Floor Statements

Mr. President, the Senate has a constitutional duty equal to the President's to provide advice and consent on all judicial nominees, including the President's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Our advice-and-consent role requires us to view the totality of Judge Kavanaugh's record and experiences, including the documents from his time in the executive branch.

Judge Kavanaugh worked as a fellow in the first Bush administration's Office of the Solicitor General, for Ken Starr in the Office of the Independent Counsel investigating President Clinton, and in President George W. Bush's White House in the office of White House Counsel and as Staff Secretary to the President.

As has been the practice for previous Supreme Court nominees, the Judiciary Committee should ask for and receive all records related to his work in these roles. Any document requested of the Bush library or the National Archives should parallel similar requests made for other Supreme Court nominees.

Take the request sent by the committee for Elena Kagan's nomination. This is the letter requesting information for Elena Kagan. We simply substituted Judge Kavanaugh's name where Elena Kagan's name appeared. You probably can't see it, but the request letter is signed by then- chair of the Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, and it was signed by our current Attorney General, but ranking member at that time, Jeff Sessions.

On May 18, 2010, just 8 days after her nomination to the Supreme Court by President Obama, the Judiciary Committee sent a bipartisan request to the Director of the Clinton Presidential Library asking for records from her time working at the White House and records related to her nomination to the DC Circuit. We should send a similar request for Judge Kavanaugh, just substituting Brett Kavanaugh's name for Elena Kagan's. However, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, our colleague from Iowa, is refusing to work with us to request the totality of Judge Kavanaugh's record.

I have heard the objection to the request for all the records that rests on the volume of documents we might receive. The fact that there could be a lot of documents relevant to Judge Kavanaugh's time in the White House, or any relevant point in his career, is not the issue. The President knew there were a lot of documents related to Judge Kavanaugh. It was reported that the majority leader argued that Judge Kavanaugh's voluminous record could hurt his confirmation, tacitly acknowledging that the Senate would have to examine all of the documents.

Senator McConnell understood that the record was relevant to the Senate's advice-and-consent responsibility in reviewing this nominee's qualifications and judicial philosophy. Even the nominee himself, Judge Kavanaugh, thinks the same. Judge Kavanaugh often refers to how his executive branch experience shapes his judicial philosophy.

In 2013, he wrote in a published law review article:

When people ask me which prior legal experience has been

most useful for me as a judge, I tell them I certainly draw

on all of them, the clerkships, private practice at Kirkland,

Independent Counsel's office, even college jobs on the Hill

at Ways and Means, but the five-and-a-half years in the White

House, especially the three years as Staff Secretary for

President Bush, are among the most interesting and most

instructive. . . .

In 2016, he repeated that sentiment almost word for word. Again, quoting Judge Kavanaugh:

People sometimes ask what prior legal experience has been

most useful for me as a judge. And I say, ``I certainly draw

on all of them,'' but I also say that my five-and-a-half

years at the White House and especially my three years as

staff secretary for President George W. Bush were the most

interesting and informative for me.

Judge Kavanaugh emphasized that the most interesting and informative experiences he had were at the White House as Staff Secretary. So, of course, the Senate Judiciary Committee ought to be able to review all of the records of his time in the White House.

The scope of the request that Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are proposing is so obvious and common sense that it is hard to believe it is a topic of debate. In normal times, there would not be any question about what the committee is entitled to see, and no responsible Senate would object.

But these are not normal times. In these times, we have Senators trying to cover for an irresponsible, dangerous President, who, like in anything else he does, wants to bulldoze his nominee's way onto the highest Court in the land for life.

In these not-normal times, the simplest of processes--getting access to the records of a Supreme Court nominee--has become politicalized, and in these not-normal times, we have to wonder why the standards have suddenly changed, and we have to ask ourselves what could possibly be hiding in those documents.

When the President proposes a nominee to the Supreme Court, we owe it to ourselves and to our country to thoroughly examine that nominee's record, to diligently question them about their records and judicial philosophy, and to make a reasoned judgment about their fitness for the job.

The American people rely on us in the Senate, and particularly in the Judiciary Committee, to perform our constitutional advice-and-consent duties to the best of our abilities.

So I urge my Republican colleagues to join us in calling for the full release of all documents related to Judge Kavanaugh's record and experiences. This has happened in the past. It has always happened, and it should happen again.

I yield the floor.

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

Almost 3,000 children were ripped from the arms of their parents and traumatized by the President's cruelty.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee had a closed-door briefing with officials from the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security. The American people deserve to hear from these officials in public and under oath. All these officials provided at this briefing--not under oath--was more obstruction and obfuscation. The witness from Immigration and Customs Enforcement even claimed that they ``did not mess up here.''

Separating almost 3,000 children from their parents, not meeting judicially set deadlines for reunifying these children--the trauma continues. Is there anybody in America paying attention to this issue who actually believes there was no mess-up?

We need a public hearing to hear from these officials under oath.

Donald Trump is weaponizing fear to pursue his anti-immigration agenda, and we are not going to be party to that. We should be focused like laser beams on reuniting the children with their parents.

I yield to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Senator from Rhode Island.

In Hawaii, we understand the importance of caring for our planet. The Native Hawaiian community embraced the idea of ``malama `aina,'' a respect for and responsibility to care for the land in a way that protects our environment for future generations. That is why Hawaii has led the way in enacting measures to fight climate change and safeguard our natural resources. In the last few years alone, Hawaii has set ambitious goals to move to 100-percent renewable energy and become carbon neutral.

