Floor Statements

Madam President, as I leave the Senate, I want to recognize one staffer in particular, Ms. Mary Maughan. Mary has served for 18 years on my Utah staff. Mary also worked with me on my first campaign for the Senate in 1992. She was the second I person hired on that campaign and has been a loyal and trusted advisor ever since.

Mary brought to my office vast experience, which provided a solid foundation for her service on my staff during my time in the Senate. She was raised in a military family as an Air Force ``brat'' and consequently built a deep understanding of military culture and operations. Later, as a Foreign Service officer with the Department of State, she spent 18 months in Vietnam during the war and expanded her personal experience and expertise while working in civilian and military-support offices at both provincial and regional levels. She added to her resume with further experience in Washington, where she focused on Middle Eastern issues as the Iraqi desk officer at the Department of State. She also did temporary duty working on Israeli affairs at the Department of Commerce. Embassy duty in Europe and professional and personal travel in significant and volatile areas of the world helped expand her international credentials.

Mary put these credentials to work as part of my Senate staff. She specialize in military and veterans affairs, Department of State and other international issues, as well as homeland security, Department of Justice, and other related programs. Her expertise and fine performance eventually helped her to advance to the position of senior adviser.

I thank Mary for her tireless dedication to the people of Utah and her loyalty and honorable service as a member of my staff for almost two decades. It is with sincere appreciation and gratitude that I congratulate her on her retirement. I look forward to continuing our association in the years to come.

Madam President, there used to be a very strong tradition in the Senate that every new Senator gave a maiden speech, and in that tradition some Senators waited as long as a year before they gave the speech. Then, when the time came, the more senior Senators would gather and take notes and then critique the newcomer on how well he did.

Life has changed a good deal. I never gave a maiden speech. I plunged right into the debate when I got here. Now the tradition seems to be to give a farewell speech. So I am grateful to my colleagues who will gather for this occasion as I contemplate saying farewell to the Senate. But I will warn them, this is probably not my last speech. I intend to be heavily involved in the debate over whether we pass a continuing resolution or an omnibus bill.

I have a history with the Senate, and it began when I was a teenager as a summer intern. I remember sitting in the gallery and watching Bob Taft prowl across the back of the Senate, watching to make sure things were going according to his desire. He had been the majority leader. He had stepped down from that position because of the cancer he had contracted, but he was still paying attention to this body where he served with such distinction.

Lyndon Johnson was sprawled out with his lanky frame at the Democratic leader's desk, and I was watching from the gallery, thinking what an extraordinary place this was.

Ten years later, I came back as a staffer, and I served here. I was sitting in my cubicle in the Dirksen Building when word came that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. We didn't know whether he was dead. We all rushed over to the Senate, where there was a ticker tape back in the back lobby, to see what was happening. I rushed in with the others to see what was there and then looked to see whom I had jostled aside in order to get to see the ticker tape. It was Mike Mansfield. I quietly withdrew, realizing I had done something that was not appropriate on that occasion.

But I was here in Washington when Martin Luther King gave his ``I Have a Dream'' speech. I was here as a staffer when the historic civil rights bill of 1964 was passed and was involved in the drafting of that bill at a very low kind of level and the conflict that occurred on that occasion.

Then I came back into government as the head of the congressional relations function for a Cabinet-level department and worked with Senator Dirksen in trying to pursue the Nixon administration's goals forward and ran into a bright young Senator from Kansas with a sharp wit named Bob Dole and had the opportunity of working with Dirksen and Dole and the others in that situation.

Watergate came along. I was given the dubious honor of being called to testify by a young Senator from Tennessee named Howard Baker. He assigned me to his staffer, who grilled me for 3 hours under oath--a fellow by the name of Fred Thompson.

There are great kinds of memories there. I did not realize I would come back to the Senate myself, and as a political junky, what could be better? I was involved in the debate, I had access to all of the activity, and they even gave me a vote. It was a great time, a great opportunity, and I have enjoyed it immensely and say farewell to it with kind of mixed feelings.

What have I learned out of all of this, both that past history and my own history in the Senate? I will not bore you with all of the things I have learned, but I have picked out several I want to highlight here today.

The first thing I have learned is that this is, indeed, an extraordinary place filled with extraordinary people. And the caricature we get from the press and the movies and other places that this is filled with people who have self-serving agendas and very low standards of ethics is simply not true. The Senate is filled with people with the highest standard of ethics--we have a few clunkers, I will admit that, but overall the highest standard of ethics the American people could want.

If I may dip back into my history to give you this example of how much better the present Senate is than some of the older ones, I remember that when I was prowling the halls in the circumstances I have described, I ran into a friend who was distraught.

I said to him: What is the problem?

He said: I am taking a group of schoolchildren through the Capitol, and I sent a note in to a Senator to ask him if he would come out and speak to them. And he did, and he is drunk. I can't get him to stop and get the schoolchildren back to the tour, and I don't know what to do.

You don't see that kind of behavior in today's Senate.

You don't see the kind of casualness toward personal campaign contributions that existed. Why do you think, when they built the Dirksen Building, they put a safe in every Senator's office? It was to hold the cash that would be brought into the office and handed to the Senator. And that was a routine kind of circumstance.

One of the things I enjoyed about the renovation of the Dirksen Building was being able to say to the Architect of the Capitol: Take the safe out because we don't need it anymore. I notice now that I started a trend. If I leave no legacy other than this, it will be that the safes are all coming out of the Dirksen Office Building, and I was the first one to do that.

This is an extraordinary place filled with extraordinary people who take their jobs very seriously and deserve the kind of respect that too often they do not get. Everybody says, when they leave this place, they will miss the people. I certainly will. The friendships that have been made here, the lessons I have been taught, and the mentors I have had have all been a major part of it. I will not name names because once I get started in that, I will not be able to quit. But I do recognize the mentors I have had in the leaders, in my senior colleague, Senator Hatch--and I will tell a story about him--and the staff. These are also extraordinary people who go to extraordinary lengths to serve the country. We should acknowledge that and give them the credit they deserve.

Senator Hatch gave me this piece of advice. We were talking one night about an issue, and we were on opposite sides. That didn't happen very often. Senator Hatch and I don't confer in advance of a vote very often. We come to our own conclusions, but, both being conservative Republicans, we usually end up in the same place. On this occasion, we were different. Orrin was giving me his full court press. You have all been exposed to Orrin's full court press on an issue.

Finally, he said to me: Bob, apply the driving home test.

I said: All right, what is the driving home test?

He said: After this is all over and the lights go out and you go get in your car and you are driving home, thinking back on the day and the votes you cast, the driving home test is, how will you feel driving home if you cast that particular vote?

I said: Orrin, that is some of the best advice I ever got.

I voted against him, and I felt great while I was driving home.

That is one of the first things I have learned. This is an extraordinary place filled with extraordinary people who are dedicated to the country, dedicated to doing the right thing, and who uphold the highest ethical standards.

The next thing I have learned is that there are two parties and that there is a difference between the two parties. There are those who say: Oh, there is not a dime's worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats; they are the same people who say we are all corrupt. There is a significant difference. The Democrats are the party of government. Going back to their roots with Franklin Roosevelt, they come to the conclusion that if there is a problem, government should solve that problem. The Republicans are the party of free markets, and they come to the conclusion that if there is a problem, it should be left to the markets to solve it. And they are both right. That is the thing I have come to understand here. There are some problems where government is the solution--but not always. There are some problems where free markets do provide the solution--but not always.

The tension between those two has run throughout the history of the Republic. You can go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and the arguments they had as to what the proper role of government should be, whether it should be big government or little government, whether you should have this or that kind of power. It ran through the Constitutional Convention and arguments that occurred there.

