Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate will vote to confirm Molly Silfen to the Court of Federal Claims. Ms. Silfen is an experienced litigator and public servant who is highly qualified to serve as a judge on the Court of Federal Claims. She earned her B.S. from Yale College and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. After beginning her legal career in 2006 as an associate attorney at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett, and Dunner, she clerked for Judge Alan D. Lourie on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit from 2008 to 2010.

During her time in private practice, Ms. Silfen handled patent and trademark issues for both individual patent owners and major companies. She performed a significant amount of pro bono work as well, including representing a veteran seeking benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Ms. Silfen joined the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as an associate solicitor in 2013 and remains there today. In her work with the USPTO, she regularly briefs and argues appeals before the Federal Circuit and other Federal courts of appeals. She has argued 23 appeals before Federal courts of appeals and has served as counsel of record in five merits cases before the Supreme Court.

While with the USPTO, Ms. Silfen has also been detailed to the Civil Division of the Department of Justice and to the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of former Senator Leahy's staff on the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property.

Ms. Silfen's extensive experience at all levels of the Federal judicial system, along with her commitment to public service, will make her an exceptional addition to the Court of Federal Claims. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for her confirmation.

I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, the strongest military alliance in the world is the NATO alliance. President Joe Biden has made that alliance stronger than ever since its creation.

Countries like Finland now want to be part of that alliance for their own safety because they share our values. Countries like Sweden feel the same way. They want to be part of this alliance, which President Biden has supported completely.

It has never been stronger since its creation, and the contributions made by the alliance members to the war in Ukraine are unprecedented. It has never happened before. Nations from all over Europe and nations that share our values are standing behind the NATO alliance.

To hear the suggestion on the floor of the Senate that somehow there is a weakness in the Biden administration when it comes to NATO is belied by the facts and the truth.

The fact of the matter is, as well, that when you look back at the previous President, named Donald Trump, chart what he has to say about Ukraine now. He questions whether we should be helping them at all. He questions whether or not we should make Vladimir Putin angry.

You all know and remember, as I do, as well, that during the 4 years of the Trump administration, there was this ambivalence, this bromance between Putin and Trump that no one could explain. And now to have someone come to the floor and say Joe Biden isn't strong enough when it comes to standing behind the people of Ukraine, that is just flatout wrong.

The support for the Ukrainian people against Vladimir Putin is universal across--I shouldn't say ``universal.'' Let me strike that word. It is almost universal and should be universal across all Members of Congress. Democrats and Republicans alike in the Senate believe that we are doing the right thing as a nation standing behind the people of Ukraine.

As a cochair of the Ukrainian Caucus in the U.S. Senate, I believe this in my heart and soul: If the Ukrainians do not prevail over Vladimir Putin, I am afraid we are going to have more wars to fight. I can think of other countries that are vulnerable to his expansionist dreams: Poland, for goodness' sake; the Baltic States; Moldova. The list goes on and on.

President Biden has made a stand in Ukraine, and it is the right position to take. To suggest that the NATO alliance is not behind him is wrong. They are behind him in a way that is unprecedented in history.

I am happy to report that I am not only pleased to support the Ukrainians in this effort, but I think we have done everything that we should do.

Now, remember, President Biden has an important decision to make each time someone suggests a new weapons system: Will this be provocative? Will it lead to expansion of the equipment used in war, even to nuclear weapons?

That is an important question. I don't know if I could sleep at night if I had to worry about my decision the next morning and whether it would trigger a nuclear war. But that is what President Biden faces day after day, after day. People who come in and say, ``Just send every weapon system and don't think twice about it,'' don't understand the burden of the Presidency--to make sure we do the right thing to support the Ukrainian people, but not a provocative action that draws in American forces or runs the risk of nuclear war.

The President has to make the careful decision with every weapons system. So if it takes an extra day or week, do it right, Mr. President. Don't be pushed into it by those who really can't understand the gravity of each of these decisions. Stand behind the Ukrainian people. Do it through the NATO alliance. Do it in a way that doesn't expand this war to include American troops or to make it a nuclear conflict. That, I think, is the bottom line.