We were the first State in the country to commit to meeting the objectives of the Paris climate agreement. In contrast, the Trump administration has spent the last year and a half disparaging the idea of protecting our land and natural resources. Donald Trump has taken action after action to prioritize the interests of his supporters in the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our environment.

The President filled his administration with appointees who refuse to accept the realities of climate change. He named two Environmental Protection Agency Administrators--Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler--who don't even believe in the EPA's mission of protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Administration officials have weakened rules that regulate pollution and protections for our natural resources. These actions have led to lawsuits by groups who embrace ``malama `aina'' and seek to protect our environment. These lawsuits will be decided by our courts. The outcomes will depend on an independent, fair, and unbiased judiciary.

A number of these cases will come before the Supreme Court. In the October term, the Court will be hearing a case called Weyerhaeuser Company v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether the Federal Government can protect endangered species on private land. Cases making their way through the lower courts include California v. EPA, which challenges the Federal Government's regulations on vehicle emissions, and West Virginia v. EPA, which challenges President Obama's Clean Power Plan. These cases raise crucial questions that will determine whether the government has the power to protect our environment. The answers to those questions may very well come from the Supreme Court.

The President's nominee to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, raises serious concerns about whether he would be that fair arbiter on environmental issues, the kinds of cases that will surely come before the Supreme Court. Throughout his time on the circuit court of appeals, Judge Kavanaugh has argued for weakening environmental regulations. Basically, his decisions benefit industry over the environment.

In Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc. v. EPA, Judge Kavanaugh argued that the EPA should not regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act because the cost to business was more important than protecting the environment and public health from climate change. He said that the EPA should not include greenhouse gases in the interpretation of the statute that says EPA can regulate any air pollutant because, as far as Judge Kavanaugh was concerned, such a requirement or enabling the EPA to do that would result in higher costs for businesses. Judge Kavanaugh did not consider the cost to the environment.

In Hawaii, we are already paying the price of climate change caused by greenhouse gases. Our coastlines are disappearing, corals in our oceans are dying, and catastrophic floods are becoming more frequent and more severe. The science behind the need to regulate greenhouse gases is clear. This message is lost on the President and apparently on Brett Kavanaugh, as he argued for a very limited interpretation of the EPA's authority to regulate.

In another environmental case, Judge Kavanaugh sided with the fossil fuel industry in his dissent in White Stallion Energy Center v. EPA in 2014. He argued that under the Clean Air Act, the EPA should not-- should not--regulate toxic air pollutants from powerplants without factoring in what those regulations would cost polluters. The majority disagreed with Judge Kavanaugh, saying that the EPA's approach ``is clearly permissible,'' consistent with prior Supreme Court instruction, and consistent with the purpose of the legislation, which was, of course, to protect the environment and the health and safety of people. When the case went to the Supreme Court, then-Justice Scalia quoted Judge Kavanaugh in his reversal.

Judge Kavanaugh's opinions even went so far as to attempt to restrict the manufacture and sale of renewable fuel. In a 2012 case, Grocery Manufacturers Association v. EPA, Judge Kavanaugh opposed the EPA's grant of E15 waivers. These waivers would permit the manufacture and sale of a type of renewable fuel that would help our Nation decrease its dependence on foreign oil. In his dissent, Judge Kavanaugh argued that the EPA's rule permitting this renewable fuel would in effect force the production of renewable fuel. There is nothing in the statute that talked about forcing anybody to do anything. Actually, the word in the statute is ``permit.'' Permitting is not the same as forcing. Of course, Judge Kavanaugh certainly knew the difference before taking a position that supported the fossil fuel industry.

Judge Kavanaugh's record on these environmental issues makes it highly likely that as a Supreme Court Justice, he would favor fossil fuel interests over human health, renewable energy, and protecting our planet.

Senators have a constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent on all judicial nominations, particularly those to the highest Court in the land, the Supreme Court. This responsibility requires us to take note of the fact that the Trump administration continues to fill the courts with deeply conservative, ideologically driven judges who will hold lifetime positions. The administration and their conservative allies expect that some of these judges will continue on to appellate courts and to the Supreme Court.

Mr. President, this week, we will be voting on two nominees for Federal appellate courts: Andrew Oldham from Texas for the Fifth Circuit and Ryan Bounds from Oregon for the Ninth Circuit. I will be voting no on both of these nominations.

Andrew Oldham has been an ideological warrior behind some of Texas Governor Greg Abbott's most extreme positions against a woman's right to choose, against LGBTQ people, and against solutions for the 800,000- plus Dreamers put at risk for deportation by Donald Trump's rescinding of DACA.

In 2013, as deputy solicitor general of Texas, Mr. Oldham defended a severe anti-choice Texas law, HB2, that put restrictions on doctors delivering reproductive healthcare. The restrictive provisions were upheld by the Fifth Circuit but struck down in a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court case called Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt.

In 2014, Mr. Oldham served as counsel of record for Texas in its successful challenge to the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability, or the DAPA Program. DAPA would have provided protections for the parents of Dreamers so families would not be cruelly separated, as we are seeing with such terrible and sad results today under Donald Trump's zero tolerance policy at the border.

While Mr. Oldham was advising Governor Abbott on legislation, his boss supported or signed bills to restrict the rights of the LGBTQ community by regulating bathroom usage in public schools and allowing faith-based groups to deny adoptive and foster parents who conflict with their beliefs.

