congressional Republicans had succeeded in cutting Medicaid, Sheila would have had to lay off between 80 to 100 workers and close all but two of the clinics she operates.

Medicaid cuts would have also had a significant impact on women's health outcomes throughout Hawaii. Last year, I shared a story about a young woman named Anne, who walked into the Kokua Kalihi Valley Clinic 3 years ago. She had no health insurance, and she was pregnant at the age of 15. The doctors at the clinic helped Anne apply for Medicaid, which helped her afford prenatal care and gave her support to stay healthy and in school. Medicaid helped Anne and her husband Dan, age 17, welcome a healthy baby boy named Joseph. Today, Anne is a graduate of Farrington High School, she works part-time and has plans to become a pediatric nurse practitioner. Her family now has health insurance through Dan's employer.

Medicaid also plays a crucial role in providing long-term nursing care for seniors who otherwise would not be able to afford it. I know how important this is for our seniors in Hawaii because we have in Hawaii the fastest growing aging population in the entire country. Across our State, Medicaid provides coverage for three in five nursing home residents. At Hale Makua on Maui, that number is closer to 80 percent, and without Medicaid, many of the residents would not be able to afford to stay there.

One story that has stuck with me came from Keith Moniz. After working as a custodian for more than 40 years at St. Anthony's School, Keith's brother Lester lost his job and his health insurance. Only a few short months later, Keith's brother Lester had a debilitating stroke that left him permanently disabled. Fortunately, Lester

was able to obtain Medicaid coverage and is now a long-term resident at Hale Makua.

Keith was very clear about what would have happened to his brother if the President had succeeded in making large cuts to Medicaid. Keith said:

It would be devastating. We had a difficult time taking

care of him when he was at home, and he's gotten the care

that he needs at Hale Makua. It would be a big loss. . . . I

don't know what we could do, where we would be able to move

him to.

Our seniors--in Hawaii we call them kupuna--would also be significantly harmed by the President's plan to voucherize and make huge cuts to Medicare. More than 230,000 kupuna--our seniors in Hawaii--or 17 percent of our State's population are covered by Medicare. Through its payments to providers and purchases of medical equipment, Medicare generates $2.5 billion for Hawaii's economy.

Our kupuna are already struggling with the rising cost of living and nearly 9 percent of them live in poverty. Many more are living on fixed incomes and would be especially vulnerable to rising costs under the President's plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

Last year, I shared the story of Lanny and Anne Bruner from Kauai. Lanny is 80 years old, but he is still working three jobs to make ends meet after losing the family home during the 2008 mortgage crisis. His wife Anne has glaucoma and pays what she calls a ``ridiculous amount'' for eye drops. Lanny had a heart attack and two knee replacements. Like many of our kupuna living on a fixed income, they simply could not afford to pay the extra money they would be forced to pay if Republicans succeed in their effort to privatize Medicare.

These stories underscore the importance of and the need for Congress to pass specific legislation to protect Medicare and Medicaid from partisan attacks from Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. This week, I will be introducing new legislation that would prohibit Congress from making devastating cuts to Medicare and Medicaid through the budget reconciliation process. It accomplishes this objective by requiring any legislation that seeks to make certain changes to Medicare or Medicaid to receive 60 votes in the Senate before such changes can be implemented. Of course, these changes include increasing the Medicare eligibility age, privatizing or turning Medicare into a voucher program, block granting or imposing per capita caps on Medicaid, and rolling back the ACA's Medicaid expansion.

My legislation builds on the success of an amendment I introduced with my colleague from Indiana, Senator Donnelly, during last January's budget debate to protect these programs. Although our amendment did not pass--it came pretty close--two Republicans joined us in supporting it. It is nice to know some of my Republican colleagues are concerned about seniors, children, and working families who rely on Medicare and Medicaid every single day.

I think it is just astonishing that as we are talking about cutting Medicare and Medicaid for millions of seniors throughout our country, and hundreds of thousands in Hawaii, these kinds of changes are being proposed by the very President and the people in Congress who gave the richest 1 percent of the people in our country and corporations a huge--a huge--tax break. By the way, the President is talking about giving the rich people in our country even more of a tax cut. It is just astounding to me that while all of that is happening on the one hand, on the other hand, they propose changes to two huge programs that millions of people in our country rely on. Where are our priorities? They are definitely misplaced if we go along with these schemes.

