Checklist for Change

Floor Speech

CHECKLIST FOR CHANGE -- (Senate - June 18, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I too want to talk about change, as have our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, in presenting their checklist for change. I do not think there is anybody--certainly not myself included--who believes that what is happening here in Washington, DC, inside these hallowed chambers is something we want to continue in terms of the status quo. We do need change. But as others have said before me, we need the right kind of change. That is what I wish to address here briefly.

First, let me remind my colleagues and those who may be watching about where we are in terms of being stuck on important issues that are important to the people of this country; where Congress, under the current leadership, has simply squandered the opportunities we have, on a bipartisan basis, to work together to try to address these pressing issues.

First, it has now been 124 days since the terrorist surveillance system, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, has basically been unable to track and listen in on foreign terrorists because Congress has failed to pass reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

It has been 575 days since our manufacturers and small businesses and our farmers have been disadvantaged by the failure to take up and pass a free trade agreement with Colombia.

My State of Texas sells about $2.3 billion worth of goods and produce to Colombia each year, but because Congress refuses to act on this free-trade agreement, my farmers and manufacturers and small businesses have to pay a tariff. That is an added penalty, basically, on their products in Colombia that is not imposed on Colombian goods when they are sold here in the United States.

This free-trade agreement is good for my State and for the United States because it creates markets for our goods and our produce, which creates jobs here at home. But for 575 days now, we have seen no action on that important agreement.

There have been 720 days that some judicial nominations have been waiting for a vote. I want to come back to that--720 days since some of these nominations have been pending. As astonishing as it may sound, now when gasoline prices are well over $4 a gallon, when the price of oil is up around $135 a barrel, it has been 786 days since Speaker Pelosi--when she was running for the House of Representatives and running basically for Speaker, she promised a commonsense plan to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump. We are still waiting for that plan. We have not seen it yet. I believe this is the kind of change people across this country would love to see. They would love to see us come together to try to solve these problems. But instead of that, they see us stuck in a rut, engaging in political posturing rather than solving the problems that confront our Nation.

I wish to talk briefly about the third item on my list, and that is about judges.

For some reason, the Democratic majority has refused to follow through on
a promise made to our side to set hearings and confirm judges to the Federal bench. The fact is, there does appear to be a distinct difference in the philosophy of the people nominated to serve on the Federal bench between the two political parties. I believe our side believes judges should not be roving activists imposing or substituting their views for what is good for us but, rather, judges should have the very important role, the unique role of interpreting what the law is and enforcing and applying the law as written.

Judges, of course, are not elected, by and large, certainly not to the Federal bench. They are not representatives of the people, they are representatives of the law, and they serve a very important function. But when judges decide to take the law onto themselves and impose their own will rather than to enforce the will of the elected representatives of the people, they become lawless as a result.

Of course, we have seen recent examples of this, whether it be in California, where the California Supreme Court after some 200 years has decided now that the Constitution enshrines a right to same sex marriage, against the overwhelming views of the people of that State--I guess they will have another chance to vote on that in a proposition that will come before the people of that State.

We have seen it most recently by the U.S. Supreme Court in a decision where they afforded foreign terrorists precisely the same rights as an American citizen would have even though we are at war with a determined enemy that celebrates the murder of innocent civilians, as they did on September 11, to pursue their own goals. And to have judges, including the five Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, say that for the first time in the history of our Republic, foreign terrorists have the same constitutional rights to the writ of habeas corpus in civilian courts is not only a dramatic change in the law--and it does represent change, but it is not the right kind of change.

We need to make sure social policies are made by the elected representatives of the people where we can debate these policies right here in front of the people on TV and in front of those folks who come to the gallery, but then once we make those decisions, once we have those votes, that they are honored and respected by the unelected judges.

The fact is, Senator Obama, the Senator from Illinois who is running for President of the United States, says he want judges who would put their heart and convictions above the letter of the law. That sounds pretty good at first blush, but the fact is, if each judge is going to decide what their heart tells them or what their personal convictions tell them as opposed to what the law is, including what the Constitution of the United States says, that is not law at all. That is sort of an impressionistic way of deciding how to impose your views, because you happen to be a Federal judge, on the people of this great country.

We know there has been an effort to drag feet in terms of confirming judicial nominees, presuming, I guess, that the election will provide another opportunity for our Democratic colleagues to then see a Democratic President nominate judges to the Federal bench, at which time they would expect us to forget the foot-dragging and obstruction we have experienced when we have had a Republican in the White House, and somehow they believe that would not be reciprocated. I hope we will rise above the temptation to reciprocate the kind of treatment this President has received if a Democratic candidate was elected President of the United States. But it is the same sort of tit-for-tat retaliatory mindset that has gotten us into this quagmire we need to get out of, and my hope would be that our friends on the other side of the aisle would rethink this issue and sort of get out of this rut.

My constituents back in the State of Texas tell me they are pretty disgusted with what they see happening in the Congress. Thirteen percent, according to the latest Rasmussen poll I saw, said they gave Congress an ``excellent'' or ``good'' rating. The vast majority of the American people look to Washington and they do not see a Congress that is being responsive to their needs and their wishes. They don't see us trying to solve problems. They don't see us having hearings on judicial nominees, asking those nominees questions about the qualifications and experience and then having a vote on the Senate floor. That is the kind of change we need as we address these issues that are important to the American people. I would hope that if our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are really desirous of change, they would work with us to help change this broken, dysfunctional Senate.

When the majority leader calls up a bill and he denies an opportunity for the minority to offer amendments or to have full and fair debate, as he did last week on the climate change bill, what he called one of the most important issues facing the planet today, it does not speak of a seriousness of attitude in terms of trying to solve problems but, rather, speaks more to an attitude of gamesmanship and political point scoring that, frankly, is beneath the honor and dignity of this institution and of our responsibilities to our constituents.

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