Court Security Improvement Act of 2007

COURT SECURITY IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - April 18, 2007)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, pending before the Senate at this time is a bill to make our courts safer. This is an issue we take personally in Chicago because in 2005, one of our most respected Federal judges had her mother and husband killed in her home, murdered by an upset individual who didn't like the way he was treated in a courtroom. He stalked her family, invaded her home, killed her aging mother, and husband, who was the love of her life. I know this judge because I appointed her to the Federal bench. I have met her daughters and I know her close friends in Chicago. I think about her every time the issue of court security comes up. She is a wonderful woman who has devoted her life to public service. She has put in the time that we expect from real professionals. She has done her best to be fair and just. She works hard. We owe her security in the workplace and security for her family.

That is why Senator Obama and I introduced an appropriations bill right after this happened, trying to put some money into the U.S. Marshals Service to protect judges across the United States. That is what this bill is all about. There is nothing partisan about this legislation. There is nothing even controversial about it. This bill should have been passed quickly, sent to the House and approved because it makes a better effort to protect these judges in their homes, gives more resources to U.S. marshals, puts stiffer penalties in for those who harass and shoot at and kill those who serve us in the judiciary. This is basic common sense. Instead of taking up this bill and passing it quickly, as we should have to get it in place and to put the protections in place, it has been slowed down.

One of our colleagues is exercising his rights under the Senate rules. I said earlier I will fight for him to have the right to speak it, on any bill, to offer
an amendment to it, to express himself, and to have the Senate decide finally what the decision will be on his amendment. I respect his right to do that. But instead we are going to slow this bill down for 2 days. We will have amendments filed, six, and they are just going to sit on the desk while the clock runs. Instead of moving to other legislation which is critically important we will just sit here. That is unfair. I don't think that is consistent with what the American people expect of the Senate.

I have called on my colleagues, the one who has six amendments filed and any who have other amendments, please bring them to the floor right now, within the next hour. Let's start the debate right now. Let's set them for a vote as quickly as possible. Let's stop these stall tactics on bills as basic as this, protecting the personal security of judges across America.

It is time for us to get down to business in the Senate. Look around at all the empty chairs. Look for the person who sponsored the amendments to this bill. You won't find him.

It is time for us to get down to business in the Senate. People expect us to. This week has been a pretty horrible week when you look at it. We came in here trying to pass a bill that would authorize intelligence agencies across our Government to make America safer, 16 different intelligence agencies, a bipartisan bill, worked on long and hard by Senator Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and his staff, and Senator Bond and his staff. The bill was ready to go, a bill which should have passed years ago, stopped in its tracks by the Republican minority that said, no. Vice President Cheney objects to a provision in the bill relative to the interrogation of prisoners; imagine that he would raise that issue again. Therefore, all Republicans, with maybe a couple exceptions, are going to stop debate on the bill. That was strike 1.

Strike 2, a provision to amend the Medicare Prescription Drug Act so that we could have more competition and lower prices for seniors and disabled when they buy drugs. Some agree with it; some disagree. The pharmaceutical industry hates it; it cuts into their profits. It was worth a debate to see whether we could help seniors pay for their drugs and lower prices. But, no, the Republican minority said: No, we are not going to even debate that. We won't let you go to that. It is within their power to stop us, and they did it again.

Now comes this bill for court security, and for the third strike this week, the Republicans have said: No, we want to slow you down. We want to run out the clock. We want to put amendments on the table and not call them for consideration.

It is becoming increasingly clear what the Republican game plan is. We have seen it this week on three pieces of legislation. We see it with this bill. I have spoken to majority leader Senator Reid who spoke moments ago. We have important business to do. In fact, we have business which is very bipartisan. This bill, which has been slowed down by one Republican Senator, has as cosponsors Senators SPECTER, CORNYN, COLLINS, and HATCH, all Republican Senators. It is a bipartisan bill. It is not even controversial. Why aren't we doing this? It isn't as if there are other things going on on the Senate floor. We are waiting on the Senators who want to stop or slow down this bill to finally come and do their business. It is not too much to ask. I understand we are all busy. From time to time we have to leave the Hill to go to a committee meeting. I know I filed an amendment and waited a while to call it. But now this Senator has had his time. He has had the whole day. We should call up one amendment before we go home, just in good faith, to indicate that this is really a serious effort, that there is a substantive reason to slow down this important legislation. We need to remind our colleagues of our responsibility to do the people's business.

