Floor Statements

Mr. President, I thank Chairman Alexander and join him in commending Ms. Bolden for her many years of dedicated and outstanding service to the Government Publishing Office, the Congress, and the American people. I greatly appreciate the sacrifice that Ms. Bolden has made over the past 13 years in assisting the HELP Committee by applying her expertise in editing, printing, and memorializing our important work. We wish her and her family all the best in her well- deserved retirement.

We hope our colleagues will join us in thanking Ms. Bolden for her service.

Mr. President, on behalf of millions of people with disabilities, today I wish to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, NIDILRR, and its 40 years of accomplishments and contributions to the lives of people with disabilities.

NIDILRR is the Federal agency supporting applied research, demonstration, training, and technical assistance to enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities. NIDILRR's mission is to generate new knowledge and to promote its effective use to improve the abilities of people with disabilities to perform activities of their choice in the community and to expand society's capacity to provide full opportunities and accommodations for our citizens with disabilities. NIDILRR carries out its mission by building the capacity of institutions and individuals to conduct high-quality research in the major life domains, including employment, participation in the community, community integration, and health.

NIDILRR plays a unique and critical role in Federal research. NIDILRR-sponsored projects and programs target populations that include all disability types and all age groups. While other Federal research entities fund prevention, cure, and acute rehabilitation research, which are vital for people with disabilities, NIDILRR invests in applied research meant to quickly translate to greater independence, community participation, and employment for people with disabilities.

The many contributions of NIDILRR's grantees cannot be overstated. Our Nation owes a debt of gratitude to the researchers and practitioners whose efforts empower people with disabilities to lead proud, productive lives in pursuit of independence, community living, and employment. During October, which is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, it is important to highlight the major role that NIDILRR has played in promoting and enabling the employment of people with disabilities. Over the past 40 years, NIDILRR-funded researchers have been extraordinarily productive, including in my home State of Washington. Across the United States, grantees have created more than 1,200 new products, including peer-reviewed publications, intervention protocols, measurement tools, and software and technologies that impact the field of rehabilitation and enhance the lives of people with disabilities.

NIDILRR-funded fellowship programs have trained and supported a substantial number of emerging scholars, researchers, and policy implementation experts, including a significant focus on scholars with disabilities and those from minority communities. NIDILRR-funded fellows have contributed to substantive policy development in Congress, including by serving as content experts on my staff at the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. NIDILRR supports the ADA National Network, which provides information, guidance, and training on the Americans with Disabilities Act to businesses, employers, State and local governments, architects, disability organizations, and individuals with disabilities. In addition, NIDILRR also supports AbleData, an information center hosting an extensive database of assistive technology products and resources to increase awareness of and access to assistive devices. Finally, NIDILRR supports the National Rehabilitation Information Center, NARIC, a research library and information center that promotes access to disability, independent living, and rehabilitation research information.

The need for NIDILRR's important work will only increase in the coming decades. Demographic trends indicate a substantial increase in the number of people with disabilities as a result of the effects of injuries, illnesses, chronic conditions, developmental disabilities, and an aging population. NIDILRR will continue to play a critical role in empowering this growing population of individuals with disabilities to live the American dream. The next 40 years of NIDILRR hold much promise for the future of addressing the emerging needs of people with disabilities and the need for disability, independent living, and rehabilitation research.

I congratulate the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research on its 40th anniversary and the significant accomplishments and contributions it has made to enhance the quality of life for people with disabilities in the United States. I am proud of the work NIDILRR has funded and the dedicated researchers and practitioners that have improved employment, participation and community integration, and health and function for people with disabilities. I look forward to 40 more years of NIDILRR's continued contributions to our society.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor to support Senator Baldwin's resolution to overturn President Trump's junk plans rule.

Since day one, President Trump has been relentless in his efforts to sabotage healthcare for people in our Nation. He has worked to drive up the costs, given power back to big insurance companies, and despite his recent campaign promise to fight for people with preexisting conditions, almost every single step he has taken has been in the opposite direction.

President Trump's awful junk plan rule, which went into effect last week, is the latest example. His decision to expand junk insurance plans actually gives insurance companies more power to sell plans that ignore protections for people with preexisting conditions. It gives insurance companies more power to discriminate based on age or on sex. It gives insurance companies even more power to avoid covering important medical needs like emergency care, mental health care, prescription drugs, or even maternity care. This rule also lets insurance companies spend less money on patients directly and more money on excessive administrative costs and executive bonuses. This new rule shows how empty President Trump's promises are when it comes to preexisting conditions.

It is not just President Trump. A lot of Republicans are claiming to stand for protections for preexisting conditions. However, when you compare how Democrats are fighting for these protections and how some Republicans are undermining them, the difference is as clear as night and day.

When President Trump tried to pass his TrumpCare bill and undermine preexisting condition protection, Democrats stood with families across the country and fought tirelessly to stop that awful bill. However, most of our Republican colleagues championed it. When President Trump's Justice Department chose to abandon these protections in court against the Republican-led lawsuit to strike them down, Democrats rallied around the bill to let the Senate join the lawsuit and defend protections for preexisting conditions. Not a single Republican joined in that

effort. Now President Trump is undermining these protections through the junk plan rule, and Democrats are again on the floor leading the charge against him with the resolution that is before us today.

Where are those Republican colleagues who have claimed to care so much about this issue but have done so little to fight for it? So far they have offered empty promises and even gimmicks, like a bill they claim protects people with preexisting conditions but actually allows insurance companies to discriminate based on age and sex.

If Republicans are serious about standing up for people with preexisting conditions, they will join us to pass this bill and fight for them. I am not holding my breath, but I am not giving up. Democrats are going to keep fighting for people across the country, for people with preexisting conditions. We are going to keep fighting for cancer patients and survivors, people living with diabetes and arthritis and other chronic diseases, and we are going to keep fighting for women who are pregnant or seniors who are facing the challenges of old age and for so many other families who might not be able to get the care they need without these important protections for people with preexisting conditions.