In his response to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questions about these extreme positions, Mr. Oldham sought to discount them as merely advocacy positions on behalf of a client, that being the Governor of the State of Texas, while Mr. Oldham's career shows otherwise.

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

Mr. President, there was a time when Blacks and Whites couldn't get married or go to the same school. The Supreme Court changed that. There was a time when gay people could be arrested for loving one another and when it was illegal for them to get married. The Supreme Court changed that. There was a time when thousands of women died from having illegal, unsafe abortions. The Supreme Court changed that.

The Justices on the Supreme Court matter to each and every one of our lives. That is why there is so much concern over President Trump's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court--Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Rightwing groups, like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, have been working for decades to set the stage to pack our Federal courts with ideologically driven conservatives. They have invested millions of dollars and decades of time in this effort. These two organizations have played the primary role in vetting and selecting Donald Trump's nominees to the Supreme Court. By including Judge Kavanaugh on their list of potential nominees, these two organizations certainly expect that he will reflect their own ideological perspectives, which include overturning Roe v. Wade and repealing the Affordable Care Act, the ACA. They certainly expected Neil Gorsuch-- another name on their list--to do the same when he got on the Supreme Court. In the short time he has been on the Court, Justice Gorsuch has not disappointed them.

Is it any wonder that millions of people across the country are raising concerns over the nomination of yet another nominee on the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation's wish list? Isn't it reasonable to conclude that Judge Kavanaugh will also reflect the ideological agendas of these organizations?

This is why Judge Kavanaugh does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. He has the exceptionally high burden of proof to assure the American people he can be fair and objective. The Senate has a constitutional obligation that is equal to the President's to vet a President's nominee to the Supreme Court and fulfill its advice and consent obligation responsibilities. I take this responsibility seriously because a fight for the future of the Supreme Court will have ramifications for so many issues that we care about.

Our Federal courts have been at the center of the Republican Party's strategy to dismantle, gut, and weaken the Affordable Care Act, the ACA, since it was passed over 8 years ago. The Supreme Court narrowly upheld the constitutionality of the ACA's core provisions in 2012. The ACA provides affordable, accessible health insurance to millions of people in our country who would otherwise not have such insurance. But the Republican Party's effort to sabotage this critically important law through the courts continues unabated.

Right now, Texas and 19 other States have a lawsuit pending in Federal court that claims, among other things, that the Affordable Care Act's protections for Americans living with preexisting conditions-- illnesses such as diabetes, asthma, and cancer--are invalid. The Trump administration filed a brief supporting Texas in its attack on the ACA's protections for millions of people in our country with preexisting conditions. This case will likely end up before the Supreme Court. If Texas wins its lawsuit, the healthcare of millions of Americans will be at stake--meaning one in four Americans could either lose their health coverage or pay exponentially more for healthcare.

The outcome of this case is personal to millions of Americans and their families, and it is certainly personal to me. A little over 1 year ago, I was diagnosed with kidney cancer. I was fortunate. I have health insurance that allows me to focus on fighting my illness rather than worrying about how I will pay for my treatment. I now join the millions of Americans living with a preexisting condition--illnesses that don't discriminate on the basis of age, gender, or political ideology.

As this case makes its way to the Supreme Court, the American people should not forget that Donald Trump and this administration have been openly hostile to the ACA, a law that has helped millions of people. In fact, the President has openly bragged about all the things he has done to gut the ACA. Does the President expect his nominee, Judge Kavanaugh, to protect the ACA? I don't think so--quite the opposite.

The next Supreme Court Justice will also play a determining role in the future of a woman's right to make her own reproductive health decisions. I remember vividly the stories of women dying in America, unable to access safe, legal abortions. The fight for reproductive freedom, prompted by these stories, was one of the reasons I got involved in politics.

When I was in college, the first letter I ever wrote to Hawaii's congressional delegation was about abortion at a time when our State legislature was debating whether to legalize abortion. Hawaii became the first State in the country to do so. Those of us who lived in a time before Roe v. Wade, when a woman was forced to have a child against her will, are deeply concerned about the future of a woman's right to have an abortion, to have that freedom of choice.

Throughout his campaign for the Presidency, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who would favor overturning the core holding in Roe v. Wade. The Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society share this goal, and it is not a stretch to assume that the names they included on their Supreme Court wish list hold the same views.

Judge Kavanaugh's record on this issue is deeply troubling and of significant concern. Last year, Judge Kavanaugh issued a dissent in a case that granted a 17-year-old immigrant in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, the right to get an abortion. Kavanaugh argued in his dissent that holding the

young woman in custody, refusing to release her for a medical appointment for a procedure until HHS was able to find her a sponsor who would serve as a foster parent, was not an undue burden under the Supreme Court's legal test.

He did not consider holding someone in government custody to be an undue burden. This is the view of someone who will not follow the law as it is currently set forth by the Supreme Court if confronted with challenges to Roe. Let us remember, it is the Supreme Court that sets precedent, and that can happen if Judge Kavanaugh is on the Court. Really, his dissent in this case is a view of someone chosen for a reason, ready to fulfill Donald Trump's campaign promise to see Roe v. Wade overturned.

This fight matters. Who sits on our courts matters. How we exercise our constitutional duty to examine a nominee for the highest Court in our land matters. Just as well-financed conservative interests have spent decades setting the stage for the court packing going on today, those of us who oppose this agenda need to mobilize, resist, and stay engaged for the long haul in the fight for a fair and independent judiciary.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I have been consistently voting against cloture motions to proceed to debate on judicial nominations because the process by which we are considering these nominations has been deeply broken.