It is appropriate that those who believe in government should have strong advocates on their side. Those who believe in free markets should have equally strong advocates on their side. And because I believe in free markets, I am a Republican, and I have been happy to be a Republican. I have been careful to stand up for those things I believe, and I have compiled a record that many of my friends on the Democratic side would consider fairly miserable in terms of wisdom on voting. But let us understand in the debate, as we go back and forth between these two concepts, that we do not question the motives or the patriotism of anyone on the other side--or within our own caucuses.

I remember an event where someone on the Republican side voted with the Democrats in a way that some on this side felt was betrayal, and there was a sense of, let's punish him, let's do this, that, and the other. Trent Lott taught me this lesson. He said: No, the most important vote is the next one. We are going to need his vote the next time. And if we punish him for this last vote, we won't get it.

Yes, there is a difference between the two parties. Yes, we disagree. But if we can disagree in an effort to solve the problems of the country and be willing on occasion to say maybe the other side is right, we will move forward.

Let me go back to the Civil Rights Act and that debate. Barry Goldwater was the Republican standard-bearer in the year that was passed. Barry Goldwater and many of his colleagues on the Republican side believed that the Civil Rights Act was an unwarranted intrusion on personal liberty, that you were entitled to pick your own associations. And the Democrats--some of them--believed the civil rights bill had to be passed to keep faith with the 14th amendment and government's role in securing liberty.

Everett Dirksen stood in the middle of that fight. The civil rights bill was

written in Dirksen's office. Lyndon Johnson gets historic credit for it, as he deserves, but within this body where the cloture vote determined whether it would pass, the key figure was Everett Dirksen.

My father, with me as his chief of staff, was caught in that pressure with the conservatives saying one thing, the liberals saying another, and dad trying to decide which way he would go. I remember a comment he made as he made his decision--and he made his decision to go with Dirksen, vote for the bill, vote for cloture. Being a businessman, he had thought it through. He believed in free markets as well as I do. But he made this comment which I have always held on to as an example of the way you deal with this challenge. He said: You know, I thought about it, and many of these companies that refuse to serve Black people are public companies with their stock available on the stock exchange. So what we are saying is, it is all right for the Black person to own the company but it is not all right for him to patronize it. That is unsustainable.

So on this occasion, he sided with the people who believed in government to solve the problem. He voted for the Civil Rights Act, and he got a challenger for his next nomination and the toughest primary he ever had within the party. He overcame that challenger, and he got his fourth term.

I made the decision to act in concert with George Bush and my leader, Mitch McConnell, and the Democratic leader, Harry Reid, and the Republican standard-bearer, John McCain, to vote in favor of an act of government as opposed to free markets when I supported TARP. And I got a challenger as I sought a fourth term, and I was not as successful as my father, so my career was ended. My father never regretted his civil rights vote. I don't regret my TARP vote because it was the right thing to do.

For those who say: Oh, what a terrible thing it is that your career has ended, I go back again to the old Senate and a Senator named Norris Cotton, from New Hampshire. Norris Cotton was a Republican. He used to tell this story.

Three fellows were sitting on a bench in New Hampshire in their rocking chairs contemplating what would happen after they had died. The first one said: You know, after I die, I want to be buried next to George Washington, the Father of our country. I think it will be a great honor to be buried next to Washington.

The second one said: Well, that is fine, but I am more loyal to our State. I want to be buried next to Daniel Webster.

OK. They rocked for a while, and they turned to the third fellow and they said: What about you?

He said: I want to be buried next to Elizabeth Taylor.

They said: But, Joe, Elizabeth Taylor is not dead yet.

He said: Neither am I.

I appreciate the opportunity to give this farewell speech and your willingness to come listen to it. But I am not dead yet. The demographers are saying, within the next three or four decades, the number of Americans over the age of 100 will be in the millions. I intend to be one of that number. I have loved being in the Senate. I have loved the association. I have enjoyed hearing about the issues and being in the arena to try to solve them.

I do not intend to leave the arena of public debate and public affairs. I simply have changed venues. I am grateful to the Senate and to all my friends for all the things you have taught me. I view the Senate not as the end of my career but as the education and preparation for the next stage.

My father lived until he was 95, my mother 96. I only have to beat the demographic laws by a very small percentage to beat my goal. I appreciate the opportunity of being here and your courtesy in listening to me here today.

Mr. President, I rise today to salute a number of organizations from my home State of Utah that have demonstrated vision as they plan for the needs of our future. Utah is one of the fastest growing States in the country. Our rapid population growth is attributed to both the area's high birth rate and to in-migration. We have a strong economy and have continued to attract workers during the recent economic recession. Yet even as we grow, our transportation system has not buckled under the pressure of explosive development. Regional and community planners, as well as business and political leaders have been looking forward to plan and meet the transportation infrastructure needs of our growing population. Our transit system of buses, vans, light rail and commuter rail is unparalleled and I am proud of the role I played in bringing TRAX and FrontRunner, our light rail and commuter rail services to the Wasatch Front. Last Thursday, November 25, 2010, marked 10 years that TRAX has been serving our communities. This expanding network has brought new possibilities to our residents and creates an economic rebirth in each community it touches.

There are a number of lessons that other areas can learn from the success of Utah's transit expansion. Planning for the needs of a changing population should be the standard, rather than the exception in every community. Recently, Utah was again recognized for its innovative planning. Last month the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, announced a $5 million award to support the creation of more livable and sustainable communities along the Wasatch Front. This funding will support development of a regional housing plan through a new initiative intended to build economic competitiveness by connecting housing with good jobs, quality schools and transportation. This grant is part of a new Federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities, which brings EPA, HUD, USDA and DOT together to ensure that the agencies' policies, programs, and funding consider affordable housing, transportation, and environmental protection together. I support the efforts of this interagency collaboration designed to get better results for American communities and to use taxpayer money more efficiently. I salute the Utah organizations whose vision brought this important grant to our State. The Utah consortium behind the grant is made up of the following partners--the Wasatch Front Regional Council, Mountainland Association of Governments, Envision Utah, the Utah Department of Transportation, UDOT, Utah Transit Authority, UTA, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City, University of Utah's Metropolitan Research Center and Bureau of Economic and Business Research, the Utah Chapter of the American Planning Association and other public and private sector partners. These visionaries joined together to apply for this grant through a nationwide competitive process to implement the growth strategies and vision in the region.

Over the past decade, public, private, academic and community leaders in Utah developed quality growth strategies for the Salt Lake metropolitan region. In 2010, they developed and adopted a regional vision, the Wasatch Choice for 2040, which is a blueprint for our region's future. The sustainable communities grant Utah received will help make that blueprint a reality.

My friend and colleague, Senator Dodd of Connecticut has introduced legislation that would create more of these grants, and go a step further by creating an Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities. This office would oversee efforts to help local communities plan for and create better and more affordable places to live, work, and raise families. The legislation would incentivize communities to make regional plans like Utah's Wasatch Choice for 2040 and would fund sustainable development projects. I believe that with effective policies to encourage sustainable development, our communities will cut traffic congestion; reduce greenhouse gas emissions and gasoline consumption; protect rural areas and green spaces; revitalize existing Main Streets and urban centers; and create more affordable housing.

While I strongly support many of the ideas in this legislation, I have not added myself as a cosponsor, because of some concerns that have been raised. First and foremost, during this time of out of control spending, I feel it would be irresponsible of me to support the legislation without a plan to pay for the new spending it would create. It is my hope that some sort of a livable communities component will be included in a much needed transportation authorization bill that Congress should consider next year. This discussion of the future of the highway trust fund should also address the important of local planning efforts. I would also like to see a greater voice for small businesses and affected industries that would no doubt be greatly affected by the policies set in an effort to encourage sustainability. There are many important interests that need to be considered and included in the discussion.