Finally, I thank Ms. Baldwin for her leadership on this very important effort. I know this fight is personal for her, like it is for so many families across the country. I am grateful for her leading the charge.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following fellows on my HELP Committee staff be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 115th Congress: Sheri Lou Santos, Garrett Devenney, and Brian Kaplun.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from California for very clearly outlining, for all of us to hear, why this was not a search for truth on an issue that affects so many people in this country, the victims of sexual assault who often, as she just described, do not talk about it, do not speak about it, do not ever tell anyone until there is a reason to, which is what Dr. Ford did.

While the Senator from California is here, you said this was not a search for truth. When it comes to victims of sexual assault--and you have dealt with them time and again as a district attorney and attorney general in the State of California--what message does this send when they see the U.S. Senate?

I thank the Senator from California, and I so agree. This is one of my biggest fears about this moment. Let me talk about why that is true. I was a mom at home in 1991. I was a State senator but not interested in what was happening here at all. My interest came because I watched the Clarence Thomas-Hill hearings, and I watched how a woman shared a very difficult story with an all-male panel of the Judiciary Committee at the time. She was disbelieved. She was swept aside. She was treated as if her voice wasn't important, and she was not believed.

I was so angry as a woman because like so many women in this country, I knew of so many people with experiences much like hers who, too, at work at that time had been dismissed, not believed, and were afraid to speak up. I was angry, and I went to a gathering that night and told some of my friends in 1991, the night of the hearing, I am going to have to run for the U.S. Senate because I need to be inside that to speak up for these women.

That is what motivated me to run. I was not given one chance of winning that Senate race. Here I am today, 27 years later. Why? Because so many women and men who understood shared that experience and knew that voice needed to be here. That is what brought me to the U.S. Senate.

Let me talk about Dr. Ford because I listened to her, like everyone else did, and I heard her voice and it rang so true to me. I watched her with tears in my eyes because she was honest, she was sincere, she was persuasive, she was credible. She had no reason to lie--none. In fact, I think we should remember, she did not want to come forward initially. She was worried about the attacks that would come. She knew the history, as every one of us do, what happens to those courageous voices when they speak up, the invasion of privacy they have. She knew what it would mean for her family.

She only came forward when Judge Kavanaugh was on the very short list for the Supreme Court, before he was ever sent to us. She came forward and spoke out, but no one called her. She didn't want to do it publicly. She didn't want to have this become what she was known for in her life, but she did. If it weren't for her, we would not be at this point.

Judge Kavanaugh was selected, and only then was Dr. Ford able to get her information to the people who would pay attention. She insisted it be kept confidential, to none of our surprise. She didn't want a spectacle. She didn't want a show. Why did she do that? She felt it was her civic duty that we as U.S. Senators--who were giving, essentially, a job interview to a man who wanted a position on the highest Court of the land and would be judging people in front of him--should know what his character was.

Her story was compelling. She took a polygraph test. She did everything right. She had told people before. She presented her case credibly. It is extremely disconcerting to me, as someone who watched the Clarence Thomas-Hill hearings and is sitting here, that I have heard people dismiss her, put her down, all the way up to the President of the United States. What message does that send across the country today and to other women who are so bravely now telling their stories so it will not happen to anyone else? What does this say to them? What does it say to young girls in high school and college today? They are going to get away with it, so be quiet because it will only ruin your life, not theirs.

I have heard my colleagues say: Well, it was high school, it was college.

Really? Is that what we want young boys in high school today to think; that it is OK, don't worry, whatever you do in high school does not count--whatever you do in college doesn't count?

I do not want my grandson to hear that message. I do not want my granddaughters to hear that message. I want

my country to be better than that. Dr. Ford is a real person. She is not alone.

If any Senator in the U.S. Senate is listening, they will hear voices in their own States, from places they know, from their own relatives, from friends they have not ever known about, bravely come forward because Dr. Ford did. This Senate, with the action we are pursuing, could crush those voices forever.

To my friends out there and to everyone who has a story, do not be silent. That is not how we win this for the future, but know we do believe you. The Senate has changed since then. I was proud of the Judiciary Committee members on our side, because unlike when I watched the Senate in 1991, there were women and men there who were listening, and they are today.

We have to, in this Senate, think about the consequence of this vote to so many people who are listening today and asking: Do I say anything or do I let it happen?

I urge my colleagues to remember the lesson of 1991, where too many people felt ``I can't speak out.'' We are changing. We are growing. We are speaking out. It is so imperative this Senate stand behind those women. We hear you. We believe you. We know that happened to you. You need to tell your story. You need to have the courage, and we will be behind you.

I say to the Senators who are joining me today, both who have been involved in these cases, I am concerned this message could be the wrong one for young men and women who are coming behind us. We have to stand up for them.

I yield to the Senator from Connecticut.

I thank the Senator from Connecticut. No, I am not a lawyer. I was a preschool teacher, and one of the things I do know is that I wanted my students to know it is not OK to bully. You have to take a pause and do what is right.

But let me tell you, what I would want for every one of the kids I have ever taught in preschool is to know that if anything they deeply care about--an issue or they themselves--ever appears in a court, then they should feel, in the United States of America, that they would be given a fair shot, and win or lose, the judge presiding over them would leave them with that feeling at the end of the day. That, to me, is why temperament is so important.

If Americans lose the sense that no matter who they are or what their issue is or where they come from or how much money they make in our court of law, they stand a chance to be heard, even if they lose or if they win--that is why temperament is so important to me as a nonlawyer and someone who cares deeply about this country.

Madam President, I come to the floor to speak in opposition to the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

I want to make a few quick points as we conclude this debate today, and then I want to speak to the people watching who may not believe what the Senate could be headed toward today--who are shocked and angry, frustrated and hurt.

First and foremost, I believe Dr. Ford. I believe her when she shared her experience of being assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh. I believe her because of what she said, and she remembered with 100 percent certainty.

I believe her despite what some Republicans are trying to use to tear her down because I know trauma experts tell us survivors may not remember every single detail of these events.

I believe Republican leaders and President Trump did everything they could to hide the facts and rush this through because they were afraid of what a full investigation would show, and I believe it is simply wrong to rush to a finish on this confirmation based on that alone.

