Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, there was a classified briefing this morning that Members of the Senate were invited to on a bipartisan basis, Democrats and Republicans. It is rare. We don't do it very often. We do it when there is an important issue of national security and something else of great moment.

What we came to discuss today was Saudi Arabia, and that discussion really focused on our guests--the Secretary of State, Mr. Pompeo, and the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Mattis. They talked to us about our relationship with Saudi Arabia, for obvious reasons. Hardly anyone in the world could have missed what happened over the last several weeks when a man named

Khashoggi went into the consulate for Saudi Arabia in Istanbul and never came out.

We have a videotape that shows the Saudi citizen and American resident entering that building. For the longest time, there was a debate as to what actually happened to him. All sorts of stories were manufactured and fabricated. It turned out that the Turks had access to audio recordings of what actually happened inside that consulate. They eventually made them public, released them to the Government of Saudi Arabia as well as to the United States, and we came to learn that Mr. Khashoggi, a frequent critic of the Saudi royal family, was murdered. He walked into that consulate and never walked out alive. Some group flew in from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ambushed him, killed him, and, as hard it may be to believe, brought with them a bone saw so they could dismember him and take parts of his body out to be destroyed and buried somewhere in Turkey.

That story eventually emerged, and President Trump was confronted repeatedly: What are we going to do about this?

Saudi Arabia is supposed to be one of our allies. We have arms agreements with them. We are involved in a lot of things relative to energy and national security. For the longest time, the President was dismissive, saying: I have spoken to the royal family, and they have denied they had anything to do with it.

Well, that excuse worked for a while but not very long. Once the recordings were released by the Turks, once the world came to grips with what actually happened to Mr. Khashoggi, serious questions were raised about this outrageous abuse of human rights at the hands of the Saudi regime.

There is a lot of speculation back and forth about who ordered it and who knew about it. Those questions may never be answered. But we do know that some 15 to 17 people close to the Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia have been implicated to the point where the Trump administration finally acknowledged that we have to do something. We have to take a stand even when it involves a country that has been our ally in many circumstances.

If you read the history of Saudi Arabia's relationship with the United States, it has a lot to do with oil. For the longest time, we counted on the Middle East for oil. We looked the other way. We helped them, and they made a fortune in the process. The opulence of the royalty in Saudi Arabia rivals any royalty in the modern world, and the lavish lifestyles of the Saudi princes as they travel around the world has been well documented.

The United States has looked the other way many times because we needed the oil or we needed them as a strategic ally or a strategic partner. Those times have changed in some respects. We are becoming more energy independent. We are not as dependent on Saudi Arabia as we once were for energy supplies to fuel our economy.

In the meantime, something else has happened within the Kingdom. There has been a transition of power to the Crown Prince, who is known as MBS. He is a young man in his thirties, and he announced when he came to power that he was going to make some real changes in Saudi Arabia. One big breakthrough he announced was that women would be allowed to drive cars. In the West, it is almost comical to think of that as a concession, but in Saudi Arabia, that is progress in a country that has been slow to give women recognition in roles they deserve.

Then he got engaged in foreign policy and started doing things that were hard to explain, one after the other. One of them was the decision to take the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Mr. Harari, and, basically, to put him under house arrest when he visited from Lebanon in the Royal Kingdom and, then, to have a confrontational relationship with Qatar, a country that we rely on for our military basing and support in the region. Then, of course, there is what brings us to the floor later this afternoon for an important--maybe historic--vote. He decided that the Saudis would invade Yemen because they believed the Iranians were establishing a power base there and because there was aggression from Yemen against Saudi Arabia.

That decision to begin this war in Yemen sometime in the recent past resulted in outcomes that no one could have predicted. There are about 28 million people who live in Yemen. We estimate that 14 million of them, half of the people living in that country, are subjected now to a famine that threatens their very lives. We know that over 80,000 children have been killed so far in the war in Yemen.

What is the role of the United States? Well, it is hard to define it in specific terms. At one point--I think it has been discontinued now-- we were fueling the bombers the Saudis sent into Yemen, releasing the bombs that killed civilian populations and other innocent people. At one point--I think it is still the case--we were assisting them in targeting the areas in Yemen where they were going to drop their bombs.

