Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to print the following letter in the Congressional Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to print the following letter in the Congressional Record.

Mr. President, I listened carefully to the presentation by my colleague and friend, Senator Graham of South Carolina. I wanted to come to the floor to make it clear that he didn't tell you the whole story. In fact, in some ways, he didn't even get close.

Who is this judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson? How could she even be considered for the Supreme Court if she is the preferred pick of the radical left? Well, let's take a look at her background: an extraordinary story of a daughter of two public school teachers; the daughter of a father who decided he was going to go to law school, basically stopped working full time. Her mother supported the family. She was a little girl at the time. She remembers it well because there would be law books stacked on the kitchen table. She would come in as a little girl and bring her coloring books to sit next to her daddy while he was studying for law school. He went on to become a lawyer. Family members were policemen. One of her uncles turned out to be the chief of police in Miami. She grew up in a very ambitious, determined, orderly family, and she certainly had respect for her family ties to law enforcement.

She was on the debate team in high school. One of the trips took her from Florida up to the campus of Harvard University. She was dazzled, believed that this just might be the answer to her dreams.

She came back to her high school and sat down with her high school counselor, who said to this young Black woman: Honey, you are shooting too high. I don't want your heart to be broken. Think about other schools. Don't think about that Harvard University school.

Luckily, she ignored that advice, applied, and was accepted.

She told the story before the hearing about being on the campus at Cambridge, not sure that it was the right decision, looking around, seeing a much different world than the one she grew up in, a much different group of people than she was used to socializing with. She must have shown it in her face because as she was walking across the campus one day, an African-American woman saw her, looked at her, and said: Persevere. Persevere.

Just that simple word captured everything for her, and she did. She persevered and completed her education at Harvard and went on to Harvard Law School. She was an outstanding student at the law school, so much so that she became a clerk to the Federal district court. She did such a good job, she was promoted to become a Federal circuit court clerk and then--the ultimate prize for any graduating law student in America--clerk to a Justice of the Supreme Court--Ketanji Brown Jackson--and what an irony that she worked for Justice Stephen Breyer, whose retirement has created the vacancy which she seeks.

Along the way, she staffed the Sentencing Commission. She worked in the Public Defender's Office. She became a Federal district court judge, cleared by this committee, the Judiciary Committee. This was her fourth time before the committee. Each time she appeared, there was bipartisan support, including the Senator who just spoke against her. Then, ultimately, the opportunity of a lifetime to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

For the hearing itself, first, I want to commend my Republican colleague Chuck Grassley. As chairman of the committee, a Democrat couldn't be any luckier than to have sitting in the chair next to you Chuck Grassley. He is a gentleman. He is a strong, faithful Republican, but he is a gentleman. We were determined to make this hearing for this judicial nomination to the Supreme Court different than some that had gone before.

I want to commend the Republicans on the committee. There are 11 of them. The majority of those Republicans asked tough, probing questions, as they should. They never got personal. They never raised their voices. They were respectful throughout, the majority of them. I am sorry to say that in a few instances, there were exceptions on that side of the aisle. But I think the hearing, by and large, was a good hearing despite a few differences, which I will note in a minute.

At the end of the day, you could not help but leave that hearing and think you had just seen, you had just witnessed a moment in history-- not just the first African American to aspire to serve on the Supreme Court but also a pillar of strength during her hearing. They threw it at her in every direction.

I can't tell you how many people have come up to me everywhere I have gone since that hearing and said the same thing: How did you sit through that? How could you put up with that?

And I thought, and I said to them: Think about her sitting in front of her husband and her daughters and some of the things that were said about her, things said again this morning on the Senate floor. She came out a pillar of strength, grace and dignity under pressure.

I looked up at that table several times and thought, Judge, if you stood up at this moment and said ``Enough. I am taking my family, and we are out of here,'' I would understand. But she never did. She never wavered. She was solid as a rock, and that is why it is my honor to support her and believe that she is going to make history.

Some of the things they said were outrageous. This case they want to make about her sentencing guidelines when it comes to sex crimes involving children and child pornography--what did she say about it? She said they were horrible and despicable crimes. But she didn't just say it before the committee when she was under assault. Listen to what she said in one of her cases, United States v. Hillie, a case involving sexual misconduct toward children. The true nature of these offenses, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said, lies in how they affected the children who you tormented for nearly a decade when you lived on and off with their mother. That is a substantial portion of their childhood. These two children carried a burden no child should have to shoulder--the burden of protecting themselves from a man charged with their care but who instead exploited them.