I will again, today, be voting no on cloture even though the nominee we are voting on to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is Mark Bennett from Hawaii. I support Mark Bennett's nomination, and I spoke on his behalf during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. When debate time ends, I will vote for his confirmation.

Mark is recognized as being one of the best qualified lawyers in the State of Hawaii. He has served as a Federal prosecutor, our State's attorney general, and in private practice. He has experience in trial and appellate work, on civil and criminal matters, at the State and Federal levels. He understands legislating and has served in the executive branch. He has received high ratings from the American Bar Association and from the Hawaii State Bar Association. He is well respected and has been honored multiple times by his colleagues.

I have every confidence that Mark will put his skills and experience to good use on the bench as a fair and impartial judge who is beholden to nothing but the law and the Constitution. However, as has been my practice since the beginning of this Congress and session, I will vote no on cloture on Mark's nomination. I will vote this way to call attention to my disagreement and deep concern over how the Senate Judiciary Committee is conducting its judicial nomination hearings.

The Senate has a constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent on judicial nominees, and I take this obligation very seriously. The American people depend on the Senate to fully consider and vet each judicial nominee. Throughout the course of their lifetime appointments, these judges will issue rulings and opinions that will touch each of our lives. The process of nominating, considering, and confirming judges should be a deliberate one. Its purpose should not be to confirm as many judges as quickly as possible. Senators should be able to provide input on who should sit on the Federal bench. Senators should have adequate opportunity to hear from third-party experts about the records and qualifications of each nominee, and Senators should have enough time to question and examine a nominee during the confirmation hearing. Yet, over the past year and a half, we have seen a breakdown in the way this process should work.

The President has, essentially, outsourced the judicial selection process to two organizations that have strong, ideologically driven agendas--the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. These nominees have been chosen without the consent of their home State Senators, as has been the practice through what is known as the blue- slip process. By ignoring the traditional blue-slip process, the President and his allies in Congress have been rendering the Senate's constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent increasingly meaningless.

The White House and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee have also undermined the independent processes through which the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary evaluates whether a nominee is qualified for the job. Ignoring this traditional process has resulted in the nominations and confirmations of a number of deeply unqualified judges. Some of these nominees have been unable to answer basic questions about judicial procedure or the law during their confirmation hearings. Others lack the kind of experiences one would want in those who will have lifetime appointments to the Federal courts.

Under this administration, we have also seen the rushed considerations of many nominees for the Federal circuit courts. Judges who serve on our circuit courts are only one step away from the Supreme Court and deserve to be scrutinized closely in the Judiciary Committee. Over the last year and a half, however, the Judiciary Committee has overridden the objections of the minority to hold an unprecedented six nomination hearings with more than one circuit judge nominee being considered simultaneously on one panel. This means that members of the Judiciary Committee have only 5 minutes in total to ask questions of not just one but two circuit court nominees, including the time it takes for them to answer our questions. This is scarcely enough time to vet these nominees, many of whom are highly controversial and deserve maximum scrutiny. The American people deserve much more as we consider lifetime appointments to the Federal bench.

Until we return to a normal process through which we consider lifetime appointments to the Federal bench, I will continue to oppose cloture on each judicial nomination by this President and encourage my colleagues to join me in this effort.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I want to thank my colleague, the Senator from Utah, Mr. Lee, for working with me on the act that we just passed.

Madam President, if this week has shown us anything, it is that courts matter. In three important decisions over 2 days, the Supreme Court majority endorsed Donald Trump's bigotry and handed him the power to exclude any group of people for any reason, as long as he couches it as a national security matter.

Justice Alito led a narrow majority in a concerted effort to destroy unions--in this case, public sector unions--and Justice Thomas told States that they cannot tell women what reproductive services are available to them.

We have also seen a Federal trial court judge in San Diego, who combined his understanding of the law with his capacity for human kindness, order that children who were separated from their parents at the southern border be reunited with them in short order.

We have seen the Third Circuit Court of Appeals rule in favor of transgender public school students being able to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

The work that judges do affects the real lives of people living and working in this country--people who are trying to care for their families, to serve their country, to earn a living; people who count on us here in Congress to make sure that they are safe and that their rights are protected. In the Judiciary Committee on which I sit, that responsibility is normally never greater than when we consider a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

These are not normal times. When we have a President who avows that the Supreme Court should always be Republican, ignoring the independent role of the Court, the Senate's advice and consent process is even more crucial.

Take a look at the President's tweet. He believes the Supreme Court is an extension of his political party. Last March, he reiterated: ``We need more Republicans in 2018,'' he said, ``and must ALWAYS''--he likes to capitalize--``ALWAYS hold the Supreme Court!'' Any nominee from this President comes to us with this taint attached.

The President is not the only one to politicize the courts. Neil Gorsuch would never have made it to the Supreme Court if not for the majority leader, whose proudest achievement, according to him, is Neil Gorsuch's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There is no question that the majority leader wants to ensure a conservative majority on the Supreme Court to upend the fundamental rights of millions of Americans. It started in 2016 when he refused to even meet with the President's Supreme Court nominee and would not grant him a hearing. The majority leader held this seat hostage precisely because he wanted someone who would serve as a rubberstamp for his radical conservative agenda.

Here is what Mitch McConnell said when he did this. He said that the American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Court Justice. Under the McConnell rule, this vacancy created by Justice Kennedy's resignation and retirement should be treated no differently.

