the but corporations do not have religions. people -- the first amendment was meant to protect individuals' religious freedoms, not those of corporations. now the religious beliefs of corporations will dictate the health care options of people. h contraceptive care, but where does it end. it is clear that the supreme court is putting the rights of corporations over the rights of people. so much for treating all americans equally. if you're a corporation with money, you can influence our elections to a far greater extent than ever before. now if you've got a corporation, you can influence our access to health care too. or, as justice ginsburg said in her dissent, the decision would deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs access to contraceptive

coverage. let me say that again. the decision would deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' belief access to contraceptive care. again, where will this end? madam president, being a woman can't be a preexisting condition. contraception is basic health care. 99% of american women currently use or have used birth control at some point in their lives. but now a nameless, faceless corporation can stand between women and their access to this basic care all because an activist supreme court thinks corporations have the same rights as people. this supreme court continues to redefine individual rights as corporate rights. freedom of speech, freedom of religion. we have to ask ourselves where will this end? it seems like anything is

possible when it comes to this supreme court where five men can determine a woman's health course. but it doesn't need to be this way. my constitutional amendment makes it 100% clear that the rights enshrined in our constitution are meant for the american people, not corporate entities. my amendment also allows the american people to once again regulate corporations through the representatives they elect to stay in federal government. i encourage all of my colleagues to join me and senator murphy and begich and walsh and white house and markey, supporting this commonsense step. the fact of the matter is it is going to take a comprehensive approach to make sure real people are in charge. whether it is elections or health care people must be free to make their own choices without the undue influence of

corporate enemies. it was 100 years earlier we also voted to limit corporate influence in elections after wealthy mining companies bought influence and even paid for a u.s. senate seat. we recognize the negative impact of wealthy corporations are having on our electoral process, but this supreme court, using its citizens united decision as justification, overturned our century old show years ago creating the same ecollection free fall -- election free fall spending in montana we're witnessing nationwide. before the hobby lobby decision the supreme court ruling was about making sure real people with real ideas were in charge of elections. now it is no longer just about a democracy. it is about keeping private corporations out of our private lives, out of our bedrooms and

out of our big decisions. it is a bigger fight now. if you don't want to find out where corporate influence and the supreme court will go next i would encourage you to join me to fight with smart measures to put real people back in charge of our lives. our democracy has been under attack before but never to this extent. mr. president, i yield the floor. i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. hatch: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: and i also ask unanimous consent that my remarks be placed at an

appropriate place in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: mr. president, the great pamphleteer of the american revolution, thomas paine, famously characterized our revolution at its founding by saying that in america, the law is king. this sentiment is undergirded in centuries of our nation's political country. the rule of law is what protects us from arbitrary government action. it is what guarantees our liberties. it is what fosters our prosperity and our flourishing as a free people. it is the source of our republic's legitimacy, for as the declaration of independence teaches, governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. for these reasons, when drafting the constitution, the framers obligated the president to take care that our laws be faithfully executed. but they were careful not to give the president the authority to make or change the law on his

own. our nation's founders knew in the sage words of montescue, that -- quote -- the right of all governments, both of making and enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man or body of men and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty." unquote. now, to safeguard our liberties as the -- as the constitution requires, the constitution vests federal legislative powers in the congress. the house of representatives and the senate, which were designed to engage in a particularly thorough and deliberative legislative process. and by ratifying the constitution, the american people established the system as the supreme law of the land applying to all of us, including the president. despite these constitutional foundations, president obama has simply decided that he -- quote