Then she went on to say:

This family has been torn apart--

she said to the defendant--

by your criminal actions. You saw it on the faces of those

women. You heard it in their voices. And the impact of your

acts on those very real victims who are still struggling to

recover to this day makes your crimes among the most serious

criminal offenses that this Court has ever sentenced.

Does that sound like she is soft on crime? Does that sound like she didn't remember she is a mother of daughters who cared for the impact those criminals had on the children and the family? Not in any way whatsoever.

You would draw a much different conclusion if you just listened to the arguments being made recently here on the floor, and it would be an unfair conclusion.

The bottom line, as far as I am concerned, is this: What they have left out in the presentation is critical to the very truth of their allegations. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is in the mainstream of sentencing when it comes to these cases. Seventy to eighty percent

of Federal judges divert from the guidelines as she has in some cases. And, let me add, her accusers have been voting for Federal judges proposed by President Trump right and left who do exactly the same thing she does.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a New York Times article of March 25, 2022, entitled ``Jackson's Critics Backed Judges With Like Rulings.''

It tells a story, and the story is very clear. We have a situation in this country where we have not upgraded the child pornography and sexual misconduct statutes in years. Across the board, 70 to 80 percent of sentences by Federal judges take the same position as Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. These so-called deviations from the guidelines have become commonplace. As I said, the overwhelming majority of Federal judges are doing this.

Well, is there a problem? There is. But the problem is that we have not upgraded the statute. We bear responsibility for this. The decision was made before the Supreme Court that these guidelines would not be mandatory. It was a decision joined by Antonin Scalia--the originalist, the conservative. It put the burden back on Congress, and we have not picked up that responsibility.

So you say to yourself: Well, if she were so soft on crime, it surely would have shown up in other places. Well, let me tell you what happened. The American Bar Association did a review of her career as a prosecutor, as a defender, on the bench. They interviewed 250 individuals--judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, other counsel who worked with her.

And I asked, pointblank, Judge Ann Williams, who led this investigation by the ABA: Did you hear from anyone who said she was soft on crime; that she somehow was not in the norm when it came to sentencing?

None. Not one. Two hundred fifty people interviewed, and not one came up with it.

All we have heard against her has come out of the mouths of three or four people on the committee, and that is it because there is no record for it.

Well, how did the American Bar Association grade her when it was all said and done? Unanimously ``well qualified.'' Unanimously ``well qualified.'' It doesn't sound like the same person just described, does it, because it isn't. What you have heard on the floor here is a mischaracterization of her record, and I am sorry to say it is unfair. And I wish it hadn't been part of the record today.

What about Guantanamo? Well, I have some serious differences with the Senator from South Carolina about Guantanamo. Hundreds of detainees have been sent to Guantanamo since the War on Terror began. Many of them should have been there, but hundreds and hundreds of them have been released by Presidents, Republican and Democratic. We are now down to 39 detainees. We are spending over $10 million for each one of them each year at Guantanamo Bay.

And when it comes to the resolution of who was responsible for 9/11, the families have come and testified before us. They have waited over 20 years, and they still don't have an answer. They understand that the approach at Guantanamo Bay is not leading to justice, and it is not answering the basic factual questions.

So what is her situation? Why would she dare to call the Republican President of the United States a war criminal? What was she thinking? Well, it sounds like a terrible charge until you read the facts.

The facts were she presented a brief, and the brief referred to a body of law known as the Alien Tort Statute. And the person she was representing in this brief was arguing that he was tortured and mistreated at Guantanamo Bay. So he filed a claim under the Alien Tort Statute. When you do that, you sue the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense. They were the named defendants. That included President Bush.

What the Senator from South Carolina failed to disclose was that, as that case was winding its way through, the administration changed, and if there was an allegation of a war crime against President Bush, it was the same allegation that was made when the administration changed and the name of the defendant changed to Barack Obama.

To argue that this was a personal charge against the President of the United States as a war criminal is a gross exaggeration and unfair on its face. The named defendants were required under the Alien Tort Statute for the allegations that were made. That wasn't her decision; that was the decision of Congress to write the specifics of the Alien Tort Statute.

The third point I want to make is immigration. Yes, we have challenges in immigration. I think we all know it. But to blame her and say that she is somehow responsible for the invasion--you saw the crowd of people coming across the border--is really unfair.