Mr. President, it was 10 years ago, roughly, when the inauguration of Barack Obama took place. It meant a lot to me. He was my colleague in the Senate for a number of years. He was my friend. I endorsed him for President. I was the first Senator to endorse him, and, for 14 months, I was the only Senator who endorsed him.

I traveled to Iowa many times to campaign for him as President. And, of course, I remember that glorious, cold, cold day when he took the oath of office out here on the steps of the Capitol. It was cold, but there were huge crowds. I will never forget it. I was lucky enough, being in the Senate and a friend of his, to be on the platform when he took the oath of office. And when my friend Barack Obama reached his hand over and put it on the Bible of Abraham Lincoln to take his oath of office, I was witnessing, along with America, a moment in history I had never dreamed of.

It meant a lot to many other people too. There was a class from a school in Chicago that decided to send out their students and their band to march and to honor the new President. They were as proud of him as I was, maybe more so. It was an African-American school class, and it included in its rank a young lady named Hadiya Pendleton.

After she witnessed that swearing-in, she went back to Chicago. Sadly, 2 weeks later, she was senselessly shot down and killed on the South Side. She was 15 years old. President Obama's wife Michelle Obama came to her funeral in Chicago to honor this wonderful little girl-- young girl--who came to that capital to be part of history and only lived a few weeks afterwards.

Friday would have been Hadiya Pendleton's 26th birthday. I joined community members in Chicago at a violence prevention center called BUILD. The people I spoke to were united not only in wearing orange to signify their unity but in sharing the belief that we have to do more to protect our communities from gun violence.

In the more than 10 years since Hadiya was killed, America's crisis of gun violence has gotten progressively worse. Today, gunfire is the No. 1 killer of America's children. Think about that for a second--gun violence, the No. 1 killer of America's children today, of all the things they face in life.

One in five Americans now say they have lost a loved one to gun violence--one in five. Many Americans say they live in fear of sending their kids to school or the local grocery store or church, that they will become targets of the next mass shooting.

Last weekend, sadly, at least 46 people were shot in the city of Chicago during the weekend. Ten died. This includes a horrific mass shooting in the Austin neighborhood, where seven people were shot and one died just blocks away from where the new mayor lives.

Some politicians claim, well, that is part of American life; we have to accept it. I think they are wrong, and nearly 90 percent of Americans who support new gun safety laws agree it is time for Congress to do something. That is why it is unbelievable to me, having served in this body for a number of years, that this week the Senate Republicans want to take us backwards and weaken an existing gun law, one that has been on the books since 1934, almost 90 years: the National Firearms Act.

Congress passed this law almost 90 years ago to set strict rules around particularly dangerous firearms like machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, and short-barreled rifles, but right now, the Republican effort on the floor wants to wipe away a regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives which restricts devices that can convert pistols into short-barreled rifles.

The device is known as a stabilizing brace. When you attach one to a pistol, you can hold the weapon against your shoulder to fire it. It is accurate like a rifle but easily concealed, more like a handgun. That is exactly why, for almost 90 years, short-barreled rifles have been regulated in the United States. This kind of weapon is still being used. It was used by the mass shooter who killed 9 people and injured 17 others in Dayton, OH, in 2019 and by another mass shooter in Boulder, CO, in 2021 who killed 10 people.

Now, ask yourself, is this what America needs in the year 2023: weakening gun laws that have been on the books since Franklin Roosevelt was President, making it easier to conceal short-barreled rifles in your handbag or backpack? Absolutely not. But this Republican proposal, at this moment of gun violence and bloodshed in America, would make it easier for mass shooters and criminals to access these dangerous weapons.

Under the ATF rule, gun owners have a number of ways to comply. They can take the brace off their pistol or put a longer barrel on it, but they cannot have a short-barreled rifle without being subject to regulations from that 1934 National Firearms Act, which included registration and limits on transfers.