-- "won't take no for an answer" -- when congress refuses to go along with his agenda. the president has audaciously declared that -- quote -- "when congress won't act, i will." unquote. and he has followed up these threats with a hav variety of unilateral actions, many of which are flatly not with the law. over the past several months i have come to the floor to speak about specific instances that exemplify the brazen lawlessness of this administration. this pervasive and illegitimate overreach has come in many different forms. we have seen the president regulate contrary to the plain text of the law. simply ignoring the clear commands of duly enacted federal statutes. for example, a hallmark of the

president's so-called pen-in-hand strategy has been an executive order forcing federal contractors to raise their minimum wage. he issued this directive despite the enact a federal statute already regulates. although a different statute gives the president some discretionary in the other of federal procurement, it's plain language demands as quoters have long held, that there be a sufficient nexus between the president's orders and the statute's stated goal of efficiency and economy. in federal procurement, president obama's order increasing contractors' labor costs by hiking the minimum wage is, thus, wholly inconsent with the law. we have seen the obama administration seek to rewrite existing law and thereby usurp congress's legislative authority for the use of conditional

waivers -- or conditioned waivers. consider how the department of education has issued waivers of no child left behind's requirement to 43 of the 50 states and the district of columbia. even when democrats had large majorities in both the house of representatives and the senate, president obama refused to pursue legislative reauthorization of the statute to set realistic goals going forward. apparently, he wanted to avoid spending his energies and political capital on a legislative process that might expose divisions within his own party or force him to compromise. the president chose instead simply to establish an entirely different set of education policies by attaching his own conditions to the waivers that states need to receive federal money. and his administration has not been shy about enforcing

conditions that bear little resemblance to provisions of the law itself. the state of washington has learned this recently when it became the first to lose its waiver and much of its federal funding, primarily because it did not meet the administration's mandate for teacher and principal evaluati evaluation, a mandate that has no grounding in the actual statute. we've seen president obama and his subordinates stretch what lawful authorities the executive brafnlg does have beyond recognition to advance its preferred policies. take, for example, the nation's drug laws, an earn in which the obama administration has decided -- an area in wit obama administration has disietded that it disagrees with the yl statutes on the booksaged wants to implement a different policy. the president has demonstrated an eagerness to do so unilaterally no matter the governing federal law and no matter the broad and bipartisan support for sentencing reform in congress.

the administration's new clemency push for drug offenders seeks to employ the president's specific constitutional power, one limited to relieve individual instances of injustice to provide relief to large swaths of criminals who fit a few broad criteria. the president has also directed major changes over which federal drug laws are charged and at what level. to do this, his administration has cited prosecutorial discretion, a limited authority derived from the power to adapt enforcement for an individual's specific circumstances to implement what are in fact broad standards affecting thousands upon thousands of prosecutions. given the scope of these actions, compared to the executive's narrowly tailored authorities, the administration's invocation of

prosecutorial discretion and the clemency power have become transparent excuses to justly flouting -- flouting existing federal law. we have seen president obama claim the power to gut the law by unilaterally creating gaping enforcement carve-outs, thereby effectively rewriting policies set by legislation. take immigration, an area in which many of us -- myself included -- support reform but which is currently gofned by existing law. for years the obama administration has advance add growing fu number of enforcement carve-outs for increasingly expansive classes of illegal immigrants. first, it exempted those brought here as children, then veterans, then their families. now the administration is contemplating excluding from the application of duly enacted

immigration law anyone who has not committed serious felonies. while nearly everyone agrees that violent criminals should be our highest priority, the administration has gone much further and essentially declared its intention to make current immigration law a dead letter in virtually every other case. we have seen the obama administration openly ignore its statutory obligations without meaningful justification. consider the president's decision to release the top five taliban leaders in u.s. custody without notifying congress, as required by federal law. the administration's executions for delaying notification could not stand up to scrutiny under the president's own rationales. indeed, the administration's own statements demonstrate that it deliberately withheld advance notification of the release from congress for the illegitimate purpose of minimizing

congressional opposition. we've seen some of the obama administration's worst abuses of executive power in creating and implementing its signature legislative programs. in dodd-frank, for example, the administration created a new agency with unprecedented and unchecked power. no meaningful administrative controls under its power, no congressional control over its budget, no effective judicial review of its far-reaching decisions. and of course, mr. president, any discussion of executive overreach by this administration must include obamacare. back when the administration was writing that 2,000-plus-page monstrosity, the bill's proponents argued that its length and complexity were necessary evils, that its many intricate parts were essential to achieving the bill's promised objectives. the individual mandate, the employer mandate, the minimum -e

