mr. cruz: mr. president, i rise today to discuss the impending nomination of judge brett kavanaugh. it now appears that tomorrow judge brett kavanaugh will become justice brett kavanaugh, an associate justice on the united states supreme court. it's worth pausing for a moment to reflect why that is of such great consequence for our country. in recent decades, the courts have seized more and more policymaking authority, have intruded into the authority of the democratically elected legislature, has taken policy issue after policy issue from the hands of the american people and usurped it instead to the hands of five unelected judges. given those stakes, the 2016 election in a very real sense was waged over what direction the supreme court would go.

and there was a markedly different vision, a markedly different promise that was made by donald trump and hillary clinton. donald trump promised to nominate institutionalists who would defend the constitution, who would defend the bill of rights. mr. president, that's what the people of texas want. i believe that's what the american people want. judges who will follow the law, who will be faithful to the constitution, who will uphold our fundamental liberties, free speech, religious liberty, the second amendment, the tenth amendment, the fundamental liberties protected every american in the united states constitution. the stakes here are high, particularly with this seat, the seat that was held by justice kennedy, a justice who has been the swing vote for three decades now. even though the stakes are high, mr. president, what we have witnessed the last several weeks is unprecedented in the annals

of confirmation battles. we saw initially a confirmation hearing that was relatively straightforward. it was marred by protests, coordinated with democratic senators, according to media reports. on the first day of the hearing, 70 individuals were arrested for protesting and disrupting the hearings. but at the end of that opening week of hearings, not a single senator on the committee had made the argument that justice kavanaugh was not qualified to be a justice. by any measure he's one of the most respected appellate judges in the country. nor did any of the senators on the judiciary committee make any meaningful argument that raised serious concerns about judge kavanaugh's jurisprudence. he's been a court of appeals judge for over a decade. it appeared at that point that the confirmation was a foregone conclusion and that it indeed --

and that indeed judge kavanaugh was likely to get a substantial bipartisan confirmation. then on the eve of the vote it was leaked in the press that there were allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual assault. those those allegations, sadly, had been in the possession of the ranking democratic member of the committee since july 30 in the form of a written letter that had been submitted by dr. ford on july 30, detailing the allegations. the allegations were serious. the allegations deserved to be treated with respect. and dr. ford in that letter requested to stay confidential. she did not want her name thrust in the national news. now, the judiciary committee has a process for handing allegations, as nominations go forward, there are all sorts of allegations that are raised.

and the proficiency -- and the process would be to refer that letter to the chairman, refer it to thephyte for a an investigation, and then the committee has standing process to engage in a confidential hearing, a closed hearing where the allegations raised by dr. ford could have been considered without dragging her name that the public. that would have been the right way to do that. that would have been the senate operating the wait we are supposed to operate. but, sadly, it didn't apartmentst -- operate that way. instead, it appears the democratic members of congress made the decision to leak the letter to the president and to drag dr. ford unwillingly into the public square. that did enormous damage to dr. afford her family and did enormous damage to judge kavanaugh and his family. when this happens, the judiciary committee, the republican members of the committee met and i urged my colleagues once these allegations were made public

that there needed to be a public hearing and dr. ford deserved a full and fair opportunity to tell her story. and that she needed to be treated with respect. and that, i'm glad to say, is exactly what happened. i also believe judge kavanaugh deserved a full and fair opportunity to defend himself, and that he, too, should be treated with respect. that, sadly, is not what happened. the hearing we had last week featured one democratic member of the committee after another dragging judge kavanaugh and his family through the mud, raising smear after smear after smear -- not just the allegations that dr. ford had raised but other, more far-fetched, in some cases absurd, allegations that partnersly the threshold for dragging a man's character and besmirching his family, the threshold in washington is nonexistent.

that thursday hearing we heard powerful testimony from two witnesses, dr. ford and judge kavanaugh. it was clear that both were hurting. it was clear that both had been done emore must damage by the -- enormous damage by the way the democratic members of that body launched these allegations in the media. even though we were seeing political games, that didn't relieve any members of this body from the solemn obligation we have to advise and consent, the obligation we have to have a fair process, to consider the allegations and to make the best judgment we can. and after two witnesses presenting powerful testimony, it became clear their testimony was directly contradictory. and so we were called to assess the evidence before us. now, typically in a court of law when you have conflicting testimony the way a court of law will assess that is to look to other corroborating evidence, whatter evidence is there that

indicates whether particular allegations are true or not? in this instance, dr. ford had identified three fact witnesses, three named fact witnesses, all of whom gave statements to the judiciary committee under penalty of perjury. all three of the named fact witnesses, not only did they not corroborate the allegations, but they affirmatively refuted the allegations. and they did so on penalty of perjury, mean if they were lying, they could face up to five years in prison. now, for me, the fact that all of the corroborating evidence contradicted the allegations and the fact that judge kavanaugh has a many-decadelong record as a distinguished public servant with no allegations whatsoever prior to the 11th hour political allegations that were launched by the democrats, the

balance of that, i believe, leads a fair decision-maker to make the decision that i had made and this body is preparing to make, which is to confirm judge kavanaugh. even so, at the insistence of a number of senators, the judiciary committee went further and asked last week for the f.b.i. to conduct supplemental background investigations, investigating these allegations. the instructions to the f.b.i. were to investigate all current credible allegations. the f.b.i. went and did ten interviews. i flew back to d.c. from texas last night. at 10:00 last night, came to the capitol in a classified session and read all ten of those 302's, the reports that the f.b.i. prepare coming out of these interviews. having read every single one of those reports, not a one of them

provides additional corroborating evidence for dr. ford's allegations. and indeed the key fact witnesses who had previously given statements, unsurprisingly, their statements are very much the same. they're more detailed. they're more extensive because the f.b.i. agents questioned them at greater length. but at the end of the day, all three named fact witnesses still continue to refute the allegations. that means that this body, if we are to be fair and impartial, i believe, should confirm judge kavanaugh. the that does not mean, as some have seen in this deeply politicized time in our country, that allegations of sexual assault should not be taken seriously. to the contrary, the fact that

we had an extensive public hearing to hear those allegations, to treat dr. ford with the utmost respect, that the f.b.i. investigated those allegations, sought out the fact witnesses, looked for corroborating evidence, all of that demonstrates the seriousness which which those -- with which those charges should be taken. sexual assault is a growing problem in our nation. it is a problem pervasive in our nation. the me too movement, we have seen powerful men in hollywood, in journalism, we've seen powerful men in politics, we've seen powerful men in business abusing their positions of power and harassing or assaulting women. that is unacceptable. i am glad to have worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in passing legislation through this body ensuring that there are tough standards and that we end the process of secret taxpayer settlements if a

member of congress is guilty of harassment or assault. we should have no tolerance for that sort of misconduct. so anyone at home that is watching these proceedings, it would be a mistake to take the politicized charge of democrats who want to defeat judge kavanaugh before these charges came along -- virtually every democrat who voted no was voting no before any allegation had been made. indeed, a great many of the democratic senators announced their opposition to judge kavanaugh within minutes or hours of his being named. every member of the judiciary committee announced their opposition to judge kavanaugh before the opening minutes of the confirmation hearing, before hearing a word that judge kavanaugh had to say. so the circus we saw last week was a whole lot of political theater. it featured some democratic senators i believe vying for the