I call on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in this fight to protect these critical social safety net programs.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to commemorate the life and public service of Laura Efurd who passed away on July 2, 2018.

Losing someone as hard-working, level-headed, and good humored as Laura is not easy. I was proud that Laura was willing to return to public service as my State administrative manager. She provided a steady, experienced hand, and balanced it with her kindness and genial nature. Her regular, day-to-day presence helped me and my staff a great deal. We miss her.

Laura had a life well-lived. She was born in Kona, HI and raised in Mililani.

Laura left Hawaii for college at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, and earned a master's degree from American University in Washington, DC. She established herself professionally on Capitol Hill working first for Congressman Robinson from Arkansas, then as legislative director for almost 9 years to my friend, Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink of Hawaii.

Patsy was well known for standing up for underserved communities, including women and minorities, and a tireless fighter for social justice and expanding access to quality health care and education. While Patsy was a force of nature, we all know what an important role that staff plays in a congressional office to support and execute the work of their Members. As legislative director, Laura was instrumental in working with Patsy. She helped spearhead the establishment of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, CAPAC, founded by Representative Mink and Norm Mineta, D-CA, in 1994. Laura served as the caucus's primary staffer during Representative Mink's term as chair. CAPAC's creation helped to initiate and provide a much needed voice for the AAPI community in Congress. At its start, CAPAC was made up of two Senators and five AAPI House Members representing Hawaii, California, American Samoa, and Guam. Since then, the caucus has grown to 22 members, with 3 Senators and 19 House Members representing 10 States and territories.

Laura was also a founding member of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Staff Association, CAPASA, and helped to support the internships that CAPASA sponsors through the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies.

Through her commitment to public service--particularly in the Asian American and Pacific Islanders, AAPI, community--a greater number of individuals have had the opportunity to realize their dream of service to our Nation.

After nearly a decade serving on the Hill, Laura moved to the executive branch, where she served in the U.S. Department of Labor before working in the Clinton White House. There, as Deputy Director of the Office of Public Liaison, she worked to build bridges for the AAPI community across the country into the highest levels of our Nation's government. She helped to identify and confirm key AAPI appointments and was instrumental in the creation of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, another institution to expand opportunity to the AAPI community that is still in existence today.

After her service in the White House, Laura headed to San Francisco and worked for ZeroDivide, a nonprofit focused on helping underserved communities understand and unlock technology as a means of expanding economic opportunity, civic engagement, and healthy outcomes.

In recognition of her work building enduring institutions that expand opportunity within the AAPI community, Laura was awarded this year's Jose M. Montano, Jr. Award from the Congressional Asian Pacific American Staff Association. This award recognizes a Capitol Hill alum who has gone above and beyond to sustain a pipeline of AAPI staffers and leaders on the Hill.

Over the years, she has found other ways to serve and promote opportunity. She served as a member of the Federal Communications Commission Consumer Advisory Committee, with the Center for Women's Policy Studies, and as, chair of the Governor of California's Task Force on Broadband, Community Development, and Public/Private Partnerships. In these roles, Laura's work was always about giving a voice to people who had all too often been overlooked or forgotten.

All along, Laura touched many people with her care and compassion, generosity of spirit, and gracious tenacity. She poured all of her energy into whatever she was working on. In one instance, I recall that for our staff retreat, she worked at great length to create games that brought staff with diverse backgrounds together for a common purpose, to share the uniqueness of Hawaii, and to reinforce the reason why those of us in public service do what we do.

It is difficult when we lose someone who was so full of life and still had much potential. We remember Laura as a giving individual who shared so much with so many. Laura made a positive impact during her life, one that extends from coast to coast, and took her from Hawaii to the highest levels of our government. As her brother Steve wrote on the day she passed:

Her impact on people was never more evident than during the

outpouring of support she had during the past year and

especially during the past few weeks. The impact she had will

be felt way beyond the end of her time on earth. Her time

here with us is pau. But Laura will live on in our hearts,

our memories, our actions, our stories, as well as in

programs she helped guide, in legislation she helped to

craft, and in her crafts, and in

the example she set. Our celebration of her life here with us

is going to be a special one.