So the United States has not been on the sidelines. We have been involved. Our military, the best in the world, has been involved in helping the Saudis with this invasion of Yemen. They have discontinued, I understand, the fueling mission, but other things continue.

The question we have to ask ourselves now is this: Why are we there? By what constitutional authority? It is this little book here that is supposed to guide our conduct. By what constitutional authority is this administration and the Department of Defense waging a war in Yemen? It isn't because of any vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives, though the Constitution is explicit that the declaration of war is in the hands of Congress--really, in the hands of the American people through Congress. In this case, whatever is going on in Yemen has never been expressly approved.

What they hearkened back to was a measure that was passed on the floor of the Senate 17 years ago, and I remember because I was here. It was after 9/11. Who will ever forget that? Three thousand innocent Americans were killed by terrorists who crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York and into a field in Pennsylvania. Do you know the nationality of the terrorists who were on those planes, the ones who commandeered them and killed those innocent Americans? Saudis. They were all Saudis.

Yet we passed this resolution saying the United States can use force to retaliate against them, and I voted for it. We found them in Afghanistan. We went after them. But could anyone have possibly imagined that that vote 17 years ago gave authority to our government today to engage in a war in Yemen?

True, there are terrorists on the ground in almost every country in the Middle East, and you could justify our military involvement by saying we are fighting terrorism. But let's be honest. This Constitution did not want a generic declaration of war. It wanted us to be careful when we chose those battlegrounds.

So today we had a briefing by the Secretary of State, Mr. Pompeo, which I cannot recount in detail because it was in a classified setting, but we do know this. This morning, that same Secretary of State authored an article in the Wall Street Journal about this issue. It is entitled ``The U.S.-Saudi Partnership is Vital,'' by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. I would like to read the opening paragraph of Secretary of State Pompeo's statement. When it comes to our relationship with Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen, here is what he wrote:

The Trump administration's effort to rebuild the U.S.-Saudi

Arabia partnership isn't popular in the salons of Washington,

where politicians of both parties have long used the

kingdom's human-rights record to call for the alliance's

downgrading. The October murder of Saudi national Jamal

Khashoggi in Turkey has heightened the Capitol Hill

caterwauling and media pile-on. But degrading U.S.-Saudi ties

would be a grave mistake for the national security of the

U.S. and its allies.

It is a long article. Read it in its entirety and draw your own conclusions, but the first paragraph sets the tone. We are not discussing our role with Saudi Arabia in the salons of Washington. We are discussing them on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Why? Because we were elected to do just that.

The American people entrust us with the foreign policy of the United States and decisions that need to be made

about whether we commit American tax dollars or American lives in a military conflict. It isn't some group of academics in a salon. It is Members of the U.S. Senate, duly elected, who are facing their responsibility to debate it today.

Listen to these terms that the Secretary of State uses: ``The October murder of Saudi national Jamal Khashoggi has heightened the Capitol Hill caterwauling and media pile-on.''

``Caterwauling''--you don't run into that word much, do you? I went to look it up to make sure I understood it. It is the shrieking of cats when they are in a fight.

So the national reaction--the international reaction--to the cold- blooded murder of an American resident, a Saudi citizen and the dismemberment of his body and its disposal in ways we couldn't even explain is ``caterwauling''? To me, it is a reflection of your values, and, rightfully, people around the world are protesting that this sort of activity could happen.

That is why we are bringing this measure before the Senate this afternoon. I see my colleague from Indiana is here. I thank him for his leadership.

I will close with this. I am reluctant to display this picture, though it was on the front page of a major newspaper in the United States. But I want those who wonder why we are in this debate and why we are caterwauling about this assassination of Mr. Khashoggi to understand what is really the issue that we are debating and voting on.

Amal Hussain died at the age of 7 in Yemen. ``My heart is broken,'' her mother said. She died just a few days after the picture was taken. She is a victim of famine in Yemen. This is what the decision is all about on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Will we continue to expend American taxpayer dollars--even American lives--in support of the Saudi regime and their invasion in the war in Yemen?

I understand the threat of Iran, and I understand we have to stand up to their aggression when and where it takes place. But did we enlist in this war? Did the American people have a national debate about this war? Did we vote in the Senate to engage in this war? The answer is, clearly, no.

