Floor Statements

Mr. President, on September 5, 2 months ago, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Trump administration's repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, better known as

I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill) and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.

I annouce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill) and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, Dr. Glenn Poshard has served the United States in many ways. He served in the military and taught in high school. He represented rural southern Illinois in the Illinois State Senate from 1984 to

1988 and in Congress from 1989 to 1998. I served with him for 8 years in the House of Representatives.

Glenn was a strong proponent of campaign finance reform so much so that he limited individual donations and refused contributions from political action committees when he ran for Governor in 1998.

Following his tenure in Congress, Glenn and his wife, Jo, founded the Poshard Foundation for Abused Children. The foundation has helped the abused, abandoned, and neglected children of southern Illinois for 18 years.

Glenn's service to the community also continued through his role as president of Southern Illinois University where he was the second longest serving president in the history of the Southern Illinois University system.

Earlier this month, Glenn reminded us what service to our country and what the American flag means for us in an op-ed in the Southern Illinoisan, which I have included here.

Dr. Poshard wrote:

In 1962, I joined the U.S. Army on my 17th birthday. I had

just graduated from high school and was following in the

tradition of my family's military service. They had served in

the Civil War and fought their way across Europe and the

Pacific in two World Wars. Some were POWs and one, my first

cousin and closest friend, Dennis, awarded the Bronze Star

for bravery in Vietnam, was the first young man from our

county to be killed in that war.

During my three years of enlistment, I served a tour of

duty with the First Cav Division in Korea. When my active

duty was finished in December 1965, I immediately entered SIU

Carbondale on the GI Bill. Protests against the Vietnam War

were already gripping the campus. They were abhorrent to me,

particularly when the American flag was used to symbolize

anger toward the government. But I was busy, carrying a full

load of classes, working three part-time jobs, and trying to

support a new family. By the time Old Main burned and the

campus closed in the spring of 1970, I was beyond anger for

the thousands of protesters desecrating our flag and

destroying my beloved university.

I made no attempt to understand the difference between the

symbolism of the flag and the substance of the Bill of Rights

as it pertained to freedom to speak against perceived wrongs

of our government.

Years later, as a member of Congress, I was forced to

grapple with this volatile issue again. In my first term, a

bill was submitted to amend the Constitution prohibiting the

desecration of the American flag as a means of protest

against our government. Now, I had to understand this issue

in its deepest, broadest context. My family and I went to

Philadelphia where I sat in Independence Hall, contemplating

those early debates of our forefathers on issues of equality,

justice and freedom. Moved to tears, I was about to cast a

vote of which the historical significance reached back to

arguments which formed the founding documents of our country,

the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

We drove to Gettysburg and I stood where our greatest

President, Abraham Lincoln, delivered his address, taking us

back to our Declaration of Independence, which stated, ``All

men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with

certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life,

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' When our forefathers

thought they had been denied these rights long enough by the

King of England, they fought a Revolutionary War to gain

them. And they fought a Civil War to extend those rights to

slaves. Over the next 100 years, they fought all over the

world to secure these rights for other people.

President Kennedy spoke of this in his inaugural address.

He said, ``These same revolutionary beliefs for which our

forefathers fought are still at issue around the globe today.

The belief that the rights of man come not from the

generosity of the State, but from the hand of God. We dare

not forget that we are the heirs of that first Revolution.''

The Declaration goes on to say that when any form of

government becomes destructive of these rights then it is the

right of the people to protest and alter that form of

government so that those rights are secured to the people.

And in the 1960s and '70s, people protested against what they

believed was an unjust war which imperiled their lives, their

freedoms, and their pursuit of happiness. They believed that

nearly 60,000 deaths were enough in a war our government

either could not or would not win.

When hundreds of thousands of mostly white young men in the

'60s and thousands of mostly black young men today protest

against their government, it is because they feel their God-

given rights are threatened. But why involve the flag? In a

Supreme Court decision, Board of Education v. Barnett in

1943, Justice Jackson wrote words especially relevant to this

issue. He said, ``Freedom to differ is not limited to things

that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of

freedom. The test of freedom's substance is the right to

differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing

order''--i.e. our flag.