I also believe that what we saw of Judge Kavanaugh's temperament in the hearing last week--his bitter partisanship, his rage, his disrespect--was absolutely disqualifying as well and will undermine the Supreme Court and erode trust in the decisions they make.

I believe the lack of credibility and honesty he demonstrated in his hearings, which I and my colleagues have spoken about at great length, is absolutely disqualifying as well, and this isn't just me saying this. We are hearing an unprecedented outcry on this particular point from lawyers and judges and former clerks and the religious community, and even Supreme Court Justice Stevens. Even setting aside those issues, before Dr. Ford's allegations came out and before we saw more of Judge Kavanaugh in those hearings, I opposed his nomination because it was so clear he was picked by President Trump for a few key reasons.

Specifically, he would overturn Roe v. Wade and gut women's healthcare; he would gut healthcare reform and end protections for patients with preexisting conditions; and he would protect President Trump with his disturbingly expansive view on Presidential power, which is particularly dangerous when we have a President under investigation with members of his campaign and administration going to jail and facing indictments.

That is not all we know about him, but we know those things, and to me that was enough to make my decision. So I do oppose Judge Kavanaugh, and I hope we can do the right thing in the Senate today.

I want to spend the rest of my few minutes this morning making a different point and not just to my colleagues but to the people who are watching from home and across the country because I am very concerned about the message Republican leaders are sending today to women and girls and survivors--the message they are delivering on the Senate floor, at rallies, through the press, and directly to the people.

To Dr. Ford and Ms. Ramirez, and so many other women, girls and survivors, these Republicans are saying your voices don't matter. Your experiences, your trauma, your pain, your heartache, your anger--none of that matters.

Their message is: We don't have to listen. We don't have to care. Sit down. Be quiet. They are sending the message that if you are a woman who was attacked, if you are a survivor, then your experience is just one more ``hiccup'' to ``plow right through'' on the path to get what they want; that if you come forward with your experience, you will

be told you are just ``mixed up,'' wrong, lying, or worse.

They are sending a message that you will be asked why you didn't come forward sooner, what you wore, how much you had to drink, what medication you were taking, if you had any history of mental issues, how you got to the party, how you got home; that you will be mocked and undermined, told to ``grow up'' and waved away, and that is just if they can't find a way to sweep you aside and ignore you altogether.

They are sending a message that when it comes to a man who has gone to prestigious schools, who has all the connections, who has spent his entire life setting himself up for this moment, it is his experience that matters, his pain that matters, his future that matters, not yours.

They aren't just sending a message to women and girls and survivors, they are sending a message to men and boys, too, and that is what frightens me just as much. They are sending a message to them that if they attack women, if they hurt people, they are going to be fine; that they may hear that this kind of behavior is wrong, that it is not acceptable, but don't worry, nothing will actually happen to them if they do it.

They can grab women without their consent and brag about it, they can sexually assault women and laugh about it, and they are probably going to even be fine. They can even grow up to be President of the United States or a Justice on the Supreme Court.

That is absolutely wrong.

So I want to send a very different message to women, girls, and survivors: Your voices do matter. Your experiences do matter. There are a whole lot of people who are listening to you, who do hear you, who do believe you. Please, please do not give up and do not stay quiet because no matter what happens today, however this vote goes, your voices are making a difference, maybe not to those Republicans mocking Dr. Ford--they may not want to hear what you have to say--and maybe not to President Trump, but with every story that comes out, every new voice that breaks the silence, we make progress. Every father and mother who learns what happened to their daughter or son all of those years ago that they had never shared before, every son and daughter who hears from their mom and dad about abuse or attacks they faced and never talked about, everyone who hears from a friend, who listens to a coworker, it does make a difference.

We have seen that since the #MeToo movement started more and more. More and more over these past few weeks, stories came out helping people understand how pervasive this is, how this kind of violence is something women have been putting up with for ages, in silence, unheard, seemingly inevitable, a wall placed in front of every girl and woman in this country and how, as more and more people have so bravely spoken up, cracks have begun to appear in that wall.

There are some cracks in how people see the world, people who may have never understood before, who may have never seen the perspective they are learning about more and more now, some cracks in how companies and institutions need to respond, which may have never felt that pressure before. There are some cracks in how men and boys are acting, hearing more and more that this is not OK. It cannot be accepted. It will not be accepted.

Cracks, cracks, and cracks, but clearly today we see the wall still stands.

If Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed, despite all of the outcry and all of the work done, there will be a lot of people who are angry and hurt. I will be one of them. There will be frustration. There will be tears. I will be joining in them. But there will also be a sense that nothing we can do matters; that if someone like Judge Kavanaugh can get a seat on the Supreme Court, we should just give up; that we can't make a difference, we can't matter. That, I will not be a part of.

Here is the message I want to send today: Change is not easy. It never is. We cannot give up the fight, and we cannot be discouraged. My vision, my fight, my passion is to live in a country where my granddaughters can walk down the street, go to a party, live their lives, not live in fear but be treated with respect.

I want to live in a country where my granddaughters can go into a job interview and be judged based on what they can do, not on how they look. I want to live in a country where you can succeed no matter where you were born, what you looked like, or whom you love; if you work hard and treat others right, where you don't have to go to prestigious schools and know powerful people and make the best political connections and go to the right parties. I want to live in a country where if you do all of those things and know all of those people but hurt others and treat people with disrespect, you will pay the price, you will face the consequences.

Clearly, we are not there yet, but I do believe we are making progress. We may not feel it every day, and today is a day when it is hard, but I believe, and my message to everyone watching right now is, don't give up; don't give in; don't think your voice doesn't matter.

When the Senate failed Anita Hill and confirmed Justice Thomas in 1981, I got mad. I decided to run for the Senate. I wouldn't let anyone tell me I had no shot, and I won--and I see that story repeated over and over. People get angry. They start talking about it. They organize it, and sometimes they face their past, but they make a difference. They put more cracks into that wall, but when I hear people give up hope, when they tell me they are ending their fight because they think what they do doesn't matter, I know I am hearing from someone who isn't going to make a difference.