I will be supporting this resolution that will be coming before us this afternoon. I thank my friend from Indiana for waiting an additional moment while I completed my remarks.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, Ron Chernow is well known as a historian and prolific writer who has written biographies of some of the most amazing people who have lived in our country. One, of course, is on the Founding Father, George Washington, and another which received acclaim even on Broadway in New York is the well-known biography of Alexander Hamilton, which inspired Mr. Miranda to write a musical, which is probably the most successful musical of our time.

Mr. Chernow has also written another book, which I am working my way through very carefully, the biography of Ulysses Grant. It is about 900 pages long. It is a heavy book to carry

from one living space to another as a U.S. Senator but well worth the effort. It tells the story of this man who came to lead the Union Army to victory in the Civil War and ultimately became President of the United States. As I have read this biography of Ulysses S. Grant, I couldn't help but be struck by the fact that one issue emerged after the Civil War, which was probably one of the most challenging of all, the issue about the right of African Americans to vote in the South after the Civil War--the so-called period of Reconstruction.

I also commend to those who are interested in the issue this book by Carol Anderson, entitled ``One Person, No Vote.'' Carol Anderson is a professor at Emory in Atlanta, GA. She wrote an earlier book, which I also recommend, called ``White Rage.'' This book, ``One Person, No Vote,'' really tries to describe throughout history, particularly after the Civil War, efforts at voter suppression and their impact on our democracy.

Professor Anderson was kind enough to ask me to write the forward to this book, which I was happy to do. I am happy to read this book as well because it went into the detail about what happened after the end of the Civil War, when African Americans were legally and constitutionally declared to be citizens of the United States and then set out to exercise their right to vote. Initially, there was some success, but over time the White population in the South started suppressing that right to vote, passing laws that demanded literacy tests of those who would show up to vote, constitutional tests, poll taxes, and the like. Over time, it dramatically diminished the African- American vote in the South, and that diminishment led many Blacks to pick up and leave in the great migration north. Their departure from the South to the North was to the benefit of States like Illinois, where many thousands came to find work and an opportunity to exercise their own freedom, which they thought had been won by the Civil War.

How important is this right to vote? Well, in the words of John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, at his hearing in 2005, he said that the right to vote is ``preservative of all other rights''--preservative of all other rights. It is that fundamental to our democracy that we allow those who are eligible to step forward and to express their will when an election is called and choose the candidates of their choice.

Over the period of time after the end of the Civil War, there were extraordinary efforts taken to suppress the right of African Americans to vote. I say, with some embarrassment but in reality, those were largely promulgated by people who described themselves as Democrats in those days. They were the ones largely in control of the political infrastructure of the South who did their best to limit the right of Blacks to participate.

One of the noteworthy events in this history occurred in 1890 in Mississippi, when they passed the Mississippi Plan. In Carol Anderson's words, ``a dizzying array of poll taxes, literacy tests, understanding clauses, newfangled voter registration rules, and `good character' clauses--all intentionally racially discriminatory but dressed up in the genteel garb of bringing `integrity' to the voting booth. This feigned legal innocence was legislative evil genius.''

She goes on to explain how the so-called Mississippi Plan became a template for other Southern States to try to find ways to pass local and State laws making it increasingly difficult for individuals to vote, particularly African Americans and people who did not have great wealth. It was a success for many years, and the participation of Black voters diminished dramatically as a result of it.

I know this has sounded like a history lesson to this moment, and it would be but for the fact that we are facing this issue again in a vote we will face this week in the U.S. Senate.

There is a nominee for the Federal Court in the Eastern District of North Carolina named Thomas Farr. Mr. Farr's participation in voter suppression is well documented. In fact, the Congressional Black Caucus has described Mr. Farr as ``the preeminent attorney for North Carolina Republicans seeking to curtail the voting rights of people of color.''

Mr. Farr worked as legal counsel for the 1990 campaign of Senator Jesse Helms. That campaign engaged in well-documented, deeply disturbing tactics aimed at suppressing the Black vote in North Carolina.

As an example, the Helms campaign sent out over 100,000 postcards to mainly African-American voters warning that they might be ineligible to vote for residency reasons. The postcards from the Helms campaign, which Mr. Farr worked on as legal counsel, warned that the Black recipients might be arrested for voter fraud if they came to the polls to vote.