20920 presidential -- for the 2020 presidential nomination and seeing who could be more extreme, put on a bigger spectacle. but the american people expect this body to be fair. the american people expect this body to respect the law and the rule of law. we've been through a process that i believe has been fair, has heard out these claims, and it is my hope that coming out of this, the anger and rage that has been stoked needs to dissipate. it is my hope that members on both sides of this aisle and, more importantly, americans on both sides of the political aisle across the country can remember who we are, can remember how to disagree, to disagree passionately. we can have passionate arguments about whether taxes should be

higher or lower. we can have passionate arguments about immigration policy. or any other policy matter. but i hope that we can remember how to disagree without being disagreeable, to disagree while being civil, to disagree while respecting each other, while respecting each other's humanity. it would have been wrong to vilify and demonize dr. ford, and i am glad that the judiciary committee did not go down that road. but it is equally wrong for democratic senators to demonize and vilify judge kavanaugh. -- based upon a lone accusation without corroborating evidence. that's not fair, that's not right. it's empty politics. and if we continue down this politics of personal destruction, we're going to find fewer and fewer people willing to step forward and serve, fewer and fewer people willing to serve on the federal judiciary, willing to serve in the cabinet.

there was a time when this body was called the world's greatest deliberative body. that's been a long time ago. i do think it's possible for us to get back to that, for us to keep disagreements focused on substance and issues and remember the fundamental humanity even of those who disagree with us. the american people, certainly the people of texas, i think a great many were horrified by what they saw last week. some in the media have characterized that women should necessarily oppose judge kavanaugh's confirmation because they're women. i don't think that's right. that certainly is not true from the women i've heard from from the state of texas because women

want the constitution followed constitutionally, want our fundamental liberties upheld. and women, like men, wontst want want a rule of law that is fair. yes, if there's serious credible evidence of sexual assault, it should be dealt with seriously. but women and men, our mothers and fathers, our husbands and wives, our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, every parent of sons should want a system where due process is protected and one lone and uncorroborated allegation is not enough to end the career and reputation of your son and every parent of daughters -- and i will the parent of two daughters -- should want a regime where your daughters are protected and their lives can't be ruined with an uncorroborated allegation, either.

but if god forbid they face assault or harassment, there is a system of accountability and the wrongdoers are held accountable. we want a fair system, a just system, we want a system that recognizes thuality of law. -- the rule of law. there are many countries that are ruledly mob, ruled by accusation, ruled by insinuation. but we need a process. in this case, we have gone through a process that was designed to be fair. and given the evidence, the right decision, i believe, is the decision this body will make tomorrow to confirm judge kavanaugh as justice kavanaugh, the newest associate justice on the supreme court. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: no, we are not. ms. klobuchar: thank you. mr. president, i come to the floor today to speak on the nomination of judge brett kavanaugh to serve as an associate justice on the united states supreme court.

as a member of the senate judiciary committee, i said on the first day that judge kavanaugh appeared before the senate that this proceeding was not normal. on its face, it looked like a normal confirmation hearing. the family was there. he was sitting in the chair with a table in front of him, ready to address the committee. the cameras were on. the senators were all seated, prepared to ask questions. all of it looked normal. but nothing about this confirmation process has been normal. these hearings began at a time when we only had access to a tiny fraction of the documents from judge kavanaugh's records. in fact, the night before the proceedings started, we got a document dump of 42,000 pages. even less of the information, the three years of his time as a staff secretary in the white

house, has been available to the american people or to us. that's still true today. these hearings were about a nominee in the end who was handpicked by a president, a nominee who had good credentials. there is absolutely no doubt about that, but there are many nominees, potential nominees who have good credentials. but in this case, this particular person was picked at a time in our history with perhaps the most expansive view of presidential power possible, a nominee who has actually written in an opinion that a president should be able to declare laws unconstitutional. these views go beyond the mainstream, and this confirmation process has only gone farther astray. while what happened during the last few weeks, with what happened and in light of dr. ford's compelling testimony, it was deeply troubling, and i

will talk about this at length. i want to begin where i first started. what we know about judge kavanaugh's record and what it suggests about the kind of justice that he would be. in the last decades, the supreme court of the united states has decided who you can marry, where you can go to school, who can vote, and for people like my grandpa who worked 1,500 feet underground in the mines in elie, minnesota, his entire life, the supreme court has decided how safe your workplace is. the next supreme court justice will make decisions that affect people across the country, their lives forever. the next supreme court justice will rule on cases that could determine whether health insurers can deny coverage to people who are sick or who have preexisting conditions and whether women's rights are protected, and the next supreme court justice will be in a position to serve as a check, as

a check and balance on the other branches of government. that person must be someone who is fair and impartial and who demonstrates a commitment to the truth without consideration of politics or partisanship. so it has been our responsibility, every senator in this chamber to determine if judge kavanaugh would protect the careful balance of power among three co-equal branches that our founders designed. we must determine if he would stand up for the rule of law without consideration of politics or partisanship. if people leave and the simple idea that no one is above the law. we knew coming into the hearing that judge kavanaugh's views of executive power were among the most expansive we've ever seen and that he has been making the case for strong presidential

power for decades. in a 2009 piece in the university of minnesota law review, judge kavanaugh wrote that a sitting president should not be the subject of an investigation or even be required to answer questions as part of a special counsel's investigation. in that article, he argued it's not a good use of the president's time to prepare for an interview or questioning by a special counsel, and he made no exception for an investigation addressing threats to our national security even when a foreign power has somehow interfered in our country's affairs. and it's not hard to see why these views are relevant during this critical constitutional moment. there is an extensive ongoing investigation by special counsel, and the president's private lawyer and campaign chairman have been found guilty of mutombo i am -- multiple

federal crimes. a man who has served with distinction under presidents from both parties has been under siege from the attorney general and the deputy attorney general. in the same article that judge kavanaugh wrote, he made the point that if a president did something, quote, dastardly, then congress could act, arguing that a criminal investigation should be put on hold until the end of the president's term. but when i asked him what dastardly means, he could not answer, even when i asked about a president who -- who knows what he or she could do? commit murder, jeopardize our national security, obstruct an investigation or engage in white-collar crime. i still didn't really get an answer about what dastardly means. and the judge's expansive view of presidential power is part of a much broader pattern of writing and commentary. more than a decade before in a 1998 piece in the georgetown law

journal, judge kavanaugh wrote that the president should be able to remove a special counsel at will. this is the opposite direction from what we did in the judiciary committee when we passed bipartisan legislation earlier this year on a 14-7 vote to enact additional protections for the special counsel and all future special counsels. at a 2016 event at the american enterprise institute, the judge was animated and almost gleeful when he said he would put the final nail in morrison v. olson, a supreme court decision which upheld the now-expired independent counsel statute. it's hard to imagine that he would respect a 30-year-old precedent and protect the integrity of a special counsel investigation in light of that statement. and in a roundtable discussion in 1999, he criticized the supreme court's unanimous ruling in u.s. v. nixon that compelled

president nixon to comply with a subpoena to produce tapes and documents written by a minnesotan, justice warren burger. when this came up in the hearing, judge kavanaugh repeatedly characterized the case as one of the greatest moments in our country's judicial history, but he refused to answer when asked the question of whether that case was correctly decided. these are incredible statements with implications that are clear when you think about what is going on in our country today. the dedicated public servants who work in our justice department, including attorney general, deputy attorney general, special counsel, and the f.b.i. have been subjected to repeated threats and have had their work politicized and their motives questioned. so i ask judge kavanaugh if these statements reflect his views today, but he only said he wasn't making constitutional arguments. he did not dispute that he believes as a matter of policy

that these are the types of broad powers that a president should be able to exercise. he said he was thinking of ways to make the presidency more effective. but these are not just abstract legal concepts, mr. president. they are ideas that could directly impact the future of our democracy as well as the lives of americans. and there are other pieces of this puzzle that make clear what a broad view of executive power judge kavanaugh has. to cite just one example, his opinion in seven sky v. holder discusses when a president can decline to enforce a law even if a court has upheld it as constitutional. the judge wrote the president may decline to enforce the statute. when the president deems a statute unconstitutional, even if a court has held or would hold the statute unconstitutional. the statute constitutional.

