vote:

vote: the presiding officer: are there any members in the chamber wishing to vote or change their

vote? if not the yeas are 89. the nays are 4. the motion is agreed to. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the provisions of rule 22, the senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of calendar number 592, that there be 15 minutes for debate only on the nomination equally divided in the usual form, that upon the use or yielding back of time, the senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate. that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate then resume legislative session without any intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. a senator: mr. president? plr the clerk will report. the clerk: library of congress, carlin d. haden of maryland to

be librarian. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i rise in support of the nomination of dr. carl haden to be head of the library of congress. president obama nominated her on february 24, 2016. the rules committee held a hearing on april 20, 2016. i want to thank the chairman of the rules committee, the senator from missouri, senator blunt and senator schumer. mr. president, the senate is not in order. the presiding officer: order in the senate. ms. mikulski: why is it an urgency to confirm dr. hayden speaking as vice chair of the appropriations committee. the library of congress has a $600 million budget funded through the legislative branch of appropriations. it has 3,000 employees and in addition to the work that they do that is well known with the

library of congress they also oversee the copyright office for the entire nation that needs leadership and resources and also the library of congress needs to move through the digital age. that's why president obama nominated dr. hayden. we know in maryland, senator cardin and i know dr. hayden well. she's been the head of the maryland free library for 23 years. she is distinguished. she's the past president of the american library association. she was confirmed by the senate in 2010 to head to be the national museum and library services board and she's received numerous boards. she's proven herself to be a skilled manager of large complex projects and handling large budgets. she moved the enoch pratt into the digital age leading a renovation of i.t. infrastructure that dated back

to the 1930's. yet while she did that, she not only brought the library into a mod dirn age, she avoided tech know boondoggles providing tangible results. she established a new wing to dedicated young adults. she guided the annex to house its library's oldest and rarest materials, and she also took the library to make it a statewide resource. she's a transformational leader, and she reftion kudos from -- receives kudos from community leaders and archivists and academic experts. president obama has nominated a qualified candidate. our nation will be well served by her confirmation. i ask unanimous consent that a statement of the library association be included in the record and i also ask unanimous consent that other information related to dr. hayden be included in the record and in the interest of time, i now yield the floor. the presiding officer: without

objection. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. a senator: mr. president, the library is at a critical juncture and we only seldom talk about the library of congress because there have only been 13 librarians of congress in the entire history of the library of congress going back to the starting of the federal government here in washington. mr. blunt: it's an important time for the library to have a chance to focus on the technologies available to us today. i'm the chairman of the rules committee and the ranking democrat on that committee senator schumer and i proposed some legislation earlier in the year that would set a limit for the first time so this is the first nomination of a librarian to be limited. the ten-year term will replace what was previously a lifetime

appointment, but it's a critically important ten years for the library. congress unanimously agreed to make this change. and then the nomination of dr. carla hayden was received by the rules committee the end of february of this year. now since that time the committee has thoroughly vetted dr. hayden. we've reviewed her qualifications, her writings, her experience, and in particular her role in leading the enoch pratt free library in baltimore for the past 23 years. at that library she oversaw the expansion and modernization of the library, how the library could be better available to more people. this committee has spent more time reviewing this nomination than any previous nomination for this position. looking at her preparation, i think it's extraordinary for the time. and by the way, the longest

serving librarian of congress was a lie brairian and she -- librarian and she brings that skill in ways that nobody else has. she earned her ph.d. from the university of chicago in library science. she served as an assistant professor at the university of pittsburgh. she spent 40 years now working in her chosen profession of leading library systems in chicago and in baltimore. she's been endorsed by librarians around the country, and associations and higher education entities in many states, including in our state. in my state the missouri state university and the university of missouri in kansas city have both endorsed her service. mr. blunt: the librarian in ferguson, missouri who served on packages with her as the library in both ferguson and baltimore played its own role in the stress that those communities

have faced in the last two years has recommended her. dr. hayden led the american library association from 2003 to 2004. this is the national organization for librarians. in 2001 before she began her tenure as president, the organization's council voted to challenge the child internet protection act on first amendment grounds. this act requires lie brairs -- libraries receiving public funding to install internet content filters on public computers. this requirement helps protect children from harmful internet content in public libraries and of course i support its implementation. in 2003, right before dr. hayden became the president of the association, the supreme court upheld the law and she was actually the president of the

association not when they challenged the law but when they implemented the law. i asked her specifically about her position on the child internet protection act during our hearing, our public hearing on the nomination. i'm just make a couple of points here of the response she had. she explained to the committee that the american library association's concerns were focused on unintentionally restricting access to nonpornographic materials, including health information related to topics like breast cancer. at the time according to dr. hayden, the filters were not aso fist indicated as they are today, and they had a tendency to overfilter in some areas. however, she made it clear that her view of pornography was it has no place in public libraries and noted that in her own library, the enoch pratt library has installed filters consistent with the requirement of the law. i'm going to quote her testimony