For many, it is not enough to write a letter to their

congressman, attend a meeting or participate in a march. They

must take the most important thing symbolizing our freedom--

the flag--and cast it at the feet of their government to show

how emphatically they disagree with government allowing the

infringement of their rights. Millions of people of color in

our country today feel threatened. They just want to enjoy

the same security and freedom we all enjoy and the flag has

become central to their protest precisely because it matters,

as it did in the '60s to an earlier generation.

When I protested as a young man in my church that it was

not necessary for God to send His only Son to be sacrificed

for my freedom, that He could have provided another way, the

pastor said, ``Oh yes it was, because He could not win your

freedom from sin by sacrificing that which didn't matter

much, He had to sacrifice the most important thing He loved,

His Son.''

The Supreme Court has said that the use of the flag in

dissent against the government does not diminish it or the

contribution of the men and women who fought for our freedom,

but instead stands as a powerful symbol to illustrate the

substance of our Constitution's Bill of Rights.

I listened carefully to the debate in 1990 on the flag

desecration amendment which for the first time in 200 years

would have amended our Bill of Rights. These words from

President Reagan's solicitor general, Charles Fried, express

my beliefs entirely. ``The flag, as all in this debate agree,

symbolizes our nation, its history, its values. We love the

flag because it symbolizes the United States; but we must

love the Constitution even more, because the Constitution is

not a symbol. It is the thing itself.''

Reading Glenn's op-ed, I was reminded of the late John Glenn, colleague, friend, and legend. He testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2004 about the flag of the United States. This is a man who carried the flag into space as an astronaut. He served in the Marine Corps. When presented with a flag-burning amendment, he said, ``It would be a hollow victory indeed if we preserved the symbol of our freedoms by chipping away at those fundamental freedoms themselves.''

Free speech is the bedrock of our democracy. As millions of Americans are participating in the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution today, we should remember Glenn Porshard's point that they do so not to destroy our Republic, but to celebrate the strength of our Constitution.

Thank you.

(At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. President, Senator McConnell has come to the floor to complain about what he calls obstruction of President Trump's judicial nominees. The majority leader must feel that many of us suffer from amnesia.

It was just last year Senate Republicans, under the leadership of the same Senator McConnell, set a new standard of obstruction. The most prominent victim of Republican obstruction, Chief Judge Merrick Garland, was President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. Never, never in the history of the U.S. Senate has the Senate denied a Supreme Court nominee a hearing and a vote. Senator McConnell led the Republicans last year in doing that.

Then, Senator McConnell refused to even meet with Judge Garland, refused to give him the courtesy of a meeting, even though the judge's qualifications were unquestioned and even though he had been confirmed to the DC Circuit with broad bipartisan support.

The way Senate Republicans treated Merrick Garland was disgraceful, but Judge Garland was far from the only victim of Republican systematic obstruction during the Obama Presidency. In 2016, there were 30 noncontroversial judicial nominees--17 women and 13 men--who were denied a floor vote by Senate Republicans. All but two of these nominees were reported out of the Judiciary Committee with a unanimous vote of Democrats and Republicans. Some of these nominees--like Edward Stanton of Tennessee and Julien Neals of New Jersey--sat on the Senate calendar for more than a year, waiting for a vote which the Republican majority leader and his Members refused to give them.

During the last 2 years of President Obama's administration, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed only 22 judges in 2 years. That is the lowest number of confirmations in a Congress since 1952. By comparison, in the last 2 years of George W. Bush's Presidency, the Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed 68 judicial nominees--22 under Republicans and Obama and 68 under Democrats for President Bush.

That is not all. Republicans also obstructed 18 Obama nominees by denying them blue slips. That is the permission slip from a Senator from the State of the judicial nominee. That included five nominees who had been State supreme court justices who were not approved by Republican Senators to move to the Federal bench: Lisabeth Tabor Hughes from Kentucky, Myra Selby from Indiana, Don Beatty from South Carolina, Louis Butler from Wisconsin, Patricia Timmons-Goodson from North Carolina.

Senate Republicans turned obstruction of judicial nominees into an art form under President Obama. Yet Senator McConnell, day after day, has said: ``I think President Obama has been treated very fairly by any objective standard.''