If the people's voice should have been heard in 2016, it is no less important now, because these are clearly not normal times. On Tuesday-- the same day the Supreme Court ruled that the President could discriminate against people coming to our country on the basis of religion--the majority leader tweeted this picture of himself with Neil Gorsuch.

The message is clear. The twisted process got the Republicans just what they wanted, and they want to do it again. They want to keep doing it, and we should not let them.

Democrats should do everything we can to ensure that the Supreme Court stays independent and protects fundamental rights and values. The American people certainly deserve no less.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, I wish to thank Senator Blumenthal for organizing this block of time and for his continued leadership in the fight to protect women's healthcare. Today marks the 2-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt.

That landmark decision struck down two provisions of a Texas law that imposed medically unnecessary, burdensome requirements on abortion providers and reaffirmed a woman's constitutional right to access safe, legal abortion. If the Supreme Court had allowed these provisions to stand, more than 75 percent of all reproductive health clinics in Texas would have been forced to close, leaving many women unable to access the care they need.

Whole Woman's Health was a significant victory for reproductive freedom, but the assault on a woman's constitutionally protected right to an abortion has continued unabated over the past 2 years. During that time, Iowa passed an outrageous bill that would prohibit women from seeking an abortion after 6 weeks of pregnancy, often even before these women knew they were pregnant.

West Virginia enacted legislation that would prohibit the State's Medicaid Program from covering abortion services for low-income residents. Indiana passed an onerous new law requiring physicians to report confidential patient information to the State if a woman experienced complications from an abortion.

Louisiana recently passed a law establishing a 15-week abortion ban that includes criminal penalties for any physician who performs the procedure after that time--with only a very narrow exception to save the life of the mother.

These are the kinds of lengths those who want to limit a woman's right to choose will go to. Advocates have recognized the harm these laws would have on women and have filed suits to block their implementation. Several lower courts have ruled that these restrictions are unconstitutional and could come before the Supreme Court for review in the months and years ahead. These laws are only a few of the hundreds of new restrictions enacted in States across the country that are harming women's health and violating their constitutional right to an abortion.

To understand the negative impact of these laws on women, I point to a recent report from the Guttmacher Institute that found 58 percent of women of reproductive age in our country live in a State considered hostile or extremely hostile to abortion rights. Only 30 percent live in a State supportive of abortion rights. We are talking about millions and millions of women who are living in States that are extremely hostile to abortion rights.

Respect for a woman's constitutional rights should not depend on where she lives. Women in Texas, Louisiana, or Iowa deserve the same respect as women living in States like Hawaii, where we have some of the country's most humane, expansive protections for reproductive rights. In fact, Hawaii was the first State in the country to legalize abortion. These disparities and protections for women in different States can have life-or-death consequences for women in need of reproductive healthcare.

Earlier this year, I shared the story of Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi--an abortion services provider who used to practice in Texas but now lives and works in Hawaii. Dr. Moayedi's story is worth sharing again because it poignantly captures what is at stake for women living in States with sweeping abortion restrictions.

In her letter to me, Dr. Moayedi shared the story of a young woman in her Texas town who sought medical treatment with another provider after her water broke at 22 weeks. This woman desperately wanted a baby, but her fetus was not viable outside the womb. Because of Texas's restriction on abortion services, the patient's doctors were unable to counsel her on all medically appropriate options, including immediate delivery.

This patient became increasingly ill and requested an abortion to prevent her condition from getting worse. The doctors on her case refused this request. Why? Because Texas law would not allow them to respond to her request.

After spending 2 weeks in a hospital intensive care unit, this woman was transferred to Dr. Moayedi's care, where she ultimately had to have both hands and feet amputated due to severe infection. She also lost her baby.

Dr. Moayedi recently moved from Texas to Hawaii, where she provides lifesaving abortion care to women at all stages of pregnancy, including a woman with a desired pregnancy who was flown in from a neighbor island for management of her previable labor.

Despite the expert specialist care she received, the patient's water broke at 22 weeks. At that point, there was nothing Dr. Moayedi could do to prevent labor. She performed an abortion and saved her patient's life.

The stark contrast in outcomes for Dr. Moayedi's two patients is completely unnecessary. Women across the country have a constitutional right to an abortion, and Congress needs to do more to fight back against what States like Texas, Louisiana, and Iowa are doing.

It is time for Congress to pass comprehensive legislation that prevents States from imposing unconstitutional restrictions on abortions and that ensures every woman has access to the healthcare they need when and where they need it. We need to pass the Women's Health Protection Act, a bill introduced by Senator Blumenthal and one I have supported since its introduction in 2013.

This critical piece of legislation would explicitly prohibit States from imposing restrictions that limit women's access to safe and legal abortion services. It would prevent States like Iowa, Louisiana, and Mississippi from imposing abortion bans before viability; it would preclude States like Arkansas from restricting access to medication abortion; and it would stop

States like Texas from passing laws that impose arbitrary and capricious requirements on facilities and abortion providers that do not improve the health of their patients.

Passing this legislation is particularly important following Justice Kennedy announcing his retirement. The fundamental rights of women should not be subject to the whims of Donald Trump and whomever he selects to fill Justice Kennedy's seat. Congress needs to take decisive action to protect a woman's right to choose. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the passage of the Women's Health Protection Act.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Merkley from Oregon for his leadership and my other colleagues who are coming to the floor this evening.