I think of a line I remind myself of all the time: If someone tells you, you can't make a difference, it is usually because they are afraid that you will. They are afraid that you will because it is true. They are petrified because they do know your voice matters--whatever you may think, whatever they may say.

So whatever happens today, I am going to get up tomorrow, and I am going to keep fighting. I am going to keep fighting for the kind of country I want to live in, for the country I want for my granddaughters, for all of our granddaughters and all of our grandsons--a country where someone like Dr. Ford is believed, where she is not attacked; where someone like Judge Kavanaugh doesn't get rushed to the highest Court in the land. I really hope everyone who stood up and spoke out, who is motivated by Dr. Ford and so many others, I hope you are all with me today, tomorrow, and for the fight ahead.

So I urge my colleagues to stand with us, to vote no today, and to keep working with us tomorrow.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor to join in opposition to Judge Kavanaugh and call on my colleagues to join me in voting against this mad dash to jam through a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

Last week, Democrats and Republicans stood together to ask Republican leaders to allow the bare minimum--an FBI investigation into the new allegations that have come in. This wasn't an unreasonable request. It happens all the time with nominees and for far less important positions than a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court. It is the very least that should be done when serious allegations like these remain, to make sure we are hearing from all relevant witnesses and bringing all relevant information in for consideration, but this simply has not happened.

This morning, I went in for a briefing on the new FBI investigation, and it was very clear to anyone who reviewed the material that Senate Republican leaders and President Trump cut the FBI off and refused to allow them to conduct the comprehensive and thorough investigation that was promised to Democrats and Republicans.

Instead, this was rigged from the start to protect Judge Kavanaugh because here is what we know, and this has been reported in the press: Dr. Ford was not interviewed despite her repeated requests. We know Judge Kavanaugh was not questioned. We have heard from so many other witnesses who were desperate to talk to the FBI--desperate--because they had relevant information they wanted to share in confidence. As far as we know, they were never even contacted, and now Senators had to line up to read a single copy of a limited FBI report over the course of today. We are not allowed to share what we saw or take notes out of the room, and we are not permitted to ask the FBI agents who actually conducted the investigation any questions.

Although I am not permitted to share what I heard and read in the briefing, I can say absolutely nothing I saw makes me believe Dr. Ford any less, and, in fact, based on what I saw, I am even more concerned about the veracity of some of what we heard from Judge Kavanaugh.

Even more important than anything we saw was how much we were not able to see because the investigation was limited. Once again, the voices of women and their experiences have been silenced and pushed aside.

So the questions everyone should be asking right now are, What are Republican leaders so afraid the FBI would find if they were allowed to take the full week to truly conduct a thorough investigation and talk to all of the relevant witnesses? What are they trying to hide, and why will they not allow this to be done right when we are talking about a nomination to the highest Court in the land?

So I come to the floor to make three points to urge my colleagues to vote no and stop this mad dash to a rushed confirmation.

First, I am going to talk about what we know about the serious and credible allegations against Judge Kavanaugh by Dr. Ford and others; second, I am going to run through, once again, the serious credibility problems that have been raised regarding Judge Kavanaugh; and finally, I will highlight, once again, the real temperament concerns so many of us have based on what we saw from Judge Kavanaugh at the last hearing.

First and foremost, I believe Dr. Ford. She has absolutely no reason to lie, and she had no interest in making this public before she was compelled to, citing her civic duty. We all saw her at the hearing, and like so many people across the country, I was riveted, and I watched with tears in my eyes. Dr. Ford was so brave and compelling. She was so real. The memories she recounted were heartbreaking; the fear she felt when she was being attacked; the relief she felt when she finally made it out of the house; the laughter between Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge she will never forget; the fact that she is 100 percent sure it was Brett Kavanaugh who attacked her.

Millions of people watched her, and so many women and survivors were inspired by her bravery. Dr. Ford made a credible allegation of a serious offense that needs to be taken seriously.

We have also heard from other women--Ms. Ramirez, Ms. Swetnick--with their own experiences to share. They should be listened to. They should be heard. We should presume they are telling the truth, and Republican leaders should allow a full investigation into their allegations because, in the end, despite what some Republicans tried to claim, this is not a trial. We are not supposed to weigh evidence and make judgment about innocence or guilt. Our job as Senators is to weigh what we know, weigh what we hear, weigh what we learn, and use our own judgment to determine whether a nominee deserves a promotion to the highest Court in the land. Based on everything I know about the allegations made against Judge Kavanaugh, he should not be confirmed, and he should not be in a position to make decisions on the Supreme Court that impact women and families and the future of our country, which takes me to my second point: Judge Kavanaugh's serious credibility issues.

I went through this in some detail on the floor yesterday. I will not go through all of it again, but time and again, in his initial hearing and then even further in his second hearing, Judge Kavanaugh made it clear he has serious issues with the truth.

He testified under oath directly to Senators and made claims that simply defy belief on issues big and small. Again and again, he made claims that were contradicted either through emails that were uncovered or from others who felt compelled to come forward after hearing what he said that simply did not align with what they knew to be true.

If we can't trust what he has said to us on those issues, if we know some of what he said is simply false, how can we trust him on so many other issues? Surely, the least we can expect from someone nominated to serve on our Nation's highest Court has a basic commitment to honesty and truth, especially while under oath. This shouldn't be a partisan issue. It is just common sense, which brings me to the third point I want to make.

Like so many people watching last week's hearing, I was shocked by Judge Kavanaugh's raw anger, his rage, disrespect, sense of entitlement, and sneering condescension; from his apparent bafflement that he even had to respond to credible allegations against him to his attempt to throw questions back at Senators, asking them instead of actually answering them himself, to his open partisanship, his bitterness, to his rage and anger, and so much more.

I cannot imagine any Senator seeing what we saw in that hearing, watching a nominee make a display like that and thinking this person is fit to serve as an impartial judge on our Nation's highest Court.

I know President Trump loved Judge Kavanaugh's performance. It seemed to inspire him to move from calling Dr. Ford a credible witness to openly mocking and attacking her, and it sounds like it has galvanized him to fight even harder for the man whose anger and defensiveness he clearly identifies so closely with.