at this point because this has been the one area where some of our members have expressed concern. she said -- quote -- "technology is improved and the filters that are installed to receive federal funding have improved and the need to be vigilant is also something that libraries are doing in not only the technological aspect but just plain physical arrangements of computers making sure that there are faceout positioning of computer monitors as well as very few if any cubicals that contain computers and education and making sure that people know that pornography is illegal and we do not support that in any shape or form." the committee went through a thorough process. she was unanimously approved by the committee. i certainly agree with senator mikulski that this is an important time and we've taken the time to look at this. we don't need to wait any longer. i urge my colleagues to approve

this nomination and i'd also like, mr. president, senator cardin to have a chance to speak about dr. hayden who he also knows very well. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: thank you, mr. president. let me thank senator blunt for his leadership in bringing this nomination to the floor. senator schumer, i want to thank him also in the manner which this was handled by the rules committee. i know that kelly on staff did a lot of work. i really do thank all that were involved in bringing forward this nomination. mr. president, you've heard from my colleagues, from senator mikulski and senator blunt the extraordinary qualifications of dr. hayden. she has the academic credentials. she has the experience. she has the proven leadership as we saw in enoch pratt free library in baltimore, what she was able to do i would like to add one more dimension to this if i might. that's the person that she is. she is admired by all.

she knows how to bring people together. she has incredible people skills in addition to having the technical skills to be an extraordinary c.e.o. and to be able to manage a complex operation. the library of congress is a complex operation. it takes a great deal of management skills. so just let me give you one of -- she's received many, many acknowledgements and awards over her career, but the one i think that perhaps speaks the most was the daily record two years ago that gave her the award as the most admired c.e.o. that's a hard award to get. and it just shows that she knows how to lead but to lead in an effective way. and quite frankly the library of congress i think will benefit from those skills and be able to use those skills very effectively. i also waned to share with my

colleagues owe wanted to share with my colleagues i wanted to share, in addition to her credentials including being president of the national association and also serving on the accreditation committee, she's done a lot of the nuts and bolts in regards to libraries both locally and nationally. she's also been involved in many community activities. i know locally she served on goucher college boards, on baltimore gas and electric boards, she served on the baltimore leadership school for young women. she's been involved in a lot more activities. she's been an extremely engaged individual in our community. so i think -- i know she'll do a great job in this capacity. i know she'll make us proud and we know the library of congress is the envy of the world. and i think we have a world class leader in order to lead the library of congress. i urge my colleagues to support this confirmation. mr. president, if there's no one else who seeks recognition, i would suggest we yield back all

time and move towards a vote. the presiding officer: is there objection? all time is yielded back. the question occurs on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? seeing none, the ayes are 74,

the nays are 18. the motion carries. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, the president will be notified immediately of the senate's action, and the senate will resume legislative session. mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: senator from new york. mr. schumer: mr. president, i is rise this afternoon to talk about the pace of judicial confirmations with my friends, the senators from hawaii and the senator from massachusetts, who have been real leaders on this issue. wcialtion we have only one -- well, we have only one more day of legislative session before congress breaks until september. it is an appropriate time to take stock of how the majority has handled their job of scheduling and confirming judges. more than a year into this congress, the republican leadership has allowed only 22 judges to be confirmed, only 22.

in the last two years of the bush administration with a democratic majority, the mirror situation of what we're in today, 68 -- so that's 68 versus 22. the republican majority is confirming judges at the slowest rate in more than 60 years, and this has real consequences across america. vacancies have risen from 43 to 83 since republicans took over the majority. 29 have been judicial emergencies. i know in my city of buffalo in western new york we had an emergency. we have one of the busiest courts. and for a while we had no judges. now we have one. at this point in time in the bush administration, with democrats in control of the senate, we had reduced the number to 39. that's half as many vacancies as now exist.

from the district courts to the federal courts of appeals, all the way up to the highest court in the land, the republican majority has been showing the american people that when it comes to judges, they just are not doing their job. this is hardly a senate that's back to work. the nuts and bolts of governing is the process of nominations, especially for the judiciary. by this measure, the republican senate and its judiciary committee isn't back to work; it's sleeping on the job. angz there's no -- and there's no better example of it than the irresponsible, partisan blockade of president obama's supreme court pick, now its fifth month. mr. president, the speedy application of justice, the right to petition the government for a redress of griev grievancs a bedrock of american values enshrined in the constitution.

and this is not an abstract concept. it has real, everyday consequences for american litigants. justice delayed is justice denied. without judges on the bench, justice denied for a woman who was unjustly fired, suing to get back her job, support her family. it's denied for a small business ownerrer seeking redress on a cot suit. when contracts hang over them -- when lawsuits hang over them, it causes sleepless nights. i know my dad was a small businessman. our republican colleagues are a just twiddling their numbers. this is denied for a criminal defendant who deserves to have his or her case heard in a courtroom before an impartial judge and a jury of their piers. -- of their peers. this matters in so many of the

states, including my home state of new york. one of the judges who's been languishing on the calendar is garry brown, currently serving as a magistrate judge in the eastern district of new york, nominated for a seat on a crowded bench in long island, 3 million people, more than any other state. that seat has been vacant for 18 months, 18 months. the small business people in long island who need these cases settled, the many others who are waiting -- awaiting justice, they are in anguish, and our republican colleagues just sit there. we know that. we know why. the american people know why, too. they're not doing their jobs. brown -- garry brown is emmeantly qualified for this seat. as a magistrate judge he heard a number of cases related to the fail-out from super-storm sandy. only through judge brown's