He comes to the floor now regularly to complain about ``obstruction'' of Trump nominees. Senator McConnell and the Senate Republicans set the standard for obstruction. If Leader McConnell thinks President Obama was treated fairly with these facts, it is hard to understand why he is complaining about the treatment of President Trump's judicial nominees.

So far this year, the Senate has confirmed four of President Trump's circuit court nominees and four of his district court nominees. At the same point in his first year, President Obama had one circuit court nominee and three district court nominees confirmed. Twice the number have been confirmed under President Trump as were confirmed under President Obama in each of their first years. President Trump's nominees are moving twice as fast as President Obama's.

Senator McConnell controls the floor schedule. If he wants to schedule more votes on judges, I suppose he has the power to do so. He is exercising that power by doing something that has never happened in the history of the Senate. Four circuit court judge nominees will be considered this week in the Senate.

Since the Republicans in the Senate are dedicating this week to judicial nominations, it gives us a good opportunity to look at the nominees President Trump has put forward for lifetime appointments to the second highest courts in the Federal system.

Time and again, we have seen President Trump nominate people who are far outside of the judicial mainstream. For example, there is John Bush, now a judge on the Sixth Circuit, who blogged about the false claim that President Obama wasn't born in the United States, compared abortion to slavery, and said in his hearing that he thinks impartiality is an aspiration for a judge, not an expectation.

There is Damien Schiff, nominee for the Court of Federal Claims under President Trump, who called Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy ``a judicial prostitute.''

There is Jeff Mateer, a Trump nominee for the district court in Texas, who described transgender children as part of ``Satan's plan'' and who lamented that States were banning so-called ``conversion therapy,'' the pseudoscience of attempting to ``convert'' LGBT Americans into heterosexuals.

There is Thomas Farr, Trump nominee for the district court in North Carolina, whom the Congressional Black Caucus describes as ``the preeminent attorney for North Carolina Republicans seeking to curtail the voting rights of people of color.''

There is Greg Katsas, nominee for the DC Circuit, who refused to say at his hearing whether the torture technique known as waterboarding is illegal.

There is Brett Talley, a nominee by President Trump to be Federal trial judge in Alabama, who has never tried a single case and he wrote in a blog: ``I pledge my support to the National Rifle Association, financially, politically, and intellectually.''

There is Alabama district court and Trump nominee Liles Burke, who hung a portrait of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in his office and defended it at his hearing, saying it had ``historical significance.''

There is Oklahoma district court nominee Charles Goodwin, who received a very rare rating of ``not qualified'' to be a Federal judge from the American Bar Association.

The list of Trump nominees goes on.

Routinely, we see judicial nominees under President Trump who have a history of taking ideologically driven positions that are out of the mainstream. Nearly all of these nominees are members of the rightwing Federalist Society, which President Trump uses as his gatekeeper for the Federal bench.

Do you remember Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court Justice? Do you know how he was notified that he had been chosen to be a candidate for the Supreme Court? You would expect a call from the White House, right-- maybe even a call from the President? No. The White House decided to delegate to the Federalist Society to notify him. They called Mr. Leo, their director, and said: Why don't you call Mr. Gorsuch and give him the good news? Well, it is no surprise to those of us who know that the Federalist Society, this conservative group, is now the gatekeeper of all the Federal judges under President Trump.

Many of these nominees have given no reassurance that they will be independent as judges. And the question obviously is, What impact will the President--who has unfortunately denigrated and pressured Federal judges in the past--have on them?

Let's consider the nominees before the Senate this week.

Professor Amy Coney Barrett, who has been nominated to sit on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, is a distinguished professor at Notre Dame Law School. She has strong academic credentials. She clerked for Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court. But she has no judicial experience. And she told the Judiciary Committee that she could only recall three litigation matters that she worked on in her entire career--three. She has never served as a counsel of record in an appellate case or ever argued an appeal.

Given her lack of judicial record and her minimal record as a practicing lawyer, the Judiciary Committee looked at Professor Barrett's academic writings to try to understand who she is and what she believes. Basically, that is all we had to go on.

