mr. kaine: mr. president, if i could inquire, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. kaine: i ask that it be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaine: thank you, mr. president. i rise to talk about the tragedy in parkland and the responsibilities of the united states senate to try to make our community safer. and i'm going to talk very personally about my own experience in confronting gun violence as a mayor of an urban area, richmond, virginia, and as a governor of the commonwealth of virginia. i will start by saying i'm a gun owner. i'm a second amendment supporter. when i was an attorney in private practice, i was the lawyer who worked with an effort to amend the virginia constitution to guarantee virginians the right to hunt and fish. the second amendment and private gun ownership is an important part of our framework, i support it, but i obviously believe that we can do things consistent with the constitution that will make our nation safer, and i ask my colleagues to join in that effort. when i was elected

mr. kaine: mr. president, might i inquire if we're in a quorum call. the presiding officer: the senate is. mr. kaine: i ask that it be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaine: i rise to talk about gun ownership and safety in the united states. i speak as a gun owner and strong second supporter, and i want to do a couple of things in the speech, but one thing i want to do is put to rest that gun owners, gun ownership and the second amendment are incompatible with gun safety rules. first, i accept the ruling, holding, and principal announced by the supreme court that the second amendment conveys an individual right to bear arms and conveys that right to the american public. there was, and there remains, some controversy over the ruling. some have argued that the text of the amendment only discusses the right to bear arms in the context of participating in a militia, which in 1787 was a necessary strategy for defending the nation during a time when we had no standing army. for years many scholars supported that notion and argued tha

kaine. >> accu mr. president, i have spoken to these advisers about the issue. australia was already in the process of providing some global growth in question which has nothing to do with any social media of any sort as i understand it. i'm confident that that is the case and that that is the definitive answer to the question. australia is having for $600 billion in the forward estimates. hence my move to reinstate a debt ceiling to ensure governments make ill-conceived knee-jerk decisions. is the 99insurances that the foreign minister budged. business some glorious foundation for pleasing the global spot start. >> it is probably important that he doesn't give up his day job and go to stand up comedy. thething i can say is that decision with which the foreign minister -- these are pledges that i considered very carefully in the context of our investment in the sector and the broader australian budget. itself, i cane gp indicate that in terms of some of its results 72 million or children were in primary school in 2015. the education of girls and boys, through pu

kain. this is an hour. >> mr. president, on friday i visited league high school in colombia which is located in howard county, maryland which is washington and c baltimore. ica wanted to talk to students about the tragic valentine's day shooting at marjoi stoneman douglas who left 17 faculty members. this is the deadliest high school shooting in american history. i went to wild lick because one of their own teacher laura was shot to dead in september 2017 and former7, boyfriend is now in trial for her murder. int was impressed by passion ate of students and great deal of interest in subject matter and articulate and asked great questions. students are rightfully concerned about safety and safety of classmates. it's been two weeks since a disturbed young man invaded marjori stoneman douglas high school, the reactions seemed to bek like clock work after each shooting, there's bipartisan shock, anger, horror, particularly the question comes out, will this time be different, the answer for the republican leaders shift

mr. chairman. >> okay. senator kaine. >> thank you, mr. chair. thanks to the witnesses. i associate myself with most of the comments that have been made. senator corker's innocence of what's wrong with the culture? i had the same feeling. i'm an armed services committee member. i joined the committee in january of 2013. senator king joined with me. i think of the other budget committee members i also think senator graham was on the committee at the time. and i'm a numbers geek. i was a mayor and governor and was used to audits and financial statements. we were stunned to get on the committee and find that the 1990 statue, notwithstanding that the pentagon had not made greater progress, they were trying to become audit ready at the time, but there wasn't really a meaningful calendar in terms of auditability. we passed as part of the defense authorizing act that year, the 2014 nda we worked on in committee the timetable that you are now on to require the audit to be done under this timetable. we shouldn't have had to do it. it should have been done long before. but it is g

mr. chair, thank you very much. you, senator kaine. senators weuple of would like ask additional questions. senator murray, do you have any other questions? >> i don't. i believe senator hassan wanted to ask another question. else?ne i believe senator baldwin is hoping to return. >> ok. to senator cass think? governors, i have questions from a father whose who died as i read his testimony, it is moving so excuse me as i feel his pain. he surface is his son is 17 year options are limit ap what is available for someone 18-year-olds than person as his was. >> thank you, senator cassidy in a am terribly sorry for this loss. in oregon, we with r working hard to make sure that our young have access to treatment, i mentioned earlier, focused on behavior health, we, unfortunately, are struggling with some of the barriers through insurance policy and requiring failure best before getting the possible treatment and we want to change that dynamic and the that just passed two weeks ago is going to be taking a look at the insurance barriers through

mr. chair, thank you very much. >> thank you, senator kaine. senator murray, do you have any more questions? >> i believe senator wanted to askth one more question, i belie senator baldwin is hope to go return. >> why don't we go to senator cassidy. >> governors, i actually have questions from a father who son died and as i read testimony it's veryy moving so excuse me s i feel his pain. he says if your son 17 year's old, treatment options are limited and in your state what is available for someone who is a less than 18-year-old person as his was? >> thank you, senator cassidy, and i'm terribly sorry for this man's loss. in oregon we are working hard to make sure that our young people have access to treatment. i mentioned earlier focused on comprehensive behavioral health. we unfortunately are struggling with some of the barriers through insurance policy and requiringce failure first before rsgetting the best possible treatment and we want to change that dynamic in the legislation that just passed two weeks ago it's going to to be taking a look

mr. chairman. gentlemen, good to see you again. thanks for your wonderful service. want to just comment, i saw my colleague senator kaine make comments on some of his concerns, particularly as relates to alliances and how we're focusing on those or not. i think it is a good point, i agree with him on it. one thing he actually didn't mention is the unprecedented delay of the confirmation of many of the people the president has put forward in terms of the national security foreign policy area, so you don't have to comment on that, but i certainly wish if we're talking about challenges that we can agree to expeditiously move some of these nominees as opposed to delay , delay, delay. i wanted to ask about china with regard to -- there's been a lot of press recently about some of these, i don't know if you call institutes in but the united states and how the dollar diplomacy in top universities in the u.s. is starting to have an impact, people are wondering what these confucius institutes are up to. first of all, director coats, do you think china would allow for the equivalent? let's say we have the u.s. government putting

tim kaine, joe biden where personally they are pro-life and they vote their district. the real point in my race is that mrble care act because he doesn't believe in birth control. he's on the record saying that. he votes consistently against working families and he votes against health care for all as well as immigrants. the real issue here is that you have to vote your district. you have to be in alignment with your district. i'm in alignment with the district. mr. lipinski is far to the right. most people call him a republican. >> we spoke to the dnc chairman tom perez about this race. the democrats tend to take a slightly different tact than the republicans. >> one thing i've learned from primaries in the past is that when the dnc gets involved in those races, then we sometimes get accused of trying to put the thumb on the scale of one over another. that's one of those races where we will see what happens. again, i think it's really important for the dnc moving forward. we're building the infrastructure to ensure that whoever wins that race will be able to win in november. >> is it helpful for you that