The ATF's regulation on pistol braces is just common sense. More importantly, it will save lives. The only question is, Why are the Republicans bringing this up at this moment in our history? Why? Is it for the gun lobby or for the American people?

Mr. President, on another topic, last month, a few of my colleagues and I had a memorable meeting with the former interim President of Venezuela, Juan Guaido. After a heroic and determined effort to bring some semblance of democracy and stability to the once-proud nation of Venezuela, he and his young family fled in fear for their safety and future. He showed me the harrowing photos of his wife and two young daughters fleeing secretly over land and across a dangerous river into Colombia--a story that, sadly, isn't unique or even the worst I have heard.

Under the current Maduro regime, Venezuela is a politically repressive failed state. I visited with this President in Caracas before the discredited 2018 election, and what I saw and what continues today is heartbreaking. There are people starving and fainting at work from malnutrition, hospitals without electricity and basic medicines, brutal political repression and torture, and staggering corruption and the dismantling of what is left of that country's democracy. It is not surprising, then, that over the last decade, more than 6 million Venezuelans have fled their country in despair and fear, traveling to neighboring nations and some onward to the United States.

Yesterday, I went to the Piotrowski Park shelter in Chicago, and I met with a number of these Venezuelan immigrants, some of whom were bused into Chicago from Texas. It is not the first time I have sat down with these immigrants to hear their stories. The city of Chicago, like many other cities, is doing the best they can to provide good, humane care for these people and these families.

I asked one woman about the journey she made. She sat right next to me with three little boys, the cutest kids you have ever seen--7 years old, 5 years old, and 3 years old--and she told me what it meant to take them through the jungles in Panama and realize that at any moment they could perish. That is how desperate she was for freedom, how desperate she was to get to the United States. Hers is not a unique story; it is a story repeated over and over.

I want to especially thank Kate Maehr at the Greater Chicago Food Depository and the New Life Community Church, Matt DeMateo, for his leadership and helping this woman's desperate family and so many other migrants arriving in Chicago.

Previously, I, along with several colleagues, urged the previous administration and then President Biden to grant temporary protected status to these Venezuelans. TPS is a temporary immigration status provided to foreign nationals if returning to their country would pose a serious threat to their safety because of ongoing conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary conditions. It is the kind of commonsense move self-confident nations and leaders take to demonstrate global leadership and compassion--one I was glad President Biden made early in his Presidency.

The original designation covered Venezuelans who arrived in the United States by March of 2021. Today, I call on the administration to make a similar designation for more recent Venezuelan arrivals. The Venezuelans I met in Chicago will tell you that conditions have only worsened since 2021. A new TPS designation would not provide permanent immigration status but, instead, a measure of American decency and solidarity with those who face violence and chaos in Venezuela.

Mr. President, there are parts of this letter which I find incredible. We received it late last night.

As I mentioned before, Harlan Crow, the Texas billionaire who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars of undisclosed gifts to this Supreme Court Justice over a period of 20 years, now refuses to tell us anything about what those gifts involved, how much was spent, who was there, what this was all about. He says he can't tell us that because we don't have any authority in Congress over that branch of government--the Supreme Court.

Well, he is wrong about that. It turns out, the ethics laws that we passed in Congress in years gone by have been upheld by other courts and followed by them, but it is only one court in the land that has decided it won't follow

those standards. The highest Court in the land has decided it will have the lowest ethical standards.

It is hard to understand. Here is Harlan Crow, the Texas billionaire, spending all this money on one Supreme Court Justice, saying that we cannot, in Congress, ask hard questions about the ethical standards of the highest Court in the land because it would put undue influence on the Court.

Bottom line: Undue influence is what this is all about. No one should be able to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a Senator, a Congressman, or certainly a Supreme Court Justice without full disclosure and compliance with the law.