IRAQ

I just joined the majority leader and others in meeting with the President of the United States to talk about the war in Iraq. I am glad we had this meeting. We didn't reach a new agreement or compromise. I wish we had. We started a dialog, and that is important. There were heartfelt emotions expressed at that meeting by many of us on both sides of the issue, by the President, as well as by Senator Reid and myself and many others. Speaker Pelosi was there. The majority leader of the House, Steny Hoyer, was in attendance, as was Jim Clyborn, the majority whip, and the Republican leadership. We talked about the war in Iraq at length and where we need to go.

It is our belief that if we don't include language in the appropriations bill which says to the Iraqis that we are not going to stay there indefinitely, they are going to drag their feet forever when it comes to making the political reforms that are necessary. We are going to leave our soldiers stuck in the middle of a civil war. Mr. President, 3,311 Americans have died in service to this country while serving in Iraq. These are our best and bravest. They have given their lives, and they continue to give their lives while we debate and delay. It is time for us to move forward.

I suggested to the President in the moments that I had to express my point of view, if he won't accept a timetable for starting to bring American troops home, can't we at least hold the Iraqis to the timetable that they have offered us for political reform? They have missed deadline after deadline. They promised to bring their country together. They promised to bring their army into a leadership that will be effective. They have promised to try to resolve the old differences from the Baath Party under Saddam Hussein. Promise after promise after promise they have failed to keep while our soldiers fight and die every single day.

DARFUR

Despite the obvious differences from that meeting, there was one hopeful sign. We started the meeting, and I began by praising President Bush for delivering a speech today at the U.S. Holocaust Museum on the subject of the genocide in Darfur. It was the appropriate venue for the speech. The Holocaust Museum offers a powerful backdrop to consider the horrors of genocide. I am glad the President made this speech. I applaud him for making it. I had hoped that he would be a little bit stronger, but I understand, speaking personally with the President, that he wants to give new U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon some time to use his office effectively.

The President essentially today, though, by every measure, gave Sudan a final warning, and it is about time. The President stated that within a ``short period of time,'' to use his words, President Bashir of Sudan must take the following steps: Allow the deployment of the full joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in the area of Darfur where somewhere near 400,000 people have been murdered and over 2 million displaced. The President of Sudan must also end support for the Jingaweit militia, reach out to rebel leaders, allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Darfur, and end his obstructionism. If he does not, President Bush stated, the United States will respond.

First, the U.S. will tighten economic sanctions on the Sudanese Government and the companies it controls. Second, the President will also levy sanctions against individuals who are responsible for the violence. Third, the U.S. will introduce a new U.N. Security Council resolution to apply multilateral sanctions against the Government of Sudan and impose an expanded arms embargo. This resolution will impose a ban on Sudanese offensive military flights over Darfur.

Last fall the President's special envoy talked about a January 1st deadline after which the United States would impose sanctions that would cripple the Sudanese oil industry. That deadline is months behind us, and the sanctions the President outlined are not as potent as they might be in terms of truly hitting the oil industry as I hoped they would.

The U.N. resolution and multilateral sanctions would be a major step forward. If we don't see rapid progress from the Sudanese Government, I urge the President to both introduce the U.N. resolution and to call for a vote. Let's put the countries of the world on notice that they must stand and be on the record on ending this genocide in Darfur.

As I said, I understand President Bush is responding to a special request
from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who asked for some more time to negotiate. All I can say is, I hope the Secretary General's faith that real progress is being made is justified. At least on paper there has been a breakthrough in the last few days. The Sudanese Government has reportedly agreed to allowing 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers to deploy. But we have had promises like this in the past and no action.