The partnership between the Utah Transit Authority and our local, regional and State transportation planning organizations is a great example for many States. I feel confident that Utah will use the livable communities grant we are going to receive to continue to lead the nation in transportation and infrastructure planning. I urge my colleagues to give full consideration and take the time to learn and debate the ideas proposed in my friend Senator Dodd's legislation, S. 1619, the Livable Communities Act.

Mr. President, I am embarrassed and humbled and gratified by the comments of my senior colleague, Senator Hatch. My wife has said, by virtue of our retirement from the Senate: It is a little like going to your own funeral. You are hearing all of the eulogies but you are still alive.

We, indeed, are planning a significant life and activity after the Senate. I will have more to say about that at some other time. But I want to express my gratitude to Senator Hatch for the kind words he has spoken, but more importantly for the relationship we have developed in the time we have served together.

We did not know each other very well prior to my running for the Senate. He was a Senator off in Washington; I was a businessman in Utah. We had little occasion to see our paths cross and become acquainted.

One of the things I will treasure the most out of my experiences in the Senate has been the opportunity to come to know Orrin as a friend, as a dedicated legislator, and a role model and mentor. He has guided me many times when I needed some guidance. We have disagreed sometimes when that was appropriate given our particular positions on an issue or two, but always I have been able to look to Orrin Hatch as a mentor, a friend, someone upon whom I could depend.

In the recent election when there were those who were suggesting that maybe Orrin should distance himself from me for his own political benefit, I am gratified by the fact that he not only refused to do that but until the very end did everything he could throughout the State to see to it that I was triumphant in that election.

It turned out I was not, as far as the convention is concerned, but elections and conventions are not the be-all-and-end-all of life. I will go on to other activities, but I will hang onto my friendship with Orrin Hatch and continue my respect and love for him in the years to come.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I shall not, I ask unanimous consent that following Senator Specter, I be recognized for 5 minutes, Senator Hutchison be recognized for 5 minutes, Senator Collins for 10 minutes, Senator Alexander for 5 minutes, and Senator Isakson for 5 minutes, thus locking in the time we understood we were going to get.

Madam President, today we will go to Arlington for the final ceremony with respect to our former colleague, Senator Ted Stevens. He has earned a place in Arlington by virtue of his service in the Second World War, but he has earned a place in the hearts of all of us who worked with him, and like my colleagues I want to take the opportunity to say a few words about Senator Stevens.

Senator Stevens was something of a character. He would wear his Hulk tie. He would cultivate his reputation as an irascible fighter, and he always had a twinkle in his eye when he did it. But there was some truth to it.

I remember the first time he took over as the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He gathered us together and he, speaking of his predecessor, Mark Hatfield, said: Mark Hatfield was a saint. He was filled with patience. You could talk to him at length, and he was always willing to defer. He was always willing to put off until you could get to the right solution. Mark Hatfield was a saint. I am not. We are going to get this thing done, and we are going to get it done on time. I am impatient, and I am going to make sure that the things go in the way they should.

We all chuckled at that. We did, indeed, enjoy Mark Hatfield. But the point I want to make today is that behind that facade that Senator Stevens liked to put up was a very serious legislator and a very superior human being.

Ted Stevens was always accessible. No matter what your problem was, you could go to him and he would listen to you. I discovered that when we were working on funding for the Olympics. He was a great supporter of the Olympics. As a Senator from Utah, when we were holding the Olympics I not only got his support, but I got his advice and his help. He was always accessible. He was always prepared. If you went to Ted Stevens, you wouldn't catch him by surprise on anything. He was always engaged. He didn't have to have the staff bring him up to speed; he had to have an understanding of the issues himself.

Perhaps most importantly, Ted Stevens was always open to new ideas. I was chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and would talk about the economy to the conference as a whole and would be surprised how many times Ted Stevens would come up to me after and have some new idea about the economy or some new source he had come across he would recommend to me. Even after he had left the Senate when I would run into him in a social situation, Ted would say, You ought to get your staff looking at--and then he would fill in the blank with information of what it was he had found out.

Ted Stevens served in the highest tradition of this body. It was an honor and a privilege and a learning experience for me to be able to serve with him. On this day, he takes his final resting place in Arlington. I join with my colleagues in paying tribute to him, not just as a Senator but as a superior human being and a great friend.

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

Mr. President, we have had a lot of conversation about the DISCLOSE Act. I am a member, indeed the ranking member, of the Rules Committee where the DISCLOSE Act, if it had been referred to committee, would have come for consideration. Unfortunately, the DISCLOSE Act was not referred to committee. We in the committee have had no opportunity to amend it, no opportunity to hold hearings on it, no opportunity to hear from witnesses who may have differing opinions from the version that passed the House. It has been brought to the floor in such a manner that the committee has simply been bypassed.

For that reason, therefore, any objections we might have with respect to the way the bill is currently worded have to be raised on the floor. Any concerns we have as to the inequities in the bill have to be raised on the floor. It has made the whole thing more contentious than it needs to be.

The DISCLOSE Act, by name, suggests that all it is is disclosure. It doesn't address any other issue than how people who are going to exercise their rights under the first amendment do so, the specifics of how they do that, and the specifics of who is behind the advertising that takes place in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court. I pointed out in the past and repeat as a reference that prior to the Supreme Court's decision, it was possible for Michael Moore to produce a movie that would attack George W. Bush and be completely acceptable, completely legal. But it was not possible for the people who formed Citizens United to produce a movie that attacks Hillary Clinton and have that be legal. The difference was Michael Moore was acting as an individual. These people were acting collectively. Because they chose the corporate form of organization for their collective action, the previous law said: You cannot do this.

The Supreme Court ruled--I think accurately--that if Michael Moore has a right to make a movie, so does Citizens United. If Michael Moore has a right to attack George W. Bush, Citizens United has the right to attack Hillary Clinton. I frankly think Michael Moore's movie probably had more to do with moving votes than the Citizens United movie did.

But be that as it may, neither one of them seems to have had that much impact on the body politic.

But that is not the point. The point is, the Supreme Court ruled freedom of speech means freedom of speech, and if it is OK for one movie to be made under one set of circumstances, it is equally OK for another movie to be made under a slightly different set of circumstances.

There are those who say: No, no, no; this opens up the world for corporations to fund advertisements to distort and destroy and affect our elections.

I have several reactions to that; the first one being, I have seen political ads that have been funded by rich individuals through the mechanism of a 527. If I were on the other side of the issue--and, indeed, in many cases I was--I would like to keep those ads running because the individuals who put up the money for the ads did not know how to write an effective ad. They were exercising their freedom of speech, but they were doing it in an amateurish kind of way, and under current law--and the Supreme Court decision did not change this--they could not give the money to the political parties that know what they are doing. They had to express themselves on their own, and many of them did not know how to do that very well.

So all of this excitement about the airwaves are going to be flooded with tremendously persuasive advertisements from national corporations that are going to distort our political process is making some assumptions about the voters that I think are not true. They are making assumptions about the ability of a corporation to enter this field and do something very dramatic that I think is not true.

But missing from this discourse about how terrible it is going to be if corporations start doing this--and we are not seeing any signs of how terrible this is happening in the real world--is any mention of another group that received exactly the same kind of green light from the Supreme Court as corporations did, another group that is barred by the same law that says corporations cannot contribute directly to a political party that will benefit enormously, and a group that has demonstrated it has the capacity to create a political advertisement that is effective.

I am talking about unions. Unions have the same kind of freedom that corporations have under this decision from the Supreme Court. Unions can now spend money speaking freely about candidates and using their names in ways that presumably they could not have done before.