diligence and integrity were deficiencies in the insurance claim process uncovered, and hundreds of homeowners began to recoup their losses. so we need a judge brown. the people of long island need a judge brown. er without judges on the bench, we're diminishing that court. our majority leader likes to talk about the senate is working again? give mae a break! -- give me a break! if you can't even appoint judges, how can you say the senate is working? there's no good reason other than the usual political games, games that democrats did not play when we were in the same position in the last two years of george bush's term and we had the senate majority. well, mr. president, we have one day left before we break, and yet this body has failed to pass adequate legislation dealing with zika, failed to pass real

funding on the opioid crisis. after another senseless tragedy in orlando, failed to pass sensible gun safety measures. and fails to fill our bench, whether it is the supreme court, the circuit courts, or the district courts. our republican majority owes it to the american people to make some progress on judges before members run for the hills. we shouldn'ting adjourning with this many vacancies, this many judicial emergencies. it's time to confirm these uncontroversial nominees. i say to every one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, particularly the majority leader, it's time to do your job. and so i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider

the following nominations: calendars 11, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 359, 362, 363, 364, 459, 460, 461, 501, 008, 568, 571, 572, 573, 597, 598, and 600 and that further the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations, that if confirmed, the motion to be -- to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection sno. mr. tillis: reserving the right to object -- and of course i will -- i want to put this in perspective and talk about the theatrics that we sometimes call the discussion on the senate floor. you know, i think that we have a tendency here -- maybe it is because we're busy, we've got a lot of other things we're doing.

but we have a ten deny soy -- tendency to have very short memories. we should remember that we confirmed a judge last week and the prior week. one of those judges was a judge put forth by senators -- supported by senators in the state of new jersey, both democrat senators. and we moved forward with the confirmation. also i want to talk a little bit about history because i'm new here, but my facts seem to stand in contrast somewhat to what's discussed on this floor from week to week. when it comes to judicial nominations, the president has been treated much more fairly, i would submit, than president george w. bush. to date, the senate has confirmed 329 of president obama's nominations, judicial nominations. at this point the, president bush had only 312 judicial nominations. that's 329 for president obama compared to 312 for the entire term of president bush. president obama has now surpassed president bush in terms of the total judicial

nominees confidence for the entire presidency of george w. bush. during his entire presidency, the senate only confirmed 326 of president bush's judicial nominations. and we've already confirmed 329. so i would submit that that's getting the work done. that's getting the job done. that's doing our job. so i know the other side of the aisle doesn't like the fact that they don't set the floor agenda, but any reasonable, objective review of the record demonstrates that president obama has been treated more fairly than his predecessor, george w. bush. and so for that reason, mr. president, i do object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator? massachusetts. ms. warren: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, donald trump spenlts year peddling trump university, a sham university

that his own former colleagues refer to as "one big fraudulent scheme." now he is being sued for fraud and for targeting the most vulnerable people he can find, lying to them, taking all their money and leaving them in debt. the judge presiding over trump's case is gone dale low curiel, a former federal prosecutor who has spent decades quietly serving his country, sometimes at great risk to his own life. the republican governor who first appointed him calls him an american hero, and he was confirmed with bipartisan support from the senate. like all district court judges, judge curiel's work is not political. so he is following the law in the trump university case. but donald trump wants judge curiel to bend the law to suit trump's own personal financial interests and trump's very, very fragile ego. so a little over a month ago,

trump begins savagely attacking the judge's integrity, his mexican american heritage at political rallies. some republicans in congress claim to be shocked by the assault on our legal system. paul ryan called trump's attack -- quote -- "the textbook definition of a racist commie." please, spare me the false outrage. where do you suppose donald trump got the idea that he can demean judges with impunity? he got it from republicans right here in congress. it is bad enough that senate republicans won't even give merrick garland the president's supreme court nominee, a hearing while the republicans' ally spend billions of dollars conducting a nonstop campaign of slime against him. but the story is actually much bigger than judge garland.

16 noncontroversial district court judicial nominees -- 16 -- are waiting to take their seats alongside judge curiel on the federal bench. they have been investigated and voted out of committee. about of half have been sitting for more than a year. but in a few days republicans who tkrol -- control the senate are planning to pack up and shut down this body for most of the rest of the year leaving every single one of these men and women to twist in the wind. why? because in six months trump might be pred -- president. republicans want trump to appoint the next generation of judges. they want donald trump to tilt the law in favor of big businesses and billionaires like trump. they just want donald trump to stop being so vulgar and obvious about it. it is ridiculous, if republicans expect the american people to

believe that they don't agree with trump's disgraceful attacks on an independent judiciary, they should confirm these judges. we have just one message for the republicans: do your job now before shutting off the lights and leaving town. at least confirm the 13 noncontroversial district court judges that were nominated before 2016. so, mr. president, i rise today to make a request for unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: calendar number 359, 362, 363, 364, 459, 460, 461, # 508, 569, 70, 571, 572 and 573, that the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order