For the Supreme Court to say that is asking for too much, I think the American people can draw their own conclusions. They have a right to know, if Harlan Crow thinks our passing an ethics code for the Supreme Court would put undue influence on the Court, how does he explain spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on gifts, trips, on yachts, and chartered airplanes for a Supreme Court Justice? Is he not seeking undue influence on the same Court? It is obvious that it is true.

What surprised me after I received this letter--and, once again, was offended by the logic of it, if there is any--at the end of the day, I looked online today to find that this attorney, Michael Bopp, is saying that he made an offer now to meet with the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I read the letter for a third time. And I thought, how did I happen to miss that? Well, it turns out it is the final sentence in the letter. And I would like to read it to you.

Please feel free to have your staff contact me with any

questions concerning this response and to set up a time to

further discuss your requests.

That, I suppose, is the offer to meet. I am not going to turn it down. We are going to meet with him if he wishes to discuss this further.

But before we go any further than that conversation about this committee, let me make a reference to the bottom line in this controversy. Chief Justice John Roberts, the person that this Court is named after, as all Chief Justices are--the Roberts Court has the authority this afternoon, before 5 o'clock, to announce a resolution to resolve this issue once and forever, to make sure that the Court steps away from the sordid affair with the right conclusion. To put a code of ethics in a standard of ethical conduct in place will bring this Court into the same world of reality as the rest of the courts in the United States.

The American people need to have confidence in this Court. And hiding gifts of hundreds of thousands of dollars, not disclosing, and paying no price when they are finally discovered is not the way to convince the American people that the Court is credible.

We are going to continue in the Senate Judiciary Committee to do all that we need to do to get to the bottom of this controversy. The American people have a right to believe in this Court, as they do in this Congress. And we have to do everything under our power to make sure that happens.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, this is a historic day in the annals of the U.S. Senate because we are faced with a critical role as to whether we can pass the bipartisan compromise on spending or default on our debt for the first time in history, whether we will fail as a nation for the first time ever--ever--to pay our bills.

There is a strange construction in the law where we can vote in the Senate and in the House for spending, send it to the President, who signs it into law, go back to our States and districts and announce in press conferences that we have millions of dollars coming home--Federal dollars--back home to our States and districts and take credit for it and then not face the reality that the money appropriated actually adds to our national debt.

The debt ceiling is the mortgage of the United States, which needs to be expanded as we spend money. So we reached a point where we have a deadline--first June 1 and now June 5--of doing something in Congress to extend the Nation's mortgage or default on that mortgage and debts for the first time in history.

There was a ferocious negotiation that went on for weeks. It was precipitated by the threat of one person on Capitol Hill, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who said: I am willing to risk defaulting on America's debt. All the other leaders, including the Republican leader in the Senate and the Democratic leader, said that is unthinkable; we would pay a price for that for generations to come. The reputation of the United States, the value of the U.S. dollar would be in danger because of such a careless and reckless act.

So negotiation was underway for the last few weeks; an agreement was reached to Speaker McCarthy's satisfaction; and it passed the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday.

Now it is our turn in the Senate. We have taken a look at this agreement. First, let me say the premise is this. Defaulting on our national debt is unacceptable, unthinkable. We cannot let it occur.

So as painful as some of the decisions that will come from this agreement reached, they are virtually, at this point, inevitable to avoid default on our debt.

There is one I want to zero in on because it means so much to everyone in this Nation--and most people don't realize that it has been part of the debate and negotiation in this compromise--and that is the question of America's commitment to medical research.

The National Institutes of Health is the preeminent medical research institution in the world--in the world. When it comes to discovering cures for diseases, new medications, it is the National Institutes of Health and the

Food and Drug Administration which are charged with that responsibility, and we lead the world in research. I am such a fan of this Agency that I can speak for a long time about what they are doing.

But suffice it to say, if you or a member of your family have a diagnosis from a doctor that scares you to death, one of your first questions is, Doctor, is there anything we can do? Is there a medicine? Is there a surgery? Is there anything we can do?