Mr. Farr initially told the Judiciary Committee, in which I serve, that he did not participate in any campaign meetings in which this mailing was discussed. However, news reports then indicated that Mr. Farr did, in fact, participate in an October 1990 meeting that included discussion about mailings that challenged voters' residency.

Mr. Farr, this nominee for a lifetime appointment to the Federal court in North Carolina, later admitted participating in the meeting, despite what he had said earlier. A former Justice Department attorney told the Raleigh News & Observer in 2009 that Mr. Farr ``was certainly involved in the scheme as it was being developed.''

Mr. Farr also represented North Carolina in litigation over a notorious voter suppression law that the Fourth Circuit struck down in 2016. So his experience in this earlier Helms campaign was not confined when it came to voter suppression; by 2016 he was at it again. The Fourth Circuit found that the law--which Mr. Farr defended in court-- had ``target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision'' and that the legislature had ``enacted . . . the law with discriminatory intent.''

That was the very law that Mr. Farr defended before the court.

This man, who now seeks this lifetime appointment to the Federal bench, has not just a history but a pattern of voter suppression. This phrase--that the law he was defending ``target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision''--has probably been repeated more than any I can remember in recent memory on this issue.

Additionally, Mr. Farr represented North Carolina in litigation related to racial gerrymandering and violations of the National Voter Registration Act.

It is particularly troubling that Mr. Farr has been nominated for a judgeship that, as the minority leader mentioned earlier, was denied during the Obama administration when they submitted two African American nominees. The Republican Senators from North Carolina kept the seat vacant and would not allow an African American to fill it. Though President Obama tried twice, they objected to the nominees. Republicans held this seat vacant for years, clearly with the intention to fill it with someone like Mr. Farr.

Let me quote what the Reverend William J. Barber II, a prominent civil rights leader in North Carolina, wrote about Thomas Farr in TIME magazine recently:

I know Farr. I know what he's done, what he stands for and

just how detrimental he will be to his constituents if

confirmed.

There are many conservative lawyers in North Carolina who could serve as Federal judge who do not have the blemished record of advocacy for voter suppression that Mr. Farr brings to the Senate. As Reverend Barber wrote in TIME magazine: ``Being a conservative is not the same thing as spending almost 40 years fighting to block full citizenship for all Americans.''

Given his decades-long history of supporting and defending efforts to restrict the right to vote, I must oppose Mr. Farr's nomination.

I must ask: In this moment in time in the 21st century, as we still battle over the issues that divided this Nation during the Civil War, why would this Senate stand and give Mr. Thomas Farr a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench in North Carolina? What does it say about the majority in the Senate that we would give this man, with his personal history of voter suppression, this opportunity?

The reality is this, and it is a grim reality: I believe the Republican Party has decided that demographics are not on their side and that the emerging minorities in the United States of America are not likely to vote their way. So they have embarked on a national program to limit the rights of people to

vote--a national program that I find disgusting. To think that the Koch brothers finance ALEC--the American Legislative Exchange Council--and that ALEC promulgates these State laws in an effort to continue to suppress the vote carries on a sad and despicable tradition.

Back in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, it was the Democratic Party, which I belong to, that unfortunately was the home for many of these bigots and led many efforts of voter suppression. Today, sadly, it is the Republican Party--the party of Abraham Lincoln--that is trying to suppress the vote of African Americans with many overt, covert efforts. The appointment of Thomas Farr to fill this vacancy is as overt as can be. We know who he is. We know what he believes. We know what he stands for. And we know that if he is given this lifetime appointment on the Federal bench, he is likely to continue his lifetime history of trying to deny votes to those who are African Americans.

This Chamber that I stand in, with some awe every time I enter it, became the Senate legislative Chamber in January of 1859, even before the Civil War began. It witnessed not only the departure of the southern Senators who were loyal to the Confederacy; it witnessed even Union soldiers coming in and camping out here, at times during the conflict, when they needed a roof over their heads. It also witnessed the battles over reconstruction when the so-called radical Republicans were determined to make sure that African Americans would be given a fighting chance in the south. It witnessed the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, and it witnessed many other events that have led us to this moment in time in the year 2018.