listed, that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order to the nominations, that any related statements be printed in the record, and that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. tillis: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: reserving the right to object. sometimes when i come on the senate floor, i can't help but think that people are watching in the gallery and watching on c-span are going what's going on? i thought we were working on funding veterans and coming up with a solution to zika, funding the d.o.d., making sure that states and localities have adequate resources to combat drug addiction and the opioid epidemic. and then what we get are things that have nothing to do with doing our jobs. i'm doing my job today and objecting to these measures so that we can actually get back to pressing matters that hopefully will get passed out before we go

to the work period and return in september. so, mr. president, for that reason, i object to the distinguished members from massachusetts motion. the presiding officer: objection is heard. ms. warren: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: i'm not sure what version of the constitution you're reading that doesn't say confirming judges is part of doing your job in the united states senate. these are judges that have all been completely vetted. they are noncontroversial. they have bipartisan support. and the amount of time it would take to get these judges confirmed is just simply don't object. let us go forward. we hear a lot of talk these days from republicans in congress suddenly caring about the rule of law. talk is cheap. real cases are piling up. real courts are starved for help. real justice is being denied. and the american people aren't easily fooled. if senate republicans leave town without putting a single one of

these highly qualified, noncontroversial judicial nominees on the bench, they are making it clear that for them, politics is everything. 24/7, that politics trumps everything, even an independent judiciary. mr. president, i yield back. ms. hirono: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: mr. president, i want to thank senators schumer and warren and others for their efforts to get some movement on these neglected judicial nominees. and when we talk about the senate doing its job, of course confirming judges is a part of the senate's job. in fact, only the senate can do that job. 23 of the 24 nominees on the executive calendar were approved by the judiciary committee by voice vote, including 16 district court nominees. this includes hawaii's own claire connors.

let me tell you a little bit about claire. she and the -- before i get to that, i want to also mention she and the other nominees before us today who were unanimously proved by the judiciary committee will be kept from serving on the federal bench, kept from doing those jobs because of republican inaction. now, i'll tell you something about clare. she has wide-ranging experience, including district and appellate venues, criminal and civil arenas and litigation on issues ranging from tax law to tough cases like crimes against children. i met with clare in hawaii and when she came before the judiciary committee and she is more than qualified to serve on the federal bench today. senator grassley has indicated that republicans will shut down the nomination process this month, even though vacancies

have nearly doubled. if clare is not confirmed, the hawaii district court seat will be left vacant for a year. historically the senate has held confirmation votes on widely supported nominees into september of a presidential election year. the nominees before us all have bipartisan support and come from states throughout the country: tennessee, new jersey, new york, california, rhode island, pennsylvania, utah, and of course hawaii. i urge my republican colleagues to do their jobs. with that, mr. president, i rise today to make a request for unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: calendar numbers 359, 362, 363, 364, 439, 459, 460, 461, 508.

further that the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order listed. that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. that no further motions be in order to the nominations. that any related statements be printed in the record and that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. tillis: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: mr. president, reserving the right to object, i'd like to touch briefly on what the distinguished senator from hawaii mentioned regarding vacancies. if you look at the average vacancies over the past several years, it's actually a slightly higher rate than what we're finding ourselves in right now. it's a natural part of the process when judges move up to senior status, we fill in the vacancies. this goes up and down. this is not a crisis.

it's no different than a situation the senate has dealt with long before i got here. so again, mr. president, so that we can dispense with these matters and move back on to bills that we have before us that can fund the v.a., that can address the zika crisis, that can do things that we need to get done before we get out of town, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. tillis: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: mr. president, i want to get back on doing my job. in north carolina, i promised the people of north carolina that i was going to help fund the v.a. that's why i'm proud to be a member of the veterans' affairs committee. i told the soldiers down at fort bragg and camp lejeune across this nation we were going to work to fund the dartment of defense. what i'd like to do is see if we can get back to these matters that are necessary, important, that will save lives. they will equip our men and women to take the fight wherever it may go. but today i want to talk specifically about the milcon v.a. and zika bill that's before

us. it's a conference report. for those who are not familiar with conference reports, they are unamendable. we need a up-or-down vote and we need to send it to the president's desk. that's what lies before us. that's a bill we can pass this year, funding that the democratic conference in large numbers supported at $1.1 billion when it went to the house. what is that funding going to do? it's going to fund mosquito programs, remediation programs to make sure that we don't have an epidemic that's spread through mosquito bites. right now they are all travel related but we're afraid of that threat, particularly as mosquito season gets in full, full-fledged operations across the nation. it's been going on in north carolina and the south for several months. we want to give local -- i shouldn't say local law enforcement -- health professionals, the c.d.c. the resources they need to fight the virus. the c.d.c. promises we can get one in a matter of 18 months. we want to make sure we do everything we can to educate

people about the potential dangers of this disease. that's what approving this conference report will do. so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to consideration of the conference report to accompany house resolution 2577, the conference report be agreed to with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. reid: i reserve the right to object. i will say a few words. i say to my friend, the junior senator from north carolina, that is the first time i've ever heard anyone say that the problem with the judges is just one of those things. let's not worry about it. it happens all the time. but that's not true. we have around america today a lot -- a number of extremely important judicial emergencies, meaning we have all these judicial districts where there's