Some of us have asked that question and we pray that the answer is yes and we pray that it leads us back to the NIH and all the work they put in.

So here is what we face with the budget agreement that passed the House, now headed to the Senate. We asked the experts on the budget to tell us what is going to happen to the budget of the National Institutes of Health--the preeminent medical Agency in the world--as a result of Speaker McCarthy's demand that we cut spending. What will happen is this. We face this prospect almost with certainty. We are going to see a cut in the NIH spending for the first time in 10 years. For 10 years, we have consistently increased research funds, and they paid off. Finding that vaccine for COVID as quickly as we did was no accident. It was planned through medical research. And it saved so many thousands of lives here in the United States and beyond.

So here we face, for the first time in 10 years, a cut in the budget of the National Institutes of Health. How much of a cut? At least $500 million--$500 million.

And I stepped back, and I thought to myself, you mean, we are going to cut medical research? That was Speaker McCarthy's idea of fiscal conservatism? That, to me, is mindless. It may have some political goal in mind, and I don't know what it might be, but to cut that makes no sense.

And let me suggest that my colleagues want to cut wasteful spending in Federal Government, and there is plenty of it. I know one obvious place to start. This projected cut of $500 million happens to match almost exactly the amount of money we waste each year maintaining an offshore military prison that only serves to violate our fundamental values and undermine the rule of law. You probably know what I am referring to: Guantanamo. In the 21 years since Guantanamo first opened, American taxpayers have wasted more the $7 billion on that facility--$7 billion. This $7 billion monument to bureaucracy and failed policy costs us $500 million a year to maintain now, the same amount we are cutting from medical research to maintain Guantanamo Bay.

You say to yourself, well, if it keeps us safe, it is worth it. How many detainees are being held by the United States of America today at the Guantanamo facility? Thirty. Thirty for $500 million a year. That is almost $17 million per year, per prisoner. Florence, CO, has a maximum-security prison for the United States of America. To maintain those prisoners in that maximum-security facility is around $30,000 a year. When it comes to Guantanamo, maintaining a facility for 30 of these detainees is costing us $17 million per detainee.

You know who called that a crazy idea? None other than former President Donald Trump.

For what great purpose are American taxpayers paying more than half a billion dollars every year to keep Guantanamo open? Is it to keep America safe, to detain convicted terrorists and threats to America? Guess again. Because right now, 16 of the 30 remaining detainees--more than half of them--have already been approved for release. That means we are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars every year to detain men who should have already been released. What is more, there are 10 other detainees who are still awaiting trials in the facility's dysfunctional military commissions.

How can we possibly explain to the world--let alone to our own citizens--that we have detained people for over 20 years and never charged them with a crime? The trial against five men charged in relation to 9/11 has not even begun, more than 2 decades since the attack on the United States.

And those who follow the military commissions the closest can tell you that these trials, let alone any convictions that might come down on appeal, are nowhere in sight. There is not even a plan.

Former Bush administration Solicitor General Ted Olson has a special level of expertise and interest in this issue. Ted also was chosen by the Bush administration to argue their cases before the Supreme Court. He is a respected lawyer in Washington, DC. Sadly, on 9/11, 2001, Ted Olson's wife died when a plane crashed into the Pentagon. She was a passenger. So he has a special interest in this matter and a special level of expertise.

Here is what he wrote about the idea of trials by military commissions of detainees at Guantanamo. He said they were ``doomed from the start.'' He is calling for the Biden administration to negotiate guilty pleas with all the 9/11 defendants. To state the obvious, we are failing the victims of 9/11 and their families by continuing the Guantanamo charade. These military commissions, which were supposed to be the court of law trying the detainees, have not or are unlikely to ever deliver justice.

In December of 2021, I chaired a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Guantanamo. One of our witnesses was Colleen Kelly, a nurse practitioner from the Bronx, mother of three. She testified about losing her younger brother Bill on 9/11. He was in the North Tower when the first plane crashed. Colleen described the pain of waiting--waiting almost 20 years after Bill's death, year after year after year--for something to happen.