Mr. President, last year, around this time, millions of Americans were mobilizing, marching, calling, and writing with a simple, straightforward demand. They demanded the U.S. Senate stand up to Donald Trump and protect the nearly 30 million Americans who were at risk because the Republican Party was hell-bent on destroying the Affordable Care Act, the ACA.

With a vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act looming late in the evening, I came to the Senate floor that night intending to stand with the thousands of Hawaii residents who wrote or called my office with a sense of urgency to save their healthcare.

I wasn't scheduled to speak that evening. I had already spoken many times previously about the importance of healthcare. As the debate wore on, much of it focused on healthcare in the abstract. I felt compelled to talk about the immediacy of healthcare because of what I was experiencing.

Two months earlier, I had been diagnosed with kidney cancer during a routine examination. It is a moment everyone dreads, but it is also a moment nearly every family in this country has experienced at some point. Even as I reckoned with what came next--two surgeries and now ongoing immunotherapy--I knew I was fortunate. I had health insurance that allowed me to focus on my treatment rather than worrying about whether I could afford the care that would save my life.

Every American deserves the same peace of mind because healthcare is a right, not a privilege just for those who can afford it. During my treatment, I was heartened by the kind words of support by my colleagues from both sides of the aisle. Many share stories about how cancer touched their lives. For some, it was a personal battle. For others, it was a child, a parent, or a spouse.

I was touched by their compassion. It meant a lot to me to know so many people were pulling for me. I was dismayed that evening on the Senate floor because the empathy my colleagues showed me did not extend to the millions of people who would lose their healthcare if the ACA was repealed that night.

I rose that night and implored my Republican colleagues to show the same compassion to the American people that they showed me by voting against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

In a dramatic late-night vote, we joined together across party lines to save healthcare for millions of Americans, but the fight was not over. There was the hope that we could come together to improve our Nation's healthcare system.

We got off to a good start, with Senators Murray and Alexander's good-faith negotiations on a plan that would have helped stabilize insurance markets and provide a path forward to strengthening our country's healthcare system.

Instead of embracing this bipartisan effort and proposal, Donald Trump and Republican leaders doubled down on their efforts to destroy and dismantle the ACA, no matter the consequences.

Last October, Donald Trump announced he would halt all cost-sharing reduction payments that helped keep plans more affordable. In December, congressional Republicans eliminated the ACA's individual coverage requirement as part of a massive tax giveaway to the wealthiest 1 percent of the people and corporations in our country--a tax break, by the way, they didn't even ask for.

With that, 10 million Americans stand to lose their coverage, and millions more will see their premiums rise as a result. Earlier this year, the Trump administration made it easier for insurance companies to offer minimal--minimal--insurance plans to consumers. These plans are called junk plans for a good reason because they don't require insurers to cover some pretty basic essential health service benefits-- things as basic as annual physicals, trips to the emergency room, or prescription drug coverage. In other words, your junk plan will not provide coverage if you really get sick.

Two weeks ago, the President announced a draconian cut to the ACA's navigator program--a program that helps people sign up for healthcare coverage. In Hawaii, funding for ACA navigators is a particularly critical tool for outreach to the COFA community, and these are citizens of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau living and working in the United States as part of our Compacts of Free Association with these countries.

COFA citizens live, work, and pay taxes in the United States but face significant health challenges and difficulty accessing healthcare.

Under current Federal law, COFA citizens are ineligible for Medicaid. They are, however, eligible for subsidized healthcare coverage under the ACA. This is where the navigator program comes in. This program helps our COFA citizens navigate the enrollment process in their own language and helps to ensure they have access to the healthcare they need. Without access to the navigator program, the already underserved COFA citizen community will face new challenges accessing the care they need.