Are we going to assume that the Supreme Court decision is going to unleash a flood of millions and millions of dollars of corporate money, but that the unions are going to sit quietly on the sidelines with their hands folded across their chests doing nothing?

If, indeed, there is going to be an avalanche of political spending coming as a result of this decision, I guarantee it is going to come from the unions every bit as much as it is going to come from the corporations. Indeed, it is my expectation it will come far more from the unions than it will come from the corporations.

Think about the big corporations in America. How do most of them make their money? They make their money by selling products to the American people, and they are good at advertisements to sell products. If I were on the board of one of these major corporations, and someone came to me and said: All right, we want to spend corporate money to put together an ad or put together a movie or put together any kind of political speech and put our corporate name on it, I would say: Now, wait a minute. Are you sure you want to run the risk of offending the customers of our product who may not agree with our political position? Let's be a little careful about this.

I think there are going to be some very circumspect conversations in the boardrooms of America's largest corporations before they come rushing in to the political arena in the fashion our friends across the aisle are predicting.

On the other hand, do the unions care? Do the unions feel it will damage their public image if they are seen advertising with tremendous expenditures under the decision the Supreme Court handed down? No. They do not worry about selling products to the American people. They exist in many instances primarily because of favors they received from the government. For those who talk about the DISCLOSE Act, saying this will open the floodgates for corporations and never mentioning unions is to demonstrate they are ignoring what the situation really is.

I would be honored.

I thank the leader for his question, and the leader's recollection is entirely correct. I remember when we passed the Campaign Finance Act we were told this will get big money out of politics. I remember the first elections fought after the passage of that bill saw the greatest amount of spending we have ever seen in American history, and the amount of spending has only gone up.

All we did--and I am quoting from the minority leader's own comments at the time in the debate--all we did was

redirect how the money was going to go. In my view, all the Supreme Court did in their decision was to be fair in saying if a group gets together and organizes themselves, as Citizens United, they have exactly the same right to speak as Michael Moore had. If he makes a movie, they could make a movie. The Supreme Court said both movies are legitimate. I do not think we are going to see any kind of the consequences of the sort we have heard.

Mr. President, I recognize the leader is on the Senate floor, and I will yield the floor so he might continue whatever it is he has to say on this issue.

Mr. President, I had originally anticipated speaking for 15 minutes. I understand that the speaker intruded into the Republicans' time, for which I do not complain, but I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 15 minutes even though the time would normally expire at 3 o'clock.

Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate that and the courtesy of my colleagues.

Mr. President, I have two issues I wish to discuss today. The first one is one I have spoken about before, which is the DISCLOSE Act, which we are going to be voting on probably tomorrow. The last time I talked about the DISCLOSE Act, I raised the issue of the film that was made in the 2004 campaign by Michael Moore. This was an effort, very clearly, on the part of Mr. Moore to influence the election. No one could have seen that film without realizing it was a serious attempt to make sure Americans did not vote for President George W. Bush.

Well, Citizens United, a group that has political views different from Mr. Moore's, believed that the film violated the law, and they filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission because they said it was clearly a political document, not just another movie, and it was filmed for the purpose of trying to affect the election.

At the time, Michael Moore had this to say about Citizens United and their complaint:

That's the difference between our side and their side. Even

when we disagree, we are respectful of freedom of speech, but

when they disagree, they try to shut you down. Well, it's

unAmerican and it's wrong and people are not going to stand

for it. People in this country don't like to be told they

can't watch something or see something.

I can argue with Mr. Moore about whether our side really does hate freedom of speech, but the interesting point is that he insisted we have more opportunities to watch rather than less opportunities to watch and that any other position was, to use his term, un-American.

What did Citizens United do? They decided that rather than fight Michael Moore, they would join him, and they made a movie and they ran the movie in the 2008 election. Immediately, they were attacked for making this movie because, unlike Michael Moore, Citizens United as a group happens to have a corporate charter. They are a corporation by definition, and the complaint was, you are entering the campaign and violating the law which says corporations cannot contribute to political parties.

Citizens United took the case all the way to the Supreme Court and said: But we are not contributing to a political party; we are not violating the law against corporate contributions. We are exercising our first amendment right to make a movie and tell people what we happen to think about Hillary Clinton. Their views about Hillary Clinton were no more generous than Mr. Moore's views about President Bush.

I haven't seen either movie. I don't particularly care to at this point. The issue is, does Citizens United have the same right to freedom of speech that Michael Moore does or is the technicality of the fact that Citizens United happens to be a corporation and Michael Moore is rich enough to make his movie by himself, without a corporate form and without shareholders, mean that he can speak and they cannot? The Supreme Court said: No, we won't support that idea, that he can speak and they cannot; and as long as they are not making a direct contribution to a party--that would be a violation of the law--they have the right to make a movie and they have the right to distribute it.

Well, that is what the DISCLOSE Act attempts to do something about. We have heard complaints on this floor: Oh, it is evil and improper for corporations to speak, unless, of course, they happen to be the New York Times corporation--they can speak all they want--or the Washington Post corporation. They can speak all they want. But if a group of citizens get together, and they have some shareholders, and say, we want to speak in the political arena, they are told, no, no, no, you can't, except by the Supreme Court, which says, yes, yes, yes, you can. That is why I support the Supreme Court decision.

All right. We get the DISCLOSE Act to say that the Supreme Court made a terrible mistake but we will do everything we can to try to rectify that mistake. We are told over and over again that we are not limiting their freedom of speech; we are just going for disclosure. Then there are all kinds of aspects of the bill that go beyond disclosure, and we are treating everybody alike, except for those groups we have carved out of the terms of the DISCLOSE Act, so they won't have to comply with the DISCLOSE Act, and those happen to be the kinds of groups whose support is necessary for the people who voted for this bill in the House.

All right. Let's assume for the sake of argument that there are things in the Supreme Court decision that do need some legislative attention. Why, then, don't we have some hearings? Why, then, don't we have the bill open for amendment? I am the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee--the committee that would receive the jurisdiction on this bill--and we have not seen it in the Rules Committee. It has not been referred to committee. There have been no hearings. There has been no opportunity for amendment. There has been no opportunity to sandpaper some of the rough places and make the bill more acceptable to people who are currently opposed to it. It is simply: It passed the House in this fashion; let's bring it to the floor of the Senate the way it passed in the House and prevent the Senate from having any impact on the way it is worded or structured.

So I am going to vote against the DISCLOSE Act for two reasons: No. 1,

I happen to believe that the Supreme Court got it right and that Citizens United has every bit as much right to produce a movie that attacks a political character as Michael Moore does. The technical fact that he does it as an individual should not change the importance of the dialog that should take place in the public square. No. 2, even if the Supreme Court decision does need some kind of legislative fix, it should be handled in regular order. We should have seen it in the Rules Committee. We should have had an opportunity to amend it, to debate it, to hear witnesses on it, to question those witnesses and have an understanding of it. For those two reasons, I intend to vote against it.

Tax Policy

Turning my attention very quickly to the issue the Senator from Arizona was discussing which has to do with tax policy, I wish to call to the attention of my colleagues an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on September 21 with respect to capital gains taxation and the impact of seeing the capital gains tax rate go up on the economy. The headline of the article is ``Cap Gains Taxation: Less Means More.''

I ask unanimous consent to have the entire article printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

I will highlight only one portion of this article in the interest of time. It is the point that is made as the final point in the article where it says:

Higher capital gains taxes will not substantially reduce

the deficit.

They point out--we have all seen it--that the higher the capital gains tax goes, many times the lower the capital gains tax revenues. Why is that? Because if you have an investment in a business or a piece of real estate and the cost of getting out of that investment is inordinately high because of a capital gains tax rate, you won't be as motivated to get your money out of that investment and put it into a more productive one as you would be if the capital gains tax were low.