Like so many people across the country, I have been deeply affected by what is happening on our southern border. Children are being ripped away from their parents, placed into mass detention, deprived of adequate legal counsel, and isolated from everyone they have ever known. Millions of people are rising up with sorrow and horror over what is happening and with good reason.

The President of the United States and this administration are playing games with the lives of these innocent children, and when confronted, they hide behind excuses that they are just ``following the law.'' This is just another lie from a President and an administration that have institutionalized lying to justify their unconscionable policies. There is nothing in the law that requires a zero tolerance approach at the border. It was a choice that Donald Trump and his administration made, and these children are suffering the consequences.

The President's actions are unnecessary and cruel, but they aren't particularly surprising, coming from him. On issue after issue, Donald Trump creates a crisis through his own actions, blames others for what is happening, and uses the ensuing chaos to demand a legislative solution that often harms even more people.

It is up to each of us and to the millions of Americans outraged by his actions to stand up, fight back, and demand action. This action remains urgent, even after the President announced earlier today that he would use his Executive authority to end family separation at the border. This Executive order just creates an entirely new problem. It does not end zero tolerance, and it does not end indefinite detention. It only means children are going to be incarcerated together with their parents. This is still unacceptable and echos back to one of the darkest periods in our history when, during World War II, the U.S. Government incarcerated 120,000 Japanese Americans. That this time we are incarcerating non-Americans misses the point. Due process applies to everyone--everyone--on American soil.

The President's order also instructs the Attorney General to challenge the Flores settlement, which sets national standards for humane treatment of children in immigration detention and ensures their prompt release. The elimination of these national standards would have profoundly negative consequences for thousands of children every year and is yet another demonstration of the cruelty with which this administration treats immigrants to our country.

The President has also hinted that legislation will accompany his Executive action. Any legislative solution must result in less chaos and more justice for these children and their families.

Congress certainly has a responsibility to repair our broken immigration system, and we tried hard in 2013, with months of work and bipartisan compromise. But we cannot and should not enact a patchwork solution that enshrines Donald Trump's hatred and fear of immigrants into law. We need to think through the inevitable consequences of our policies and propose legislation that will actually help these families and their children. This approach stands in stark contrast to a President and an administration that rarely think things through. They never stop to consider the consequences of their actions.

Instead of being ashamed about this, the President appears to take pleasure in the chaos he sows, but this chaos causes real damage to real people. These misguided, shoot-from-the-hip decisions of his have already caused significant harm to thousands of children who will face a lifetime of trauma after being separated from their parents.

Let me tell you a story. It is one I haven't told very often because it is difficult to talk about. I often speak about my own immigrant experience of coming to this country when I was 7 years old with my mom and my older brother Roy. Mom was escaping an abusive marriage to start a new life for us. Mom brought us two older kids with her, leaving my 3-year-old younger brother behind in Japan, because we were old enough to go to school, and at 7 and 9 years old, we could look after ourselves while she was at work supporting us. My younger brother left back in Japan never really recovered from the trauma of the separation from his mother and his siblings. My mother always had deep sorrow about having to leave her baby behind. We finally reunited almost 3 years later.

What is happening to these children feels personal to me. Like so many people, I find that my anger and emotion about this issue aren't far below the surface for me. I am very concerned about what will happen to these 2,400 children who have already been separated from their parents. These children have already been traumatized.

Yet the President's Executive order does not prioritize reuniting these children with their parents.

Years from now, stories will be written about this dark moment in our Nation's history and what happened to these children. People will judge what we did and how we responded.

I will continue to fight against this President's reprehensible actions that dehumanize immigrants, tear families apart, and undermine our country's moral leadership. I call on all of my colleagues, especially those on the other side of the aisle, to join us in this fight.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last weekend, we gathered in the Capitol Visitor Center to celebrate the 283rd birthday of King Kamehameha I, who, to the best of our knowledge, was born in Kohala, HI, in 1735.

Since 1871, generations of Hawaiians have formally celebrated King Kamehameha's birthday through annual celebrations--including floral parades and lei-draping ceremonies. Kamehameha Day is celebrated across the State and is an acknowledged State holiday.

These events recognize the many accomplishments of Hawaii's first King and his importance in unifying the Hawaiian Islands.

This year was no different, as this past weekend tens of thousands of individuals gathered in Washington, DC, and Hawaii to remember his legacy and celebrate his accomplishments.

However, this year's ceremonies came at another important time of reflection.

On February 17, 2018, Gov. David Ige proclaimed 2018 to be the ``Year of the Hawaiian, Ke Au Hawaii'' in Hawaii. The Governor's proclamation came after the Hawaii State Legislature made a similar proclamation for the year.

So as we gathered to remember King Kamehameha, we also reflected more broadly on the achievements and contributions of Hawaii's indigenous, Native Hawaiian community in the areas of politics and government, education and the arts, music, writing and literature, sports, business, medicine, law, and social work.

We reflected on the restoration and revitalization of Native Hawaiian language and traditions and the importance of promoting Native Hawaiian cultural practices.

We remembered great statesmen like Daniel Kahikina Akaka, U.S. Senator of Native Hawaiian ancestry, who served in Congress over the course of five decades and recently passed away.

We remembered philanthropists like Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop.

It has been 30 years since the last Year of the Hawaiian was celebrated in 1988, and important advancements by and for the Native Hawaiian community have been made since that time.

