Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007

Floor Speech

CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - November 01, 2007)

Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Chair.

Madam President, I was looking at the most recent public opinion polls on the Congress, and let me report what they say. It says just 16 percent of likely voters think Congress is doing an ``excellent'' job or a ``good'' job, while 36 percent are willing to call the legislature's performance ``fair.'' A plurality of 47 percent say Congress is doing a ``poor'' job.

Now, I do not know about you, but if my kids brought home a report card that said only 16 percent of their work was either ``excellent'' or ``good,'' 36 percent ``fair,'' and 47 percent ``poor,'' I think there would be a little trouble at home until we got their priorities straightened out.

This Congress, this Senate, has lost a sense of its priorities. Our priorities should be working together across the aisle to try to solve our Nation's challenges. That is the reason I came to the Senate. I honestly believe regardless of whether we call ourselves Republicans or Democrats or Independents, that is what motivated virtually every Member of Congress to come here: to try to do something for our constituents, for our States, for our Nation, and for our future.

But, unfortunately--I do not know whether it is the water we drink in Washington, DC, or somehow just the environment we encounter here--once people come to Washington they seem to get locked into these partisan battles and lose sight of that objective, which is to do something good for the American people, to help them solve some of their problems, to deliver results. I know many of our colleagues--whether they are Republicans or Democrats--are frustrated by our inability to do that.

As the Presiding Officer knows, we have weekly meetings, bipartisan meetings, trying to figure out--it is almost like group therapy sessions: How can we get out of the rut we are in? How can we solve some of the problems that confront us? But here we are again. My colleague, the senior Senator from Texas, talked about her concerns that the SCHIP debate--the State Children's Health Insurance Program debate--had become not a problem to be solved but, rather, a political football.

I am afraid I have to agree with her that we have been through this debate over the last few weeks, and nothing--not even the rhetoric--has changed. It seems as if all we have had is people dusting off their old speeches they delivered a few days or a few weeks ago, and not listening to one another, not actually rolling up their sleeves and getting to work to try to resolve the differences.

The truth is, as we have said over and over again, what is wrong with this bill is we simply do not seem to have a consensus that we ought to enact a solution. The fact is, we know there is bipartisan agreement the State Children's Health Insurance Program--designed to help low-income kids whose families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy private health insurance--that they need a little help in order to get access to good quality health care. There is broad bipartisan, perhaps unanimous, agreement we ought to get that done.

But, unfortunately, what we have seen is a program proposed that little resembles the original program, which was designed to help low-income kids. We see a bill that has grown by 140 percent, a $35 billion tax increase in order to cover who? Low-income kids? Well, no. In 14 States we know it is used to cover adults. We know proposals had initially been made that would have allowed waivers to be used to cover families making up to $80,000 and more--bearing little resemblance to its original goal.

Now we see a new bill that is before the Senate that represents the old bill except--if this is possible--it is even worse. It is amazing to me the authors of this new bill would come back with this so-called compromise, spending $500 million more than the last bill, yet covering 400,000 fewer children. You heard me correctly--spending almost a half billion dollars more and covering 400,000 less children. And, still, despite my pleas and the pleas of many of our colleagues to the contrary, this bill does not put the health and welfare of the lowest income children first.

I have said it time and time again, but let me say it one more time: Right now, in my home State of Texas, there are roughly 700,000 uninsured low-income children who qualify for Medicaid, who qualify for the SCHIP program, but we have not made the effort to reach out to them to get them to sign up for a benefit for which they are already legally qualified and for which there are funds already available to pay for their health care.

These 700,000 children in Texas who qualify for SCHIP or the Medicaid Program do not know about the programs or do not know how to apply. I have to tell you, I was recently in Houston, TX, at a place called the Ripley House, which is a neighborhood program run by the Texas Children's Hospital, where I saw a copy of the application form for Medicaid and SCHIP. It reminded me of a financial statement that a business man or woman would have to fill out in order to apply for a line of credit or even maybe a financial application you would have to fill out to buy a home. It was enormously complicated and, I am sure, intimidating to many low-income parents who would like to sign up their children.

But we have to refocus our efforts not on growing the size of the program beyond recognition to cover the middle class and to cover adults; we need to return our focus to low-income kids and figure out how we can get those families who are the intended beneficiaries of this program signed up on the program so we can get more kids out of the emergency rooms and on to some form of health insurance which will allow them to get preventive care and to keep them healthy and productive as young Americans.

But here we go again. Here we go again. We are going to have another meaningless vote in the sense that while it no doubt will pass, the President said he is going to veto it, and we will be right back in the soup again. The second veto, roughly the same bill, except for the fact that this bill spends more money, covers fewer kids, and we are not solving the problems the American people sent us here to solve.

I think it is regrettable. It is not why I came here, and I doubt it is the reason why the vast majority of our colleagues come here. But here we are stuck in a rut again, playing the same sort of political games, more concerned about scoring points on some imaginary scoreboard, according to arbitrary rules that nobody knows, other than it seems like these poor, low-income kids are the ones who are losing in the end.