minimum wage coverage, we were promised that these provisions and others were both critical and carefully timed to expand coverage and rein in costs. yet when the time came to implement the law, the administration's tune changed. to justify violating a number of clear statutory mandates, the administration has mustered a weak and you convincing hodgepodge of legal acrobatics fofor the purpose of allowing te administration to avoid enforcing the central provisions of its own signature law. consider some of these particularly egregious justifications: claiming that limited transition authority exercised by one agency justified another agency exerting that power even more broadly. or asserting that subjective impressions of excessive cost could justify a hardship

exemption when the statute specifically defines excessive costs in objective terms. or defying explicit, carefully timed deadlines written into the law by congress, the timing of which is supposed to anchor the whole statutory scheme. or abusing a small pilot program to mitigate the law's massive cuts to medicare advantage. or simply ignoring a critical provision limiting how billions of dollars in tax subsidies are to be spent. mr. president, these are only a few examples of this administration's lawlessness in implementing obamacare. i could continue on about the significant legal concerns surrounding this administration's abusive handling of high-risk pools, its dubious actions involving the small business exchange, its sweetheart deal granting unauthorized deals for labor unions and other similarly

problematic actions, but the point is clear: time understand is again, the obama administration has flouted its constitutional responsibilities, exceeded its -- acceded its legitimate authority, ignored duly enacted law, and sought to escape any accountability for its unilateralism. mr. president, today i have simply scratched the surface of the obama administration's legally dubious actions. i could also discuss the way the administration is manipulating the endangered species act to assert control over private property or the e.p.a.'s many abuses. it's existing source rule, its cross state pollution rule, its waters of the united states rule and its cafe standards -- or i could cat a log the actions of the president's appointees to the national labor relations board, the nuclear regulatory

commission or the federal communication commission. in each of these areas, the obama administration's executive overreach simply cannot stand, and it won't. the president is rightly facing increased scrutiny and criticism in a range of areas for his illegitimate approach. over the past two weeks the supreme court strongly rebuked ththe president's lawlessness in three key cases. the utility air regulatory group v. e.p.a. case, involves one of the most controversial issues debated today: regulating carbon dioxide emissions in an effort to stop global warming. americans and their elected representatives have been seriously debating whether and how to pursue that end just as we should when weighing matters of national security are considered. congress had considered various pieces of legislation over the years to grant federal authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, most notably, presidenpresident obama's 2009

cap-and-trade bill. each time we have considered such legislation, a majority of us have made the careful choice that the purported benefits are not worth the undeniably massive costs. hundreds of thousands of jobs destroyed and gas and electricity prices sent soaring. president obama, though, told us again that he -- quote -- "won't take no for an answer" -- unquote -- or in other words that he refuses to accept that the constitution delegates to the people's representatives in congress and not to him alone the power to make or change the law. defying congress and the law, he claimed authority under the clean air act to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. but the clean air act plainly does not provide that i am authority. in attempting to provide a shred of legal justification for its actions, the obama administration took a detailed provision of the law, complete with precise numerical

thresholds, and unilaterally rewrote it through regulation to claim power congress never in fact gave. the supreme court rightly struck down the administration's abuse of authority in this instance, as it has done in past cases. but, unfortunately, such regulatory overreach has become so common in the obama administration that federal bureaucrats have become expert in manufacturing supposed legal authority out of thin air. the courts are simply unable to keep up with the explosion of executive overreach by president obama's administration. mr. president, perhaps the most extreme example of such executive abuse was an issue in the burwell v. hobly lobby case. the department of health and human services issued a regulation requiring employers to pay for a full compliment of birth control methods for every imleevment the obama administration applied this mandate to almost all employers,

even those who run small, closely held businesses, whose deeply held religious beliefs conflict with the mandate. some media outlets focused on the conflict between this latest obamacare abuse and the principles enshrined in the first amendment's protection of the free exercise of religion. others have focused on the obama administration's argument that corporations are not people, as if the particular form of how individuals organize themselves to do business somehow allows the federal government to trample their religious liberties. but in all the sound and fury, a central point has been lost. the hobby lobby case was actually about a direct threat to the separation of powers. it pitted the obama administration's unilateral mandate against a law passed by congress. initiating this regulation, the obama administration completely disregarded a duly enacted federal statute, the religious