what does that mean? well, that means that the president could just decide he do could -- he could just hold a statute unconstitutional even if a court has held that it is, in fact, constitutional. that's what this means. it's not a law review writing, it's not something written when he was in college or in law school. it is actually something he wrote in a case. what would that mean for women's health? what would that mean at a time when the administration is challenging protections for people who are sick or have preexisting conditions? i asked him if he believed the president could declare these protections unconstitutional even if a court upheld them. this isn't a hypothetical example. the administration is now arguing in a texas district court that the affordable care act preexisting conditions protection is unconstitutional. and the judge refused to answer whether a president could simply

ignore a law, even one upheld by the court. he didn't answer when senator durbin asked it, when senator blumenthal asked it, when senator harris posed the same question. the days of the divine rights of kings ended with the magna carta in 1215, and centuries later in the wake of the american revolution, a check on the executive was a major foundation of our country's constitution. for it was james madison who wrote in federalist 47 the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. and there is more. none of the judge's colleagues joined a section of his opinion in akin county outlining his views on when a president can

ignore the law, and one who was an appointee of president george w. george h.w. bush stated explicitly that reaching that issue was unnecessary to decide the case. judge kavanaugh has made very clear over the years that he has an incredibly broad view of the types of protections that should be extended to a sitting president, and without further answers from him during the hearing, we are left only with his writings and his previous statements. these writings say that a sitting president should not have to be subject to a criminal investigation, that a sitting president should be able to remove a special counsel, that a sitting president should not have to agree to an interview with a special counsel, and that a sitting president has the legal authority to ignore the law. at this time in our history, we need a justice who is independent and who will serve as a check on the other

branches. that is what our founding fathers set up. not a judge who would allow the president to avoid accountability or who believes that the president's views alone should carry the day. and despite many opportunities, judge kavanaugh did not convince me that he would be an independent jurist who would maintain the fundamental idea that we all learned in grade school. what is it? that no one is above the law. another concern i have is what judge kavanaugh's views would mean for american consumers. in one opinion that was later overturned by the entire d.c. circuit, judge kavanaugh argued that the consumer financial protection bureau was unconstitutional, calling it a threat to individual liberty. he said this about the consumer financial protection bureau. the bureau was founded in the wake, as you know, the wake of

the financial crisis, and has now helped more than 30 million consumers obtain more than $12 billion in relief. the bureau helps protect consumers as they deal with financial institutions that offer credit cards, loans, and mortgages. what did the judge say? he found it unconstitutional. thankfully the full d.c. circuit came to the opposite conclusion. all the other judges, the majority recognized that millions of families were devastated by the financial crisis, with about 4 million families losing their homes in foreclosure and even more slipping seriously behind on their mortgages. judges appointed by presidents from both parties came to the opposite conclusion of the nominee that's before us today. and the majority on that court concluded that the bureau should stay in place like congress intended. well, the d.c. circuit made the right decision in that case. what struck me was just how far

the judge goes in his opinion. the judge was not just talking about the consumer financial protection bureau in that case. his opinion referred to independent agencies as a headless fourth branch. that's a quote -- of government. and they could threaten other agencies like the federal trade commission that protects consumers from scams and anticompetitive mergers. or the agencies that help to stabilized our economy after the financial crisis, like the federal reserve and the securities and exchange commission. or the social security administration which distributes benefits to more than 60 million elderly and disabled americans, which has had a single director, just like the consumer financial protection bureau, for decades since 1994. and judge kavanaugh has called independent agencies a threat to individual liberty not just onc. in that same minnesota law review article i mentioned that

outlined his expansive view of executive power, the judge criticized the 80-year-old precedent that upheld the constitutionality of our independent agencies. i asked judge kavanaugh about his conclusion that the bureau was unconstitutional. he did not dispute this conclusion, but he did say that his opinion simply called for a change to the law so that the director of the bureau could be fired by the president at will. i found that answer problematic. when congress drafted the law that created the bureau, it made the choice. we made the choice right here in this chamber to give the director a five-year term to provide some independence from politics. this was a choice that we made in this chamber. not everyone agreed with it, but by majority vote it passed. it passed in the senate and it passed in the house. we made that decision.

and during our discussion on the judge's expansive views of executive power at the hearing, he kept telling me that the scope of presidential authority was a matter of policy that congress should decide. he repeated this answer often to me and to others when it comes to presidential power, he said, congress should decide. but look at what happened here. when it comes to protecting consumers, in this case congress did decide. we actually passed a law. we said we wanted this independent director to have a five-year term over this very important agency that's returned $12 billion to consumers who have been victims of scams and mortgage fraud. congress' decision, though, did that matter to the judge in this dissent that he wrote? it did not. it seems to me, just looking at all these opinions, that the judge's record is this, when he likes what congress decides, he says, hey, congress has the

final say. but when he doesn't like what congress decides, he then thinks the judge should make the decision. what does that mean? in this case he would have rewritten the consumer protection law over the wishes of congress. and what would that mean for the lives of americans? after what this country has been through, after families who worked hard and tried to save for the future lost billions of dollars, he ruled that the agency that is designed to protect them was unconstitutional. it's not an isolated example. in another case he argued that the net neutrality rules were unconstitutional. those were the guidelines developed by the f.c.c. to help consumers and small businesses have an even playing field when it came to the internet. those net neutrality protections would have prevented internet service providers from blocking slowing and prioritizing web traffic. once again the full d.c. circuit, those other judges,

decided against judge kavanaugh, and these key consumer protections were upheld by a panel of judges appointed by presidents of both parties. the question i always come back to is what will this mean to americans? here's the kicker. the outcome that the judge went out of his way to reach in the net neutrality case protects the first amendment rights of corporations at the expense of the first amendment rights of individuals. that's why that case is such a problem. but these aren't the only reasons why there's great concern for consumers. in announcing the judge's nomination, the white house touted the fact that he has overruled federal agency actions 75 times. the white house also said in a document that it sent out that

he led the efforts to rein in executive agencies. when i asked him about this in his hearing, he said that he had ruled both for and against executive agencies, but his record makes clear that he has ruled against them in an overwhelming majority of cases. judge kavanaugh's record suggests that health and safety standards and environmental standards would be at risk if he is confirmed to the supreme court. he has called the 34-year-old precedent a case called chevron the same precedent that ensures these protections stay in the books, he has called it an a textual inventions of courts and a quote, judicially orchestrated shift of power. that's what he said. and to make clear, this is not just one case that happens to be out there, sitting out there in old dusty law books.