MUKASEY NOMINATION

I also come to the floor to talk about another disappointment I have with regard to the confirmation proceedings of the new nominee for Attorney General of the United States, Judge Michael Mukasey. I serve as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I am grateful to Chairman Leahy that on Tuesday we will finally have this nomination on the Judiciary Committee markup so we can vote up or down in the Judiciary Committee on this nominee. But it seems that Judge Mukasey--just when we thought, here is somebody who is a respected Federal district judge and who has served with great distinction in that capacity, who has been the presiding judge of both the Jose Padilla case--do my colleagues remember that? He was an individual accused of terrorism and where there were many extensive legal challenges to his detention. Judge Mukasey handled that case, at least in part. He also tried and presided over the 10 individuals who were convicted for their involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, one of the first incidents of terrorism on our soil back in 1993, before we realized al-Qaida had declared war against the United States and we finally woke up on September 11 and acknowledged that.

But throughout his career as a judge, Judge Mukasey has proven to be an independent voice of reason, justice, and a strong advocate for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. For 18 years, he served on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, one of this country's most important and prestigious Federal courts. For 6 of those years, he served also as the chief judge.

The U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, wrote of Judge Mukasey's work presiding over the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, saying that he:

Presided with extraordinary skill and patience, assuring fairness to the prosecution and to each defendant and helpfulness to the jury. His was an outstanding achievement in the face of challenges far beyond those normally endured by a trial judge.

In short, Judge Mukasey's qualifications as a lawyer, as a judge, as a dedicated advocate for the rule of law are unimpeachable and undeniable.

Well, it looked like things were going pretty well. There were 2 days of hearings for Judge Mukasey in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Judge Mukasey was doing well when he said: You know what. I am not afraid to tell the President of the United States when he steps over the line and violates the law. If that were to happen, he said, it is my job as Attorney General to tell him: Here are the parameters for your actions, Mr. President, and you, just like the lowest of the low, the highest of the high, are subject to the law of the United States under the Constitution. Believing as he does in the concept of equal justice under the law, Judge Mukasey showed no fear and no favor in terms of the way he would interpret and apply the law were he confirmed as Attorney General.

But now we see some of my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee have sent Judge Mukasey a letter asking him about his legal conclusion and opinion about an interrogation technique that is allegedly used against some of the worst enemies of the United States--terrorists--in order to get information from them--consistent with our laws and the Constitution and our treaty obligations--that will allow us to save American lives and prevent future terrorist attacks. They complain about Judge Mukasey's answer, not because he doesn't acknowledge what the law is--our international treaties banning torture, our domestic laws that ban torture--but because, he says: I have not been briefed on this particular interrogation technique that you are asking me about, and because it is a classified procedure, I don't know the facts. So let me tell you what the law is. Let me reassure you I will steadfastly enforce the law. I don't care whether it is the President of the United States I have to tell no or anybody else. But you know what. Being a responsible lawyer, being a responsible former Federal district judge, let me say that while I can tell you what the law is, I can't give you a conclusion that you are asking for as to whether this particular technique is legal or not because I haven't been briefed on it. I don't know what the facts are.

Now, that is a responsible answer. As a matter of fact, that is the only responsible answer for a careful lawyer, a judge such as Judge Mukasey. Frankly, if he had answered the question without knowing what the facts were in some conclusive way, I would doubt his qualifications and his temperament. I would wonder: Maybe this person wants to be Attorney General too badly, that he is willing to make rash decisions without knowing what the facts are in order to get confirmed. But instead, Judge Mukasey said: You know, I need to know what the facts are. I can't answer your question conclusively, even though I reassure you I will steadfastly enforce the law. I oppose torture as abhorrent to our values, personally repugnant to me. I would tell the President of the United States, if I concluded that some particular interrogation technique stepped across that legal threshold.

Once again, we find the facts apparently don't matter, that this responsible answer which Judge Mukasey has given has been offered as a pretext to oppose his nomination. I think it is a shame.

As the New York Times today reported, if Judge Mukasey, who I am confident will ultimately be confirmed as the next Attorney General of the United States, were to say--Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, if, as the New York Times reported today, Judge Mukasey were to state a conclusive opinion on the legality of certain interrogation techniques which he has not been briefed upon, it would potentially prejudice and put in jeopardy intelligence officials who may have engaged in interrogation techniques that now, without knowing the facts, this nominee would conclude had stepped across a legal threshold. That would not be the responsible thing to do. Indeed, Judge Mukasey has done the only responsible thing a careful person and a person who understands the ramifications of his decision may extend far beyond a confirmation hearing and potentially put in jeopardy America's patriots who are trying to protect and save the lives of other Americans and other people around the world.

So I hope we would try to do better. I hope we would do what we all came here to do as Senators representing our

States and try to solve real problems, not to create artificial barriers and pretexts for making what turn out to be naked political judgments about some of these important issues that confront us.

I thank the Chair for her indulgence, I thank my colleagues for their patience, and I hope we get on with the business of passing a children's health insurance bill and have a speedy confirmation for Judge Mukasey as the next Attorney General of the United States.

I yield the floor.

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