not enough judges to do the work justice delayed is justice denied. and having practiced law quite a few years, it's very hard to go to a court and we're told we're sorry but the judge is doing all civil cases today. he has no time for a criminal case. or vice versa. i appreciate his succinctness saying it is no big deal, don't worry about the judges. we are worried about the judges. it is very difficult. so let's move up to the subject he brought up, the second subject. judges, no big deal. i think that's a tremendously big deal and so do the american people. once again the senator from north carolina seeks once again to pass the very partisan military construction-v.a. zika bill. yes, he said for those not

familiar with conference reports, i'm familiar with lots of them, mr. president. been through lots of conference reports. i understand the rules. but i also understand that we as a body can do anything we want to do. that's the way this senate operates. we have the ability to change the rules in a matter of minutes and move on to change what's before this body. and we know that the reason that the republican leader cannot move forward on a zika funding bill that's reasonable is because the house of representatives is unreasonable. we passed out of this body a very good bill. it wasn't what i wanted. i wanted $1.9 billion at the centers for disease control. and the national institutes of health said they need $1.9 billion. but i said okay, $1.1 billion will help a tremendous amount.

it's emergency spending; no offsets. and so we agreed and sent it to the house. 89 senators voted. the democrats voted for it and the vast majority of republicans voted for it. and that was good. it wasn't perfect, but it was good. so what did the house of representatives do? they filled this report, this conference report. they ignored what we had done here in the senate, and they decided they were going to stick some of their favorite poison pills on this legislation. why? because the speaker, to his credit, is trying but he's not doing much good over there. he's finding that speaker boehner couldn't do much better than he's done. that's why boehner left. he couldn't handle it, because as boehner used to call them, the crazies take over that caucus. they have a rule in the house, mr. president -- the presiding officer served in the house of representatives. all the time he was there, they had a rule -- it wasn't when i

was there, there was no such rule. but the rule they have now is called the hastert rule. by the way, of course, haste is in prison, so they should at least change the name of that. the hastert rule says that we're only going to pass a bill if we can get the majority to vote for it. so to get anything done in the house of representatives, you have to have a majority of the republicans support a bill. it doesn't matter how the democrats feel. they don't basically get to vote on anything. so what they did in an effort to get something back here, the speaker has told lots of people, i can't pass anything dealing with zika unless we do something about planned parenthood. that's what he's told everybody. and it's obvious from what they sent us. so this $1.1 billion, no offsets came back to us as a -- i don't know what to call it. they are not two of the same vehicles. it restricts funding for birth

control provided by planned parenthood. there is an obsession by the house republicans and i'm sorry to say the obsession over here is fairly well fixed also, that they want to do whatever they can to dramatically affect planned parenthood. that's what this is about. if you're a woman in america today, you are worried about zika, i think you should be concerned about birth control, and women all over america are, and some woman can't go to the boutique physician and get a prescription. they need to go to planned parenthood where millions of women are taken care of for their health needs. but not under republican guidance, no. so we got as part of this conference report back that funding for planned parenthood would be restricted, birth control. and just to make sure that they cover all their poison pill areas, we have to do something

to whack the environment. let's change the clean water act. that's what they did. we hear all these great speeches about we want to do something with veterans. $500 million was taken out of veterans to help pay for zika funding, $500 million. what was that veterans money to be used for? processing claims. there's a tremendous backlog. but that's there. ebola funding, two years ago, america was up in arms over ebola. the epidemic has died down, but it has not gone. there are still pockets of real problems in africa. any one day they could burgeon into something like they were two years ago. the national institutes of health, centers for disease control want to keep some money there so we can take care of this epidemic, but no, they

whack $700 million off of that. everyone knows the money they took from obamacare. i could raise a point of order right now and it would fall. i can't do that. that's wrong. they have had 67 votes in the house to defund obamacare. none of them have passed, but they have had fun trying. but it just in a final effort to kind of stick their finger in our eye, they have said well, here's what we're going to put on this great bill. we believe it would be appropriate in military cemeteries, let's fly the confederate flag. you can't make up stuff like this. this is what they did. so we have repeatedly reached out to republicans to try to compromise and reach a solution to the threat of zika. of course, if we worked together, we have a chance to prevent babies being born with these terrible birth defects. the presiding officer is a

physician. i wasn't able to watch all of the speech last evening, but i watched part of it. a picture of a little baby there and he was explaining what zika was all about. we have reached out to republicans who have tried to -- to try to work something out. we can work together even now in the -- we can see just right over the horizon the republican convention is starting on monday, but we can still do it before then. we need to work something out. we want to do that. i've tried. but i know, i know what's going on in the house. they can't pass anything on their own unless they put this kind of stuff in. all they would have to do on the bill that passed the senate with 89 votes, if the speaker would allow a vote in the house of representatives, it would pass overwhelmingly. democrats with rare exception would vote for it. get 98%, 99% of the democratic vote and a few republicans to vote for it. it would pass overwhelmingly.