In March, I received a letter from a young woman named Leila Murphy. She was 3 years old when her father Brian died on 9/11. For nearly 22 years, Leila Murphy has waited for a trial that has never come. In her letter to me, she pleaded with our government to bring this process to an end by securing guilty pleas from defendants in the 9/11 cases.

Leila, Colleen, and Ted Olson are not alone in calling on the Biden administration to finally deliver a shred of justice to the victims of 9/11 and their loved ones through guilty pleas. Just last week, Leila and several of the children and grandchildren of the victims who died on 9/11 wrote to the President. Here is what they said. They implored him to salvage ``whatever justice can still be had for the parents and grandparents we lost . . . [do] not let [this] drag on any longer,'' these survivors begged.

The signers in that letter included three daughters of New York firefighter Douglas Miller. He was among the more than 340 firefighters in New York who were killed when the towers collapsed. If you have seen the programs dedicated to these men and women, you cannot forget the bravery they demonstrated that day.

At the time of Mr. Miller's death, his daughters were just children. His firstborn Elizabeth was 7; Rachel was 6; Katie was 4. He and his wife Laurie had been sweethearts since high school. In their letter, Mr. Miller's daughters and other signers expressed how hopeful they felt last year when the 9/11 prosecution team began negotiations to finally obtain guilty pleas from defendants. They considered it a breakthrough that would finally bring closure; that would finally provide answers they had sought for more than 20 years.

But their hopes were crushed when the prosecution team recently indicated they are now going to start to open the pretrial litigation again. That was devastating news for these children, like Mr. Miller's daughters. In their letter, they wrote:

The thought of going back to endless courtroom proceedings,

when more than 10 years of litigation did not lead to trial,

is painful.

Returning to pretrial purgatory will not deliver justice to the loved ones that lost the people that they cared for so much. The only way to do this is by securing guilty pleas in the 9/11 cases.

And let's be honest, this will not be the full measure of justice these families deserve. Sadly--sadly--this is no longer possible. Because these families were robbed of true justice when the administration at the time decided to torture and abuse detainees in our Nation's custody and throw them into an untested legal black hole rather than trusting America's time-honored system of justice.

As Ted Olson wrote a few months ago:

Nothing will bring back the thousands whose lives were so

cruelly taken that September day. But we must face reality

and bring this process to an end. The American legal system

must move on by closing the book on the military commissions

and securing guilty pleas.

The Biden administration must complete the interagency process to review the terms of the plea deals without further delay. Securing guilty pleas from the detainees who had been charged with a crime will bring us one step closer to ending the shameful chapter of Guantanamo.

These men will then serve out their sentences--some for the rest of their lives.

When it comes to the detainees who had not been charged, they should be released. That means the State Department must find countries who will take the 16 men for the approved transfer. It is not an easy assignment, but it is one that is inevitable.

The United States is a Nation of laws. When we indefinitely detain people who have never been charged with a crime and who have been deemed safe to release, we are betraying our own basic constitutional values. And autocrats abroad point to the history of abuse and detention without charge or trial to justify their own human rights abuses. If you want to stand for liberty and the rule of law, be honest with the American people.

Guantanamo Bay is a blight on our national conscience, and it has been for a long period of time. It is time for us to accept reality. It is not only a waste--tremendous waste--of taxpayer dollars, but it is an injustice that must end.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

Madam President, we had a hearing this week in the Committee on the Judiciary. We had a grower from South Carolina, a guest of Senator Graham. He professes to be the second largest peach grower in America. I asked him point-blank: If you had E-Verify on your farm today, what would happen to you and the growers who need workers?

He said: We would be out of business tomorrow.

That's what your amendment does. It imposes E-Verify on farmers in Kansas and Illinois and all across the United States.

We are not ready for this. You are going to put them out of business.

And, secondly, it strips away all of the protections of unaccompanied children at the border. We do not want kids in cages anymore at the border. Please vote against this amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 110

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.