it's the most cited case in administrative law. it has been referenced in more than 15,000 legal decisions, and it has been championed by scholars and jurists across the ideological spectrum, including justice scalia. that is that case. what would happen if we didn't have this case? well, i guess we would have the judge making decisions instead of agencies with technical expertise. a judge with no scientific background should decide the best reading of dictating how pollution is acceptable in our air or lakes or rivers rather than scientists. these decisions have real implications for people across the country. these are the rules that protect our drinking water and keep our workplaces safe. for in the end it wasn't a federal judge who was helped by the d.c. circuit's reliance on chevron and interpreting a labor department rule. it was an hourly minnesota

grocery store worker who got to keep his hard-earned pension. and as a granddaughter of a miner, i can tell you it wasn't a c.e.o. or a corporate board share whose life was saved buy mining safety -- by mining safety rules. it was the minnesota iron other workers who like my grandpa would go in a cage under ground every single day with their black lunch buckets. that's what my grandpa did every day. all my grandpa wanted, who never got to even graduate from high school, was to send my dad and his brother to college. my dad ended up as the first kid in his family to graduate from college, a community college, a two-year community college. and from there he went to the university of minnesota and got his four-year degree. all that because my grandpa went down in that mining cage and saved money in a coffee can in his basement to send my dad to

college. and everyone would gather at the mines and run over there every time the sirens went off because it meant someone died or someone was hurt. and my dad still remembers the coffins in st. anthony's church lined up in the front. that's what workplace safety rules have changed. it was the worker protections coupled with the ability to organize a union that finally made those miners' jobs safer. americans rely on these protections to keep them healthy and safe, and we can't have a supreme court justice who would throw those protections in doubt. the final point i would make about the legal record is what would happen to our antitrust laws. in recent years the supreme court has made it harder and harder to enforce the nation's antitrust laws when you have big consolidations and market dominance. and their cases called trinko

tromle, legion and ohio v. american is expes. there's been a -- american express. why does that matter to us? it matters. we're seeing a wave of industry mergers. americans know it in their own life, companies are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. we have now it two companies that have surpassed $1 trillion s. and doing merger filings with our agencieses in washington have increased by more than 50% in just the last five years. so we already have a court that's going conservative right when i think americans need this protection. but instead we have a judge nase us today that has written two major cases in this area, and both of them were even more conservative than where the court was. both of them made it even harder for mergers to be checked by the

federal trade commission, even by a federal trade commission that was run by the republicans. they thought the merger was troubling in one case. they brought it to court. this judge went the opposite way. our exchanges in the hearing did not convince me that the american people and all those in favor of strong antitrust enforcement that promotes competition and protects consumers should not be concerned. i think back to my favorite game growing up, monopoly. the basic premise that the more you own, the more you made has always been true in american capitalism. if you monopolize the board by buying up multiple properties in the same color or all those railroads, you can take your opponents out of the game. what does that mean today? well, the failed merger between norfolk southern railway and canadian pacific, something i took on immediately when it was

in, we defeated that. where are we today? 90% of the freight rail traffic is handled by only four railroads, that's the same number of railroads on the monopoly board. i don't think that's a coincidence. so as we look at his rulings in this area, we realize this isn't just a game. no, this is our economy, and we want judges that are a check and balance just as the founders wanted. the founders cared a lot about monopolies, actually and they wanted a check and balance in our courts and they set up an independent judiciary. the last point i want to focus on is judge kavanaugh's record and his views on campaign finance. i requested a number of these campaign finance documents to become public because i thought they raised serious concerns about judge kavanaugh's views in this area of law. i actually got those documents public and it's one of the reasons that a number of my colleagues who are opposed to the judge have been able to talk about those records right here on the floor, and the public

has been able to see them. in one e-mail from march of 2002, he discussed limits on contributions to candidates saying, and i have heard -- this is his words. and i have heard very few people say that the limits on contributions to candidates are unconstitutional, although i for one tend to think those limits have some constitutional problems. that is a big deal because we have very few campaign finance laws left that allow us to be protected from dark be money and unlimited money coming into campaigns. he also said in another e-mail, he described his 1-a, that's first amendment views, as pure. this is very concerning when it comes to campaign finance. i have serious doubts based on his record as to whether he thinks that congress has the authority to pass any campaign finance reform and take action to rein in the flood of dark

money that has drowned out the voices of ordinary citizens. what does this mean? well, when the courts stripped away the rules that opened that door to unlimited super pac spending -- and that's what we have right now -- it wasn't the campaign financiers or the ad men who were hurt. no. it was the grandma in leansboro, minnesota, who thought it mattered when she sent in $10 to support her senator. that's what we're dealing with. and if we get even narrower or get rid of all the limits on campaign finance it's only going to get worse. but the american people would not have p even know about -- have even known about judge kavanaugh's extreme views on campaign finance unless i had made them public. there are still 186 pages of documents not produced to the judiciary committee, they've

been produced to is, but they've not been made available to the american people. even now only about 7% of judge kavanaugh's white house record has been produced to the judiciary committee, and even less, that's about 4%, is available to all of us, to the public. on top of that, we are missing three years of documents from his time as staff secretary so we have no records to review from that part of judge kavanaugh's previous work in the white house. we also don't have 102,000 pages of documents that the white house has withheld under a claim of constitutional privilege even though executive privilege has never been used to block the release of presidential records to the senate during a supreme court nomination under presidents from both parties. as a former prosecutor, i know that no lawyer goes to court without reviewing the evidence and the record, and a good judge

would not decide a case with only 7% of the key documents. in fact, as i mentioned, we received 42,000 documents the night before right when -- we could not even look at them when we were starting to ask him questions because we had only gotten them the night before. so i asked him if he thought that a judge would grant a continuance in a situation like that when one party dumped 42,000 pages of documents on the other the night before trial. i didn't get much of an answer. we have already learned that the information and documents from judge kavanaugh's time in the white house is relevant to our consideration of his nomination. we should have those documents before we have this vote, but we don't. and having full information about the judge's record brings me to the compelling testimony of dr. ford.

since dr. ford came forward, we've all thought a lot about our justice system. before i got to the senate, i was a county attorney in minnesota. in that job we used to say we were ministers of justice, and that meant we would work to convict the guilty but also protect the innocent. i hope my colleagues think about this question tomorrow. are we truly protecting the innocent in how we're moving forward? what have we don't? -- done? a critical part of carrying out justice is having a fair process, that is something that judge kavanaugh has repeatedly said that he wants. i appreciate dr. ford's willingness to come before the judiciary committee last week but it was unfortunate she had to do it before the white house had asked for the f.b.i. to reopen its background check investigation -- background investigation and follow up on what she had said.