What happened was there was a lawsuit filed challenging a Trump decision on policy, and she was asked to rule on it. And she ruled in one direction. The appeal was taken, and she was reversed at the circuit court.

Now, according to the Senator who just made the presentation, evidence she is in the pocket of the radical left when it comes to immigration, evidence that George Soros somehow is controlling her decisions, is preposterous. The fact of the matter is, if you look at almost 600 decisions handed down by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, you will find a small, small percentage that were actually reversed.

And if you are looking for a second case to build the theory that she is on the radical left, I don't even think you found the first one. She has a balanced approach. She has ruled for and against Democratic and Republican Presidents. She has shown the kind of balance we expect on the Supreme Court.

I would say this notion that somehow Joe Biden has chosen someone who is radical is a shame. She is not. She is as solid as they come, and her testimony and her appearance before the committee proved that over and over again.

I also want to say I have nothing against the South Carolina judge who was in the finals but wasn't chosen by the President. In fact, President Biden has asked that she be promoted from the Federal district court to the Federal circuit court, and I would like to get that done as quickly as we can. I think Judge Childs is well deserving of that opportunity. She certainly is a good jurist.

But the choice by President Biden was clear, and it was the right choice. These charges that somehow she is soft on crime because she is an African-American woman and she was a public defender belie the actually record of this woman.

We should all be judged on our records. This notion that we are asked to identify ourselves by labels--we know that story, the 100 of us who sit on this side of the Capitol in the Senate Chamber. We are attached to labels which we embrace and some we don't embrace, but most people who are fair will say: I am not going to judge you by your label; I am going to judge you by your record.

If you judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by her record--written opinions, the fact that this was the fourth time she appeared before the Judiciary Committee and had been approved the three previous times, serving on the Sentencing Commission and so many other things--you know that it is an outstanding and stellar record, but you know it almost has to be. If you want to be the first, you have to be the best. She is the best.

Despite some of the things that have been thrown at her today and in other places, the American people came out of that hearing and felt better and stronger about her nomination than before the hearing began. It is evidence of the strengths that she brings to this nomination and the value that she will bring to the Supreme Court.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, we have some rare good news on the public health front. COVID cases are down at the lowest level since July. Crucially, hospitalizations and deaths are also down dramatically, more than 70 percent lower than they were in January during the Omicron wave. Compared to just a few months ago, our Nation is experiencing far less suffering and death, thank goodness.

But despite the progress we have made, COVID continues to be a threat. Every day, 800 American families lose a loved one to COVID--800 a day--and catch new infections, which present an opportunity for the virus to mutate.

We are at a turning point in this fight against COVID. Now, we need to strengthen our healthcare system. We need to stay a step ahead of this deadly virus. That is especially true since the subvariant of Omicron--BA.2, as it is known--has become dominant in America.

Remember the frenzy last holiday season when we were running from pharmacy to pharmacy trying to find rapid tests for our families or waiting in the freezing cold for hours on end to get a PCR test? Why would we ever want to be caught flatfooted again? We need to sustain our public health funding so that our hospitals and healthcare professionals have the equipment and tools they need to keep us safe.

The one thing dramatically worse than returning to the dark days of COVID-19 and the deadly variants would be to return unprepared. If we want to keep our masks off--and I do--if we want to keep our kids in school--and I do--and our businesses open, we need to make smart investments in America's capacity to confront future strains of these variants. We can't continue this cycle of neglect and panic. These pendulum swings harm our health system and contribute to unnecessary costs and suffering.

Congress must come together on a bipartisan basis. And shouldn't we all agree on this: that we move as a nation in the same direction? That means providing funding to purchase new booster doses, including those which the FDA authorized this week for adults over the age of 50. I got mine yesterday morning. If we don't purchase these vaccines now ahead of time, then we

will be sleepwalking into the next deadly wave.

We also need to ensure that as soon as the FDA authorizes a vaccine for kids under the age of 5, parents can get their kids protected as soon as possible.

Funding also is needed for oral antivirals and other therapeutics to treat patients who contract a serious case of COVID. These treatments will keep our hospitals from being overwhelmed.

And we need funding to maintain the testing infrastructure we have built up over the last several months, like President Biden's successful program to put up to 1 billion--billion--rapid tests right at the doors of every American who wants one.