Much of Professor Barrett's writings deal with when she believes it is acceptable for judges to deviate from precedent. For example, in a 2003 law journal article, she called for ``federal courts to restore flexibility to stare decisis doctrine.'' In a 2013 article, she said that it is ``more legitimate for [a justice] to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she thinks clearly in conflict with it.'' These are extraordinary--some would say even extreme--views of the obligation of a Federal judge to follow established precedent from someone who is seeking a lifetime appointment to the second highest court in the land.

I would like to address Barrett's Law Review article. She co-wrote an article in 1998 with John Garvey in the Marquette Law Review entitled ``Catholic Judges in Capital Cases.'' This article was about what she perceived then as the recusal obligations of ``orthodox Catholic'' judges. The article said some provocative things. Here are some examples:

``A judge will often entertain an ideological bias that makes him lean one way or another. In fact, we might safely say that every judge has such an inclination.''

``Litigants and the general public are entitled to impartial justice, and that may be something that a judge who is heedful of ecclesiastical pronouncements cannot dispense.''

She wrote, when discussing the ``behavior of orthodox Catholics in capital cases,'' that ``the judge's cooperation with evil passes acceptable limits when he conducts a sentencing hearing.''

This is an article written by the nominee. This is an issue raised by the nominee. It was such a profound statement about the relationship between conviction, conscience, and religious belief, that it was the subject of many questions from many Senators on the Judiciary Committee.

For the last 2 days, Senator McConnell has come to the floor and talked about the left asking questions about Amy Coney Barrett's religious beliefs. Obviously Senator McConnell has not read the transcript from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Some have suggested it was inappropriate for the Judiciary Committee to even question the nominee about the impact of religious belief on the discharge of her duties. Some of my colleagues have questioned the propriety of such questions in light of the Constitution's clear, unequivocal prohibition on religious tests. But I would remind the Senate that it was the nominee herself, in this 47-page Law Review article, who raised this issue on whether the teachings of the Catholic Church should have any impact on the discharge of judicial duties of a Catholic judge.

So was it any surprise that at least five different Senators--three Republicans and two Democrats--asked her about the article that she coauthored? It is no surprise that the gravity of this publication and the issue it raised led committee members on both sides of the aisle to ask questions about the nominee's religious beliefs, the contents of her writings, and how it would impact the discharge of her duties if she was approved by the Senate.

Who asked the first question about the religious beliefs of Amy Coney Barrett? It was the Republican chairman of the Committee, Charles Grassley. He noted that Professor Barrett had been outspoken about her Catholic faith and asked her when it was proper for a judge to put religious views above applying the law. Chairman Grassley also asked, in his second question, how she would decide when she needs to recuse herself on grounds of conscience.

Senator McConnell comes to the floor and suggests that any reference to that article somehow raises questions of religious bias. Let me say for the record that I do not believe Chairman Grassley is guilty of religious bias, nor have I ever seen any evidence of it. It was hard to imagine how he could avoid the obvious. She had written a lengthy article--coauthored an article on a subject, and he felt duty-bound, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to ask her questions about her beliefs on the subject. I don't believe that Chairman Grassley would ever apply a religious test to any nominee, but he and many of us felt it important to ask Professor Barrett to state her position clearly on the convergence of her faith, her conscience, and her duties as a Federal judge.

Similarly, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch felt it necessary to ask Professor Barrett to make clear a judge's duty when the laws or Constitution conflicts with the judge's personal religious beliefs. Again, I do not believe Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, would apply a religious test to any nominee, but the nominee's writings and the questions those writings raised led him to ask the nominee that question.

Later in the hearing, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, raised the same issue. I will quote what he said to Professor Barrett:

I've read some of what you've written on Catholic judges

and in capital cases, and in particular, as I understand it,

you argued that Catholic judges are morally precluded from

enforcing the death penalty. I was going to ask you to just

please explain your views on that because that obviously is

of relevance to the job for which you have been nominated.

That was from Republican Senator Ted Cruz. I do not suggest that he was guilty of any religious bias in asking the question about an article written by the nominee.

I take our Constitution seriously when it says there should be no religious test for public office, but many Senators on the Judiciary Committee--three Republicans and two Democrats, including myself--felt the writings of the nominee warranted an inquiry about her views on the impact of her religion on a judge's role. That is far from a religious test in violation of the Constitution.