China, Sudan's biggest supporter and biggest customer for its oil, has also started taking mutant, limited, but proactive steps in recent weeks to convince the Sudanese to move forward on peacekeeping. China's Assistant Foreign Minister recently toured refugee camps full of people from Darfur who had fled their homes. That is not a typical stop on a Chinese Government tour, a positive sign that China is not blind to the human rights abuses going on in Sudan. China has reportedly played an important role recently in urging the Sudanese Government to move forward.

At the same time, however, China continues to oppose sanctions even if Khartoum continues to obstruct peacekeeping. The Chinese Defense Minister recently announced that China is interested in developing military cooperation with Sudan, whatever that could possibly mean. As for Sudan, while Khartoum has said it will allow deployment of 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers, a new U.N. report details how the Sudanese Government is flying arms of heavy military equipment into Darfur.

This morning's New York Times has photographs of the Sudanese painting their airplanes to appear to be United Nations aircraft and African Union aircraft so that they can deceptively ship arms into this region that will be used to kill innocent people. That is the government we are dealing with in Khartoum. Sudan has promised to allow 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers and their equipment into Darfur. If it keeps the promise this time, it would be a start, but what is needed, as the President said today at the Holocaust Museum, is the full 21,000 combined U.N.-African Union force with the means and mandate to protect the people of Darfur. The people of Darfur have waited long enough for peace and security and the end of genocide. Now is the time to act.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. He has been a stalwart in the effort for Darfur.

I would like to read a sentence to the Senator from Oklahoma and ask him what it means. It is a sentence from the underlying bill, which is an authorization bill. It relates to section 105. Here is what it says:

In addition to any other amounts authorized to be appropriated for the U.S. Marshals Service, there are authorized to be appropriated for the U.S. Marshals Service to protect the judiciary $20 million for each of the fiscal years 2007 through 2011.

Now I would like to ask the Senator this: If we pass this bill authorizing $20 million to be appropriated to the U.S. Marshals Service to protect judges and then do not appropriate the money for that purpose, how much money will come out of the Federal Treasury going to the U.S. Marshals pursuant to this bill?

Mr. COBURN. None.

Mr. DURBIN. I would like to ask the Senator another question.

Mr. COBURN. I am happy to answer it.

Mr. DURBIN. Isn't that what this is all about?

Mr. COBURN. No, it is not.

Mr. DURBIN. You were claiming a reauthorization----

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, reclaiming the floor, here is what it is about. The Senator from Illinois is a great advocate for those who are less fortunate in this country. That is what this is about. It is about changing the habits of the Senate.

I understand the appropriations process. I understand the authorization process. Changing the habits says we are not going to authorize new programs until we have done our homework on the programs that aren't effective. That is the whole purpose of this amendment.

I understand the Senator's consternation with my desire. I understand that most people inside Washington disagree. But I also understand that most people outside of Washington say that if you increase spending--authorized spending, not appropriated spending but authorized spending--$40 million and never look at what you can deauthorize, whenever we get to a surplus or when we get to a balanced budget, we are going to spend more money. We are not going to make the hard choices. That is exactly what happens. We can disagree with that but, in fact, that is how we got an $8.9 trillion deficit. That is how we ran a $300 billion-plus deficit this year. It is the process. It is the process where we have decided that authorization has minimal power to influence in this body and that appropriations has all power.

My point in making us debate this resolution on this bill and bringing it up is to say: Let's start the process where we start looking, as our oath charges us to do, at what doesn't work. Let's bring a bill that authorizes something that is very good and bring a bill that deauthorizes something that might get funding even though it is not effective.

I will give an example: the COPS Program. It is a very good program. It helps a lot of cities. Why shouldn't it be competitively bid? Why shouldn't the cities with the most need get the help with their police force rather than the cities whose Members put an earmark in for the COPS Program, and any money that doesn't go to true need comes back to the Federal Treasury? Why wouldn't we do that? Because that is hard work. Because we might alienate one group as we do what is best for everybody in America.