Many of the debates that took place on this floor, many of the sentiments that were debated back and forth over the decades, continue to this day to our generation, to our time, and to our Senate. When we bring Thomas Farr for a vote this week in the U.S. Senate, I hope that the party of Abraham Lincoln--the Republican Party of the United States--will join Democrats in stopping this nomination. Can we send a clear message, a bipartisan message from the Senate this week that Thomas Farr and the voter suppression in which he has engaged throughout his life is as unacceptable today as it was in the dark days after the end of the Civil War? That is our responsibility.

This Senator will be voting no on Thomas Farr.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I would like to share with the Senate and those following this debate a story about a man named Alton Mills.

Alton Mills was a young African American in the city of Chicago. He was an above-average high school student. It looked like he might even go on to higher education, but he had some bad luck when it came to employment and jobs, and he made a stupid decision. He made a stupid decision by becoming part of a gang in the neighborhood that was selling drugs.

As a result of that, he was arrested and convicted of the possession and sale of a small amount of narcotics. The sentence was suspended because he had had no previous criminal record.

It happened a second time. Again, he didn't serve a day in jail. It was suspended with the promise that he would never do it again, but he stumbled and did it a third time. As a result of that, in 1994, at the age of 24, Alton Mills was given a mandatory sentence of life in prison. He had never been involved in a violent crime. He had never used a firearm, and he never was a drug kingpin but had been involved in the sale of drugs. At the age of 24, he received a life sentence for the three incidents I just mentioned.

How could we have ever reached a point at which a person would be sent to jail for life for those three crimes?

We reached that point because 25 years ago we did something that was just plain wrong. You will seldom hear a Senator say this in the course of a speech, but I am going to say it. The worst vote I ever cast in my life in the House or in the Senate was for the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. In other words, if you took the same amount of cocaine and if it were in a powder form, sitting next to the same amount of cocaine in a crystallized form that could be smoked and if you were arrested for the possession of one or the other, the sentence for crack cocaine was 100 times what it was for powder cocaine.

Why did we do that? Why did we have such a gross disparity? It was because we were frightened.

As a Member of the House of Representatives, I remember it well. They came to us and said that there was a new form of cocaine on the streets. It cost 5 bucks, and it was heavily addictive. If a mother were to ingest this cocaine while being pregnant, it could harm the fetus for life. So do something.

At about that same time, there was this great scandal here in Washington, DC, of an outstanding basketball player at the University of Maryland, named Len Bias, who overdosed on drugs and died. People were talking about his career in the NBA and this great talent, and he was dead. It had nothing to do with crack cocaine, but it was part of the environment and part of the overreaction that took place among politicians in Washington. I was one of them. I voted for that 100-to-1 disparity and said we had to accept a hard, tough message right now. We did--100 to 1.

It didn't have any measurable impact on drug sales in the United States, but it had a measurable impact on the number of people who were incarcerated in the United States and the lengths of their incarcerations. Those votes that I and many like me cast on both sides of the aisle resulted in mandatory sentences for people like Alton Mills--life sentences. Let me tell you how the Alton Mills story ends before I go on.

After serving 24 years in prison for those three street sales, Alton Mills came to my attention through a criminal defense attorney named-- of all things--MiAngel Cody. She was Alton's angel. That is for sure. She fought for him, and she believed that he deserved better than to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison for those stupid decisions he made in his early life. I appealed to President Obama to commute his sentence, and the President agreed to do that. So, after all of that service behind bars, Alton Mills was released.

What is he doing today?

He is a mechanic at the Chicago Transit Authority. He repairs the buses that I ride on. He got married. He is now working with his daughter and his new grandchild. He is contributing to society. He is a community college student, where he is pursuing an associate's agree. Finally, his life is on the right track. If he had not received a pardon, Alton Mills would have died in prison because of our existing Federal sentencing laws.

Yesterday, something happened which is remarkable. President Donald Trump had a press conference with representatives of law enforcement and announced that he was going to support legislation, which I have been working on for quite some time with Senator Lee and Senator Grassley, to change the sentencing provisions that I have described to you. What an amazing coalition--Durbin on the Democratic side, Grassley and Lee on the Republican side, and now President Trump. The stars are lined up in a way that we seldom see in Washington, DC.

