mr. leahy: i ask unanimous consent that the cloture motion be withdrawn and that there be time equally divided between now and the hour of 5:30 for debate by the usual form, that upon the use or yielding back of time the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate of the nomination, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and no further motions be in order, that any related statements be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: now, mr. president would it always be that easy. i thank the distinguished

mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, michael a. shipp michael a. shipp of new jersey to be united states district judge. mr. leahy: i ask unanimous consent that the cloture motion be withdrawn and that there be time equally divided between now and the hour of 5:30 for debate by the usual form, that upon the use or yielding back of time the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate of the nomination, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and no further motions be in order, that any related statements be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's

mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will be 30 minutes of debate, equally divided in the usual form, sir. mr. leahy: i see the distinguished senior senator from tennessee on the floor and i will make sure that he has plenty of time to speak. if not, i will ask consent for are extra time for him. i am worried, however, and i say this knowing of the strong support of the senator from tennessee for john fowlkes jr., i am concerned that senate republicans are falling through on their opposition -- partisan opposition to the president by seeking to slam the door on consensus nominees who have bipartisan support. and take advantage of the delaying tactics they've been deploying for three and a half years. it may seem like good political partisan sense to try to block president obama at each step of the way on judges but it hurts the american people and all americans, republicans and democrats. the american people and the overburdened federal courts need are qualified judg

mr. leahy: mr. president, i ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, kevin mcnulty of new jersey to be united states district judge. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will be 30 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form. mr. leahy: mr. president, i know also today we'll be debating on the disclose act. when you read the horror stories of secret money going into campaigns if we can't restrict the amount of money, at least let's know where it comes from. it's bad enough the supreme court says corporations people as though electing general eisenhower as president, we could now elect general electric as president or electing yahoos like millard filmore as vice president, we could elect yahoo as vice president. but the secret money, there should be only one secret thing. there should be only one secret thing in an election. that

mr. leahy: mr. president, what is the parliamentary situation? the presiding officer: the senate is currently in a quorum call. mr. leahy: i ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: following that, what is the current situation? the presiding officer: the senate is postcloture on the motion to proceed to s. 2237. mr. leahy: i thank the distinguished presiding officer, the senator from new mexico, for his comments. mr. president, let me just begin by noting that this morning in watching the "today" show, i saw a piece about the vermont national guard. we call them the green mountain boys from the time of ethan allen. and it was fascinating to watch savannah guthrie, who is one of the anchors of the morning program on the "today" show, her brother is a colonel with the vermont national guard, flies f-16's. she got to ride on the plane with her brother, which i thought was remarkable. i had the opportunity to do that before with the

mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i know we're soon going to be voting on other matters and i see the distinguished senior senator from florida wishes to speak so i will not take long, but there is one area i don' i don't wante to forget about and that's the violence against women act. you know, six months ago, senator crapo and i joined together to introduce the leahy-crapo vil violence against women reauthorization act of 2011. we decided to put victims first, not politics first. so we set aside any partisan differences the two of us might have. we did this so we could tell the senate that even though we come from entirely different political philosophies, we're united on the need to protect victims. and, mr. president, at a time when they say that this body is deeply divided, an overwhelming majority of the senate, republicans and democrats alike, joined us in that effort and we passed this commonsense legislation with 68 votes. it's a rare feat in the senate today. there are some who say we couldn't get

mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i want to thank, of course, the majority leader and the republican leader, friends with whom i have served with for years, and we have always been friends, for their kind words. i want to thank my colleague from vermont, another dear friend. our careers have paralleled in many areas. the time he was mayor of our largest city to our lone representative in the house of representatives to now my partner here in the senate. of course, my dear friend, dick lugar. we've worked together so many times. we alternate between chair and ranking member of the senate agriculture committee. we did a great deal on the environment, passed an environmental bill, did so many things. all the time when he was doing his invaluable work to protect our nation against nuclear weapons. mr. president, i -- you know, i value the senate. i love the senate. it has been a major part of my life. but i was glad to hear both leaders mention the true love of my life, my wife of nearly 50 years. there is noth

mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr.sident, i appreciate what the senator from rhode island has done. he has been a champion on this not only in the public forum like the floor of the senate but he's been a champion of it in the -- in the cloakrooms and the committee rooms, everywhere we might speak about it and he's been most consistent. and the people of rhode island are very fortunate in having somebody with such a strong voice. for the last two and a half years, the american people have seen the devastating effects of the citizens united decision. that decision by five supreme court justices overturned a century of laws, a century of laws that have been supported by republicans and democrats alike because they were designed to protect our elections from corporate spending. and what these five men did, they unleashed a massive flood of corporate money into our elections. now, many of us in the congress may -- many of us around the country at the time of the citizens united decision, worried it turns on its head the id

mr. leahy: mr. president, the distinguished senator from michigan is still here on the floor, she's done such commendable work here, somebody who brought together the senate agriculture committee on a very, very complex farm bill and in a record amount of time got it passed with a heavy bipartisan majority. i think he she would agree with me that's the way we used to and should do legislation. for the life of me, i cannot understand why any senator would not be supporting the senator from michigan on this bill. we want jobs here in the united states. everybody will say we want jobs in the united states. everybody says that they want to have tax laws that actually help this country. so what they do is they vote by refusing to allow us to go forward, they vote to allow jobs to go overseas. but worse than that, give special tax breaks. it's almost like saying this company of yours, these jobs you have, come on, i know a great place for you to go overseas. by the way, here's the airplane ticket. here's

lautenberg, boxer, udall of colorado, begich, whitehouse, blumenthal, franken, leahy, udall of new mexico, baucus, cardin, durbin. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i have an amendment at the desk to the language proposed to be stricken. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes an amendment numbered 2524 to the language proposed to be stricken by amendment number 2521. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have a second-degree amendment at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes an amendment numbered 2525 to amendment number 2524. mr. reid: i have a motion to commit the bill with instructions. the clerk has that, mr. president. mr. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: mr. reid moves to commit the bill to the committee on finance with instructions to report back with an amendment number 2526

mr. president, i don't like to get involved in the back and forth on this issue. it just bothers me. chairman leahy goes into all these numbers, and they are distorted for the most part in connection with the reality. i've said that i simply will not, however, stand by and see the record misconstrued and the picture painted is something from what it is. president bush's judicial nominees were filibustered extraordinarily. unlike anything we'd ever seen before. and this is the way it happened. i was here, i remember it very distinctly. president bush was elected president, and 2001, shortly after he was elected, "the new york times" reported that a group of well known liberal law professors, including lawrence tribe, cass sunstein, marsha greenberger met with the democratic senators in a retreat and they proposed to the democratic conference, who were then in a minority in the united states senate, they didn't have the majority, president bush was the president, going to be nominating judges, and they decided to change the ground rules of judicial confirmation. that is the fact. after they took -- a

mrs. boxer: madam president, i'm proud to follow senator murray in her call to pass the bipartisan senate bill which will reauthorize the violence against women act. the leahy-crapo bill is the only bill that will protect all the women in our country. i well remember vice president biden, was then senator biden, in 1990 he wrote the with violence against women act and i was in the house at the time and he asked if i would carry the house version of his bill. i was extremely honored to do that and -- and we were able to pass small portions of the bill in the 1990's but it wasn't until we came -- i came here to the senate that we passed the entire bill and i think it was senator schumer then in the house that picked up the ball on the bill in the house, it got passed and since then we've seen a decline in violence of 53%. but even so, even while the law is working, we have to strengthen it because, madam president, as you know because you're a leader in this, every day three women are killed by their abusive partners. let me say that again. every single day, three women are killed by their abusive partners. so in order to change this terrible statistic, we ne