when i think of my work, we always would have those investigations and that information before any kind of a hearing. back in minnesota our office handled all the judicial matters in our county and for the juvenile area. in fact, we had about 12,000 cases every year as well as all adult felonies. we investigated reports like dr. ford's. that job gave me a window into how these kinds of cases hurt women and impact everyone. i would always tell those stories of those coming before us. i would tell them, you know what, this is going to be hard. you have to tell your story to a jury box of strangers, but you're doing it for justice, you're doing it for the right reason. dr. ford, she had to tell her story to a nation. it was a moment so many people in our country were watching

her. i don't think people thought they were going to believe her when they first went in there and first turned on their tv's, but then they watched her. they watched her grace and her dignity, but, sadly, in the afternoon from my colleagues on other side we saw a lot of anger and chest beating. i believe the strategy was to distract and deflect from the moving and incredible testimony of someone who told her story to the nation. this was a woman with no political background who made an attempt to call the front office of her congressional representative. that's all she did, and she didn't do it. all this stuff about her being are part of some kind of smear campaign, she did it even before he was a nominee. she read he was one of the people under consideration, and she thought she should warn people. she wanted her name confidential. she explained all of that during the hearing, but she simply

called the front desk of her congressional representative. this wasn't the first time that the senate has confronted this type of situation. when anita hill came forward with her allegations against then-judge clarence thomas, president george h.w. bush, immediately requested that the f.b.i. reopen its background investigation. dr. ford was another person who made a credible claim. chairman grassley thanked her for her bravery in coming forward last week. several of my republican colleagues talked about how much they respected her. i said, you know, if you want to respect her and be brave, then you at least have to give her the modicum of respect by following up on her allegations, and that should have been done the minute that letter went public, and i found out about it, by the way, on the very same

day that my republican colleagues found out about it, and that was just a few weeks ago. i heard a lot of complaints about that, and i'm not going to get into that issue except to say one thing, the justice system is messy. things come out at the very last minute sometimes. evidence comes out before trial. but the issue is, when that happens, what do you do with it? what do you do with it when you're in a position of power? do you just sweep it under the rug as has happened too many times in this chamber, in this building? no. you give them a chance to make their case but also to give them that underlying investigation and reopen a background check. not a criminal background check. simply a background check like we do for any other high-level nomination in the senate. and as i told my colleagues last week, if you want to make a political speech about keeping nominees off the floor, here's

exhibit a for you, merrick garland. ten months -- ten months he was kept off the floor, yet people have acted in a sanctimonious way that this was some kad cataclysmic event to simply go back in and do an f.b.i. investigation. dr. ford's testimony was powerful. i asked her not about what she remembers about that night but what she couldn't forget. here's what she said. the stairwell, the living room, the bedroom, the bed on the right side of the room, the bathroom in clos proximity -- clos close proximity, the laughter. the uproarus laughter. we also heard from dr. ford about how she came forward because she felt she had a civic duty just week we -- just like we have a civic duty.

that's why she came forward. she talked about how she brought this up in therapy six years before. how she had given her husband the name of judge kavanaugh. this is before he was famous. this is before he was up for this supreme court. as a former prosecutor, i understand the critical role that law enforcement has in gathering the information necessary to evaluate reports like this one. i don't like living in an evidence-free zone, and while i am glad that the white house reopened the background check and at least went in and talked to some of the witnesses, if you go down there, what you can't do, but i could do and the other senators could do, you realize, and you can see this from the public reports, that a lot of people weren't interviewed. a lot of the names that dr. ford and one of the other alleged allegations, a victim involved in some allegations, was not

able to have ms. res. , those -- ms. ramirez, those witnesses interviewed. that's what you see when you're down there. this has not been the fair process that judge kavanaugh said he wanted and that dr. ford said she wanted. what we heard from the judge later in the day could not have been a sharper contrast from what we heard from dr. ford in the morning. she told her story and it was a story that so many times in our nation's history has been, as i said, swept under the rug. because for so long people have been told that what happens in a house should never end up in a courthouse. and now what we can say to dr. ford is, well, this may not end up the way you wanted and it may not feel worth it to come forward to have your life turned upside down, but you know what,

there is one reason it was worth it, and that is because the american people learned something. and they are speaking out because the times are changing. to conclude, i want to return to some of the thoughts on what this nomination means at this uncertain moment in our history. this nomination comes before us at a time when we are witnessing seismic shifts in our democracy, foundational elements of our government, including the rule of law, have been challenged and undermined. today our democracy sees -- is facing threats that would have been unbelievable not long ago. a man appointed special counsel in the investigation going on right now involving a foreign country interfering in our democracy, a man who served with distinction under presidents from both parties is under siege, dedicated public service

under siege and a -- and our courts have been under assault, not just by a solitary disappointed litigant, but by the president of the united states. our democracy is on trial. it is our duty to carry on the american constitutional tradition that john adams stood up for centuries ago, and that is to be, quote, a government of laws and not of men. the next supreme court justice should serve as a check on the other branches of government, someone who is fair mind and independent, who will uphold the motto on the supreme court building to help all americans achieve equal justice under law. we have all fought a lot about the separation of powers in the last few weeks. all the attacks on the rule of law and our justice system have made me, and i would guess some of my other colleagues, pause

and think many times about why we came to the senate in the first place and in my case why i decided to go into law in the first place. so i went back and i found an essay that i had written back in high school. now, i can tell you that not many girls in my high school class said they dreamed of being a lawyer. we had no lawyers in my family and my parents were both the first in their families to go to college. but somehow when i was in high school my dad convinced me to spend a morning sitting in a courtroom and watching a state court district judge handle a routine calendar of criminal cases. the judge took pleas, listened to arguments, and handed out misdemeanor sentences. it was nothing glamorous and nothing glamorous like the judge before us is being nominated to do, but it was important just the same. i realized that morning that behind each and every case, no matter how small, there was a

story, a person. each and every decision the judge affected that day affected someone's life. i knew he had to make gut decisions and take account of what his decisions would mean. it was something i said back then in that essay that i still believe today, and that is this -- to be part of an imperfect system, to have a chance to better that system was and is a cause worth fighting for, a job worth doing. our government is far from perfect, nor is our legal system, nor was this hearing, but we are at a crossroads in our nation's history where we must make a choice. are we going to dedicate ourselves to improving the justice system or not? is this nominee going to administer the law with equal justice as it applies to all citizens regardless if they live in a poor neighborhood or rich one, in a small house or the white house?

many americans are troubleled today. and when they -- troubled today. and when they watched the hearing, they were given some hope and they wanted to be fair and they wanted due process, and i get that, but they also saw the blind partisanship of washington and its crushing weight. for many of us, this nomination process does not look like it's going to end like we want it. but dr. ford opened a window on sexual assault that is never going to be closed. anyone that works here knows that they've heard stories and people tell stories that they had never told before. and then there are those who want to see change in government. well, they've opened a door that will never close. and we welcome them. we could need some new people around here. so i'm going to end with a quote from a song i listened to this morning, and it's a minnesotan.