We have seen the creation and expansion of Native Hawaiian immersion schools and Hawaiian-focused charter schools. We have seen the establishment of a College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaii. We have seen the continued revitalization of Native Hawaiian navigation practices, including through the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage, which visited more than 150 ports and 23 countries and territories.

We have seen more than 14,000 Native Hawaiians serve in the U.S. military. We have seen the return of land and repatriation of Native Hawaiian cultural artifacts. We have seen the protection of Native Hawaiian burial sites. We have seen the expansion of Native Hawaiian healthcare services. We have seen the expansion of opportunities for Native Hawaiian businesses.

We have also seen the Federal Government reiterate its special political and legal relationship with the Hawaiian people based on their unique status

as an indigenous people of this country.

These advancements, while important in themselves, represent a continued commitment to making sure the Federal Government upholds its responsibilities to the Hawaiian people.

So as we continue through the Year of the Hawaiian and celebrate these achievements, let us also renew our commitment to the Hawaiian people and make sure we continue to fight for future generations.

Mahalo nui loa.

Mr. President, this is National Police Week, and I join my colleagues in saluting all of our law enforcement personnel and our brave men and women who have put their lives on the line every single day to keep our communities safe.

Mr. President, just before we left for last week's State work period, the majority leader filed cloture on six nominees for Federal circuit courts. He did not take this action in a vacuum.

Over the past year and a half, the majority leader and the Republicans in the Senate have joined with Donald Trump to try to pack our Federal courts with ideological judicial nominees who seek to change American law to match their partisan politics.

To accomplish this goal, the majority leader and Senate Republicans have also been eliminating procedural checks designed to ensure a fair and qualified judiciary. One of those checks is the blue-slip requirement--a mechanism for Senators to indicate their approval of nominees from their States.

In the past, when Senators objected to a judicial nomination in their home State, with almost no exceptions, the Judiciary Committee took no further action on that nominee. This was because the Constitution requires the President to get the advice and consent of the Senate when nominating judges.

Traditionally, this has been done by consultation with the home State Senators, but the majority leader and his Republican colleagues have largely abandoned this constitutional safeguard.

The Judiciary Committee has, though very rarely, scheduled hearings for nominees who lack one blue slip and whose home State Senators have returned negative blue slips.

Now, tomorrow, we will have a hearing for a Ninth Circuit nominee for whom no blue slips have ever even been returned. This has never happened in the modern history of the Senate, and it certainly was not the standard the majority leader and the chair of the Judiciary Committee applied to President Obama's judicial nominees.

It does not have to be this way. It is possible for home State Senators to confer with this administration and identify nominees acceptable to both

parties. For example, the Trump administration consulted with Senator Schatz and me about nominees to fill Hawaii vacancies on the district and circuit courts. We worked together to identify nominees who would be qualified and appropriate for these lifetime appointments--Jill Otake for the district court and Mark Bennett for the Ninth Circuit. We returned our blue slips, and the nominations are moving forward.

Abandoning the blue slip has nothing to do with overcoming so-called Democratic obstruction of President Trump's judicial nominees. This President has seen more circuit court nominees confirmed at a faster pace than any modern President. In fact, he has bragged about the pace of confirmation of his judges, including at the State of the Union Address.

Instead, abandoning the blue-slip process is about gutting checks and balances that would prevent Donald Trump from packing the court with ideologically driven judges as quickly as possible.

This week, we are considering one of those judges--Michael Brennan-- whose nomination should not proceed. It has come to the Senate without the traditional advice and consent and over the strong objection of his home State Senator, Ms. Baldwin.

In fact, in a particularly hypocritical twist, Mr. Brennan was nominated to fill a seat that has been kept open for over 7 years because the senior Senator from Wisconsin--a Republican--refused to return a blue slip for Victoria Nourse--President Obama's nominee for this very same seat.

At that time, Mr. Brennan--the nominee we are debating today--even wrote an op-ed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2011 arguing in favor of respecting the blue-slip requirement on the Nourse nomination, saying:

There are now two Senators from Wisconsin from different

political parties, so to exclude Johnson and those citizens

who voted for him would be a purely partisan move.

Johnson represents millions of Wisconsin citizens, just as

Sen. Herb Kohl does and Feingold did. In the same way those

senators had their say in Nourse's first nomination, Johnson

should have his say . . . [He] just wants to be heard and

fulfill his constitutional duty of ``advice and consent.''

Why can't Johnson, elected by the citizens of Wisconsin,

participate in the selection of a judge for a Wisconsin seat

on the 7th Circuit, as Kohl did?

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, Mr. Brennan is perfectly happy to have his nomination move forward over the objections of one of Wisconsin's Senators--Ms. Tammy Baldwin. This is the kind of hypocrisy we have come to expect from this administration, but I am also not surprised that Senator Baldwin did not approve Michael Brennan, considering his troubling views on the way the law works. He should not be confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Seventh Circuit.

In a 2001 op-ed for the National Review online, Mr. Brennan expressed dangerous ideas that call into question the duty of Federal judges to follow precedent. In his op-ed, Mr. Brennan casts doubt on whether judges have a responsibility to rely on how other judges before them interpreted laws, what lawyers call stare decisis. He wrote:

If, after reexamination of a legal decision, a court

concludes that the ruling was incorrect, stare decisis does

not require that the rule of that case be followed. . . .

Bush-appointed judges cannot accurately be labeled as

activists for reexamining and following only correct

precedent.