I understand the resistance to my efforts in challenging the way we operate in the Senate, and I understand the opposition to my techniques and methods in trying to accomplish that. However, as the Senator from Illinois knows, if I am a champion for anything, I am a champion for making sure we don't waste one penny anywhere. The best way to do that is to start having good habits in how we arrange what we are going to spend.

The fact is, it is very easy to find offsets in authorization because we have three times as much authorized as we actually spend. So the Senator's point is exactly true, but it doesn't direct us down to the problem. If we get in the habit of making the decision we are going to look at the programs that don't work, we are going to deauthorize the programs that don't work, guess what we will do. We eventually might get rid of the one $1 of every $5 on the discretionary side today that is either waste, fraud, abuse, or duplication--$1 in $5. No one in this body blows 20 percent of their personal budget on stuff that doesn't mean anything or have any return. Yet in the discretionary budget, everything except Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, that is exactly what we do. It is exactly what we do. So why would we not say: Let's change. Let's fulfill an obligation to two generations from us now. I know what I am doing today isn't going to have a great impact on the next appropriations bill or the next one after that or the one after that, but 5 years from now, it might have an impact.

The point is, let's live like everybody else out there. Let's not take the credit card and not look at the things we really should be looking at. Let's do some extra work. Let's try to accomplish what is best for everybody in this country, no matter what their economic station in life, no matter what their background, no matter what their position is. They all have a limited budget. They have to make choices. They have to make choices, and they have to prioritize things. The Senate doesn't; they just authorize another bill and never deauthorize anything else.

Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor and ask for the yeas and nays.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second.

The Senator from Illinois is recognized.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I respect the Senator from Oklahoma. I respect his fiscal conservatism. I respect his belief that our budget deficit is a source of growing concern for all of us. He says we need to start with good habits. I believe we need to start with the right language. We need to understand what the Senator is asking us to consider.

He started by saying that no family in America has the luxury the Federal Government has of spending more than they bring in year after year after year, which is what our deficit does at the Federal level. No argument there. Let me use another family example. My wife and I have raised three children. Occasionally, we have given them some choices. A father could say to his son: You have $200 coming up for your birthday. Here are the choices you can make: You can buy a new suit--it wouldn't be a bad idea if you are going to go out for an interview--or you can buy that bicycle you have had your eye on for a long time that you want to take to college or I know you want to buy an iPod. OK. Make a choice, but you only get $200. Make one of those choices. I authorize your birthday gift to be spent on those three things, but I will not appropriate--I will not give you the $200 for all three, only for one. Three choices are on the table; you only get to choose one.

Authorization bills put choices on the table, and then the appropriations bills make a choice. It doesn't mean my son is going to get $600 at the end of the day; he only gets $200. He has to make a choice from the gifts I have authorized. The Senator from Oklahoma is arguing that giving my son a choice of three things means he is going to demand all three and get them. Wrong. It is a matter of discipline when it comes to the appropriations process. The authorization process is not the problem. We could authorize much more than we ultimately spend, and we do, but in the final reckoning, the budget resolution says you can only spend so much money. You can only spend $200 on your birthday, I say to my son, even though you are being given three authorized choices.

So when the Senator offers us this sense of the Senate, it sounds an awful lot like pay-go, which is now the process we are following in the Senate which says: If you want to spend some money, you have to find a way to increase a tax or cut spending in other areas. It is pay as you go. But the Senator from Oklahoma applies it to authorizations. It is a different world. Confusing the two is not going to help us reach a balanced budget; confusing the two creates confusion. Authorization is not appropriation.

Earmarks can be appropriations. I have seen them. I have done them. I have announced them in press releases. I am happy to do so to bring money back to my State as best I can for good reasons, and I stand by them and defend them. People challenge them. That is the nature of this business as I consider it.