I thought it was truly awful. It was not the kind of temperament we should want on the Supreme Court, and I can only hope enough of our colleagues agree.

Once again, I believe Dr. Ford, and, to me, Judge Kavanaugh has shown so clearly he does not have the temperament or credibility to serve on the Supreme Court, but for any of my colleagues who may not be persuaded and have bravely stood up to ask for more information and a thorough investigation and for all of us who believe the Senate should do its job and get this right, we can't rush this to a finish line.

A truly thorough investigation must be completed, as promised, so Senators hear from all the relevant witnesses and gather all the relevant information before we cast a vote on this confirmation. It can be done quickly, but it has to be done right because if this does end up being jammed through, as apparently currently Republican leaders intend to do, it will completely undermine the public's trust and the credibility of the Supreme Court as information continues to come out from investigations that will continue whether or not he is confirmed. It will eliminate any remaining trust people have in Senate Republican leaders to allow us to fulfill our constitutional advice and consent role and not just be a rubberstamp for the President, and it will cause tremendous anger and backlash across the country from those who are shocked to see the voices of women and survivors ignored like this.

I ran for the Senate after I saw what happened to Anita Hill in 1991. Based on everything I am seeing and hearing across the country, all the anger and energy and focus, I am confident that if women and their voices are attacked, undermined, and disrespected once again, we are going to see a wave of anger and frustration and activism that makes 1992 look like a ripple. We still have time to do this right. We still have time to do better than the Senate did in 1991. We still have time to restore the public's faith that women will be listened to.

I urge my colleagues to join me, vote no tomorrow, and end this mad dash to confirmation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, earlier this year, I heard from an elementary school principal in Washington State about how the opioid crisis was hurting the kids in his school. Students at his school were having trouble focusing in class as they dealt with the trauma of a family member's substance use at home. Some of his teachers were having trouble understanding how best to help those students with their trauma.

I also heard from the staff at a hospital about how they deliver many babies to mothers struggling with opioid addiction. Many are born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, battling with symptoms of withdrawal.

I have heard from countless other families across my home State of Washington about how the opioid crisis has impacted their loved ones.

Our communities have been crying out for action to address the root causes and ripple effects of the opioid crisis that have caused so much heartbreak for so many people. Today, we are making an important step to answer that call.

The legislation we are passing today includes a wide set of policy solutions from both sides of the aisle to help tackle this problem from many different angles. Many people helped craft this legislation and offered their own valuable insights, ideas, and solutions, and I am grateful to all of them.

I especially want to thank the committee leaders in both Chambers who did so much to bring this together: Senators Wyden, Feinstein, Alexander, Hatch, and Grassley in the Senate, and Congressmen Pallone, Neal, Nadler, Walden, Brady, and Goodlatte in the House.

I am grateful to Leader Schumer and Leader McConnell and several others who were particularly helpful in this process.

I thank Senators Heitkamp, Donnelly, Markey, Hassan, Casey, Manchin, McCaskill, Baldwin, Nelson, Kaine, and so many more. And of course I thank my staff and the many other members of the staff who worked on this as well.

The bill we all crafted together is a meaningful, bipartisan compromise. It is not what I would have written on my own, and it is not what other colleagues would have written on their own, but it is a collection of impactful, commonsense solutions where we were able to find common ground--ideas that respond to the root causes and the ripple effects our communities are facing.

It includes support for State efforts to improve plans for safe care for children born to mothers battling substance use disorders, like those at the hospital I visited. It ensures that the Health Department is implementing strategies already identified to protect moms and babies from the effects of opioid substance abuse.

It includes provisions to develop a task force and grants to help support trauma-informed care programs and increase access to mental health care for children and families in their communities, including at schools like the one the principal told me about, and provisions to build on critical public health activities to prevent opioid misuse from occurring in the first place.

It includes provisions to address the economic and workforce impacts of the opioid crisis, such as support for training to help the nearly 1 million people out of work due to opioid use disorder to gain and retain employment, as well as provisions to strengthen our behavioral workforce so patients and families can access the treatment they need.

It continues meaningful grants that help States address the most pressing problems associated with substance use disorders in their communities and makes those grants more flexible and available to our Tribal communities who are suffering deeply with the impact of substance use disorders.

It expands access to treatment services by making more providers eligible to prescribe medication-assisted treatment.

It includes provisions to help the Food and Drug Administration address the crisis as well, such as giving it new authority over packaging and disposal of opioids, as well as many other steps to help those on the frontlines of this epidemic.

I am glad we can include so many voices in this discussion and that it led to a bill that offers so many ideas to address the different angles of this crisis. I look forward to seeing this bill become law so it can start helping our families and communities as we work to reach everyone impacted by this nationwide fight against opioid use disorder.

This is an important bill, and it is an impactful step forward. It is not a final step by any means. The opioid crisis is ongoing, and our efforts to address it must be as well. I am going to keep listening to people in Washington State about what they need to respond to this question and working with my colleagues in Washington, DC, to provide the resources and solutions that will help make a difference.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, across the country, women and survivors are angry; they are energized; and they are making their voices heard. They are inspired by Dr. Ford, and they are sharing stories of their own, often of the worst moments of their lives--some for the first time ever with their families, with their friends, and their Senators. There are too many to share in one speech on the Senate floor, but I want to touch on just a few.

I heard from a woman in Sequim, in Washington State, who wrote to me.

She writes:

There have been rare moments in my life when I have felt

compelled to speak out. This is one.

She told me, when she was in junior high school, she dated a boy she thought was ``one of the nicest guys ever.'' Then, one day, she went to his house while his parents were at church, and he assaulted her--he tried to rape her. She only barely managed to escape and run from his house. She said she never told anyone about this because she didn't know who would believe her. She was worried that people would think it was her fault. She told me that after Dr. Ford found the courage to come forward with her experience, she found the courage to share her own.

Another woman from Everett, WA, reached out to me to share that she was sexually assaulted in a hotel elevator in the early 1970s. She didn't tell a soul for 40 years--until just a few days ago. She said that since that day all those years ago, she has avoided getting into an elevator alone with another man if she possibly could, taking the stairs instead. She told me: ``It happened a long time ago, but it still matters,'' that she was inspired by the women who had so bravely spoken out about Judge Kavanaugh, and that she shared her story with me in the hopes that I could make sure her voice and the other voices of so many women were heard.