freedom restoration act which specifically bars such government infringement on americans' rights to exercise their religious beliefs. the obamacare mandate flies in the face of the laws that the government not substantially burden of exercise of religion unless it is a means of furthering compelling government purpose. i know, i was the prime sponsor of that bill here in the senate and i got my friend, senator kennedy to go along with me and the president said it was religious freedom may be the most important of all of our freedoms. as the lead author of the religious freedom restoration act, it has been particularly frustrating to see the justices of the supreme court wrongly crit -- criticized for supposedly limiting access to birth control. in reality, all the court did

hold was the obama administration accountable to the law. specifically, a law passed by congress with near unanimity and was signed by president clinton, who lauded the law. i was there. i was on the south lawn when he signed that. so were many, many others. in the the canning case, by contrast the administration violated one of the constitution's central checks on presidential power. the requirement that nominations of principal officers receive the advice and consent of the senate except during the recess of the senate. concern about executive appointment abuse was on the minds of our fathers when they devised the senate's rule in the process. their fears were strikingly similar to what president obama has sought to make reality. a radical set of national labor relations board appointees that promised to tip the balance of

the board toward an extreme and divisive agenda and the consumer financial protection bureau director nominee endowed with unprecedented power. no checks on his removal, no congressional control over his budget and no effective judicial review of his actions. president obama again proclaimed that he wouldn't take no for an answer and claimed the power to use the recess appointment power to install these four nominees even though the senate had completely different rules. but even the department of justice admit that had a three-day adjournment was too short to give the president lawful authority to bypass the senate. instead, the president audaciously claimed the power to decide that in his opinion, our so-called pro forma sessions during this period didn't really count as sessions of the senate even though they all, had always counted. and the senate should disied its

its -- should decide its own rules and that has always been the rule around here. not only is hamilton explained did the framers specifically deny our president to change power to deem the legislature out of session but during these sessions the senate was fully capable of engaging in its business. in fact, during similar sessions the previous fall, the senate had twice passed legislation that president obama himself signed. so extreme were the administration's arguments that the supreme court unanimously held president obama's actions unconstitutional. in doing so, the court confirmed that the constitution does not create in the president an endlessly flexible power to bypass congress when he happens to disagree with us. as if our advice and consent rule were merely an inconvenience to be avoided. rather than the organizing

principles of how a constitutional process is designed to work. mr. president, taken together these three cases represent a resounding victory for the rule of law and the constitution over the president's unilateralism. and they are far from unique examples. the court has ruled unanimously by a vote of 9-0 against the obama administration's -- against the obama administration 20 times. 20 times, 9-0. these include many significant cases as the hosanna tabor case in which the obama administration tried to control the religious organization's hurrying of its ministers. the sacca case in which the obama administration tried to take away the lawful right to challenge unlawful e.p.a. fines of up to $57,000 a day. -- up to $75,000 a day. and the poor couple that was just trying to improve their property. the arizona case in which the obama administration tried to

replace state law with federal enforcement priorities. instead of taking these rebukes to heart, the president doubled down on his know it all attitude. he has vowed more executive orders with questionable legality. he has reaffirmed his commitment to an extreme anti-energy agenda. and a willingness to abuse his legal authorities to unleash an onslaught of new regulations. he has used the mistrust he created by refusing to enforce existing immigration law to justify further nonencroachment. mr. president, president obama's shameful defiance in the face of supreme court rulings means that our fight against his lawless overreach has only just begun. and while we should applaud the court's recent decisions, we should also realize the limits of courtroom litigation to check executive branch abuse. indeed the obama administration has gone to great lengths to

shield its lawlessness from judicial review. by surreptitiously crafting many of such actions to prevent any plaintiff from having legal standing to launch a challenge in court. by aggressively challenging the legitimacy of suits that have been filed. by significantly curtailing the availability of judicial review. and by brazenly packing the d.c. circuit, the nation's most important court for most regulatory cases, with compliant judges. the speaker of the house has announced plans to vote on a measure to authorize a lawsuit against president obama for his unfaithful execution of the law. and while i support the legislative branch using every tool at our disposal to hold this president accountable to his constitutional obligations, we should also be mindful of our decades-long fight to limit the judicial power to its proper role under the constitution and we should not seek to replace

