Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2015--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, tomorrow the people of Iran will go to the polls to elect 285 members of the Iranian Parliament, or the Majlis, and 88 members of the so-called Assembly of Experts, which is the body that will eventually choose the successor to the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Last December, Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned that having an election does not of itself make a democracy, and I think his words are equally fitting this week. Iran's elections, in truth, are neither free nor fair. Iran is not a democracy. Power brokers in Iran have already rigged these elections and even the results of a potential runoff in April will not tell us much we don't already know about the Iranian regime or its foreign policy objectives in the Middle East.

Some observers do hope that moderate voices will make some progress in Iran, and I agree that is good to hope for, but I remain deeply skeptical. In many ways tomorrow's elections are nothing more than a rubberstamp because an unelected Guardian Council, which vets all candidates for office, has already prevented most moderates from even running.

Let me explain. Aspiring candidates for Iran's national Parliament and the Assembly of Experts must be approved by the unelected Guardian Council before they appear on a ballot. Unless they make it through a multiweek vetting process and unless they are deemed sufficiently loyal and conservative, these aspiring candidates will not get a chance to be candidates at all. That is why the candidate list for tomorrow's election has already told us more about Iran's intentions than the election results will.

A willingness to allow reform-minded or moderate Iranians to stand for election would have suggested some real hope for genuine reform for real change in the Iranian regime. Sadly, the disqualification of both female and reformist candidates indicates that Iran is instead doubling down on its decision to avoid long-awaited and much needed democratic reforms and instead will continue to isolate itself from broader membership in the international community. Sixteen women applied to run to serve on the Assembly of Experts. They were all prohibited from running. Three thousand reform-minded candidates sought to run for the Iranian Parliament, but only 1 percent of those 3,000 were approved. Even Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic of Iran, was rejected as a candidate for being too modern. These disqualifications reflect the regime's rejection of basic democratic norms and serve as reminder of the urgency with which we have to continue to scrutinize Iran's behavior.

Tomorrow's elections will not change Iran's aggressive behavior in the region or transform the political power structure within the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is still dominated by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Despite what some may hope, the Supreme Leader seems unwilling to allow even a modicum of dissent inside Iran. These elections are likely nothing more than a guise to give the international community the impression that Iranians have a real voice in choosing their elected officials.

While we should hope for future moderation, we should expect the status quo because at its core Iran remains a revolutionary regime that supports terrorism as a central tool of its national foreign policy. U.S. policymakers have to remain clear-eyed about that reality as we seek to effectively and aggressively enforce the nuclear deal and push back against Iranian aggression in the region.

I urge my colleagues, the administration, and the American people to pay close attention not just to tomorrow's Iranian elections but to Iran's actions in the weeks, months, and years to come.

I commend the administration for one action it took this week. It indicted four individuals who violated previously existing U.S. sanctions against Iran. This decision sends another important signal that despite the nuclear deal, sanctions that remain on the books and companies that violate them remain a significant barrier and that companies should not rush to do business with Iran. Only by continuing to enforce existing sanctions, only by continuing to hold Iran to its commitments in the nuclear agreement, and only by pushing back against Iran's support for terrorist proxies, its human rights abuses, and its illegal ballistic missile tests will we demonstrate that we are serious about holding the regime accountable for its actions. Only by viewing Iran through the right lens--a lens of weariness and suspicion, not trust--can we continue to protect our national security and the safety of our regional allies, especially Israel.

A nuclear deal with a nation like Iran does not make that regime our ally or friend and having an election does not make a democracy, but it does make a statement. Filling the Supreme Court Vacancy

Mr. President, on Monday I had the privilege of serving as the first Senator from the State of Delaware--the first State--to ever read George Washington's Farewell Address on the Senate floor on February 22, the appointed day every year when we recognize Washington's contributions to our country and its history by repeating his Farewell Address on this floor.

In the more than two centuries since President Washington wrote and delivered those words, I am struck by how relevant they still remain in warning Americans of the dangers of partisanship, factionalism, and division. Today the constitutional order for which President Washington and so many of our Founding Fathers and so many Americans risked and dedicated their lives, and which has sustained our experiment in democracy for generations, is now threatened not by one person or by one political party but rather by the relentless division and dysfunction that has come to define our current political discourse.

Just over 2 years ago, this discord led to an unprecedented shutdown of our whole Federal Government for 17 days. At stake today is nothing less than the capability of the Supreme Court of the United States to continue to function meaningfully. If we fail to reverse this increasingly divisive--and, I think, dangerous--trend, we won't just be facing a series of undecided legal policy issues. We will also be looking at a direct threat to our constitutional quarter--a new normal in which Supreme Court vacancies remain just that for months upon months or even years.