I heard from another woman who lives on the Olympic Peninsula in my home State of Washington. She told me that when she was in college, she was raped by a man with whom she was out on a date. She remembered his name, but because she believes she was drugged, there were a whole lot of details she didn't remember. She didn't tell anyone about her experience for years. She reached out to tell me that she understood why Dr. Ford didn't come forward and to express her anger that people continue to attack survivors, doubt them, and say they are ``just mixed up.''

There are so many more. I have received tens of thousands of letters and calls on this nomination with hundreds and hundreds of personal stories that my staff and I are still working to get through. They are heartbreaking, they are real, and they are just one small slice of the experiences being shared, the stories that are being told, and the voices that are bravely speaking up.

While these women and survivors are so bravely sharing experiences and while so many of us in the Senate are making it clear we do believe them and support them, others are going in a very different direction.

Last night, the President of the United States stood on a stage and openly mocked Dr. Ford for not remembering some details of what she has described as the most traumatic moment of her life. It was disgusting. Some of my colleagues in the Senate are doing everything they can to undermine the women sharing their experiences, saying they are ``mixed up.'' They say that the Senate is going to ``plow right through this.''

The word coming out from the White House is that they are doing everything they can to limit and rush the FBI investigation that they assured Democrats and Republicans would be full and thorough.

I come to the floor today to ask three questions.

When this is all said and done, will the Senate--the U.S. Senate--be a place where women are heard, where their voices are respected, or still a place where women are ignored, undermined, and attacked?

Will the Senate do its job--truly do its job--to properly vet and investigate the President's nominee for a lifetime position on our Nation's highest Court, including pushing for a full FBI investigation where at least Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh are interviewed, making sure all relevant witnesses are heard and all relevant information is brought forward, or will we allow politics and partisanship to take over and rush this through before our job is complete?

Finally, will the Senate make sure we don't put someone on the Bench who has repeatedly had problems with the truth under oath, who has displayed truly serious temperament issues, who has not demonstrated the judicial independence that we expect for a nominee to the Supreme Court, and who has displayed a shocking lack of fitness for that role?

Those are the questions I believe we need to be asking today, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done before we can answer them.

There have been a whole lot of distractions in the past few weeks-- from yelling and screaming and outrage, real and feigned, to the finger-pointing, to the partisanship, to the spin and the kicking up of mud--but if you cut through all of that and focus on what is real and what is important, there are some things we do know.

First and foremost, we all saw Dr. Ford testify under oath. I can't imagine anyone watching her and not being moved by her honesty, how real she was, her pain, and her commitment to what she described as her ``civic duty.'' I believe her, and I know so many others watching that day here in the Senate and across the country did as well.

Then we had Judge Kavanaugh. He came into that hearing angry, defensive, and aggrieved. He clearly acted as if he is owed a seat on the Supreme Court and didn't understand why the U.S. Senators had the audacity to question him.

Even worse than his rage, even worse than his condescension and arrogant entitlement, and even worse than the raw partisan bitterness from someone who would be entrusted to make impartial decisions regarding the biggest issues facing our Nation were the serious challenges he had with the truth under oath, in public, to the U.S. Senate, from his small, seemingly unnecessary mistruths about what words used in his yearbook meant--words I will not repeat on the Senate floor, but the people who went to school with him don't understand why he would say what he said; to those about his connections to Dr. Ford, such as claiming he and Dr. Ford didn't ``travel in the same social circles,'' when we know that is just not true; to claiming that he never attended a gathering like the one Dr. Ford described, when there is one very similar to that on the calendar that he himself released; to those my colleagues have talked through before, such as those involving his level of involvement in the confirmation of President Bush's judges, which we learned about as emails to and from him were uncovered and released; to

those involving emails stolen from my Senate colleagues that he denied knowing he had received, when, again, his emails show that wasn't the case; to another we just recently learned about--his claim that the first time he heard about Ms. Ramirez's allegations against him was when he read about them in the press, although we have now heard from people who have seen text messages showing Judge Kavanaugh personally working to coordinate a defense against the allegations before that story was ever published; to his denials over and over in different ways that he drank to extreme excess in high school and college, that he never ``blacked out'' or had memory lapses from drinking, when we know from so many people who have now come forward to share stories of his high school and college days that his version simply doesn't align with reality.

The Washington Post laid this out yesterday. I will read a few of the quotes from their reporting.

One friend of his from college said that Judge Kavanaugh was ``a frequent drinker and a heavy drinker.''

Another classmate of his in college said, ``Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him'' and ``It's not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess.''

Another classmate said: ``There is no doubt in my mind that while at Yale, he was a big partyer, often drank to excess. And there had to be a number of nights where he does not remember.''

I could go on and on. I have other, numerous stories from classmates that you can find yourself in the Washington Post.

It is not disqualifying to drink in college. It is not disqualifying to drink too much in college. But it is absolutely disqualifying to not tell Senators the truth under oath about doing those things. It speaks to the kind of person Judge Kavanaugh is, and it speaks to the kind of Supreme Court Justice he would be if he were to be confirmed--someone who thinks they are above the law, above the truth, and above the oath they have raised their hand and sworn by. That should absolutely be disqualifying.

Those are just a few of the honesty and credibility issues that we know about. There are many more I am sure my colleagues will discuss, and I am sure there are others that can be uncovered in a full investigation. That is the most important point. As I said before, we don't know everything just yet, but we do know some things, and everyone should agree that what we know is enough to want to dig deeper and get more information. That is why it is so telling that Judge Kavanaugh and his Republican defenders and protectors so clearly did not want any further investigation.

We had Dr. Ford willing to share her story, take a polygraph, and open herself up to any questions and further investigations to help to get to the truth. Then we had Judge Kavanaugh doing everything possible to sweep this under the rug, move through it as quickly as possible, and prevent any information from coming out. That tells us a lot.