it's not print. it's bob dillon. he was born in duluth and he grew up very close to where my dad grew up on the iron range of minnesota. these are the last words of this song. as the present now will later be past, the order is rapidly fading. and the first one now will later be last for the times they are a changing. and they are changing. people's reaction to what happened this week and their focus on government and their focus on making things better, that is changing. as i said last friday at the committee hearing, the constitution does not say we the ruling party. the constitution says we the people. and last week the american people responded like never before. they stood up for something real, for something larger than themselves, for the hope of

tomorrow. so that is how we the people prevail. because the times they are a changing. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. jones: first of all, let me thank my colleague and friend senator klobuchar for those incredible words. as a former prosecutor, we share a lot of the same bonds and knowledge, and we come to this? an -- in different ways sometimes than our colleagues. and you express so many sentiments that i'm going to try and not as eloquent as you express today. so thank you for those comments. mr. president, i come to the floor today both as a new member of this body and a long-time admirer and student of the senate to offer my perspective

on a situation in which this distinguished body finds itself in today. i am deeply disappointed and concerned by the process, the posturing, and the partisanship that has degraded what should be one of the most serious, deliberate, and thoughtful decisions that we as the united states senate are entrusted to make. over the course of my almost 40-year career as a trial lawyer, i've represented just about every kind of client you can imagine, from the indigent to the c.e.o., major corporations and small business owners, individuals charged with serious crimes and those charged with petty offenses. i've also had the incredible honor of serving in the department of justice and representing united states of america. every one of my clients and every one of those who were on the other side of the litigation

in which i was engaged expected and deserved fair, impartial treatment in our courts. and rightly so. but from the moment justice kennedy announced his retirement, the conversation about his replacement seems to have rarely been about fairness and impartiality. instead it's been about power and politics. this nomination almost immediately turned into a divisive political campaign with millions of dollars being spent to sway senators on both sides of the aisle including me. in his partisan-fueled tirade last week, judge kavanaugh lashed out at the so-called liberal groups that have spent so much money attacking his nomination. but he never acknowledged and others in this body have never acknowledged that conservative groups have also spent a like

amount of money, if not more promoting judge kavanaugh. i want to make it my position clear today i think that this kind of political campaign for a seat on the supreme court of the united states, a political campaign run by either political party should be condemned as completely contrary to the independence of the judicial branch of our government. throughout this nomination process, i have repeatedly, repeatedly expressed my concerns about the way that it has been conducted. it was flawed from the beginning, and it will be incomplete at the end because of a needless rush to a confirmation. from the beginning i've done my best, the best that i know how in my experience to exercise my constitutional duty, my duty of advice and consent in a fair and impartial manner, putting aside

the political considerations that were being thrown at me from every angle. you know, i have always said in the last few months that it seemed that for those that supported judge kavanaugh's nomination, if i had voted to oppose, that i'm going to be seen as nothing but a puppet for my party. on the other hand, for those people that opposed judge kavanaugh, if i was to vote in favor of judge kavanaugh, i would be seen as bending to a political way to try to get reelected from a conservative state. neither which is true. neither of which are those true. my staff and i have devoted an incredible amount of time, almost every single day since july 10 in reading judge kavanaugh's opinions, his speeches, his articles, reviewing documents from his time working at the white house. at least those documents that we were able to get hold of. watching his senate judiciary committee hearing testimony and

his television appearances, meeting with my constituents and advocates and reading statements, letters, and e-mails both in support of and in opposition to judge kavanaugh. this was all done in a very serious effort to give thoughtful and fair consideration to judge kavanaugh's nomination without regard to party or politics. the one thing i did not get a chance to do was to meet with judge kavanaugh. judge kavanaugh and the white house called my office a couple of times early on in the process to try to get a meeting with me. and i told them at that time or my staff told them that at -- that my process was to listen and to read, to understand and do my deep dive into his record, and to know all that i can know about him. and as a lawyer, i wanted to watch that hearing. i wanted to see what would occur at the hearing and how he presented himself and the questions that he answered and the questions he avoided so that when i did meet with him

following that hearing, it would be meaningful, it would not be a meet and greet like so many of us have in this body but a meaningful, a meaningful meeting. so as soon as chairman grassley called for the hearing shortly after labor day, as soon as that was called in august, my staff started calling the white house to tie to get a meeting. we were told that they would still want a meeting but we continued to be rebuffed. we never got that meeting. we continued to call after the hearing, and then we continued to call at least until the time that dr. ford's allegations were made public. and at that point we knew that a meeting was probably not likely to happen. so for all of those detractors who say that i didn't -- i did not try to get a meeting and i did not find the time, i did my best to follow the process of deliberation that i felt appropriate for me to do in my process to make that meeting meaningful, and it never happened through no fault of me or my staff.

after all of that, we find ourselves in this moment of historical significance where we as a body have an opportunity to send a loud and clear message to women and men throughout this country. as i have previously said, i believe that dr. ford made an incredibly brave decision to come forward publicly and to testify to the full senate judiciary committee. it's marred to do -- it's hard to do knowing how she would be vilified. as a former prosecutor, i know how hard it is for victims to talk about these experiences, particularly in cases of sexual assault. i've been moved by the many reports of thousands of women who have felt compelled by recent events to reveal similar stories that they have buried for many years, some for decades

the last few weeks women have shared with me intensely painful and personal descriptions of assaults. some who i've known for a period of time but never knew what they were carrying within them. many of these happened so many years ago, high school, college, as young professionals. often they hadn't told anyone, even their closest friends and loved ones. their experiences while different in detail have so many similarities. their feelings of fear and shame and guilt were overwhelming at the time of their encounters. those emotions exert a powerful hold on these women's lives, even if they go on to find professional success and fulfilling relationships, it is still buried within them. and they don't speak up because they do not want to be known as victims or they don't want others to have to bear their

pain knowing that nothing can undo what happened to them. and last week's public hearing i found dr. ford to be compelling and credible witness. yes, there were gaps in her testimony, but there always are, always there are gaps and lapses of certain memories in situations like these. those who have worked with victims of assault know that the most traumatic details are seared into their memories while extraneous facts may fade over time and reactions of the women when they see their perpetrators are different depending on the circumstances. but they never forget the pain. they never forget the pain of what happened to them but rather than relive it or face condemnation or retribution, they simply keep it to themselves and go on day after day after day. if you watched our president

this past week at his political rallies, you could understand exactly why these women are afraid to speak out. i was absolutely appalled at the president's attacks on dr. blasey ford just days -- just days after he called her a credible witness, just days after so many in this body called her a credible and compelling witness. his message was simply this, keep quiet. nothing happened here. don't ruin this man's life. and let's continue to stoke the political fires surrounding his nomination. we have heard time and time again that victims must be heard. time and time again, so often have we heard that in the last two weeks, that victims must be heard. but the message from the president of the united states and those that have surrounded him is, yes, let them be heard,

just don't listen. just don't listen to them. unfortunately, that message isn't new. the president used his platform to try to intimidate survivors into staying quiet and hiding their pain from the world, but i think he's going to find that while he is focused on stirring up his political base with the mass son i.n.s.ic comments that women around this country are rising up and they are gaining their strength, they are finding their foothold. they are finding their voices in an effort to expose what for too long, for far too long has been swept under the carpet. regardless of the vote tomorrow, we cannot and will not ignore where we are in this moment of history. this is a movement that will not be quieted, nor should it be quieted. for judge kavanaugh's part, i was very disappointed in his testimony last week. if the incident did not happen,

and i understand full well his frustration and his anger. i get it. any man would be. it is understandable. both he and dr. ford have endured the ugliness of our society. but in my view he simply went too far. by leveling unnecessary and inappropriate partisan attacks and accusations demonstrating a temperament that is unbecoming a sitting judge much less a supreme court nominee. his testimony ran completely counter to the image he attempted to portray in his earlier hearings, in all of his interviews on television, and in the photo opportunities with the various senators. in addition -- and this was incredibly important to me -- because i'd watched it for some time that in simply refusing to acknowledge the need for further investigation, for a further review of his record as senator

klobuchar discussed a few moments ago, by failing to acknowledge the need for further review and investigation into these allegations, he demonstrated anything but the independence necessary for our judiciary. instead he has vowed to the white house and the majority of the judiciary committee to plow through this nomination process without a full review of his record and without a full, fair, and complete investigation into the very serious and credible allegations made by dr. blasey ford. i'm certainly not alone in my views. it's not just people in the democratic party or senators on my side of the aisle. at last count, i saw where there are some 3,000 law professors, about 40 of which are at yale law school where judge kavanaugh graduated. those law professors have called for his nomination to either be

withdrawn or rejected. religious organizations, including the editors of the jesuit review, have done the same. i'm told that just this morning, the american bar association, the gold standard of review for judicial nominations, has notified the judiciary committee that they are reopening their evaluation of judge kavanaugh's character and fitness based on what they witnessed in the testimony last week. that's a significant development that just occurred this morning shortly before our vote to proceed. but even before the recent serious allegations of sexual assault, i call for a pause that we would get the documents we need, including those that chairman grassley himself have requested. the national archives reported that due to the volume, even producing those documents on a rolling basis would not take place until sometime this month in october.