We have all known that. The economic information on that has been around for a long time.

But there is another aspect to this I want to highlight; that is, the impact on jobs. The figure they use in this article is that if the capital gains tax rate went to zero, the loss to the Treasury, in terms of income, would be $23 billion a year. Oh, you may say, that is a lot of money. We can't afford to lose $23 billion a year coming into the Treasury. What impact would that have on the deficit? We would lose $23 billion a year that we need.

All right. Let's assume that the $23 billion comes in. What does this administration propose to do with it? They want to put it in the stimulus package to create jobs. They would spend the entire $23 billion as rapidly as it came in. It would go out in a stimulus effort to create jobs. The point made in the article is that by not taking in that $23 billion and leaving it in the economy, we are giving the economy itself and those people who are in the business of creating jobs $23 billion in incentives to create jobs. If I can quote the last paragraph:

A capital gains tax reduction to zero produces new jobs at

the cost of $18,000 per worker--far less than might occur

from any other proposals.

In other words, if the government took in the $23 billion, and then spent it in incentives to create jobs, they would spend more than $18,000 per job than would happen if we simply left that money in the hands of the people who know how to create jobs. I am not suggesting a capital gains tax rate of zero, but I am saying let's leave it where it is, because it is the most efficient way to create new jobs in this economy, rather than have it come into the government and have the government hand it out in ways that are proven to be less effective in the creation of new jobs than the reality of the economy working on its own.

Those are my two messages, and I appreciate the opportunity of sharing them today. No. 1, let's defeat the DISCLOSE Act. No. 2, let's leave the tax program where it is, because that is the most efficient and effective way to create new jobs, and new jobs is what we want and need in this economy more than anything else.

I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

[From the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 21, 2010]

Cap Gains Taxation: Less Means More

(By Allen Sinai)

Congress is deliberating on what to do about the ``Bush tax

cuts''--the reductions in income, capital gains and dividend

taxes legislated in 2001 and 2003--currently set to expire at

the end of this year. The recession may officially be over,

but what Washington does on tax policy still matters for an

economy that's creating very few net new jobs and is stuck

with an unacceptably high unemployment rate and record-high

federal budget deficits of over 9% of GDP.

Capital gains taxation is one area in which lawmakers can

help jump-start the economy. Capital gains tax rates for

taxpayers in the top four income brackets are set to move

higher in a few months. My new study, ``Capital Gains Taxes

and the Economy,'' published this week by the American

Council for Capital Formation, shows that the net effect of

lower capital gains taxation is a significant plus for U.S.

macroeconomic performance.

The study simulated reductions and increases in capital

gains taxes starting in 2011 and extending to 2016 to

estimate the effects on economic growth, jobs and

unemployment, inflation, savings, the financial markets and

debt.

Here are a few of the relevant findings:

Hiking capital gains tax rates would cause significant

damage to the economy. Raising the capital gains tax rate to

20%, 28% or 50% from the current 15% would reduce growth in

real GDP, raise the unemployment rate and significantly

reduce productivity. These losses to the economy outweigh any

gains in tax receipts from the increase in the capital gains

tax rate.

For example, at a 28% capital gains tax rate, economic

growth declines 0.1 percentage points per annum and the

economy loses about 600,000 jobs yearly. If the capital gains

tax rate were increased to 50%, real GDP growth would decline

by 0.3 percentage points per year, and there would be 1.6

million fewer jobs created per year. At a 20% capital gains

rate compared with the current 15%, real economic growth

falls by a little less than 0.1 percentage points per year

and jobs decline about 231,000 a year. Smaller increases in

the capital gains tax rate have smaller effects on the

economy, but the effects are still negative.

Lowering capital gains tax rates would help grow the

economy and jobs. My study found that when capital gains

taxes are reduced to below 15%, the after-tax return on

equity rises, stock prices increase, household wealth rises,

consumption moves higher, and capital gains can be realized.

Capital gains tax receipts to the government increase and

household financial conditions improve to provide a healthier

basis for future consumer spending.

My study also found that a reduction in the capital gains

tax rate to 5% from 15% raises real GDP growth by 0.2

percentage points per year, lowers the unemployment rate by

0.2 percentage points per year, and increases nonfarm payroll

jobs by 711,000 a year. Productivity growth improves 0.3

percentage points a year.

Taken to its logical conclusion, moving to a zero capital

gains tax rate would have an even bigger effect, increasing

growth in real GDP by over 0.2 percentage points per year and

approximately 1.3 million additional jobs per year.

Higher capital gains taxes will not substantially reduce

the deficit. The net impact on the federal budget deficit of

a reduction in the capital gains tax rate to 0% is a decline

in tax receipts of $23 billion per year after the positive

effects of stronger economic growth on payroll, personal and

corporate income taxes are taken into account. This is

significantly less than the $30 billion per year static

revenue loss estimate, which does not include feedback

effects. A capital gains tax reduction to 0% produces new

jobs at a cost of $18,000 per worker, far less than might

occur from many other proposals.

The bottom line is that any capital gains tax increase is

counterproductive to real economic growth. To the contrary, a

reduction in the capital gains tax rate would be a pro-growth

fiscal stimulus that creates new jobs and new businesses,

funds entrepreneurship, reduces the unemployment rate,

increases productivity, and in the long run brings in more

payroll taxes. In the case of capital gains taxation, less

means more.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his reference to my service. I use as my example for why I am here to join this colloquy not my long service, because it hasn't been all that long by the terms of the Senate, but my experience today. I think what we experienced today on the floor is a demonstration of what happens.

I happen to be one--perhaps a minority on my side of the aisle--who is in favor of the DREAM Act. I want to be one who will vote for the DREAM Act. The Senator from Tennessee talks about people and their concern. While I was back in Utah over the weekend, I had a demonstration of very earnest young people show up in front of the Federal building to ask me to please vote for the DREAM Act. They had compelling stories. I was identifying with what they had to say.

I had to say to them: I won't get an opportunity to vote for the DREAM Act.

Yes, they said, you will have a vote on Tuesday on the DREAM Act.

No, the vote on Tuesday is not on the DREAM Act. The vote on Tuesday is on a motion to proceed to the Defense authorization bill that has been loaded down with amendments that prevent us from having an up-or- down vote on the DREAM Act itself.

They said: Well, the DREAM Act will be one of those amendments. The DREAM Act will be added to it.

Yes, it will be added to it. But will I have an opportunity to vote on an amendment to strip out the other stuff I don't like? No. I won't have the opportunity to do that. So this was the dilemma I explained to these young people. Some of them looked too young to vote, but I am sure they are old enough to vote. It is just that everybody looks a lot younger to me now than they used to.

I said: Here is the dilemma I have. By virtue of what the majority leader has done, he has created a parliamentary situation where, in order to vote as you want me to vote, as you express your voice to me, I have to vote opposite to what a large number of my other constituents want me to vote. I have to vote in favor of Federal funding for abortions in military hospitals. Some will say it will be private funding. Yes, but it will take place in a military hospital supported by Federal funding. I have never voted for Federal funding in any form for abortions. Now, in order to support the DREAM Act by the way the tree has been filled, by the way this thing has been put together, I have no choice. If I vote the way you want me to vote, I will offend a vast majority of my other constituents who don't want me to vote that way on the question of abortions in military hospitals. If I vote to proceed, I will be voting to act precipitously, in my view, with respect to the policy of don't ask, don't tell, which President Clinton signed into law at the beginning of my service in the Senate.