that's what should happen. but i understand the speaker is constrained by, he hasn't gone this far, at least publicly. boehner did publicly. said he had to deal with his crazies. speaker ryan is dealing with the same crazies. so i ask consent to pass the same zika legislation that passed this body with 89 votes. so i said if the speaker would allow a vote on it, it would pass. so i would ask if the senator from north carolina would amend his request to this. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to h.r. 5243, that all but the enacting clause be stricken with the substitute amendment, which the text of the blunt-murray agreement, which is an amendment to provide $1.1 billion in funding for zika, that be agreed to. that there be up to one hour of debate equally divided between

the two leaders or their designees. that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the bill as amended be read a third time and the senate vote on passage of the bill as amended, with no intervening action or debate. and finally, mr. president, i would ask everyone to be remind ed we've had emergencies all over america. the presiding officer -- i'm sorry to keep referring to you, but it's the subject at hand. when you have the devastation -- you had the devastation with that terrible hurricane, we were there. we were there the next day. we were there the next week, the next month, the next year, doing what we could to provide emergency funding for the deleaguered state of louisiana. we did it because it was the right thing to do. it was an emergency. it was unpaid for. there were no offsets. we've done it with the earthquake in california. we've done it with the man made fire in texas. we do it. that's what we do. that's what emergencies are all about. so i ask that my consent

agreement that i've outlined be approved. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: will the senator from north carolina so modify his proposal? will the senator from north carolina so modify? mr. tillis: no. mr. reid: thank you very much, mr. president. i guess the shake of the head takes care of it. mr. tillis: mr. president, reserving the right to object. mr. reid: i'm sorry. mr. tillis: mr. president, i just want to be very brief, but sometimes when i hear these debates, and they are far ranging, they are getting off the main subject. the motion that's before us would basically unwind a carefully crafted compromise that could come crashing down if we don't move forward with this deal. what the minority leader has suggested takes us back for a process that could take days or weeks. we can't afford days or weeks. we need to get this done now. the motion that we should be considering that the gentleman from nevada objected to is the

one that would get this to the president's desk. this one adds time, complexity and most likely is going to suffer the same fate in the house, so for that reason, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard to the modification. the objection to the original request? mr. reid: i object to his request. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. lee: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i'd like to give a few remarks about how i first became involved in the cause of sentencing reform within our federal criminal justice system. i'll never forget when i first began to appreciate the full magnitude of this problem. the problem that we face within a federal criminal justice system that is times too inflexible and sometimes doesn't allow judges to take into account the unique circumstances of each case. it was 2004. i was a federal prosecutor, an assistant u.s. attorney in utah.

in some cases, i witnessed judges being forced by federal law to impose punishments that simply under any standard did not fit the crime. first-time offenders sometimes being locked up for periods of time longer than some rapists or murders, terrorists or kidnappers. these were real people, people with children, siblings, parents, spouses, and of course dreams for a better life. yet, in too many cases, the so-called system that was supposed to correct their mistakes arguably compounded them. this system wasn't just wasting money. it wasn't just wasting physical material, resources. it was wasting lives. i know that some in my party may view this as a progressive cause. i view it as a conservative one.

think about it. when there's a major problem tearing at our economy and our civil society, a problem that's threatening our most vulnerable families and our communities, conservatives don't just shrug their shoulders and expect a bunch of outdated laws, bloated government bureaucracies to take care of it. we know better. criminal justice reform doesn't call on conservatives to abandon their principles. it calls on them to fight for them. this process and the conservative cause is all about making our communities, these little platoons, if you will, of service, of cooperation that are at the very heart of our constitutional republic, safe and prosperous and happy. it's about basing our laws and basing our court procedures and our prison systems on a

clear-eyed understanding of human nature, of how human beings respond, what brings out their better selves and what doesn't, about man's predilection towards sin and his capacity for redemption, along with an uncompromising commitment to human dignity. it's about respect for the dignity of all human life, the basic dignity of the human soul, no matter how small or how weak, how rich or how poor, and for the redemptive capacity of all sinners, no matter how calloused it is the foundation for everything that conservatives purport to stand for. our approach to policing and to punishment should be no different. moreover, as a conservative, i believe that we ought to watch out any time we give the government extraordinary powers,

especially powers that deprive the individual of liberty, and nowhere is the deprivation of liberty more severe, more intense, more long lasting than that deprivation of liberty that occurs when a person is locked up for years or for decades at a time, with no opportunity to progress, no opportunity to interact with family members, no opportunity to interact with the vibrant, growing economy. so when i got to the senate and i was assigned to the senate judiciary committee, i started looking for partners, partners on both sides of the aisle who shared my concerns with the federal criminal justice system, shared my concerns with the way federal minimum mandatory sentences were working, started looking for partners on both sides of the aisle who shared this commitment to reform. now, progress in this area is

difficult, and for a long time the progress we have made in this area was slow, just as any process, any deliberative process often is. i found an ally in my colleague, the senior senator from illinois. we teamed up. we put together legislation. that legislation gradually started gaining some support. first it gained more support on the other side of the aisle than it did on my side of the aisle. we were pleased with the progress that it made. then in the fall of last year, we struck an agreement. we started making more progress. we introduced a bill called the sentencing reform and corrections act. now, like most legislative compromises, it isn't perfect and it doesn't accomplish everything that every member of our coalition might wish we could accomplish, but it is an extraordinary great start, an extraordinarily great start, and it proves that it is possible to