The bottom line is, if I am authorized to have three bridges in Illinois, authorized to have three bridges in Illinois and only have money for one bridge to be appropriated, I have to make a choice. The people in my State have to make a choice. Life is about choices. It is not about what I might choose; it is what I ultimately have to choose--one bridge, one birthday gift. That is the appropriation. That is why this is so different.

Ordinarily, this resolution, until it gets to its resolved sense-of-the-Senate clause, is pretty easy to take. I might disagree with some of the rhetoric here and there, but when you end by arguing that an authorization is an expenditure of money, it is just not accurate. It doesn't state what happens here in Congress.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield for a question.

Mr. COBURN. Under your premise, only bills that are authorized get funded, correct?

Mr. DURBIN. But all bills that are authorized do not get appropriated.

Mr. COBURN. Except you are wrong. Last year, $220 billion of unauthorized programs were appropriated.

If I may--will the Senator yield to me? I am happy to yield back in a moment.

Mr. DURBIN. Sure.

Mr. COBURN. Let's carry your analogy a little further. What has really happened is you give your son $200, but the mandate is--you are going to spend $100 on a broken iPod or a used iPod, and you have $100 to buy down towards a good one, but you mandate that you spend $100 on the bad one. That is the analogy. That is why we ought to deauthorize programs that aren't working. That is why we ought to oversight aggressively every area of the Federal Government.

Let me take one other exception, and then I will be happy to yield back to the Senator.

Mr. DURBIN. Could I interrupt the Senator just to say this: This is getting painfully close to a debate, which rarely occurs on the floor of the Senate, so please proceed.

Mr. COBURN. I love it. I love to debate the Senator from Illinois.

I take a different tact, and the Senator knows that. I look at the oath I took when I came to the Senate. It didn't say ``Oklahoma'' in it; the Senator's didn't say ``Illinois.'' What the oath says is to defend the Constitution of the United States and do what is best for the country as a whole and in the long term.

Now, the Senator--and I admire him greatly--admitted that he plays the game the way it is played. I am telling him that the American people are ready for the game to be played a different way--a totally different way. Part of that is looking at the authority under which we allow money to be spent and recognizing that if we are going to authorize something new, given the jam we are in, all you have to do is talk to David Walker and look at what is going to happen in the next two generations. Don't we have an obligation to look at the programs that are not authorized?

Would the Senator answer this question: When was the last time he saw a program deauthorized in this body?

Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to respond. I think the Senator has asked a good question but not the right question. When we fail to appropriate money for an authorized program, we are saying there is a higher priority. We are saying that authorized program may not be as valid or as valuable today as when it was enacted, and we make the choice. The Senator referred to this, and I know he didn't mean to demean the process in saying that I am ``playing the game.'' I don't think I am ``playing the game'' when I do the best I can to help the 12 1/2 million people I represent. If the Senator ran into a problem--and occasionally Oklahoma has a challenge--I will be there to help him, too. That is the nature of it. We try to represent our States and also do what is good for the Nation.

Secondly, if authorization is broken, as the Senator from Oklahoma says, the obvious answer is, either don't appropriate money for it, or when the appropriations bill comes to the floor, strike it and move the money to another program. You have the right to do that as a Senator. But the fact that the options or choices are out there doesn't mean that every one of them is going to be honored and appropriated.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, reclaiming the floor, if I might, the thing that strikes me is the Senator is a wonderful debater, except when he says the appropriators appropriating money on an authorized program--that is great, except the American public needs to know that 22 percent of what we appropriate has never been authorized. Never.

So the fact is, we say authorization means something, but it means nothing as far as the appropriations process goes. The real point of this debate is how do we grab hold of this problem, this behemoth of a problem that will face our children and grandchildren in the next 20 to 25 years, and do it in a way that will give us the greatest opportunity for them?