At her hearing, I asked Professor Barrett several questions about her 1998 Law Review article. I asked her whether she still agreed with her article. She said in general that she did. I said that even though I am a Catholic, even though I have gone through 19 years of Catholic education, I have never run into the term ``orthodox Catholic,'' which she used in that article. I asked her if she could define it. What was she saying? Whom did she describe? She said it was an imperfect term but explained the context for her use of it. I asked her whether she considered herself in that category, using her term which she put forward as carrying certain obligations on judicial recusal. She acknowledged again that the term is a proxy and that it wasn't a term in current use.

Some have argued that I was imposing a religious test--somehow, the three Republican Senators asking the same question have not been challenged--or that I was insinuating that Catholics can't serve on the bench. That is absurd. I myself am Catholic. I deeply respect and value the freedom of religion in our country and the Constitution. And I will let my record speak for itself about the number of Catholic nominees whom I have appointed to the bench or tried to appoint to the bench with the concurrence of the Senate during the course of my career. I voted for many judicial nominees who are of the Catholic religion, including Judge Ralph Erickson, who is outspoken about his Catholic faith and whom I voted to confirm several weeks ago. I am also sure I voted against nominees who were Catholic as well because I didn't think they had the experience, judgment, or temperament to serve in the Federal judiciary.

At nomination hearings, I ask questions to try to understand how the nominee would approach the job of a judge. I asked Professor Barrett questions about issues she raised in her academic writings that could directly impact the discharge of her judicial duties.

I would note that Professor Barrett put forward her views as part of the academic legal debate. Contrast that with Paul Abrams, President Obama's nominee for the Central District of California, who was aggressively questioned by committee Republicans last year about statements he made while speaking at his synagogue. Republicans ultimately blocked Paul Abrams' nomination. No one on this side of the aisle--not this Senator or any Senator--questioned whether they were applying a religious test in rejecting his nomination.

When judicial nominees have put forward their views on issues like the intersection of law and faith as part of the academic legal debate, I think it is fair for members of the Judiciary Committee to ask them about it. That is no religious test by my measure.

I voted against Professor Barrett's nomination in committee because I don't believe she has sufficient experience to be a circuit court judge and because of her writings about precedent. No one doubts that she is smart, but she has barely spent any time in the courtroom. The only basis we have to judge her on is on her academic writings.

Let's be honest. If a Democratic President had put forward a nominee with as little practical legal experience as Professor Barrett and with a similar history of advocating for not following precedent, I think we know exactly how the Senators on the other side of the aisle would have voted. As it stands, I cannot support Professor Barrett's nomination.

I oppose the nomination of Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen to the Sixth Circuit. She is one of the 21 Supreme Court candidates that the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation handpicked for President Trump. Clearly, those rightwing organizations are confident that they will like her rulings if she is confirmed.

When she appeared before our committee, I asked some simple questions, and I was troubled by the responses.

In 2006, Justice Larsen wrote an op-ed defending President Bush's use of a signing statement on the McCain torture amendment. The McCain amendment prohibited torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. I asked Justice Larsen about that op-ed and asked her if she believes waterboarding is torture and illegal. She would not answer the question. The law is clear on this matter, and I have voted against nominees in the past who would not acknowledge this.

I also asked Justice Larsen about the $140,000 in ads that a dark money front group called the Judicial Crisis Network had run in support of her nomination. This is the same rightwing, dark money organization that spent millions of dollars in undisclosed donations running ads to oppose Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court and to support the nomination of Neil Gorsuch.

I am troubled that special interest groups are making undisclosed donations to these nomination front groups. These special interests likely have a stake in the cases that will come before these judges. The donations should be transparent so that judges can make informed decisions about recusal.

I asked Justice Larsen if she could call on this front group to stop running ads in support of her nomination unless donations to the groups are made public. She responded that this was a political debate on which she could not opine. I think that is an absurd position, given that the debate here is over her own nomination and getting information for her own recusal decisions.

I also asked Justice Larsen if she agreed, as a factual matter, with President Trump's patently absurd claim that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election. I think that is an easy question. Justice Larsen ducked it, saying that this was a political debate. I am troubled by these answers. I believe Justice Larsen has not shown the necessary independence from the President or rightwing groups like the Judicial Crisis Network, and she does not earn my vote.