design our laws in a way that can balance the sometimes competing interests of retribution and rehabilitation. justice and mercy, the rights of victims and the rights of perpetrators. the sentencing reform and corrections act would expand federal judges' now limited discretion so they can treat offenders like human beings, not mere statistics and punish them according to their particular circumstances. it would broaden the federal safety valve, a provision of existing law that allows judges to sentence a limited number of offenders below the mandatory minimum. now, contrary to what many of this bill's critics claim, this would not absolve offenders of their crimes, nor would it suddenly or indiscriminately release legions of violent predators into our communities. in fact, under this reform, the status of violent offenders

would not change at all. they would remain ineligible for federal safety valve relief. our criminal justice system simply has to be flexible, has to be at least flexible enough to apply in many different situations. prosecutors and judges need to have the ability to impose lengthy sentences on serious offenders who pose the greatest threat to public safety, just as they must have the ability to impose modest sentences on those who violate our laws but do not pose and ongoing threat to public safety. whenever we interfere with the flexibility of either of these, we impair the effectiveness and the efficiency of our federal criminal justice system, and when we do that, we necessarily make our country less safe rather than more safe. so this bill would leave untouched the maximum penalty leaves that -- levels that exist under current law. it also would not eliminate any

minimum mandatory sentence but instead it takes a targeted approach reducing the harshest mandatory penalties and providing limited relief for low-level offenders with limited criminal history. it's this type of offender that helps draw my attention to this issue, help draw my attention to this issue back in 2004, just as i described a few minutes ago. one of the cases that was being handled by the office in which i worked, the u.s. attorney's office for the district of utah, involved a young man named welvin angelos. he was in his mid-20's, the father of two young children. he got involved in some criminal activity and was caught selling three relatively small quantit quantities, dime-back quantities of marijuana to what turned out to be an informant.

because mr. angelos had a gun on his person at the time of these transactions and because of the way he was charged and because of the way some of these provisions of law have been interpreted, including a provision of law in 18u.c.s. section 2929-4c. mr. angelos received a sentence of 55 years in prison. now, you may ask what on earth was this judge thinking, how could such a judge be so cruel? so arbitrary, so capricious as to sentence this young man to 55 years in prison for selling three dime-back quantys of -- quantities of marijuana? well, the judge didn't have any choice. in fact it was the judge who first drew my attention to the case because it was the judge who took the unusual, the almost unprecedented, unheard of step of issuing a written opinion prior to the issuance of the sentence disagreeing with the sentence the judge was about to

impose. then federal district judge paul cassell issued a lengthy opinion explaining this is a problem. this young man is about to receive his seen dense that -- sentence that is excessive under any standard, a longer sentence he would have received had he engaged in many acts of terrorism, that he would have received had he engaged in kidnapping so why are we sending this guy away till he is about 80 years old? simply because of this minimum mandatory penalty. but the judge said, this is a problem i cannot address. this is a problem i'm powerless to remedy. only congress can fix this problem. those words have haunted me ever since then. only congress can fix this problem. so when i became a senator in 2011, i still remember those words. those words continued to haunt me and continue to haunt me to this day.

now, miraculously, fortunately, mr. angelos has been released through a variety of procedural maneuvers that i don't have time to address right now. he himself has been released. many others are still in prison under the same system who have been locked up for years, decades at a time, much longer than any reasonable person would think would be a just sentence. i have yet to meet a single person, democrat, republican, old, young, male, female who believes the sentence mr. angelos received was just. his story, his example is a good reason why we need to pass this bill. finally, this bill improves the quality of our federal prisons. if it became law it would increase access to vocational training, to therapeutic counseling, reentry services and other programs so we could have fewer first time offenders turning into career criminals.

all of these are common sense and i believe long overdue reforms but make no mistake, we are at the beginning, not the end of this generation story of criminal justice reform. as all of you know, the road to reform is long and it's full of setbacks and obstacles, and today's movement for criminal justice reform is no exception. but so long as the people here today are involved in this effort, i'm confident that we can together succeed where our prisons today often fail. in preparing our offenders to reintegrate into their communities as productive and law-abiding citizens, as spouses, parents, neighbors, and employees instead of career criminals. mr. president, we can fix this problem. mr. president, this bill would begin to address this problem but we need to bring this up. we need to have the opportunity to debate this, to discuss this, to vote on it and to pass it. thank you, mr. president. mr. durbin: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the assistant democratic leader. mr. durbin: mr. president, senator booker of new jersey is on the floor and the three of us were askinged to come at -- asked to come at three because the roll call was delayed. i would like to ask consent if it's already with the senator from ohio that senator booker be allowed to follow me to complete this statement on legislation that we're supporting. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. durbin: thank you very much. i'm going to be brief because i want to defer and get my time to the senator from new jersey. mr. president, we're going through a moment in america's history which we're going to remember for a long time. we're used to shooting deaths. sadly, gun violence has become part of america. and unfortunately, we're also used to mass murders. where more than four people are killed in one of these shooting incidents but it rocked america's conscience and soul when five policemen in dallas were murdered. those five policemen were officer brent thompson, age 43;