My idea--and obviously many people disagree with it--is I think we ought to start looking at every program. We ought to ask a couple of questions: Can we measure its effectiveness? Is there a metric on it that says this program is supposed to do this? Is there a metric there so we can measure it? I am of the mind to say that if you cannot measure something, you cannot manage it. Ninety percent of the programs have no metric in the Federal Government, so we don't know if they are working.

No. 2, is it a program that is still needed? We don't ever look at the authorizing level. The Senator would have us defer everything to appropriations, and that is what we actually do because 20 percent of what we appropriate is not authorized and everything we authorize isn't appropriated. So, obviously, authorizations are meaningless. So what we should do is eliminate authorizing committees and just have appropriations committees and we will all be on appropriations committees.

Third, we should ask, is this still a legitimate function of the Federal Government? When we ran a $300 billion-plus true deficit last year and every State, save one, had big surpluses, should we not ask the question: If we are doing things that really are not the Federal Government's role to do, and we have a deficit and the States have a surplus, should we not let them do it without our fingers taking 15 percent of the money as we send it back?

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator will yield, I will make a constructive suggestion, not to make a debate point or anything else, but to serve his purposes. Can I suggest that instead of a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, the Senator from Oklahoma, when an authorization bill comes along, offer a sunset provision to be added to it to say that at a certain period of time this authorization ends and has to be reauthorized? Would that not serve his purpose?

Mr. COBURN. As a matter of fact, I did just that on the last 9/11 bill, and the Senator from Illinois voted against it. I voted to sunset it. I actually offered the amendment that said we should sunset it and look at it in 5 years, and the Senator from Illinois disagreed. He thought, no, we should not do that. This Senator must admit that he does have a constructive suggestion. I just wish he had voted that way when we had the amendment up.

Mr. DURBIN. I was reluctant to do this, but I am going to refer to a couple of votes of the Senator from Oklahoma.

His amendment was to sunset the entire Department of Homeland Security. Also, on two separate occasions he voted against pay-as-you-go requiring 50 votes. Here are two different rollcalls where the Senator's vote would have made the difference.

Mr. COBURN. My amendment did not sunset the whole Department of Homeland Security. It was the grants process.

Mr. DURBIN. That is what keeps our country safe.

Mr. COBURN. It is made up of how we dole money out to the States rather than looking at the best interests of the country and looking at the risk base for national security and homeland security. I am basically for a true pay-go that says the options are two. One option said the only option is, if we won't cut spending, we will raise taxes. That is a pay-more, not a pay-go. It is pay more.

I am proud of those votes. I had consternation over it because I want to try to hold to those things. But the pay-go as outlined two times in the language was a vote for pay-more.

Will the Senator agree with me that there is waste, fraud, and abuse in the duplication of the Federal Government.

Mr. DURBIN. Absolutely.

Mr. COBURN. Will the Senator agree that since we had a $300 billion-plus deficit last year--$200 billion-plus if we weren't in the war in Iraq--if we took that off the table, would it not make sense for us to try to get rid of the waste, fraud, duplication, and abuse?

Mr. DURBIN. Of course. But I include the war in Iraq----

Mr. COBURN. It doesn't include the war. Let me finish my point.

Mr. DURBIN. I said I do include the war in Iraq.

Mr. COBURN. It was in there, but say we were not in the war and we were still down to $200 billion--let's take that off the table. Say we have a $200 billion deficit, and we can demonstrate from our subcommittee hearings $200 billion a year in waste, fraud, and abuse. Yet we did nothing about it. We did nothing.

I have enjoyed my debate with the Senator from Illinois. I ask that we vote on the question at hand. I thank him for his kindness.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I understand Senator Specter may have a comment he wants to make. I respect the Senator's view on the budget, though we disagree. We both understand the seriousness of the deficit. I don't think authorizations are the problem. For that reason, I will vote against this amendment. When we vote on a pay-go amendment, I hope you can join us.

Mr. COBURN. As long as it is not a pay-more amendment.

Mr. DURBIN. Frankly, it has to include taxes instead of spending.

I will yield the floor to the Senator from Pennsylvania, if he is prepared to speak. If not, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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