Last month, the Trump administration joined Texas and 19 other States suing to invalidate the ACA's core protections for Americans with preexisting conditions--illnesses like diabetes, asthma, or cancer. If the President and Texas prevail in this lawsuit--which will end up before the Supreme Court--nearly one in four Americans with preexisting conditions will be at risk of either losing their healthcare coverage altogether or find it unaffordable.

Healthcare is one reason I have deep reservations about the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Kavanaugh was nominated by a President who has openly bragged about all the things he has done to gut the Affordable Care Act and who expects his judicial nominees to share his views.

In our democracy, every elected leader faces a reckoning with their voters. This year, the American people are sending us a clear message to protect their healthcare. They are standing up and speaking out because healthcare is not just some abstract concern for them. It is deeply personal for all of us. It is why healthcare is a top concern for our constituents all across the country--whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, pro-Trump, or anti-Trump. Health insurance impacts every single one of us.

This is not a game. Lives are at stake. Our constituents are watching and demanding we listen and act to safeguard their healthcare, and they will hold us accountable if we do not.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, this bill being offered by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is a partisan, political stunt designed to distract the American people from the crisis created by Donald Trump's zero tolerance policy.

Almost 3,000 children have been ripped from the arms of their parents and traumatized by the President's cruelty. This bill would allow the Trump administration to continue to traumatize children by forcing them, possibly indefinitely, into so-called family detention centers.

By offering this proposal, our colleagues are calling for the extended incarceration of children. This bill would invalidate the Flores settlement, which has ensured the humane treatment of children for decades. It offers no specifics on what constitutes adequate detention conditions and no mechanism for monitoring them. The bill says the families will be given ``suitable living accommodations'' and ``access to drinking water and food'' and that services will be offered that are ``necessary for the adequate care of a minor child,'' but it does not say who determines what is suitable, whether adequate nutrition will be offered to the children, and who will decide what is necessary. These so-called standards are not good enough when the welfare of children is involved.

This bill would also authorize the Border Patrol to separate families for the most minor offenses that have nothing to do with parenting or the safety of the children. It puts form above substance and gives DHS no discretion about when detention is most appropriate or when alternative means, such as ankle bracelets or other monitoring programs, might be better.

The so-called family unit residential centers in the bill are essentially family jails.

We have heard from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other experts about how these children will be traumatized for life. We should be listening to these experts and stop giving the Trump administration a free pass to harm immigrant children.

I look at the policies of this administration and at bills like this one, and I wonder how my colleagues are able to stomach our government treating families in these awful ways. And we have witnessed this kind of treatment in America over the last several weeks.

The President refers to families of children fleeing war, gang violence, and poverty as ``infesting'' our country. I hear echoes from the darkest parts of America's past when African-American slaves were depicted as monkeys, Chinese laborers in the 1870s were referred to as ``pouring forth'' from their ``Asiatic hive,'' and Japanese Americans penned up like animals for the crime of their heritage during World War

I yield to the Senator from Illinois.

Yes, I am.

Yes, I am.

That is correct.

Yes.

Again, correct.

Exactly. It is a continuation of the cruelty and the dehumanization of children.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Brown for his continued leadership in the fight to protect our Federal workforce and for organizing this time for us to speak on such an important issue.

Over the past year and a half, Donald Trump and his administration have launched a concerted attack on Federal workers and the unions that fight on their behalf. There appear to be no lengths to which Donald Trump and the anti-union, moneyed interests who support him will not go to attack and try to eviscerate protections for working people.

Here are some examples. In one of his first acts in office, Donald Trump instituted an across-the-board Federal hiring freeze that impacted the work of critical agencies such as the Veterans Administration, the State Department, and the Department of Defense.

Then the President appointed Neil Gorsuch to join the anti-worker majority on the Supreme Court. This decision paid off when Justice Gorsuch provided the decisive vote intended to gut public sector unions in Janus v. AFSCME.

As a side note, Mark Janus--the public employee who served as the front man for the Koch brothers in the landmark Janus case--has left his job with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and now works for the Koch brothers. Is that a coincidence? I think not.