officer patrick zamarripa, age 32; officer mike krol, age 40; senior corporal loarn ahrens age 48; and sergeant michael smith. yesterday president obama and former president bush were there for the memorial service to honor these men and to honor everyone in law enforcement who gets up each monk, puts on a -- each morning, puts on a badge and risks their lives for us, to me, for my family, for my neighborhood, for my community, for my town, for my state and for my nation. america was rocked by the senseless murder that took place in dallas, texas. but it isn't the only thing that is really stunned the conscience of america. at the same time we've seen some shocking and disturbing videos. in baton rouge, the home state of the presiding officer, louisiana, alton sterling, a 37-year-old father was shot and

killed outside a convenience store. falcon height, minnesota, philando castile, age 32, fatally shot in his car during a police traffic stop for a broken taillight. his fiance and her 4-year-old daughter were in the car. those events, those two events, three events came together, the killings of the police in dallas and these video shootings and shocked the conscience of america in a way that i haven't seen before. it really called into question some basics about our country and where we're going and what we need to do. president obama said we must try to find common ground when he spoke at this memorial service. he's right. i thought about that over the weekend and i called my colleague and friend from new jersey and talked to him about it. and i said to him, when it comes to really showing america and particularly those who feel aggrieved by the current state of justice, our bill on criminal

justice reform speaks to a fundamental issue as to whether or not minority population, people of color are treated fairly in our system of justice. senator lee just spoke. senator lee for those who may not know him, senator lee is a conservative, tea party conservative i believe he would probably say, conservative republican from the state of utah. senator lee is joining us, durbin of illinois, booker of new jersey, and senator grassley of iowa in this effort. now, how many times, mr. president, do we run into that? where four senators with such diverse political beliefs come together on one bill? this bill. because senator lee explained what we're setting out to do here is to right an injustice, an injustice that is filling the federal prisons, sentencing individuals for lengthy sentences for nonviolent, nongun

drug offenses. this is long overdue and it's something that we need to do and if we did it, if would say to those across america who are asking is congress listening, is the senate awake to what's going on in our country, it would say to them yes, on a bipartisan basis these four senators and many more are prepared to bring reform to our criminal justice correction and sentencing system. will it solve all our problems? no, not at all, but it's a significant step forward. i was serving in the u.s. house of representatives over 25 years ago when a famous basketball star at the university of maryland died from a drug overdose. we were shocked by this. and they came in and said it is possible that he was a victim of crack cocaine. we never heard the term before. what is crack cocaine? a new form of cocaine crystals that are cheap, highly addictive

and destructive. len bias was his name. and we were asked to put into the law a sentencing provision which would be warning to everyone across america don't use crack cocaine. we did. we imposed a new sentencing guideline for crack cocaine 100 times the penalty over powdered cocaine, 100 times and what it meant sadly over a span of 25 years is that hundreds if not thousands of individuals were convicted of possessing, selling crack cocaine and sentenced for extraordinarily long sentences. i ran into one of them from the city of chicago. let me tell you his story. it's brief but it tells the story. alton mills, 1994, age 24. he was a runner, a seller when it came to street drugs. he was caught on his third

offense of selling street drugs, third offense. he had never served a day in jail, not one. his two previous offenses ended up in probation, didn't end up in correctional time. but this third one was the third strike. it turned out that alton mills, age 24, for his third sale of crack cocaine was sentenced to life i in prison. life in prison. he languished there. thank goodness his mom and dad never gave up on him. he found a public defender whose name ironically was my angel cody who went to work and fought for him and took her message to every office including mine and i took her message to the white house. alton mills' sentence was commuted. he came out of prison after 22 years behind bars. that's one example. 22 years. so what we're trying to do is

come up with a sentencing system that is sensible, that punishes those who are guilty for sure but does it in a smart and thoughtful way. and in reforming it saying to populations across america, yes, we can be a more just society. this criminal justice reform idea is one that is not only bipartisan but passed out of the senate judiciary committee in october of last year, october, a vote of 15-a, a bipartisan roll call. it came out of committee. why haven't we taken up this bill? why don't we take this up as soon as we return in september? why don't we say to people across america we're going to do something positive in terms of restoring justice in this country to everyone across the board in this bipartisan bill? that's why we come to the floor today. and that's what we're asking for. it will save money for taxpayers in addition to bringing justice to the system. and i believe that money that we save can be brought back to our

law enforcement agencies for training and equipment so let's show our faith in their effort to keep america safe and let's show our commitment to justice in this reform. unfortunately, mr. president, because i was joined in the struggle by then a brand-new senator from new jersey, named cory booker, and he has been an extraordinary voice in this effort. senator lee and i were doing pretty well until cory booker came along, and now he has added more firepower and more horsepower to this effort than any other senator could, certainly any new senator. i commend him for helping us in this effort and being committed to it in his heart, and i would like to at this point yield the floor to my junior colleague from the state of new jersey, nor booker. mr. booker: thank you very much. i want to thank -- the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. booker: thank you very much for the recognition, mr. president. i want to thank mike lee for coming to the floor