well, it's october now. although we don't have those documents, we have had two hearings and now are scheduled to a vote on confirmation tomorrow. many of those documents could have been produced for review or withheld after being screened by a lawyer representing a number of people under investigation or at least witnesses in the investigation by special counsel mueller, which raises serious questions as to what documents we got and which ones were being held and why were they being held. despite the lack of documents, the judiciary committee forged ahead and conducted its hearings. before a vote was taken, dr. blasey ford courageously came forward with her very serious allegations regarding a sexual assault that occurred when she and judge kavanaugh were in high school. again, again, not for the first time, but again, i know there is call for a pause, to allow for further investigation, to update

the background check that every nominee goes through. faced with actually that call was rebuffed for some period of time. but finally, faced with mounting public pressure, the judiciary committee agreed to a second hearing. both the committee and the white house consistently rejected any additional background check, any additional background investigation to be conducted by the f.b.i. as it turned out, my colleague, senator flake, felt compelled to call for such an investigation on the morning of the vote, which delayed the confirmation process for another week. and while i am certainly grateful and glad that the chairman and the majority leader and the president agreed to delay the vote in order to allow an f.b.i. investigation, i believe the investigation was far too limited to have any real use, especially since no further

hearings would ever be held. in my career, 40 years almost as a lawyer, i have examined many f.b.i. reports and i have examined many background checks, and in my review of what was submitted as a result of senator flake's request, the f.b.i. was simply not allowed to do what it does best, which is follow the evidence and the leads. in this case, we put the proverbial cart before the horse. the investigation should have taken place before the hearing so that the senators on the judiciary committee could have had the benefit of all the information they needed requesting witnesses and evaluating credibility, which is where this is coming down. i believe that in cases like this, the witnesses should be compelled by subpoena, not just dr. ford, not just judge kavanaugh, but other witnesses.

other witnesses who are named should have been compelled by subpoena if necessary to give testimony whether in the public hearing or by deposition, procedures that have been invoked by this body on many occasions. and this, mr. president, leads me to another more procedural point. many of those who want to press forward with this nomination have been invoking the presumption of innocence, and i understand that. the presumption of innocence, however, is afforded to those in this country in our criminal justice system. it is afforded to those who are accused of criminal activity, and it requires the government to prove to rebut that presumption. in other words, that presumption stands between someone accused of a crime and they're going to prison and having their liberty taken away from them. they have now said that that presumption of innocence should be applied to judicial

nominations. but the presumption applies in a court before we can deprive someone of their liberty, incarcerate them. it is not necessarily applicable when we are simply looking to provide one with a lifetime appointment to the judiciary. the presumption of innocence for a nominee would in effect turn into a presumption of confirmability that i do not believe is called for in the constitution. i certainly would agree, however, that given the most recent circumstances, we as a body need to establish some type of standard, some guideline for our nominees so that this doesn't happen again. and i would say that if we were to have anything close to the high standard of a presumption of innocence, there has to be a full and complete investigation before any hearing in order to determine whether or not the presumption can be overcome. it's the only way to do it.

remember, in this -- in this instance, there are no appeals, there is no review. we get no do-overs once we make this vote. we have to take the time and put forth the necessary effort to get it right. putting forth the time even if it means the supreme court operates with eight members for a period of time, that's okay. i went to the arguments the other day and they got along just fine listening to the arguments that are heard that day. the american people are understandably disgusted by the way this has been handled. they are disgusted with people on both sides of the aisle. they were disgusted even before these allegations came to light. they have reason to doubt the integrity of our independent judiciary now more than ever. with a supreme court that will be so divided and appears to be so partisan.

there will forever be a cloud over this nomination and this nomination process, regardless of the outcome of tomorrow's vote, and many also have reason to doubt the integrity of this body for the way this has been handled. when facing difficult decisions, i often reflect on what i learned from one of my most influential mentors, late senator howell heflen, late chief justice of the alabama supreme court. judge heflen often talked about the supreme court as the people's court. every day, he said, the supreme court of the united states deals with real people. their basic human rights and liberties. it has a direct impact on the daily lives of every american and the people who serve on the court should be held to the highest of standards before being allowed the privilege of

making those weighty decisions. i don't believe this process has led us to the person best suited to hold this position. this isn't about politics. no, it far transcends that. i have always said i am inclined to vote for presidential nominees, but they do not have to have that presumption of confirmability. we have serious doubts about this nominee which may never be resolved. it certainly was not resolved by the limited investigation that the senators had to go view in bulk one copy, ten senators sitting around, passing around. we have serious doubts about this nominee. people across this country have serious doubts about this nominee. to quote the late senator robert byrd, no individual has a particular right to a supreme

court seat. if we're going to give the benefit of the doubt, let us give it to the court. let us give it to the country. it is my hope that this body would end up being on the right side of history with this vote and not a political side chosen in the moment. my preference here would have been for the president to send us a new consensus nominee much like president reagan did many years ago when he nominated justice kennedy. send us another nominee and give the senate a second chance to act as a uniter, not a divider. now it appears, however, that we will need to find another way, that we as a body, what has been described in the past as the most deliberative body in the world, that many would question

that description today. we must find another way to show the american people that we can uphold the lofty goals that we have subscribed to. tomorrow this nomination process will have run its course, but our work for our constituents and all of those sitting in the gallery tonight and all of those watching across this country and who will see and follow this vote tomorrow, our work for our constituents will go on. our work for this country will go on, regardless of this vote tomorrow, it will go on, and we as a body have to get to a place where we look forward, not backward. i know, i am confident, i know in my heart, i know we can restore the senate as the place it was when i worked here as a young lawyer, a place where compromise meant progress, not a

lost battle. think about that. compromise meaning progress and not a lost battle. we must, mr. president, set aside the divisiveness, shoulder our responsibilities, and work together. we must do so for the good of this body, for the sake of a country that we all love. thank you, mr. president. and i yield the floor.