one constitutional travesty -- the lawlessness of this president -- with another while breaking down the structural limits on the judicial power. on the other hand, the house may very well succeed because of the actions of this president because something has to be done to curtail these inappropriate, unilateral, illegal actions. in the end, we cannot rely on the courts alone. with such a powerful and aggressive president, all of us must stand up and fight back against this executive lawlessness. i urge all my colleagues, both democrat and republican, to use the rightful and legitimate constitutional authorities that the framer gave us to stand up and resist the president's recklessness. but whether blinded by partisan loyalty to the president or too inexperienced to understand this body, from any other perspective than having a like-minded majority and president, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have allowed, even facilitated this administration's attempts to break down the constitutional

checks on executive power. i urge them to change course. that is the tradition of some of the greatest senators on both sides of the side of the aisle. mike mansfield, howard baker and robert byrd. that is the purpose of the division of powers for in federalist 51 -- quote -- "the greatest security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment of the others. unquote. if this body is to maintain a meaningful role in preserving liberty and prosperity, we must dutifully fulfill our constitutional obligation of checking the president's unlawful attempts to assert illegitimate power. i began my service here in 1977.

bob byrd was elected majority leader. r.c. byrd was one of the all-time procedural experts in this body. he was a very strong personality. he would not be putting up with what this president is doing. he would not be putting up with the usurpation of the senate's power or of the legislature's power, the congress's power. i call on my democratic friends on the other side to start standing up. if they don't start standing up, i think the people are going to hold them accountable, because these are separated powers, and the legislative body is supposed to handle these matters. and not some president unilaterally changing the law as whimsy. with that, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the assistant majority leader. mr. durbin: i ask consent that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, i'd like to take a moment to congratulate two longtime friends, 16 years ago, after moving to america, billy lawless

and ann o'tool lawless today became citizens of the united states of america. this is a cause for celebration, not just for billy and anne ann but for the entire city of chicago. the lawless family is part of the royalty of chicago. the restaurant royalty. billy and ann and their four grown children, billy jr., amy, john paul and clona own and operate three of the best-loved and my favorite restaurants and publics in chicago. they're going to open another set very soon. good food, good fun, great people. that's what the lawless restaurants are all about. billy lawless is also a tireless, eloquent advocate for immigration reform. he is one of the great heroes, thin mccool, the great defender of ireland. in his younger days, billy

lawless was a championship roller. at 6 foot 2 inches with a broad chest and strong arnlings he looks a little bit like finn mccool. it's not just irish immigrants that billy cares about. billy understands america's history of welcoming immigrants from across the globe and he knows it is part of what makes our nation great. he is a great defender, not just for the rights of irish immigrants but all immigrants. so it was perfect that he and ann swore their citizenship oaths today with 137 other new americans from 39 different countries and five continents. billy group on a dairy farm in a city west of ireland. in the late 1970's he sold the farm and went into the public business. over the next several years, billy and ann had four children and owned several restaurants in

galway. then their daughter amy, an excellent athlete herself in rowing, won a full college scholarship to amherst college in massachusetts. for years it had been billy's dream to open a business in america. at the age of 48 when his daughter headed to have america, he decided to give a shot. his friends thought he was crazy. ann waited several months before she followed billy into the states for this venture. she wanted to make sure that this wild idea had a possibility of success. billy looked at opportunities in boston and philadelphia, but on december 31, 1997, new year's eve, bill leirrived in chicago. he knew he'd found a new home. today chicago is home to billy and ann lawless, all four of their children, and their seven american-born grand chin. as billy say, "i can think of no other place in the world where

our family could have achieved what it has in america." well, billy and ann, thank you, and all your family for what you've given to chicago, to illinois, and to our nation. you've waited a long time and you've worked really hard for this day. now it is here. i'm proud to call you not only my friends but my felllloy americans. -- but my fellow americans. congratulations on becoming descension of the united states. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call: