mr. cardin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that floor privileges be granted to margot hecht, a member of my legislative staff during today's session of the senate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i rise today in support of the nominations of george hazel and theodore chuang to be united states district judges for the district of maryland. let me say from the beginning that i am very proud in the manner in which senator mikulski, the southern senator from maryland, and i have established a process to review and make recommendations to the president for the vacancies in the united states district for maryland. we've used the process that we think works. iit get us the most qualified individuals and the two today are certainly an example of highly qualified individual whose want to be judges for the right reasons. they have a demonstrated track record of public service. i particularly appreciate their commitment to pro bono. they understand that the courts ne

mr. cardin: mr. president, on behalf of senator menendez, i would ask unanimous consent that chris lamberg, a detailee from the state department to the senate foreign relations committee, be granted floor privileges through june 12, 2014. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: and, mr. president, i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to call off any quorum call that may be proceeding. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. are -- mr. vitter: mr. president, i rise today in strong support of the water resources reform and development act. we're going to be considering the final conference report on that legislation and voting on it in just a few hours. this wrrda bill is a strong bipartisan bill, it's a jobs bill. it's very, very much needed in our

mr. cardin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: madam president, take this time on the floor, as the chair of the u.s. helsinki commission, the helsinki commission is the operating arm of the united states participation in the organization for security and cooperation in europe, the osce. it's been in the press recently because of the circumstances in ukraine, whams geeing talk -- which is what i'm going to talk about. the united states along with all the countries of europe and canada form the commission on security and cooperation in europe in 1975. it was founded on the principle that in order to have a stable country, you need to zea deal nt just with the direct security needeneeds, the military needs e a curntion not just with its economic and vairmtal jearntiondz but you also need to deal with its human rights and good gofnance. all three are related. commitments were made by all of the signatories to the osce about respecting the jurisdictions of the member states and dealing with the rights of your neighbors, dealing

mr. cardin: madam president, first i want to thank senator hatch. i deeply respect his views. he's one of the most effective members of the united states senate. and he has deep views and reaches across party lines to try to get things done, which i think is very important and i respect him greatly. i want to agree with your conclusion. the problem with corporate inversion is best fixed if we do comprehensive tax reform. i believe you're right. we have two paths that we can take. one is to try to reform our current tax structure, which i think will not work and i'll give you my reasons why. or we could look for a competitive tax structure that's fairer to the american people and makes things like corporate invergdz something that would not be happening in our communities. let me tell you the underlying problem. pfizer and astrazeneca are looking for a merger. astrazeneca owns companies in maryland affecting thousands of workers. this is a british company. pfizer is an american company. you would think a merger between a british company and an american company for those who wor

mr. cardin: thank you, mr. president. as my colleagues know, this is national police week and i know i express the sentiment of every member of this body to show our appreciation for the 900,000 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers who literally put their life on the lines every day to keep us safe. we cannot thank them enough and we can also help them by your your owr actions. in 2013, 105 lost their lives in the line of duty. obviously this is a matter that requires the attention of the united states senate. let me just give you the most recent casualty in the state of maryland. on august 28, a baltimore county police officer, jason snyder, who was only 36 years of age, was shot and killed while serving a search warrant at the home on roberts avenue in kaytonsville at approximately 5:00 in the morning. he was part of a tactical team that entered the house in search of a juvenile subject wanted in relation to a shooting the previous week. the entry team encountered four subjects inside the house who attempt

mr. cardin: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i take this time to urge my colleagues to find a way to proceed with the expire act that senator wyden and senator hatch have worked on. i'm proud to be a member of the senate finance committee, where this legislation was passed by a unanimous vote in our committee. we had an extensive markup where members were offering numerous amendments. this deals with expiring tax provisions that if we don't take action, we will find that those who depend upon this tax policy remaining in effect, such as small business owners, students, people who use certain benefits, some of our energy provisions, will find that that policy expires at the end of the year. and if that happens, what happens, quite frankly, is that it's already expired in some provisions, and if we don't extend it, there will be continued uncertainty in our tax code. so it also means that if we don't pass this bill, it effectively raises taxes on a large number of americans. it will affect those who ride our transit sys

mr. cardin: thank you, madam president. i've been on the floor several times and many of my colleagues, particularly on this side of the aisle have been here to talk about a growing trend in america and that is that we see a concentration of wealth and a shrinking middle class. if you're a business owner, you should be very concerned about that. a growing middle class is what buys the products, that goes to the restaurants that keep our economy going. so time and time again we have asked to proceed on legislation that would allow us to help a growing middle class. this is not our first effort with the minimum wage. many states have passed increases in the minimum wage. it's time for our federal government to do the same to help a growing middle class. but the last effort was on behalf of gender equity, paycheck fairness, where we sought to have a fair shot for women in the workplace so they don't have to work extra time to make the same income as a man for equal work. a woman receives on average about 77% of what a man does

mr. cardin: mr. president, i, along with most americans yesterday, celebrated mother's day with my wife, my daughter, and my grandchildren to express our appreciation for what mothers over the world have done in order to help our community. but in america, we have taken action to help women in this country, and i'm referring to the passage of the affordable care act that has helped childbearing women and child rearing throughout the child's life to the mother and to the family. let me just give you some examples because i think it's good to point out when we've made progress and to celebrate what we have done to help women in america. we have taken on the arbitrary practices of private insurance companies that discriminated against women, against pregnant women and against mothers. a woman now can choose her own ob-gyn doctor as her primary care dock tr, no longer having -- doctor, no longer having to wait for authorization or to have an referral in order to have an ob-gyn. you have an absolute right

nevada, wyden, menendez, murray, tester, canal, leahy, schatz, warner, schumer, rockefeller, cardin, and heinrich. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. a senator: mr. president? t the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are notment mr. blumenthal: i would ask to speak as if in morning business. -- mr. murphy: i ask unanimous consent that katherine martucci from my office be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the year. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president. there was a fairly remarkable hearing in the house of representatives yesterday, the energy and commerce committee, upon which i used to sit when i was there, called together some of the nation's biggest insurers to talk about all of the failures of the affordable care act as seen through the lens of the insurance companies. first up on the docket for republicans was the claim that no one had paid their

cardin. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i first want to thank you for mentioning the kidnapping in nigeria which shocks all of us. my work on the helsinki commission is focused on human rights globally, and what happened there with the kidnapping of girls just going to school should be shocking to the entire world and i just want to note the senate this afternoon did pass the resolution, and this will be a matter that we will certainly continue to follow, and our strategy needs to be to get these girls released. human trafficking is one of the worst crimes in modern times, modern slavery, and we will certainly be focused on that. in regards to ukraine, i first want to talk about the osc mission, whether we believe that they're now getting access and whether they're safe. also want to talk a little bit about what you anticipate happening in the next 19 days. what are the risk factors. how can we mitigate those risk factors. you are correct that there will be one of the largest monitoring international groups ev

cardin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ambassador froman, always a pleasure to have you.you're not going to be surprised by my question on how we are advancing a good governance in the tpp negotiations. the tpp countries are a diverse group of countries, several have real challenges and good governance and basic human rights. and india with similar issues, corruption. i'm going to ask you how the negotiations are getting because i know when you're dealing with trade you have a countries attention. they are more likely to do things to improve governance issues and anticorruption matters when they know that it will have an impact on the willingness of a country to open up its markets. we have of course very strong anticorruption laws here so it's difficult for our companies to be able to anticipate and countries where bribery is a standard practice. anticipating that you might give me some glowing progress reports, you could also respond as to whether you are willing for us to put into a tpa bill that we might be considering negotiating objectives that are strong on negotia

mr. phanatic. i know how difficult your life has been since that sex tape came out. seriously, was that the cardinalascot in the corner pleasurerring himself in i don't know how that guy got in there. with that out of the way, we turn to the midterm elections and our continuing coverage of "democalypse 2014: the race to continued incumbency." yesterday saw primary votes in six states. but not your usual, boring primaries. this time, the future of the republican party was on the line. >> the tea party over? across the nation, establishment republicans seemingly tamed the tea party. >> the establishment won last night. >> the tea party republicans they got spanked. shellacked. is the tea party over?" >> purple nurple! look to further than kentucky for proof the tea party is finished. >> mcconnell was the number one for tea party groups in the country. he beat back the tea party. >> jon: we have foonlt from that race -- footage from that race! >> what the! how did you get up here anyway? >> oh, uh, just runnin'. >> and also i got a million dollars from the chamber of commerce, so that helped. ah yup. >

in conclusion, let me just read the comments of al cardin, former chairman of the florida republican party. this is what mr. cardness said about the marketplace fairness afnlgt "when it comes to state sales taxes, it is time to address the area where federally mandated prejudice is most egregious. the policy toward internet sales,ed decades' old inequity between online and in-person sales is outdated and unfair." he is chairman of the american conservative union in support of the marketplace fairness act. i'm pleased that of the four senators who will be on the floor during this colloquy, two already are here. i see the senator from south dakota and i see the senator from wyoming. if it's all right with the senator from wyoming, i'll defer to the senator from north dakota. and while she may be a little modest about this -- i hope she's not -- she actually started it all. she has a better view of the marketplace fairness act than just about anyone because of her service in the state government of north dakota, and her ability to explain in plain, simple language why the fair and the right thing to do is to

mr. president, we know a lot of our big businesses started that way, the microsofts and the intels and others. next, senator cardin and senator portman add an important provision to help the long-term unemployed. we all understand that the nature of those who are unemployed has changed significantly in recent years. we have many more who are long-term unemployed americans, and we had two senators -- by the way, two senators who started working in a bipartisan way when they were house members because i remember their good work on the ways and means committee. they came up with a very promising approach to help the long-term unemployed. senators hatch and grassley and roberts, three republicans joined a whole host of democrats in supporting conservation easements, which i know the distinguished senator from montana knows a great deal about. chairman baucus had a long interest in it because what this does, again on a bipartisan basis, is it protects open spaces and outdoor recreation businesses, and on the charity front because i heard my good friend from indiana speak on this and he has done wonderful work, standing

mr. chairman, and ranking member bass, in the members of the subcommittee, thank you for your time. >> thank you very much for your solid recommendations. thank you for the good work that cardinalmccarrick and so many others have done. his most recent visit was galvanizing and underscored the point you made so strongly that is that this is not about leaders of religious faiths conducting a jihad or any kind of, it is not a religious war, but people are exporting extremism in order to kill and rape and maim. thank you for bringing it forward. i would like to recognize ms. rose. >> i would like to submit my full testimony for the record. >> so ordered. >> thank you for inviting me to testifyon behalf of mercy corps today. i am a policy advisor. mercy corp has worked since 2007 ranging from programs for youth empowerment and economic development. if there's one message that i hope you take in this testimony it is that right now is the moment to secure long-term support for c.a.r.'s recovery. the window is closing and we have to make smart investments now. in march, i traveled to visit mercy corps programs. the most heart wrenching -- meeting was the one i expected to be easiest. h

mr. muir? >> we have an number of opportunities to hear from our student athletes from our coaches. the student athlete counsel at stanford the cardinal consul. i just met with him two weeks ago and it was a chance for me to check in and hear their concerns and how we don't and we survey all of our student athletes after every season. we provide feedback. they can do it anonymously and we have information on just how there experiences going and also the coaches have an open door policy. they look for that one we select our coaches in the proper leadership. we think we have one of the largest leadership development programs on our campus so that's another opportunity for student athletes to engage. we have administrators. we have counselors and tutors all all on united front to make sure their experience is the best it can possibly be. >> is it fair to say that your coaches in part are judged on their successes on the graduation rates of their athletes? >> we look at a number of things and we are opposite looking at the graduation rates and what they are doing in the classroom and what they are doing to make sure they are solids did --

mr. muir? >> yes, we have a number of opportunity toss hear from our student athletes and from our coaches. the student athlete council at stanford, the cardinal council, i just met with two weeks ago, and it's a chance for me to check in and hear their issues and concerns and how are we doing. also we survey all our student athletes after every season, and we provide feedback. they can do it anonymously, and we get information on just how their experience is going. also the coaches have an open-door policy. d look for that when we select our coaches and the proper leadership. we think we have one of theç largest leadership development programs on our campus. and so that's another opportunity for student athletes to engage. we have administratorses, counselors, tutors all on a united front to make sure their experience is the best it can our student athletes to engage. >> is it fair to say that your coaches in paruç are judged and their success is younged in part on the graduation -- is judged in part on the graduation rates of their athletes? >> yeah. we look at a number of things, obviously, the graduation rates, what they're doing in the c