What we are going to set out to do with this bill, if we can pass it in the closing weeks of this session, is to give a chance to thousands of people who are still serving sentences for nonviolent offenses involving crack cocaine under the old 100-to-1 ruling to petition individually, not as a group, to the court for a reduction in the sentencing.

I have been through this. It is not easy. They have to go right back to the U.S. Attorney's Office that prosecuted them to get the thumbs up and approval to go forward. Many times, they turn to victims, if there are victims in the crime, before any decision is made. They turn to the judges, particularly those sentencing judges who are still on the bench. If they clear all of those hurdles, they have a chance for reductions in their sentences.

Senator Grassley and I are about to introduce legislation that President Trump endorsed yesterday, and we will begin working to build bipartisan support to pass it before we leave. Congress needs to pass this legislation. We have a different drug crisis facing us

today. It isn't crack cocaine anymore. It is an opioid epidemic. It is a Federal epidemic. It is the deadliest drug epidemic that we have ever faced.

We have a totally different view of drugs than we did when Alton Mills was sentenced. In those days, most of the defendants were people of color--primarily African Americans. Yet today this opioid epidemic has gone far beyond the hood. It has gone far beyond the inner city. It affects suburbs, even the wealthiest of suburbs, and towns--rural towns--no matter how small they are.

People are starting to think anew about what to do with drug addiction. Is our goal to put people in prison for drug addiction or is our goal to end the addiction? We know that in some cases those who have been imprisoned will not use again. Many times, they will. We know, if people go successfully through treatment, they may be spared the addiction, and it may save their lives. We are coming of age when it comes to drugs in America.

What we try to do with this bill is also to take into consideration criminal defendants who meet certain limited criteria, such as with drug offenses, which is the No. 1 prosecution offense in our Federal system. It takes into consideration drug offenders who are not kingpins, who are not the bosses and are not involved in any violence in the crime, when there is no gun involved and if they are willing to cooperate with the government in closing down the drug operation. If they meet all of those criteria, we say that the court can take that into consideration in sentencing. I think that is a good thing.

I think, in Alton Mills' situation, it would have resulted in a much, much different sentence than what he faced before the commutation by President Obama.

We also want to make certain that in the future those who were sentenced under the old 100-to-1 disparity, as I mentioned earlier, could petition the government for a reconsideration of their sentencing on an individual basis. There will be no guarantee that they will be released, but they will have the opportunity to petition in those situations. I think this is a step in the right direction.

The bill also contains provisions which, I think, are extraordinary when it comes to prison reform. What are we going to do with all of these people? Most of those who are in prison will be coming out someday. Will they come out to commit another crime or create another victim? That would be a failure of the system completely.

Two Senators--one Republican, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, and one Democrat, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island--came together with the prison reform bill that has already passed the House with 386 votes, and we have improved it some in the Senate. Basically, it gives to those who are in prison an incentive to develop skills and training and education levels that will serve them when they leave in order to reduce recidivism and reduce the commission of crime in the future.

I think that is humane. It is sensible. It says to those who truly want to turn their lives around that we are going to give you a chance to prove it. Prove it with your actions, and we will give you a chance to be released earlier and have a chance to go into society in a positive way.

We brought these two together--criminal sentencing and prison reform. It doesn't happen very often around here. The last time we had any measurable impact on the subject was 8 years ago. It was 8 years ago when I introduced my first bill on criminal sentencing reform. I think that bill worked, which, incidentally, I cosponsored with former Senator Jeff Sessions. It gave the individuals an opportunity to petition for early release. In many cases, it saved their lives and gave them a chance. We are back with a bipartisan bill that is called the FIRST STEP Act. This bill, I think, deserves our consideration in the Senate as quickly as possible.

Do you see this empty Senate floor? This is a place to do business. We have some business to do. In the 3 weeks we will be in session at the end of November and in the month of December, we can easily pass this legislation. I sat down with Senator Grassley and Republican and Democratic leaders from the House. They are anxious--we are all anxious--to bring this up. I am going to plead with Senator McConnell and ask everyone to join me to put this measure on the calendar. I believe it will have strong bipartisan support. Democrats and Republicans will join in an effort endorsed by President Trump. How about that for your headline? You don't see that sort of thing happening very often. We have a chance to do it here with this revised FIRST STEP Act.