The fact is, Congress should have already provided funding for these lifesaving resources, but we still haven't done it. This lack of funding has already hit my home State of Illinois. Last week, shipments of monoclonal antibody treatments to our State were scaled back 35 percent to preserve the supply. Also last week, thanks to a lack of funds, the Department of Health and Human Services announced they would no longer pay hospitals and health clinics for testing they have provided to 30 million uninsured Americans.

Several free community-based testing sites and pharmacies in Illinois are now closing up. The money is running dry. At one community health center in Illinois, one-third of the patients are uninsured. That clinic has received more than $150,000 to test, treat, and vaccinate the patients--money well spent not just to protect these patients but every Illinoisan. If Congress doesn't provide new funding, that health center may be forced to close for good.

All of us want to keep the masks off for good and move past this coronavirus, but to think we can just wish away COVID forever would be naive, irresponsible, and fiscally unwise.

I urge my Republican colleagues to join in a bipartisan effort to provide new funding for our COVID preparation response efforts. Let's be ready for whatever this virus might bring.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) is necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that prior to the

vote at 11:45, I be permitted to speak for 15 minutes and Senator Sherrod Brown be permitted to speak for 2 minutes.

Mr. President, last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee was busy. We met for over 30 hours to consider the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

During the meeting of the committee, hundreds of questions were posed to Judge Jackson. She spoke thoughtfully and at length about her years in public service, and, most importantly, she really imparted to the committee--and to America that has watched--what she thought about this great Nation, her pride in being an American, the opportunities which were given to her, and opportunities which she used to make this a better place for many.

I was one of the millions who came away from last week's hearing deeply impressed with Judge Jackson. It proved to me during the course of her testimony that the words over the steps of the Supreme Court, ``Equal Justice Under Law,'' are a personal challenge and an invitation to a person just like Judge Jackson.

But it appears some of our Republican colleagues are more reluctant to support her at this moment. She is still making the rounds. Over 50 Senators have received personal visits, and even more will during the course of this week. They have reservations, and I have spoken to some of them and listened to their statements. They say that they don't have any question about her qualifications or experience. Well, thank goodness. She has a stellar resume. Anyone who is a lawyer in this Nation would look at her with envy to think what she has achieved against the odds in her life.

Unfortunately, some of the members of the committee misrepresented her record on several issues. I would like to try to set it straight at this moment.

There seems to be this passion amongst some Republicans to get this nominee to state in a word or two her judicial philosophy. I find that interesting. If a person came up to one of my colleagues and said, ``What is your political philosophy?'' there are a number of things a person might say. They might say, for example, ``I am a fiscal conservative.''

You might then ask, ``Well, then why did you vote for the Trump tax cuts that gave tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and added almost $2 trillion to the national debt? And if you are a fiscal conservative, why is it that you only preach for a balanced budget amendment when there is a Democrat in the White House and never when there is a Republican?''

Basically what you are saying is, ``I can hear you and your declaration, but I want to know what you have done.''

When it comes to Judge Jackson, those who seek her judicial philosophy and want a simple label one way or the other just haven't done their homework. She has almost 600 published opinions. This woman, this jurist, has not held back in explaining, in case after case, how she views the law. It is there for the reading. Every Member of the Senate and the public has access to that information to get the true measure of a judicial philosophy.

What she said over and over again at the hearing was, I believe in judicial restraint. I think that is exactly what we need in a judge, personally. That is exactly what you will find when you review the hundreds of opinions she has written to date.

Then there is this litmus test question that meant so much to Senator McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, that he led off his opposition to Judge Jackson on the issue. And the issue, quite simply, is whether or not Judge Jackson is willing to say what her position is on increasing the number of Justices serving on the Supreme Court-- interesting question.

Most Americans think it has been nine for all time, but that is not true. I believe it was in 1869 that that number was established. Before then, it was a fewer number of Justices. It hasn't been changed since. There is speculation among some political quarters that people are thinking about changing it in the future.

So when it came to Senator McConnell's opposition to Judge Jackson because she said it is a policy matter to be decided by Congress, not to be decided by the Court, as to the composition and number on the Supreme Court, Senator McConnell went on to say that that disqualified her; that was the leading disqualification.

Well, you might ask Senator McConnell: How did the previous nominee, Amy Coney Barrett--you went to great lengths in maintaining a vacancy on the Court so that a Republican judge could fill the vacancy--how did she answer this probing threshold question when it came to the future composition of the Supreme Court?