I oppose the nomination of Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid to the Tenth Circuit. She is another on the short list of 21 Supreme Court nominees that the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation assembled for President Trump. She has now been nominated to the seat of the Tenth Circuit once held by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

I am troubled by the dissents Justice Eid wrote in a number of cases. I asked her about one of those cases during her hearing. A 2015 case, Westin Operator, LLC v. Groh, involved a hotel that evicted a group of college-age, intoxicated friends into freezing weather one night. The young adults ended up getting into a car and driving away. The car crashed, and a person was killed. The family of Caitlin Groh, who suffered traumatic brain damage in the accident, sued the hotel for negligently evicting the guests into a foreseeably dangerous environment.

Justice Eid's dissent argued that the court should have dismissed the Groh's family claim on a motion for summary judgment. She said that she saw no material dispute of fact in the case because she claimed the hotel video showed there were taxis in the area that the evicted guests could have taken. But the majority of the court saw the same evidence, the same video, and came to the opposite conclusion.

The majority wrote:

Video footage from hotel security cameras shows two taxis

in the vicinity during the general timeframe of the eviction.

No taxi is visible on screen during the time in which the

group exited the hotel and walked to the parking lot en

masse, but there is a police car parked at the entrance. It

is unclear from the record whether the taxis visible at other

times in the video were occupied or available for service,

whether any member of the group saw the taxis, and whether

the security guards evicting the group were aware if a taxi

was immediately available. . . . One of the people evicted

testified at his own deposition that he tried to look for a

cab outside the hotel but didn't see one.

In other words, looking at the same evidence, the majority of the court could not reach the same conclusion. It is difficult to understand how Justice Eid saw this evidence as undisputed and why she wanted this case dismissed

on summary judgment--until you read the part of Justice Eid's dissent where she talks about ``the burden that the majority is placing on Colorado businesses.'' That appears to explain her ruling, not the facts in the case.

In written questions I asked Justice Eid if she had also considered the burden the court's decision would place on these young adults and their families. She did not respond.

This is one of her troubling dissents, but there were others. In the 2014 case of City of Brighton v. Rodriguez, her dissent would have denied workers' compensation for a city employee who fell down the stairs to her office and needed brain surgery. In the 2017 case of People v. Boyd, her dissent criticized the State's decision not to prosecute a person on appeal based on a marijuana possession statute that is no longer operative. The cases go on and give ample reason why I do not believe this troubling record justifies Justice Eid replacing Justice Gorsuch on this important court.

I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill) and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill) and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I join my colleague and friend Senator Duckworth to recognize the 100th anniversary of Chicago's Navy Pier, one of the most visited attractions in Illinois and the Midwest.

Navy Pier, originally named Municipal Pier, was the first of its kind. The pier was created to bring revenue into the city by supporting industry and tourism. The pier opened in 1916 and served as a port for commercial shipping and provided the entertainment and recreation needed to transform Chicago's lakefront into a popular tourist attraction.

During World War I and World War II, the pier was used as a naval training center for over 60,000 Navy recruits and was later named Navy Pier to honor the Navy personnel who served and contributed to the national war effort.

Throughout its history, Navy Pier was home to several Chicago institutions and traditions.

Navy Pier was also the former home to the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1946 to 1965, nicknamed ``Harvard on the Rocks,'' and served more than 100,000 students.

Navy Pier originally held the famous Taste of Chicago in 1978 and today continues to host a variety of festivals, conferences, trade shows, and live entertainment.

Navy Pier opens its doors to locals and visitors to experience Chicago's rich historical and cultural history while enjoying activities and the city's lakefront. Its popular attractions, including the iconic ferris wheel, have attracted more than 9 million visitors a year, generated millions of dollars in revenue, and created thousands of jobs for the region.

It is no surprise that Navy Pier has been labeled a Chicago historic landmark with its significant contributions to the city of Chicago and the Nation.

Navy Pier continues to promote tourism and support economic growth in Chicago and the Midwest, while improving its facilities and core missions to better provide services to visitors. It is with great pride that I join Senator Duckworth in honoring Navy Pier and its many accomplishments.

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.