I thank all those who have worked so hard on it, starting with Mike Lee, my original cosponsor. I would add to that Chuck Grassley, who has been a terrific partner from start to finish in making this a bipartisan effort. Special thanks to Senators Cornyn and Whitehouse for marrying up their prison reform package with our sentencing reform package. This could be significant. It could be one of the most important things we do when it comes to criminal justice, not only this year but for a long time.

I commend my colleagues for their cooperation on that, and I hope we can get this job done in the closing weeks of this session.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, Steve Magruder has devoted his life to helping working families. For more than 40 years, Steve faithfully served as a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers International Local 176. Last week, Steve retired as the business manager of Local 176, a position he held for 8 years.

The IBEW is as old as commercial electricity. In 1891, 2 years before electricity made Chicago the White City, the IBEW formed to protect the rights and safety of those brave workers willing to work on electrical and telecommunications. They would be the ones who brought power across the country, and today, they have a membership of 750,000 worldwide.

Steve started out in the storied electrical industry while he was still in high school. He worked as a shop assistant for Bradley Electric. He eventually became the owner of the residential division of Bradley Electric.

In 1975, he was initiated into the IBEW Local 963 in Kankakee, IL, as a residential wireman. The next year, the local IBEW chapters merged to form IBEW 176. In 1982, he became a journeyman wireman and moved into companies such as Comstock and Company and Meade Electric.

By 1990, Steve became an agent in the Local 176 business office. He founded the IBEW 176 sick, injured, and needy committee, which helps members in difficult times. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been used by the committee to help so many people through the tough times.

Through all of this, Steve stayed involved in politics and helped candidates who would help working families of Illinois. In 2010, he became business manager of Local 176 and apprenticeship program numbers increased. He also expanded political work by chairing the 176 PAC committee and a committee on political education. If a business hired in Kankakee or Iroquois County hired from outside, Steve was at the frontlines fighting for families to keep them from being left behind by the local economy.

Steve is retiring now to spend more time with his wife of 45 years, Candy. I wish him the best in his future endeavors.

I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, this morning the front page of the Washington Post tells the story about our intelligence agencies intercepting some communications among the Saudi Government officials. It appeared they were exchanging information about how to lure a man named Khashoggi back into Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi is a person who has been openly critical of the Saudi Arabian leadership. He has published articles around the world, including in the Washington Post.

We have a video that shows Mr. Khashoggi entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. We have no video that shows him exiting that same building. He has disappeared.

This intelligence data, as well as other information, leads us to believe he has been assassinated--assassinated because he was critical of the leadership of the Saudi Arabian kingdom. That is what happens in a country of authoritarian rule that does not protect the right of dissent.

We see it over and over in history--strong authoritarian rulers can't stand dissenters. Many of them are killed, imprisoned, tortured, or run out of the country. It still happens in China. It still happens in Russia. It happens, obviously, when it comes to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other countries.

We are different. I hope we are. The reason we are different is because of 45 words--45 words--that were written over 200 years ago. They are worth repeating. These are 45 words that have guided our country and still should guide us today.

I am going to take a minute to read them. It is the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the First Amendment to our Bill of Rights, credited to James Madison. Here is what it says: ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.''

These are 45 words that distinguish us from virtually every other country in the world, where we expressly guarantee to ourselves and our posterity freedoms that are fundamental to being an American.

I have heard my friend the senior Senator from Texas come to the floor repeatedly now to talk about what happened last week during the Kavanaugh nomination and in the weeks before, during the committee hearing, and there were people who came to this Capitol because of their intense personal and political feelings about that nomination and what it meant to them personally and what they believed it meant to the country. They brought their emotions to this place, and they did it because they are guaranteed the right to do it in this Constitution.

Each of us is guaranteed the right to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The Senator from Texas has referred to this as ``mob rule.'' I will tell you, if you believe these 45 words and what the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights instructs us in terms of this democracy, then it gives these people--all people in this country--the right to speak, the right to express their opinion, and the right to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

Now, of course, that should never--never--condone violence nor the incitement to violence. That is where we must draw the line.