She said virtually exactly what Judge Jackson said: It is a matter for Congress to decide, not for the courts. That was an acceptable answer with Amy Coney Barrett, but for Senator McConnell, it is an unacceptable answer when it comes to Judge Jackson.

The other questions that were raised were about her legal representation. Those of us who have practiced law understand that you don't necessarily agree with the legal position of every client who walks in the office, and sometimes you have no choice. If the court appoints you as a defender or as an attorney to represent someone who is an indigent client, you often have a client before you--not necessarily a savory character--who might have some questionable background. Your job is to be a zealous advocate for that client but never to lie to the court, stick with the truth, do your best, and represent them in the course of litigation.

That is what Judge Jackson has done in her private practice and her years working for the Federal public defender. Most attorneys get it. Most of them understand that the client you are representing is not necessarily espousing your point of view, nor, really, boasting a lifestyle that you admire, but you have a professional obligation to do your best as a lawyer to represent them before the court of law.

Some of them were opposed to Judge Jackson because she represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay. That is curious because these same lawmakers once claimed that judicial nominees should not be held accountable for the views and actions of their clients.

It was the junior Senator from Missouri who not that long ago argued that litigators ``do not necessarily share the views of the people [they represent]'' but must ``represent them effectively and fairly.'' He was right then, and he ought to remember it now.

Consider the words of the junior Senator from Texas, who told us in September of 2019:

Saying that the views of your clients or the positions of

your clients are necessarily your own personal views is no

more accurate than saying a criminal defense lawyer who

represents capital defendants is advancing the cause of

murder.

That is the quote from the junior Senator from Texas.

Finally, some of our Republican colleagues have accused Judge Jackson of being soft on crime. We had an interesting panel the last day when we considered the judge, and on that panel was a gentleman who is the president of the Black law enforcement organization known as NOBLE.

I asked him point blank: We know the Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed Judge Jackson's aspiration to the Court. We know that the International Association of Chiefs of Police also endorsed her. You, NOBLE, representing Black law enforcement agents across the Nation, have endorsed her. Would you or any of these organizations have even considered the endorsement if you thought she was soft on crime or wanted to defund the police? He was unequivocal. No, he wouldn't have considered her. But her critics ignore that reality.

I want to make it clear that any Senator considering her nomination has the right to make their own choice in this process. They can also look beyond the fact that she comes from a law enforcement family to her actual decisionmaking and sentencing. But to claim, as a few have-- only a few--that somehow Judge Jackson was soft when it came to child predators or endangering children is just inaccurate and, frankly, insulting.

Look at the facts. Judge Jackson is well within the judicial mainstream of 70 to 80 percent of sentences by Federal judges when it comes to child pornography offenders--not out of the mainstream, in it--and she has put many

behind bars for decades. Her approach to these cases is comparable to that of many of President Trump's nominees on the bench today.

Independent fact checkers have exposed these baseless attacks for what they are. I can't say it any better than the conservative Federal prosecutor who wrote in a conservative magazine, the National Review, that this line of attack against Judge Jackson is ``meritless to the point of demagoguery.''

Let's be clear. None--absolutely none--of the attacks that have been leveled against Judge Jackson stand up to scrutiny. I assume that is why only a few of my Republican colleagues have spoken out in support of them.

So I want to thank the majority of Republican Judiciary Committee members who treated last week's hearing with dignity and respect. They posed challenging, probing questions to Judge Jackson, and that was their responsibility to do so. Judge Jackson's forthright responses showed the American public why she deserves this historic opportunity.

She is a brilliant jurist, evenhanded, with a model temperament. There were so many moments--for those who followed the hearing, they know what I am speaking of--when I looked up and saw her sitting at the table, thinking that she could stand up at this very moment and say ``Enough. My family and I are leaving.'' But she didn't. She had the strength and the grace and the dignity and determination to weather even that political firestorm.

I am honored to support Judge Jackson. I look forward to our Judiciary Committee vote on her nomination next Monday.

(The remarks of Mr. Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 3950 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) is necessarily absent.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, on another matter, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio and I are cochairs of the bipartisan Senate Ukraine Caucus. Tomorrow, we are hosting a meeting for Senators with members of the Ukrainian Parliament. The Parliament there is known as the Rada. They are coming to Washington to discuss how we can help even more in assisting the valiant people of Ukraine defending against this barbaric invasion by Vladimir Putin. I hope our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join us to send a clear message to Ukraine that we stand united in their efforts.