>> and collins of maine voted also to move forward with nomination. as the senate uses up all the dae debate allowed.

a final vote will be at 5:00 eastern time tomorrow. also to let you know new jersey senator cory booker is expected to be making his remarks at 8:00 p.m. eastern time here on the senate floor. we expect pretty much back-to-back speakers up to about 1:15 in the morning. and speeches at the top of the hour at 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00 a.m. and then at about 8:00 to 9:00 a.m., republican senators will have the floor and from 9:00 a.m. on, back-to-back speakers again.

senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: i ask the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: we're not in a quorum call. ms. murkowski: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor this evening to share my thoughts on what has been an extraordinarily long and difficult and truly painful process. as we -- as we took up the cloture motion on the nomination of brett kavanaugh to the united states supreme court, the process that led us to this vote today has been, in my view, a

horrible process, a gut-wrenching process. where good people, good people have been needlessly hurt, where a woman who -- who never sought the public spotlight was -- was, i think, cruelly thrust into the brightest of spotlights. a good man, a good man with sterling academic credentials. unblemished professional record, both as -- as the -- as the lawyer, professional lawyer that he was and judge, and also as a husband and father of two young girls. he has been damaged, been damaged terribly. and as both of these

individuals, dr. ford and judge kavanaugh, have been harmed, their families have, too. and we need to, we must do better by them, we must do better as a -- as a legislative branch. we have an obligation, a moral obligation to do better than this. i spent more time evaluating and considering the nomination of judge kavanaugh than i have with any of the previous nominations to the united states supreme court that i have had the privilege to review. i have had the opportunity to vote on five justices prior to this.

i took my time. i was deliberate. i was thoughtful. some accused me of being too deliberate, too thoughtful, taking too much time. this is important to me. it should be important to all of us, and i know that it is important to all of us. and so i studied the record. i sat with judge kavanaugh for a lengthy period of time, about an hour and a half, and asked the questions that i had and did more due diligence, reviewed the cases. and i did my homework, listened to the concerns that were raised by many in my state on issues that were all over the board, whether it was a woman's right to choose, whether it was the affordable care act, whether it

was executive authority, deference to the agencies, native issues. i took -- took considerable time. and when the hearings tame, not being on the judiciary committee, i paid attention, i followed the testimony of the judge, the very critical questioning from many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and then when the end of the process -- or so seemingly what we believed to be the end of the process there were more questions, i went back to judge kavanaugh, had a good conversation with him, and then

the allegations that we have been discussing and trying to understand more about came forward, and we all moved from focusing on the issues to truly a discussion that none of us ever thought that we would be having when it came to the confirmation process for someone to the highest court in the land. and so there was more work to be done. i was one who wanted to make sure that there was a process going forward, and when there were more questions that were raised after the initial process , i was one who joined in asking that the f.b.i. step in and do further review.

so i have been engaged in this lengthy and deliberative process for months now, and i was truly leaning toward supporting judge kavanaugh in his nomination as i looked to that record. but we know that in our role of advice and consent it is not just -- it is not just the record itself. there is more that is attached to it. it is why when in the state of alaska a nomination for a judge goes forward, you rate them not

only on their professional competence, what they have demonstrated through their record, but also matters of temperament and just demeanor, which are very, very important. so we moved, we shifted that conversation from so many of the issues that i had been focused on to other areas that are also important in evaluating a nominee for the courts but i listened -- i listened very carefully to the remarks, the strong, well-articulated remarks of my colleague and my friend who sits next to me here, senator collins, and i found that i agreed with many of the

points that she raised on the floor earlier. i do not think that judge kavanaugh will be a vote to overturn roe v. wade, and i also join with her in saying that i do not think that protections for those with preexisting conditions will be at risk. and i also do not think that he will be a threat to alaska natives. there was an issue that certainly had been raised. but i had extended conversation with the judge on just these issues, and i believe that he recognizes, as he told me, that alaska natives are not in that identical place as native

hawaiians. alaskan tribes are included on the list of federally recognized tribes, and the fact remains that native hawaiians are not. this is a distinction, this is a difference. i am one who, in this body, i have said, i would like to see native hawaiians there. i worked with my friend senator akaka to help advance that. i've supported those. but the fact remains that the constitutional status of alaska natives and the indian commerce clause are simply not at play with this nomination. i don't believe that. so the question fairly asked, say that you think he's going to be there on issues that matter to alaskans, that you have taken strong positions on.

the reason i could not support judge kavanaugh in this cloture motion this afternoon is that my role, my responsibility as one senator on this floor, i take this obligation that we have in the role of advice and consent as seriously as anything that i am obligated or privileged to be able to vote on. and so i have a very high standard. i have a very high bar for any nominee to the supreme court of the united states. the code of judicial conduct

rule 1.2 -- this is one that many, many people in this body know. but it states that, quote, a judge act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety. and i go back and i look to that. it is pretty high. it is really high that a judge shall act at all times, not just sometimes when you're wearing your robe, but a judge should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence

-- public confidence. where is the public confidence? so it is high. and even -- even in the face of the worst thing that could happen, a sexual assault allegation, even in the face of an overly and overtly -- overtly political process, a politicized process, and even when one side of this chamber is absolutely dead set on defeating his nomination from the very get-go, before he was even named, even -- even in these situations, the standard is that a judge must

act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, impartiality of the judiciary and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety. and after -- after the hearing that we all watched last week, last thursday, it became clear to me -- or was becoming clearer -- that that appearance of impropriety has become unavoidable. and i've been deliberating, agonizing about what is fair. is this too unfair a burden to place on somebody that is

dealing with the worst, the most horrific allegations that go to your integrity, they go to everything you are, and i think we all struggle with how we would respond. but i am reminded, there are only -- there are only nine seats on the bench of the highest court in the land, and these seats are occupied by these men and women for their lifetime. and so those who seek one of these seats must meet the highest standard in all respects at all times, and that is hard. mr. president, we are at a time

when many in this country have lost faith in the executive branch, and it's not -- it's not just with this administration. we saw -- we saw much of that in the last as well. and here in congress, many around the country have just given up on us. they've completely said, we've had enough. but i maintain that the public still views -- i still view that there is some small shred of hope that remains with our judiciary. this judiciary that must be perceived as independent, as nonpartisan, as fair and balanced in order for our form

of government to function. and it's that hope, it's that hope that i seek to maintain. and i think that that's why i have demanded such a high standard to maintain or regain that public confidence because it is so critical that we have that public confidence in at least one of our three branches of government. mr. president, i think we saw from the vote earlier today, we've seen from statements from several of our colleagues that it does appear that judge kavanaugh will be seated on the

supreme court without my vote. it is my hope -- it is truly my hope -- that judge kavanaugh will share that same hope in rebuilding, maintaining a level of public confidence, that he will strive for that ideal every day. it is my hope that he will be that neutral arbiter, the umpire who only calls the balls and the strikes, that he will be that force for stability. i believe that judge kavanaugh is a good man. he's a good man. he's clearly a learned judge. but in my conscience, because that's how i have to vote at the end of the day is with my conscience, i could not conclude

that he is the right person for the court at this time. and this has been agonizing for me with this decision. it is as hard a choice, probably as close a call as any that i can ever remember. and i hope -- i hope and i pray that we don't find ourselves in this situation again. but i'm worried. i am really worried that this becomes the new normal where we find new and even more creative ways to tear one another down, that good people are just going to say, forget it. it's not worth it. i'm looking at some of the comments, the statements that are being made against me,

against my good friend, my dear friend from maine. the hateful, the aggressive, the truly, truly all of manner with which so many are acting now. it's got to end. this is not who we are. this is not who we should be. this is not who we raise our children to be. so i -- as we move forward, again, through a very difficult time, i think, for this body and for this