I am so glad a few of my Republican colleagues have done the right thing and slowed down this nomination to allow further investigation. There should have been more of them speaking up, and doing our jobs shouldn't be such a brave act. But in this moment in the Republican Party, it is, and I do commend them.

Here is the bottom line: Any of my colleagues can yell and scream until they are blue in the face about how aggrieved they are about this process. They can point fingers, push conspiracy theories, call it a sham, and say that this has gone on for longer than anyone wanted it to. They can do all that. I think they are wrong, and a lot of what they are complaining about is the ranking member of the committee respecting the wishes of Dr. Ford herself. Sure, they can do that, but at the end of the day, we are talking about a lifetime seat on the highest Court in the land, the Court making final decisions about our laws, our rights, and our freedoms. Surely we should take the time to do this right. Surely we should all want to make sure we don't put someone on the Court who sexually assaulted someone. Surely we should want to take the full amount of time promised to fully investigate credible allegations and determine whether Judge Kavanaugh told us the truth under oath. That is common sense, and it happens to be our job.

My Republican colleagues held a seat open on the Supreme Court for more than a year for no reason at all other than to prevent President Obama's nominee from getting on the Court--more than a year. Now, all of a sudden, these same colleagues are in a rush? It is absurd.

We need to do this right. What does that mean? What is doing it right? First of all, it means making sure the FBI thoroughly investigates right now, that it is not limited in scope or pressured to not follow leads wherever they go.

As my colleague, the Senator from Arizona, said, ``We certainly want the FBI to do a real investigation. It does no good to have an investigation that just gives us cover.

Even President Trump said, ``I think the FBI should do what they have to do to get to the answer. I want them to do a very comprehensive investigation.''

I completely agree.

I am very concerned by some of the reporting coming out of the FBI investigation--especially hearing about the witnesses who have not yet been contacted. I am hoping they are allowed to do their jobs, and I am hoping the White House fulfills its commitment to the Democrats and Republicans focused on getting this done right.

Secondly, as we learn more, we should take that information into account. We should make sure all relevant witnesses are heard from, that all relevant information comes out--nothing swept under the rug-- because there is one other thing we can be pretty sure of: Whether the information comes out now or comes out later, it will come out. We can either make sure we stop someone from getting on the Court who shouldn't be on the Court, or we can find out later that we--the Senate--didn't do our job.

This started as a look into whether Judge Kavanaugh assaulted women and whether the U.S. Senate would listen to women sharing their experiences. It is still about that--very much so--but now it is about even more than that. It is about Judge Kavanaugh's temperament, his anger, his rage, and his entitlement. It is about his telling the truth or not to the public and to us here in the Senate.

So I say to my colleagues, as we learn more from this investigation and as more and more people come out to share their stories, even if you don't think you can determine conclusively that Judge Kavanaugh committed sexual assault, do we want someone on the highest Court in the land with this kind of relationship with the truth, and do we want someone with that much rage and bitterness and entitlement? I think the answer is clear right now, and I think there is a reason Judge Kavanaugh was so desperate to stop the full investigation.

I hope we don't allow corners to be cut and a nominee jammed onto the Supreme Court without truly doing our jobs. I hope we take seriously the anger, the pain, the voices, and the experiences of women across the country today. I hope we do this right.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to congratulate the YWCA for its dedication to supporting women, girls, and their families in honor of the organization's 160th anniversary.

YWCA is one of the oldest, largest, and most inclusive organizations in our Nation, and it has maintained a long history of distinguished service. The organization has been the forefront at some of the most important social movements of our time, from civil rights and women's equality, to healthcare reform and gender-based violence prevention.

Nationwide, YWCA has 210 local associations across 47 States and the District of Columbia that help to empower 2 million women, girls, and their families each year. In my home State of Washington, there are 11 YWCA local associations, all of which have been proudly serving women and girls for over 60 years. These YWCAs protect and empower hundreds of thousands of Washingtonian women and children each year, and I am grateful for their work.

YWCA is the largest network of domestic violence service providers in our Nation and provides critical services to more than half a million women and girls each year, including support programs for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. Now, more than ever, this is vital to ensuring the safety and well-being of survivors across the country. Additionally, YWCA associations offer economic empowerment programs that engage over 260,000 women and racial justice education and training programs that engage over 160,000 people.

I stand today in strong support of YWCA's mission to eliminate racism, empower women, stand up for social justice, promote peace, help families, and strengthen local communities.

I offer congratulations to YWCA on your 160 years of improving the lives of women and girls across the United States.

Thank you.

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

Mr. President, like millions of people across the country, I watched the hearing yesterday with a mix of so many strong emotions.

First, I watched Dr. Ford with tears in my eyes. She was so brave, so compelling, so real. The memories that she recounted--the memories that she will never forget--were heartbreaking: the living room, the stairs, the bedroom, the music turned up loud, the bed, Brett Kavanaugh drunk and on top of her, the feeling she had when he covered her mouth to stop her from screaming, the raucous laughter between Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge.

She remembered the way she felt it then and told it now: two boys laughing and having a good time while a scared 15-year-old girl lay pinned down on a bed, worried that she may die; the bathroom, listening for Brett and Mark to leave, hearing them bounce off the walls as they went back downstairs; leaving the house; the sense of relief that she escaped; and something anyone who has been a 15-year-old girl can understand, not wanting to tell her parents that she had been at a house with no adults, older boys, and beer. It was gutting.

Dr. Ford spoke for herself, but she was channeling the voice of millions of women and survivors across the country who are too often ignored, interrupted, bullied, or swept aside.

She was an inspiration, and I hope every one of my colleagues watched her speak and answer questions. She made it clear she was not there because she wanted to be but because she felt she had to be. She shared her story not because she wanted to create a spectacle or embarrass anyone but because she felt it was her civic duty to share what she knew about Judge Kavanaugh with the people making the decision about whether or not he should be on our Nation's highest Court.

The Republicans on that committee were too afraid to ask her anything themselves, but she did an amazing job keeping her composure under cross-examination by the prosecutor Republicans hired to question Dr. Ford on their behalf, and Dr. Ford made it clear over and over, politely but firmly, that she welcomed an investigation. She opened up herself to questions and scrutiny. She took a polygraph.

