mr. bennet: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i'd ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i'd like to first thank my friend -- and i don't mean that in the political sense, i mn in the real sense -- the senior senator from colorado, the presiding officer, for his incredibly thoughtful remarks about the tragedy last week in colorado. and i can't think of any more fitting place to be than here with you tonight to have this conversation. so thank you very much for your words. mr. just a few dark moments last week in aurora, colorado, 12 innocent lives were taken from us, 12 people full of life and aspirations, loved by family and friends, and now 12 people remembered by an entire nation. as the presiding officer said, thousands of coloradans attended a vigil hosted by the city of aurora on sunday evening. we shared tears and prayers. we -- we also resolved to supp

mr. bennet: mr. president, thank you. i'd like to thank my neighbor, the senator from new mexico, for his kind words and his leadership on this issue. i've been privileged to have the chance to cosponsor a constitutional amendment that would, i think, respond very nicely to the things that he hears from his constituents as i hear from mine, whether they are republicans, democrats or independent voters. i also want to thank the senator from rhode island, senator whitehouse, tonight for organizing this for his leadership over these many months. it is a quarter past 8:00 p.m. tonight in washington, d.c., as we debate this bill. actually we're not debating the bill because we weren't even allowed to move to a debate on the bill. i can't tell you the number of times we haven't been able to do that. i'm often struck by the fact that i think the founding fathers would have wanted us to debate all these bills and to vote up or down on all these bills and to go home and explain to our constituents why we voted one way and why we v

mr. bennet: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of h.r. 3001, which was received from the house and is at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 3001, an act to award a congressional gold medal to raul wallenberg in recognition of his achievements and heroic actions during the holocaust. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. bennet: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the bill be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, without any intervening action or debate and any related statements be printed in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent the senate

mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i've come down to the floor today to talk about colorado. this summer, most people have been thinking about the wildfires that we've had out there. these fires were widespread throughout the state. it's still just the beginning of fire season and we've already seen a lot of damage, including the destruction of hundreds of homes and, most sadly, the loss of life. and i want to say in this chamber to all of my colleagues how much i appreciate people's kindness and -- and the knowledge that all of you have been thinking about people at home has been very comforting to the people that i represent. thanks to the heroic work of the firefighters and with a lot of help also from mother nature, the fires are under control. and i want to remind people, as i have been doing now for mont months, that colorado is the best place to visit during the summer. it's the best place to bring your family. in fact, last week -- or during the recess, susan and i loaded up the minivan and drove acr

mr. bennet: thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i wanted to before the senator from south carolina speaks, thank the senator from rhode island again for your leadership and my other colleagues who were out here tonight. i want to be clear again about what this bill is. first of all, it's very clear that it's constitutional. the supreme court, 8 of 9 justices have said that. as i listen to the debate, i also think people at home should know that this really is about a few actors in the country that have been allowed to spend wild amounts of money without saying who they are. this doesn't prevent them from spending the money. it simply says, they need to say who they are. and my sense, having spent time with people that are often asked to contribute to these campaigns, is that people that have the means to spend $10,000 on political activity, by and large, would actually like this disclosure requirement. and the reason they would like this disclosure requirement is so they can say to people that are trying to enlist them i

mr. bennet: to quote mr. rogers -- quote -- "never before in modern times has the farm bill reported from the house agriculture committee been so blocked." never before in modern times. i suspect it's true in ancient times as well but it's certainly been true in modern times. rogers tells us that he -- quote -- "looked back at 50 years of farm bills -- 50 years, a half century -- and found nothing like this." he continues, "farmers live by nature's calendar, not continuing resolutions." i could never have said it so eloquently myself. quote, "and by failing to act congress could seem even more detached from the lives of everyday people." i would have not it was possible this place could seem more detached from the lives of everyday people than it already appears to be, but we found a way of doing that. and that's by failing to pass this bipartisan farm bill through the united states congress. in a timely way that's essential for people that are suffering through this kind of drought. i think mr. rogers' obser

mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i'd like to first thank my friend -- and i don't mean that in the political sense, i mean in the real sense -- the senior senator from colorado, the presiding officer, for his incredibly thoughtful remarks about the tragedy last week in colorado. and i can't think of any more fitting place to be than here with you tonight to have this conversation. so thank you very much for your words. mr. just a few dark moments last week in aurora, colorado, 12 innocent lives were taken from us, 12 people full of life and aspirations, loved by family and friends, and now 12 people remembered by an entire nation. as the presiding officer said, thousands of coloradans attended a vigil hosted by the city of aurora on sunday evening. we shared tears and prayers. we -- we also resolved to support one another, to heal and to always remember those who lost their lives on july 20, 2012. and it's for that purpose that the presiding officer and i come to the floor this evening. first is jonathan blunk, age 2

mr. bennet, welcome. good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> i want to take you a little bit far afield and pick up on what phil said. there's changes in top executive positions at gm. is it too many too soon? >> well, i'm not sure that it's necessarily just too many too soon. i think there are more fundamental issues that gm has with regards to the marketing. gm unlike other brands, gm, volvo, ford relies pretty significantly on the sub brands. on the cadillacs of the world and i would argue that part of the issue is they haven't defined what those brands stand for in the minds of american consumers today. and i think if you look at one of the brands performing for them today it's chevy and the brand doing the best in defining what it stands for. it is not enough today to just have a great soundtrack and a car on a windy road. you have to connect much more deeply with consumers. i think chevy's doing that. i would question why cadillac and gm is doing the same. >> let's stuck to the marketing officer

mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. thank you for the recognition. i wanted to come to the floor today to talk about, briefly, the supreme court decision on health care 346789 one of the things i want to say i was in colorado last week, we had a wonderful time traveling across the whole western senior open of -- slope of our state, spent time in gunnison county and other places. we fished in heartsle and one of thing people were not talking about there was the supreme court decision on health care. what they were talking about was how we get our economy moving again, how we recouple our economic growth in this country to job growth, and wage growth again. how we create a comprehensive and thoughtful approach to reducing our deficit and our debt. how we educate our kids for the 21st century, how we build this economy in this country to make sure that we leave our kids with something better than what we found. in short, they were talking about exactly what people in the beltway are not talking about. today, the house of r

mr. bennet: thank you mr. president. i'd like to first thank my friend -- and i don't mean that in the political sense i mean in the real sense -- the senior senator from colorado, the presiding officer, for his incredibly thoughtful remarks about the tragedy last week in colorado. and i can't think of any more fitting place to be than here with you tonight to have this conversation. so thank you very much for your words. mr. just a few dark moments last week in aurora, colorado 12 innocent lives were taken from us 12 people full of life and aspirations loved by family and friends and now 12 people remembered by an entire nation. as the presiding officer said, thousands of coloradans attended a vigil hosted by the city of aurora on sunday evening. we shared tears and prayers. we -- we also resolved to support one another to heal and to always remember those who lost their lives on july 20 2012. and it's for that purpose that the presiding officer and i come to the floor this evening. first is jonathan blunk age 26. jon w

mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i'd like to first thank my friend -- and i don't mean that in the political sense, i mean in the real sense -- the senior senator from colorado, the presiding officer, for his incredibly thoughtful remarks about the tragedy last week in colorado. and i can't think of any more fitting place to be than here with you tonight to have this conversation. so thank you very much for your words. mr. just a few dark moments last week in aurora, colorado, 12 innocent lives were taken from us, 12 people full of life and aspirations, loved by family and friends, and now 12 people remembered by an entire nation. as the presiding officer said, thousands of coloradans attended a vigil hosted by the city of aurora on sunday evening. we shared tears and prayers. we -- we also resolved to support one another, to heal and to always remember those who lost their lives on july 20, 2012. and it's for that purpose that the presiding officer and i come to the floor this evening. first is jonathan blunk, age 2

hereby appoint the honorable michael bennet, a senator from the state of colorado, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to calendar number 470, which is s. 3414, which is the cybersecurity act. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 470, s. 3414, a bill to enhance the security and resiliency of the cyber and communications infrastructure of the united states. mr. reid: i would now yield to the senior senator from the state of iowa, senator grassley. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: mr. president, it's my privilege to introduce pastor john fuller to my fellow senators, and i thank pastor fuller for opening the senate with prayer. it's my privilege to highlight my home pastor and church. pastor fuller and his wife kay are visiting the nation's capital this week. since 1998, pastor fuller has been the senior pastor at prairie lakes church in cedar falls, iowa. pastor fuller is a native of iowa. his family moved to sheridan, wyom