I am perfectly willing to vote to repeal don't ask, don't tell if the military services complete their survey that tells us that is right and proper for military performance. But the majority wants to make that decision before they get the information from the military. So I have to cast a vote that I think is the wrong vote for the military in order to vote for the DREAM Act.

Well, they looked at me as if I were crazy.

Well, certainly you can separate these things and vote on each one on its own individual merits?

I had to say to them: No, I can't. The way this is being handled now in the Senate, I cannot vote on the merits of each of these individual items because the majority leader, exercising his right, has packaged them together--filled the tree--in such a fashion that makes it impossible for you to divide them and discuss each one on its own merits.

I was questioned by the press as I went in to lunch.

Senator, we thought you were in favor of the DREAM Act?

Yes, I am.

Well, then, aren't you going to vote for cloture on the Defense authorization bill?

Wait a minute, cloture on the Defense authorization bill becomes the key vote on an immigration issue? That is the situation we have come to as we get this kind of procedure. And it very clearly, as the Senator from Tennessee has made clear, says the voices of the people on the legislation in which they have an interest are not being heard because of this procedural activity. That is why I have joined in this colloquy to raise my voice in protest to the way this is being done.

Madam President, I am rising today because this is PKD Awareness Week. People say: What is PKD and why do we need to be aware of it? PKD is the acronym that stands for polycystic kidney disease. Polycystic kidney disease is the leading cause of kidney failure from a genetic disease in America. Every year, we have PKD Awareness Week, as we try to bring people a better understanding of it.

Let me outline how serious it might be and how it affects the Federal Government. For those who do not know, it is a silent killer that stalks more than 600,000 Americans. That is greater than the number of Americans who are afflicted with cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, muscular dystrophy, or Down syndrome. That works out to be about 12,000 PKD sufferers in each State. Every one of them is at risk for kidney failure and the ravages that come with that.

I became aware of it particularly when my daughter was diagnosed with it. It is a disease that is carried as a genetic disease. We had no idea it was anywhere in the family until she was diagnosed with it. We have now tried to go back to find out who may or may not have had it. But this means that not only is she at risk and is losing kidney function, but so are her children and perhaps so are others in our family. So it becomes a very significant personal thing for me, but I wish to reach out and express my gratitude to my colleagues in the Senate, who do not have the same kind of personal connection, who have joined in cosponsoring the resolutions on PKD Awareness Week--Senator Hatch, Senator Kohl, Senator Specter, and Senator Harkin. Over the years, they have cosponsored the annual PKD Awareness Week resolution. They have joined in securing PKD-specific appropriations report language, and they have helped pass the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which has been very important with respect to this disease and others where, for a variety of reasons, they have not had the kind of attention they have needed.

This has an impact on the Federal Government because the annual cost of PKD exceeds $2 billion for kidney dialysis, kidney transplants, antirejection drugs, and related therapies. That, of course, affects those who have government money going into their health care support. End-stage renal disease is the fastest growing expense of Medicare. This causes a huge financial, emotional, and physical burden on the Americans who are affected by it.

The good news is that the field of PKD research is robust, the therapy is ripe, and I ask my colleagues to look favorably on a forthcoming public-private partnership initiative that is known as the Regional PKD Diagnostic and Clinical Treatment Center, designed to increase application of new diagnostic methods and therapeutic regimens for PKD patients, conduct pilot studies and clinical trials, and, finally, coordinate data and streamline the appropriate clinical application of effective treatments.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to once again call attention to the disease of polycystic kidney disease and the ravages and challenges it has. I thank my colleagues for their continued support over a 20- year period of PKD Awareness Week and the work they have done in the Senate and hope that all of us can continue to support an activity to keep the research going forward. The consequence will be, if it is successful, tremendous benefit for those families who suffer from PKD and financial benefit for the government as a whole through reduced Medicare costs.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to offer my sincere condolences following the passing of my friend and colleague, Senator Robert C. Byrd. This is obviously the end of an era. Senator Byrd has seen the landing of man on the Moon, the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the resignation of one President and the impeachment trial of another, and countless other significant and historical landmarks during his unparalleled Senate career.

Each of us has his or her own memories of Senator Byrd's kindness and devotion to the Senate as an institution. The place will not be the same without him.

My wife Joyce and I extend our deepest condolences to his daughters and the entire Byrd family.

Mr. President, we are we here to discuss Solicitor General Elena Kagan's qualifications for the Supreme Court. We have heard a number of conversations from our colleagues who are themselves lawyers, who have sat in on the Judiciary Committee, and who have gone through the record with great detail.

As I have said before, I am unburdened with a legal education. I have great respect for those who have been taught to think like that and talk like that and who go into that kind of detail. But I view this from a slightly different point of view, and I hope it is a commonsense point of view. I would like to share it with my colleagues this afternoon.

I go back, not to start with Ms. Kagan but to start with an incident that occurred when we were discussing the possibility of John Roberts going to the Supreme Court as the Chief Justice. In that period of discussion, there was a particular case that was raised in the press where John Roberts had issued a ruling that, according to the newspapers and the reporters, was an egregious ruling.

Here are the facts of the case: There was a young woman riding the Metro who ate a french fry, not a lot of french fries--just one french fry. She had the misfortune--she was 12 years old--she had the misfortune to do that in the presence of one of the security officers of the Metro who arrested her for violating the publicly advertized zero-tolerance, no-eating policy in a Washington Metro station.

She was not just detained, she was arrested, searched, handcuffed, driven to police headquarters, booked, and fingerprinted. Three hours later, her mother showed up at the police station and she was released to her mother. The mother sued, alleging that her daughter was treated improperly, that an adult would have only received a citation, and that this was a terrible thing that had been done to her.

The law says children who violate this policy have to be detained until their parents can arrive. Well Justice Roberts, the case finally came to him on the circuit court, ruled that the Metro police had acted properly. In an attempt to derail his confirmation to Chief Justice, there was a dust-up in the newspapers and the media: This is a man, we want to put him as Chief Justice of the United States, and he will tolerate this kind of treatment of a young woman who does nothing more than eat a single french fry in a Metro station? Is that the kind of man we want on the Court?

I remember those kinds of editorials and denunciations that were made of Mr. Roberts. Then, the facts came out as they got into what happened. What I have said are, indeed, the facts. But this is what Justice Roberts said when he handed down his opinion. He said: No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation. He said it was a stupid law. He did not say it in those kind of terms. He said it in appropriate legal terms. But basically the burden of what he said was it was a stupid law.

But he said: The question before us is not whether these policies were a bad idea but whether they violated the fourth and fifth amendments of the Constitution. And, as Judge Roberts concluded, they did not.

Interestingly, the city council, in response to this case, had changed the law. So he made it clear: I do not agree with this law. I think it is a bad law, but that is not my responsibility. My responsibility is to determine whether it violates the Constitution.

This is reminiscent of Justice Potter Stewart's dissent in Griswold v. Connecticut. He said: We are not asked in this case to say whether we think this law is unwise or even asinine. We are asked to hold that it violates the U.S. Constitution, and that I cannot do.

What does that have to do with Elena Kagan? She was faced with a similar situation. She was not a judge. But she was in a position of authority, and she was faced with a law that she decided was a bad law. This was the Solomon Amendment, having to do with the question of military recruiters on college campuses. She was in a position as the dean of the law school at Harvard, to prevent military recruiters from coming on campus.

The Solomon Amendment basically said: You cannot do that, Dean Kagan. You may disagree with the military's policy with respect to don't ask, don't tell, and you can do that. But you cannot accept federal funds and prevent military recruiters from coming on campus. You can even express your disagreement in a legal fashion, and she did. She openly opposed it. She joined other faculty to sign an amicus brief in support of a constitutional challenge of the Solomon Amendment.