She remembered some details that further investigation could help expand

on, like seeing Mark Judge at the supermarket a few weeks later, and she seemed not to be able to understand why nobody was digging into these details that could help uncover even more.

She said she came to be helpful. She wants to be more helpful. She did her job as a U.S. citizen, and she was simply asking for Senators to do theirs.

Then, I watched Judge Kavanaugh, and, frankly, I was appalled and dismayed by the rage on his face; the sense of entitlement he displayed; refusing to answer questions, sneering at Senators while he demanded they answer his questions; the outrage that he was even being questioned about an issue like this after all he has done for his country; not an ounce of contrition; not a modicum of shame; the attempts over and over to turn this away from the substance, the allegations from women against him, and the facts that could shine a light on them, and toward attacks on the process and a political party; the continued falsehoods and evasions and things he said that just are not credible, from his claims that he never got blackout drunk and had memory lapses during a night of drinking, despite everything we have heard from people who know him and everything we have heard from him and about him in the past about his younger days, to his claim that he and Dr. Ford didn't ``travel in the same social circles,'' when we know that is just not true--he has said before that he was good friends with Holton-Arms girls, and we know Dr. Ford dated a good friend of Judge Kavanaugh, who introduced the two of them--to his absolutely false claims that the committee had already received all the evidence it needs, which as a judge, he knows is simply not the case, and on and on.

But the most striking thing to me was this--and this is something I hope every Senator pays close attention to because I know it is what people across the country saw vividly and repeatedly--and that is the fact that Judge Kavanaugh so clearly does not want an investigation. He does not want the facts to come out. He doesn't want other witnesses to be brought in who, if he is telling the truth, could corroborate his story and help clear his name.

He certainly doesn't want anyone to hear from the other two women who have come forward with their experiences regarding him and sexual assault and who are willing to come and testify under oath.

He wants to rush through this as quickly as he can with as little information as possible coming out. Is that how someone acts if they truly have nothing to hide? Is this how someone behaves if they truly want to clear their good name? Is this what someone truly innocent of everything he is being accused of would do?

I want to close by setting aside what I thought of the hearing yesterday for just a minute. I believe Dr. Ford. I thought she was telling the truth. But I want to set that aside to make one more point because maybe some of my colleagues watched that hearing yesterday and didn't see it the same way I did. Maybe they saw that hearing and thought Dr. Ford was credible, and they also thought Judge Kavanaugh was credible. Maybe they thought: This is a he said, she said, and I just don't know whom or what to believe.

Here is my message to those colleagues of mine. Yesterday's hearing does not have to be the final word. There is absolutely no rush--none, zero. We have an opportunity to take a breath and slow down and let this process work the way it is supposed to.

The 11 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee may have scrambled to rush this through their phase, but we do not have to follow suit here in the Senate. We can have the FBI investigation. We can continue our own investigations. We can bring in additional, relevant witnesses in the most appropriate ways or hold additional hearings.

I know we all want this to be over. Trust me, I wish we didn't have to go through this, but we simply cannot allow a Supreme Court Justice to be jammed through like this right now. It would be a disgrace. It would damage the integrity of the Supreme Court, and it would shred whatever integrity we have left here in the Senate.

So I say to those colleagues: Even if you hate how this process has gone so far, even if you wish this had been done differently and that the information had come out about these allegations sooner, even if you think this was bungled completely, even if you want to point fingers and blame Democrats for that--fine, but we are right here, right now. We are facing one of our most important jobs as Senators, laid out in article II, section 2 of our Constitution, to provide advice and consent on Supreme Court nominations.

We can litigate how this went later. I am sure there are ways it could have gone better. We can figure that out. We should figure that out so we can do better next time, but we should not--we cannot--let anger and pique over process and politics cloud what is clearly the right thing to do here.

I hear there are conversations going on in the Judiciary Committee right now about slowing down and starting investigations. I am hopeful that those end up leading us to being able to do our jobs. No one should want those allegations hanging out there or should want the investigations to happen and information to come out while he is on the Court.

Let's slow down. Let's learn more. Let's not put a man on the Supreme Court with these allegations swirling around him while we still have the opportunity to clear this up and get it right.

Finally, I want to say one more thing right now to women and survivors who are angry, who are dispirited, who have reached out to me and told me they are shocked; they are crying; they are in disbelief. To them, I say we all have a right to these tears, but we all have a duty not to give up. I am not giving up. I am not going to give up this fight of making sure that women who bravely come forward are not ignored, swept under the rug, or silenced by powerful men. I know that I stand with millions and millions of women and men across the country who are watching the U.S. Senate very closely right now and that they are not going to give up either.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of this week as Malnutrition Awareness Week.

Malnutrition Awareness Week is a multi-organizational, multipronged campaign that aims to educate healthcare professionals on how to identify and treat malnutrition, encourage patients to discuss their nutrition status with their healthcare providers, and increase awareness of nutrition's role in patient recovery.

While we know malnutrition can severely impact patients' health outcomes, we do not currently know the full extent of malnutrition plaguing our senior population. This is because national health surveys and indicators do not include screening measures for malnutrition. National surveys and indicators are crucial not only for identifying key issues, such as malnutrition, but also for shaping public health programs and guiding healthcare professionals. By fully understanding the health problem, we can refine these tools to better address health issues affecting older adults.

Similarly, older adults and their families need guidance on how to meet seniors' unique nutrition needs. National dietary guidelines, developed every 5 years by the Departments of Health and Human Services and of Agriculture, provide valuable information to the public in regard to a healthy diet. These guidelines are examples of Federal resources that could be tailored to reflect the nutritional needs of specific populations, such as older adults.

Since malnutrition can lead to greater risk of chronic disease, frailty, disability, and increases in health care costs, it is important to properly identify cases and provide adequate interventions, even as people transition across care settings. To strive toward this goal, we must consider options within the healthcare system and our Federal programs to improve care and nutritional support for older adults.

This week is an important opportunity to remember that the nutritional challenges facing people of all ages, and I hope my colleagues will join me in working to understand and address these challenges.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.