If you are going to stand and defend this article of the Constitution, which we have all taken an oath to defend, then you are going to defend the right of individuals to speak in this country and say things that are unpopular and maybe even unacceptable to you personally.

I have found myself in that position, gritting my teeth and thinking I wish to heck that person wasn't saying what they were saying, but they have a constitutional right to do so. They don't have a constitutional right to be violent or to incite to violence.

I might add, I think they cross the line when they go after politicians'

family members and others. That clearly crosses the line. I have seen it happen in my political life, and I am sure all my colleagues can tell a similar story.

To call this mob rule is to take the actions of a few and to really use those as a standard to judge everyone. That is fundamentally unfair. There were people on both sides of the Kavanaugh nomination who had intense, strong personal feelings and used their constitutional rights under the Bill of Rights to express that. They did it peaceably. They did it in a constructive way. As far as I am concerned, they have a constitutional right to do it.

For those who crossed the line, they need to accept whatever consequences come their way. For some, it means being arrested and maybe more, but for those who complied with this article in the Bill of Rights, I think we all ought to stand up and say, regardless of party, this is the Constitution both parties swore to uphold.

To say that what happened last week--even in this Chamber and even in this Gallery here--is really the whole story is ignoring the obvious.

When the Senator from Texas asks about mob rule, my response is to say three words: ``Lock her up.''

This week in Iowa, the President held a rally. During the course of that rally, he was critical of the senior Senator from California. As he was critical of her, the people attending the rally started chanting ``Lock her up. Lock her up,'' referring to my colleague from California.

I am sure the Senator from Texas heard about this. I hope that when he heard about it, he realized that an incitement to hold someone criminally liable for using their office in a legal way really steps over the line.

Let's be honest about this. In the last 2 years, we have seen a coarsening of the rhetoric in politics in America. Things are being said now that have never been said before. Oh, they were said in private or maybe on some website, but now they are being said openly on a regular basis.

If someone speaks up at a rally, to have a Presidential candidate say: Let the crowd take care of that, and I will pay the legal fees of whoever does it--that happened. It suggests to me a coarsening of our rhetoric in this political world that we live in that is not conducive to a civilized and constructive democracy. As the Senator from Texas suggested, we need to really reward civility, and we need to show it ourselves in the things we say and do as Members of the U.S. Senate.

No, I don't think it is evidence of mob rule in America. It wasn't a mob that voted here on the floor of the Senate. One hundred Senators voted, as the Constitution requires us to do, and we did it in an orderly, democratic way, regardless of whether you agree with the outcome. The mob didn't rule; the Constitution ruled, and the Constitution needs to continue to rule.

There are limits to speech. The courts have talked about this for 200 years. But let us never forget that the first 45 words of the Bill of Rights guarantees to us the right of free speech, peaceful assembly, and the right to petition our government for redress of grievances.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 60 additional seconds.

The livelihoods of farmers in my home of Illinois depends on our acting and preventing an endless cycle of historic storms, floods, and droughts, causing millions of dollars in damage and crop loss. We have a moral obligation to our kids and grandkids to leave future generations with a planet that is not plagued by catastrophic drought, famine, wildfires, hurricanes, and sea level rise. We have the tools, and we know how to do it. It is time we rise to the challenge.

I announce that the Senator from North Dakota (Ms. Heitkamp) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from North Dakota (Ms. Heitkamp) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I rise to oppose the nomination of Eric Dreiband to be the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

Mr. Dreiband has no experience working on many of the most important duties of the Civil Rights Division, such as protecting voting rights, combating hate crimes, and ensuring that police departments respect the Constitution and civil rights laws.

Instead, he has extensive experience representing corporations who have been accused of employment discrimination and advocating against legislation to protect civil rights.

In his personal capacity, he has testified against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act and against legislation to protect older workers from discrimination.

We need a head of the Civil Rights Division who will demonstrate independence and a willingness to preserve the right to vote and civil rights laws in the face of this administration's regressive agenda.

I am not confident that Mr. Dreiband will be the independent leader that the Civil Rights Division needs. I cannot support his nomination.

I announce that the Senator from North Dakota (Ms. Heitkamp) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson) are necessarily absent.