I do not object to that. She has every right, as an American citizen, to challenge something she thinks is inappropriate in the law. But she does not have the right to flout the law, and to say: No, we choose not do it. When she became the dean at Harvard, she did that.

She refused to allow the recruiters to come on at the Harvard Law School. She says she did not. She says: The military had full access at all times. By the way, she was wrong on the law, as far as the Solomon Amendment is concerned, because the Supreme Court decided unanimously that the Solomon amendment was constitutional and that the military had the right to equal access to students at institutions receiving Federal funding.

So she should have waited for the Supreme Court to rule, but she did not. She said: I will comply with the law. This is what the recruiters said. She says they had full access. All right. If they had full access, I would think they would confirm that they had full access. But this is what they had to say. The Army's report from Spring 2005 said: The Army was stonewalled at Harvard. Phone calls and e-mails went unanswered and the standard response was: We are waiting to hear from our higher authority.

There is a Defense Department memo stating: Denying access to the Career Service Office is tantamount to chaining and locking the front door of the law school, as it has the same impact on our recruiting efforts.

The chief of recruiting for the Air Force JAG Corps was repeatedly blocked from participating in Harvard's 2005 recruiting session. He reported: Harvard is playing games and will not give us an on-campus interviewing date.

Three different recruiters give a different view of what was done with respect to Harvard. Yet General Kagan says: No. No. They all had full access at all times. If they did, then they are lying. If they did not, then she is giving us false information. She denies the entire incident.

I think she should have stated her opposition in the Judiciary hearings. The proper approach should be to say: I hate the Solomon Amendment. I think it is the wrong thing to do. But just as Judge Roberts upheld the action with respect to a 12-year-old girl that was clearly not appropriate, because it was the law, I have a responsibility, as a lawyer, and lawyers are officers of the court, I have a responsibility as a lawyer at Harvard, even as I am voicing my objection, to say: The Solomon Amendment is in place, and I am going to respect it.

She did not respect it. She denies that she did not respect it, in the face of testimony to the contrary from at

least three different sources who were directly involved in the case. I do not find that the kind of behavior, regardless of my ideological difference with her, the kind I think a Justice of the Supreme Court should have.

She has had much the same attitude with respect to the second amendment. She has taken a position of being above the law. She refused to declare support for the second amendment and when she was questioned about it, she simply dismisses it as ``settled law.'' Going back to the Solomon Amendment, wasn't that settled law? When she had an opportunity to act against it, she took that opportunity, feeling correctly that she would not be disciplined for it at Harvard. But now I do not think she can appropriately say she should not be questioned about it as she is being proposed for the Supreme Court.

When clerking for Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1987, Kagan was faced with a challenge to the District of Columbia gun ban. With respect to a plaintiff's contention with respect to the District of Columbia's firearms status--as he said, the District of Columbia violated his constitutional right to keep and bear arms--She wrote: I am not sympathetic, and she recommended that the Court not even consider the case. The Court recently considered the case and has ruled otherwise in the Heller decision.

So she is going to go to the Court--I assume she will be confirmed-- with at least two circumstances where she has taken firm positions in opposition to the Court she intends to join. In one case it was a unanimous decision that overturned her; it was not a 5-to-4 decision.

My concern about her is that she has never shown any inclination toward impartiality. I do not mind people of strong opinions. This Chamber is filled with them. I do not mind judges who have strong opinions as long as they do not let those strong opinions get in the way of what the law says. I am afraid in her case she is one who will let her strong opinions get in the way of what the law says. For that reason, I intend to vote against her nomination.

Mr. President, how much time is available to this side?

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity of addressing this issue and of listening to my colleagues as they talk about it. I haven't heard some of this exorbitant language since I left the campaign trail. I left the campaign trail forcibly but, nonetheless, I have some memory of it, and I realize that in a period of a campaign, people get carried away.

``A dagger at the heart of our democracy'' is a phrase that has been used. ``The destruction of government of the people'' is a phrase that has been used. If I can think of someone who uses this kind of language quite normally in the political discourse, the name of Michael Moore comes to mind. The reason I raise Michael Moore is because we are talking about a movie. That is the source of this entire decision.

There is a group of people who decided they wanted to make a movie that was critical of a candidate for President of the United States. In this case it was former Senator Hillary Clinton. They didn't like her and they wanted to make a movie and they did. In the same vein, Michael Moore, who didn't like George W. Bush, made a movie entitled ``Fahrenheit 9/11.'' Nobody got excited about Michael Moore's movie in terms of violating the Constitution or a dagger at the heart of our democracy or destroying the legacy of Abraham Lincoln because

we knew Michael Moore. We knew the kinds of things Michael Moore was famous for doing, and overstating a position is Michael Moore's stock in trade.

So the folks at Citizens United decided they were going to follow the Michael Moore precedent and make a movie. I haven't seen either movie, so I don't know whether Citizens United's movie about Hillary Clinton went as far over the top as Michael Moore's movie about George W. Bush, and I don't care because Michael Moore, regardless of what distortions may have been in his movie, had every right under the Constitution of the United States to make that movie, to make the political speech, and to do the very best he could to influence the election.

The movie was a financial success, and the movie was a critical success, and the movie did not win the election. The movie did not defeat George W. Bush. The American people had other things to do besides watch Michael Moore's movie. He exercised his first amendment right to freedom of speech. He got the opportunity to say what he wanted to say, he spent a lot of money doing it, and the movie was widely seen. The democracy did not come to an end as a result of the making of the movie. Now we are told that Citizens United made a movie and somehow that is going to have a vastly different effect.

I don't believe Senator Clinton's loss to Barack Obama in the primaries had much to do with the movie that Citizens United made. They spent a lot of money, but I don't think it was an avalanche of spending by a corporation that destroyed American democracy because Hillary Clinton did not win the nomination. I think it had a great deal more to do with Barack Obama's ability to run a decent campaign rather than Hillary Clinton's suffering at the hands of Citizens United making this movie.

Well, because Citizens United was not one individual in the form of Michael Moore, but because it was a group of individuals who got together and took the opportunity to create a corporate form of identity for the making of their movie, that got them in trouble. An individual could do it, but a group of individuals who organized themselves into a corporation couldn't do it. That went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said yes; they could. I don't find that to be a great destruction of the first amendment. I find that to be the proper statement on the part of the Supreme Court to say: Let's have vigorous political speech in this country, and if a group of people want to do that vigorous speech in the form of a corporation, let them go at it. Let them have at it. The Supreme Court was right, in my opinion.

I hear those people who attack Citizens United say: Yes, the first amendment protects the right of free speech, but it does so for individuals. Corporations are not individuals, neither are unions. Yet the DISCLOSE Act treats unions differently than it treats corporations. The DISCLOSE Act goes after corporations and their right of free speech and does its very best to see to it that the restrictions they put on corporations do not apply to unions.

The DISCLOSE Act listens to the outcry of some corporations such as the National Rifle Association and says: Well, we won't make it apply to you and, thus, demonstrates that it is responding to political pressure from people who say we will punish you at the polls if you take away our right of free speech. So the act is written in such a way that some corporations get treated differently than other corporations. Of course, unions get treated different from all corporations.

Is this the way we want to deal with the first amendment right of free speech where everybody ought to have exactly the same rights? I am told: Oh, no. This bill doesn't prohibit any free speech. All this does is disclose. That is why it is called the DISCLOSE Act. You Republicans are in favor of transparency. You want to disclose things. Why don't you support the DISCLOSE Act?

Well, if it is a bill aimed at disclosure, why does the word ``prohibit'' and the companion word ``prohibition'' appear all through the bill? I have a copy of the bill right here.