The administration has demoted or reassigned dozens of senior agency leaders tasked with serving our veterans and protecting our environment.

The President has left thousands of critical positions across the government unfilled. He has presented a legislative program as well. The President's fiscal year 2019 budget proposes to freeze Federal workers' wages, slash their benefits, and undermine their rights in the workplace.

In late May, as mentioned, the President issued three Executive orders that weaken longstanding--longstanding--and hard-won rights and protections for our Federal workers. Each of these actions is part of a focused radical--radical--effort to shrink the Federal Government and limit its ability to help hundreds of millions of people across our country.

Donald Trump and the Republican Party obviously do not recognize the service and commitment of our more than 2 million Federal workers, but in Hawaii, and, indeed, across the Nation, we see the impact of their hard work every single day.

In Hawaii, Federal workers provide critical healthcare for the tens of thousands of veterans living in our State. Federal workers service and repair our naval fleet at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. Federal workers stand watch at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Hundreds of Federal employees across 17 agencies are even now helping our Hawaii Island community respond to and recover from the impact of the ongoing volcanic activity at Kilauea on the Big Island.

In my visits to the Hawaii County Emergency Operations Center in Hilo and the Disaster Recovery Center in Keaau, and to affected communities across Puna, I have seen the impact these workers are having firsthand.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is coordinating the overall response and recovery with Federal, State, and county agencies. The U.S. Geological Survey scientific experts are monitoring seismic activities and providing realtime updates to affected residents. The affected residents are in the thousands. The Department of the Interior has provided technical assistance to protect Hawaii Island's natural and cultural resources. The Environmental Protection Agency has deployed experts to monitor air quality and provide timely alerts to county residents. The Department of Agriculture and the Small Business Administration are identifying resources and

assisting affected farmers and small business owners. The U.S. Coast Guard is monitoring and patrolling areas where lava is flowing into the ocean and enforcing safe perimeters for fishing and recreational activity.

These dedicated public servants have been working around the clock for months to support the Puna community. These workers deserve our respect, appreciation, and unwavering support for their service. They certainly don't deserve the contempt and animosity that Donald Trump and his administration have directed at them.

The collective weight of this administration's anti-worker agenda is taking a toll on our Federal workforce, needless to say, and the Executive orders President Trump issued in May are already making things worse by undermining workers' rights to fair representation in the workplace.

The President's first order directs agencies to reopen existing-- these are existing already--bargaining agreements with the intent of rushing through one-size-fits-all replacement agreements without an opportunity for labor to provide input. The President's second order severely restricts the ability of unions to protect workers from managerial retaliation, workplace discrimination, and sexual harassment. The President's third order undermines traditional civil service protections intended to shield public servants from political retribution by making firing workers easier.

Collectively, these Executive orders sabotage the hard-fought gains Federal workers have achieved through decades of organizing and collective bargaining at agencies throughout the Federal Government. This sabotage has a purpose: to make life so miserable for our Federal workforce that they either quit their jobs or retire.

The long-term damage that gutting our Federal workforce would cause to our Nation, economy, and communities is serious. That is because, as Teddy Roosevelt recognized when he pushed for the first major civil service reform, a quality, professional civil service is a bulwark against corruption and cronyism.

Public servants uphold the law and promote the public interests. That includes holding big corporations accountable when they cheat consumers and pollute our environment.

Is this why Donald Trump and his moneyed, anti-union allies have such a fear of and disdain for our Federal workers--because they would rather be left unfettered by any government or regulatory oversight? Is that what is going on? How else can we explain the President's focus and vicious attacks on Federal employees, which ignore the work they do to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the people of our country every single day?

These are not normal times. It is not normal for the President and his allies to go after our Federal employees in this way. It is not normal, and it is up to each of us to resist this administration's coordinated attack on our Federal workforce and the institutions that represent and protect them.

I call on all of my colleagues to join me in this fight. I just do not understand what it is that motivates the President and his moneyed allies to try and tear apart the very workforce in our country that protects our health, safety, and welfare. I just don't get it.

I yield the floor.

Amendments Nos. 3553 and 3543 to Amendment No. 3399