Sadly, the rhetorical warfare on filling the vacancy on the Court began just an hour after the world first learned of Justice Scalia's passing, when the majority leader issued a statement in which he ruled out any hearing or vote or any consideration whatsoever of a Supreme Court nominee. The back and forth between our parties has grown even more heated in the days since. Much has been made of what Senators of both parties have said and done in response to past Supreme Court vacancies, but the precedent that I think matters most is what this Chamber actually did the last time there was a Supreme Court vacancy during an election year. As many of my colleagues have pointed out, the last time that happened was in 1988, and that year Justice Kennedy was confirmed unanimously and by a Democratic-controlled Senate.

Recently, some of my colleagues have also pointed to a speech that Vice President Biden--then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee-- gave back in 1992, as evidence that there is some clear, strong precedent for the level of obstructionism that we are seeing today. But that reading of his remarks both misrepresent his remarks and obscures the real facts. It is easy to take much of what we say and do here on the floor of the Senate out of context. In fact, I am sure it has happened to each Member of this Chamber more than once, but a full reading of then-Chairman Biden's full remarks shows that at the end of his speech, Senator Biden promised to consider not just holding hearings, not just a vote but also supporting a consensus nominee. To quote directly:

I believe that so long as the public continues to split its confidence between the branches, compromise is the responsible course for both the White House and for the Senate. Therefore, I stand by my position. Mr. President, if the President--

Then-President Bush-- consults and cooperates with the Senate or moderates his selections absent consultation, then his nominees may enjoy my support as did Justices Kennedy and Souter.

So when it comes to setting Senate precedent, I think it is important to get the Vice President's words right, but I also think it is important to pay attention to his actions, which speak more loudly than his words. His record as chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee is unmistakable. In case after case, he convened and held appropriate and timely hearings for judges of all backgrounds and experiences when nominated by President Bush in an election year. Even in a deeply contentious election year, he considered dozens of district and circuit court nominees all the way up until September, just 2 months before the Presidential election.

So today I echo then-Chairman Biden's 1992 request. I urge President Obama to nominate a moderate and eminently qualified jurist by whose record should clearly, under normal circumstances, be confirmed and who can become a consensus nominee in this Chamber. You don't have to look very far to find a number of candidates who would easily fit this description.

I am not asking my Republican colleagues to commit to support such a nominee, but I am asking for us to be able to fulfill the constitutional obligations of advice and consent that we have sworn to uphold. Here is just another important piece of factual record. Since the formation of the Senate Judiciary Committee a century ago, every single Supreme Court nominee has received a vote, a hearing or both. The only exceptions were candidates whose nominations were withdrawn before they could be considered or that proceeded directly to the floor for a confirmation vote.

Even nominees whose confirmations were voted down by the Senate Judiciary Committee ultimately received a vote by the full Senate. That is the precedent that matters. The American people, I think, aren't deeply interested in what this Senator said 2 years ago or that Senator said two decades ago. This back-and-forth, he said/she said rhetoric is exactly what they have sadly come to expect from this Congress, but it is not why they sent us here.

It is not just our constituents who are watching. Around the world, believers in a democratic system of government, in a system of separation of powers in our constitutional framework, some of whom have risked life and limb to bring democracy to their countries, are watching. Those who believe democracy can't work and who advance that argument around the world are watching too.

At stake in this debate is not just a key vote on the Supreme Court but, more importantly, a key indicator of whether our American experiment can still function. Over the past two-plus centuries, our experiment in democracy has not just survived but even thrived. But in recent years, Members of Congress have been playing a risky game, employing increasingly obstructionist tactics that probe the very boundaries of our system of government. How the Senate conducts itself in the weeks and perhaps even months to come, I think, will set a strong precedent for how future Supreme Court vacancies will be filled and more importantly, about whether our constitutional order can still function. We have an opportunity to show the world that even in the midst of a strikingly divisive Presidential campaign, our democratic system can still work.

President Washington's Farewell Address of 220 years ago warned of the many threats to that full and fair experiment that is American democracy. One of the threats he highlighted most pointedly was that of partisanship and division. The issues facing our Senate today represent nothing less than a direct and serious challenge to the vibrancy of that very democratic experiment for which so many suffered, struggled, and died.

It is my prayer that we will find a way forward through this together.

Thank you.

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