Putin's unprovoked and unconscionable war on Ukraine has revealed what he is really all about. He is a tyrant seething with resentment, driven by delusions of great mother Russia, willing to slaughter innocent men, women, and children to restore a lost Russian Empire.

We know from his current ravings and his past actions, Putin's ruthless pursuit of Russia's lost empire didn't begin with this war, and if we don't do something about it, it won't end there either.

In 2003, the people of Georgia--another Soviet Republic--waged a Rose Revolution to claim a place among the family of democratic nations. Putin's aggrieved response was to send troops into that country to occupy portions of it--South Ossetia and Abkhazia--to redraw Georgia's national boundaries by force. I traveled to that area in 2012 and saw firsthand what Putin's occupation of that tiny nation meant.

In 2014, the people of Ukraine rose up to demand change as well--the Revolution of Dignity, they called it. They succeeded and threw out the deeply corrupt Russian-backed President. They ousted him from Parliament. When they did, he fled to Moscow, his real home. Putin's revenge months later was to send Russian troops to invade and annex the Crimean peninsula and the Donbas regions of eastern Ukraine by force. They have continued to wage that war.

I have mentioned many times my concern for this region, and I guess it is attached to the fact that my mother was born in Lithuania and came here as a little girl. Her family fled from the oppression of czarist Russia, which then controlled the Baltic States and far beyond.

During World War II, the Baltic States endured brutal Nazi occupation, and after the war, they were held captive behind the Iron Curtain by the USSR.

In August 1989, 2 months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, 2 million people in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia physically, literally, joined hands in a peaceful protest. They formed a human chain, declared that they wanted to join Europe and be part of the family of democracies.

Two years later, the Baltics threw off Russian occupiers and reclaimed their independence. It was a festive day. I was honored to be a witness to part of it. They worked to achieve the reform fundamental to democracies, to weed out corruption, establish market economies, and encourage the growth of civil society.

In 2004, in a historic moment, a live-or-die moment for the Baltics, they became part of NATO. It was the first time--the very first time that NATO had opened its doors to nations that had been part of the Soviet Union. Over the years, the Baltic States strengthened their militaries to prove they would be assets and not liabilities to the alliance.

Today, the Baltics provide a home to activists and dissidents from Russia and Belarus and are a beacon of democracy. And I say that with personal pride to have any association with these great nations.

In 2008, after Russia had annexed parts of Georgia, the President of Poland visited Georgia's capital of Tbilisi and warned of the threat posed by Russia to the entire region. He said:

Today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow--

the Baltic States and, later, perhaps, time will come for

[his] country, Poland.

Well, today, Senator Grassley and I are introducing a bill to discourage Russia from extending Putin's war into NATO territory and forcing the alliance to invoke its article 5 collective security commitment.

Our bill is called the Baltic Defense and Deterrence Act. It directs the Department of State and the Department of Defense to establish and implement economic and security initiatives to deepen U.S. ties with the Baltic States. Our bill will strengthen our strong partnership. It will enhance the capability of the region's critical allies in NATO's eastern flank to respond to threats, including Russia's misinformation and disinformation, their cyber warfare, and, in Lithuania's case, growing economic pressure.

Cosponsors come from both sides of the aisle: Senators Stabenow, King, Feinstein, Blunt, Blumenthal, Baldwin, Duckworth, Booker, and Senator Scott of Florida. Representatives Ruben Gallego and Don Bacon are cosponsoring a bipartisan companion bill in the House.

In conclusion, in 1997, Russian President Boris Yeltsin offered the Baltic States unilateral security guarantees if they would give up aspirations to join NATO. They refused. They were determined to become their own sovereign states, their own democracy, and they have succeeded.

Kurt Volker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and former U.S. Special Representative to Ukraine, has said that, far from being a burden on NATO, the admission of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia has reinvigorated the alliance. In his words, the Baltic States turned out to be ``the best democratic and economic reformers, the ones most committed to build fresh new militaries, and the ones willing to support the U.S. in other fora.''

They have sent troops on costly U.S. missions, and their troops have fought and died alongside NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. By securing America's economic and security partnerships with the Baltics, our bill will help deter Vladimir Putin from extending his barbaric war into NATO territory.

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