On page 4, section 3, listed on page 4, it begins, ``Prohibiting independent expenditures and electioneering communications . . . ''

On page 5, section 3: ``Prohibiting independent expenditures'' and so on.

Section 6: ``Prohibiting independent expenditures . . . ''

Then, on page 6, in section 7: ``In these ways, prohibiting independent expenditures . . . ''

We go to the first title of the bill, and it is titled ``Regulation of Certain Political Spending.'' Section 101: ``Prohibiting independent expenditures and electioneering communications . . . ''

This is not the DISCLOSE Act. This is an act aimed at prohibiting expenditures by certain people and certain groups. Who are they? Well, government contractors. I have been in business. I have solicited government business. If I got the government business, was I told in advance: If you get this business, you are giving up your first amendment rights when it comes to political speech? If you can stay away from contracting with the government, you can hang on to your first amendment rights. But as soon as you become a government contractor your rights are gone.

It prohibits free speech from those who received TARP money. There is an interesting precedent to set. I know some of the folks who received TARP money who didn't want it. They were told in that circumstance: You will accept TARP money. The TARP money, as it was distributed in that program, was forced upon certain corporations. Were they told at the time, or should they be told under the DISCLOSE Act--let's have full disclosure and transparency--when you accept this money, you cannot exercise your freedom of speech rights as a result of accepting this money?

General Motors received TARP money, so General Motors says you cannot run an ad expressing your opinion on any matter of public affairs; however, the United Auto Workers can. The United Auto Workers received the benefit of TARP money. The United Auto Workers received stock in General Motors. They are the shareholders of General Motors, to a large extent.

So do we say, well, under the DISCLOSE Act the unions can express their first amendment rights all they want, but General Motors, as a corporation, cannot, even though the TARP money was what allowed the union members to keep their jobs.

It has been pointed out here that the groups opposed to this are wide and diverse--from the Sierra Club to the ACLU. I turn to the letter the ACLU wrote with respect to this, and they are not dealing with hyperbole. They are dealing with experience in reality. Let me go to the first key issue the ACLU talks about and give an example from real life. They say:

The DISCLOSE Act fails to preserve the anonymity of small

donors, thereby especially chilling the expression rights of

those who support controversial causes.

Then the first sentence in that section of their letter says:

By compelling politically active organizations to disclose

the names of donors giving as little as $600, S. 3628 both

violates individual privacy and chills free speech on

important issues.

I take my colleagues back to one of the most controversial issues we have seen in this country for a long time, which was proposition 8 in California in the last election.

I am acquainted with an individual who made a contribution in favor of those who were trying to support proposition 8. That is all she did. She wrote out a check. Someone came to her and said: We are in favor of the proposition and we are trying to raise some money; will you help us?

She wrote out a check of less than $1,000 and went about her business. Her business was a restaurant in Hollywood--a restaurant that was routinely and significantly supported by people in the entertainment industry--actors, directors, and others connected with making movies. When the contribution list for propositions was made public, and it became known that this woman had made a contribution in favor of proposition 8, patronage at her restaurant dropped off more than half. People opposed to proposition 8 started using hate speech toward this woman: You are a bigot, and we cannot patronize your restaurant.

She had no idea that when she wrote that check in support of those who wanted a position that she agreed with--to put it on the ballot to be voted on by Californians--and it was by

a majority of Californians who supported it--when she took the majority position of the voters in her State, she had no idea she was going to see her business ravaged by those discovering her name on that list who would go after her.

They have a right not to eat at her restaurant, I understand that. But this is a real-life example of what can happen to people in controversial situations and the ACLU is appropriately concerned about.

The DISCLOSE Act, in the name of transparency, would expose small donors to that kind of retaliation. However, if you belong to a union, and you pay union dues, and the union dues are spent to produce a movie, something along the lines of what Michael Moore did with ``Fahrenheit 9/11,'' no one will ever know your union dues were spent for that purpose, because unions are treated differently than corporations.

This is a bad bill. It hasn't been through the committee. I am the ranking member of the Rules Committee to which the bill normally would be referred. The majority leader, exercising his authority, saw to it that the bill didn't get referred to committee. There have been no hearings. There is no opportunity for anybody to come forward and say this will be a problem. We haven't heard from the ACLU and a witness that we could question. We only got a letter, because they were shut out from any hearings.

For those who are offended by my reference to the ACLU and would prefer the National Right to Life Organization, well, we have their letter, too, but we didn't have an opportunity to hear any of their witnesses or the legal authorities who believe that the Supreme Court ruled correctly, who might have come before the committee and given us the benefit of their analysis; we haven't had a chance to hear from them either.

The bill has been drafted and redrafted a number of times behind closed doors, but we only see the final draft when it gets here on the floor, with no hearings, no background, no opportunity to question, comment, amend, or improve. I am in favor of transparency as much as the next Senator. I am in favor of free speech as much as anyone. I have stood on this floor and quoted James Madison with respect to free speech on a number of issues and have been dismissed on the grounds that, well, anybody can quote James Madison. I believe in the tenth Federalist, where Madison made it very clear that the right of factions to express themselves freely and openly, even when they clash bitterly, is a very fundamental right in the Constitution itself. ``Factions,'' as they used the word in Madison's day, referred to political parties. I think the term ``factions'' also refers to those whom we speak of as special interest groups today. James Madison made it very clear that if we attempt to stifle the ability of a faction to express itself, we strike at the core of liberty itself. I hope that people don't interpret that as over-the-top language, as I have heard some other things that I have interpreted as over-the-top language. I sincerely believe that and I strongly support it.

The DISCLOSE Act would not pass the test of truth in advertising. The title does not disclose what it does here. It is filled with prohibitions and violations of the first amendment, and it is filled with special favors for certain groups and attacks on others. For that reason, I will oppose cloture and, if cloture is invoked, I will oppose the bill.

Madam President, I am pleased to rise today to speak about an important piece of legislation that I introduced last week with my friend Senator Klobuchar. The SAFER AIR Act is going to bring our commercial air travel security checkpoints into the 21st century. Threats to our Nation's air travelers have advanced and magnetometers are simply not enough in this post-9/11 world. Our legislation would support and expand TSA's current efforts to adopt and deploy advanced technologies, like the advanced imaging technology, and explosive trace detection at an accelerated pace to ensure such equipment is the primary screening method in every commercial airport.

The December 25 terror attempt on NW flight 253 was a frightening wake-up call that could have been prevented. It represents a failure in the mechanisms of our national security. This failed plot highlights our need to look at areas that can increase our security in the national airport system immediately. Important security improvements have been made in intelligence handling, but I am convinced more needs to be done. Airport security improvements are a needed and overdue part of the equation.

I have been watching our domestic airport security closely in the past year. My airport in Salt Lake City, UT, is a testing site for advanced imaging technology. I have seen this machine in use, and been impressed with what represents a true advancement in the technology of safer skies. TSA needs to utilize equipment that is currently available to identify plastic and liquid explosives as well as move forward with the development and testing of new technologies to fight emerging threats.

Our bill will require TSA to install technology with the capability of detecting plastic explosives, liquid explosives and other nonmetallic threats and explosives. These devices have been tested and available since 2007. The delay in deployment has gone on long enough. The SAFER AIR Act will require this technology in all commercial airports by 2013 and will encourage the further development of these technologies as threats continue to advance.

An important provision in our legislation is the privacy protections it will establish for our traveling public. I applaud TSA for the protections it has already put in place. Our language will codify those protections and ensure the new technologies will also be used in a manner that doesn't violate the personal privacy of commercial flyers in the United States.

New and emerging technologies have a great ability to detect nontraditional threats. I am eager to see these capabilities improved through further innovation and testing. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the SAFER AIR Act and do all we can to better protect the traveling public from existing and emerging threats.