I interpret this op-ed to mean that a judge is free to determine whether he or she will agree that the precedent is correct. That is not how the law works. So we, in the Judiciary Committee, asked Mr. Brennan about this article during his confirmation hearing, and he came up with a clever explanation for it. He claimed his article asserted that judges are not necessarily bound by decisions of their own district or their own circuit. His article, he claimed, did not argue that judges can disregard precedent of higher, controlling courts. That is not what he wrote.

It is a convenient explanation, I admit, but it doesn't really hold up if you read his op-ed, where he clearly argues that President George W. Bush's judicial nominees should receive a pass for not following the law. This is what used to be called a confirmation conversion.

As with too many of President Trump's nominees, we are being told to ignore what we read or hear and set aside common sense. We are told by these nominees that what they talked about yesterday, think about today, wrote about yesterday--we are supposed to just ignore all of that. We are supposed to pretend that what someone has advocated for in the past, no matter how recent, will have no bearing on what they will do as a judge, but, remember, Judge Brennan has said he doesn't feel bound, according to his op-ed piece, by precedent.

Judges, as former Chief Justice Rehnquist said, do not come to their positions as blank slates. Each of them brings their own ideas and perspectives to the bench.

The majority leader recently said his most consequential political act--political act--was blocking Judge Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court. This is the same majority leader complaining that Democrats are now obstructing President Trump's judicial nominees. What could be more obstructionist than to totally ignore a nominee to the Supreme Court, no less?

The majority leader's unprecedented action prevented President Obama's well-qualified, centrist nominee from even having a confirmation hearing, let alone a vote, and it paved the way a year ago for Senate Republicans to jam through President Trump's conservative, ideological nominee, Neil Gorsuch--a Federalist Society-backed nominee--to provide a five-vote conservative majority on the Court that will continue to roll back individual rights for decades. President Trump put his stamp on this approach when he tweeted, ``Republicans must ALWAYS hold the Supreme Court.'' They are taking this same approach to all of our Federal courts.

I take the Senate's constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent on judicial nominees very seriously. We should be carefully considering a nominee's record to ensure they understand that courts are supposed to protect the rights of minorities.

The courts do not belong to Democrats or Republicans, despite the fact that Donald Trump has said Republicans must always hold the Supreme Court. He applies that, by the way, to the district courts as well as circuit courts. We must ensure that judges with lifetime appointments will treat all Americans--all Americans, and, I would say, particularly minorities and women--fairly in court. This is what the blue-slip requirement is really about. Home State Senators have a unique role in ensuring that the Federal judges serving in their States are highly qualified, understand the importance of applying the law fairly, and meet the needs of their community.

I urge Senate Republicans to reverse their ill-conceived decision to functionally eliminate the blue-slip requirement. We must all stand together to respect Senator Baldwin's objections and oppose this nominee--who, to me, is the height of being a hypocrite--or all of us are at risk.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last year, Democrats kept the Senate in session all night to protest the nomination of Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

We took this unusual step to protest Mr. Pruitt's hostility to the EPA's core mission and to highlight how his close ties to the fossil fuel industry could lead to serious conflicts of interest and breaches of the public trust.

Over the past year, Mr. Pruitt has exemplified the toxic mixture of corruption and hostility to government we have come to expect from the Trump administration.

Mr. Pruitt has radically changed the EPA's mission during his time in office.

He has abandoned the Agency's traditional mission to protect human health and the environment--a commitment that spanned administrations of both parties--in favor of serving the narrow interests of his friends in the fossil fuel industry.

During his tenure, Mr. Pruitt has begun work to repeal the Clean Power Plan, roll back vehicle fuel economy standards, and eliminate commonsense protections for our air and water.

These actions are only three examples of the damage he is doing to our country and environment as the Administrator of the EPA.

Through his actions, Mr. Pruitt confirms he does not understand why Congress and President Nixon established the EPA in the first place.

Mr. Pruitt's policy agenda is damaging enough, but we can scarcely go a week without learning about a new scandal or breach of the public trust at the EPA.

Mr. Pruitt is already being investigated for his first-class travel, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a soundproof phone booth, and providing massive pay increases to his political appointees.

Earlier this month, we learned that Mr. Pruitt got a sweetheart deal from an energy lobbyist to rent an apartment on Capitol Hill at way below market rate.

Scott Pruitt should be fired for cause, but I also find myself agreeing with former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for once. Scott Pruitt never should have been appointed EPA Administrator in the first place.

Earlier today, the Senate voted to confirm Andrew Wheeler to be the Deputy EPA Administrator. I strongly opposed and voted against his nomination.

At a time when the current EPA Administrator is under siege for his lack of ethics, we don't need a Deputy Administrator who will prioritize the interests of the fossil fuel industry over the public's.

Prior to his confirmation, Mr. Wheeler worked as a fossil fuel lobbyist at a major DC law firm.

His lobbying clients included Murray Energy, the largest privately owned coal firm in the United States.

Bob Murray, the head of the company, is one of President Trump's biggest supporters in the industry.

We certainly don't need another fossil fuel ally undermining the EPA's mission to protect public health in a senior leadership position at the Agency.

During his confirmation hearing last November, Mr. Wheeler continued to question the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change. He was voted out of committee on a narrow, party-line vote.

There is a serious ethical cloud hanging over the EPA, and I am disappointed that the majority leader forced a vote on Mr. Wheeler's nomination before we had a chance to question the nominee about the ongoing turmoil at the Agency.

Although we weren't successful in blocking Andrew Wheeler's nomination today, I will continue to hold the EPA accountable for the damage it is doing to our environment and our country.

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