Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013--Motion to Proceed-- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I wish to begin by thanking a number of my colleagues for their leadership, including Senators Merkley and Harkin and others in this body who have championed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, known as ENDA, over many years with great passion and constancy. Now we are literally on the verge of approving this historic measure in this body and hopefully in the House of Representatives.

I have heard from numerous organizations that represent America's workforce, such as the Service Employees International Union and the United Auto Workers Union, that--and I am quoting the UAW--``this legislation represents a step in the right direction toward providing equal opportunity for all Americans.'' That message is also carried on by America's faith leaders, our business community, generally, and many others who have fought over the years for civil rights and civil liberties. It is one of the paramount civil rights issues of our time and I am proud to be fighting for it.

I wish to mention some of the American businesses that have stepped forward to endorse this legislation: Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals of Ridgefield, CT; Diageo North America of Norwalk, CT; UBS AG of Stamford, CT; and Xerox Corporation, also of Stamford, CT. There are many others around Connecticut, big and small.

The reason the business community is steadfastly and strongly behind this bill is that it is good for America's working men and women and it is good for the business community. It has attracted bipartisan support in this body and around the Nation. America is moving toward this kind of guarantee against discrimination.

This bill is many years in the making. The last time the Senate voted on this issue in 1995 the bill couldn't even attain 50 votes. Our Nation has made tremendous progress since then, of course--not only on this bill but on a range of LGBT civil rights issues. This bill is important because it is inclusive. ``Inclusive'' is the word that ought to characterize our society.

In the 18 years since the Senate last voted on ENDA, 14 States, which together are home to almost one-third of the Nation's population, have come to recognize same-sex marriage. This is, of course, an increase from zero in 1995.

Over the past two decades, we have seen a string of landmark Supreme Court cases, from Romer v. Evans to Lawrence v. Texas, to this year's hugely important and inspirational ruling in Windsor v. United States. But this issue is about more than just legal reasoning and rulings. It is about real people. It is about members--millions of them--of the LGBT community who are now just beginning to enjoy full freedom and equality that is guaranteed to them by our Constitution as citizens. It is about their moms and dads, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, members of their families from all over, as well as their coworkers in the places where discrimination will be banned and who are supporting this legislation. They deserve nothing less than full equality, which is what this bill would give to them. They should not be victims of discrimination because of whom they love. That is the simple idea behind this historical potential law.

Still, we have a lot more work to do on this bill. The House certainly will not be an easy battle. We need to make sure, very simply, that the House is given an opportunity to vote. Because if it is given that opportunity--if the House votes--it will approve this bill, just as it did the Violence Against Women Act, after the Speaker initially denied that opportunity. The last time this bill came to a vote in the House was in 2007, when 35 Republicans joined Democrats to pass the bill, but it did not pass the Senate.

I understand Speaker Boehner may have reservations. He has expressed them already. I understand the politics for other Members may be difficult. But this vote is about the future of our Nation, about what kind of America we are going to be. It transcends in importance a lot of the measures we undertake. It is about real people's lives in the workplace, in their homes, and what kind of life they have, what kind of opportunities they have to fulfill all of their potential as human beings. That is why America is so special. It guarantees people an equal opportunity.

In 29 States, LGBT Americans live without any protections against discrimination in private sector employment. They have those protections in 21 States across the country. Between 15 percent and 43 percent of all LGBT Americans have experienced discrimination or harassment in their workplaces because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and that number rises to a staggering 90 percent for transgendered Americans in particular, with more than one-quarter--25 percent--reporting they have been fired. These kinds of troubling statistics have no place in the America of the 21st century.

We have an opportunity in this same bill to ban discrimination against our veterans. I would suggest--and I will propose it in an amendment--that similar protections be afforded to them. Hiring a veteran is a good investment for any business. Veterans have unique qualities, including dedication and discipline, which make them qualified for many civilian jobs. Unfortunately, too many veterans are unable to find work today, most especially our younger veterans who experience higher unemployment rates than their contemporaries who have not made the sacrifice and have not given the service they have in uniform. For them to be unemployed at higher rates is a disgrace. It is an outrage that the greatest Nation in the history of the world whose citizens volunteer to serve and sacrifice, preserving our freedom, have higher unemployment rates when they come home than others.

The evidence is--and I have heard it and seen it from veterans as well as others--that they are sometimes victims of discrimination. That ought to be outlawed. That is what I believe this law can do, in addition to seeking equality and opportunity for all Americans and banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

I wish to express my gratitude to AMVETS, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the National Guard Association of the United States, which have supported this initiative prohibiting discrimination against veterans. When I introduced S. 1281, the Veterans and Servicemembers Employment Rights and Housing Act of 2013, they supported it, and I am grateful to them. I think this kind of amendment would be a welcome companion to ENDA, the landmark legislation the Senate is moving forward toward passing.

MANUFACTURING REINVESTMENT ACCOUNT ACT

When it comes to the workplace--on a separate, unrelated piece of legislation--I wish to thank Senator Coons for his leadership in the manufacturing initiative area he has spearheaded and speak on a particular measure that will help manufacturers grow and invest, the Manufacturing Reinvestment Account Act. This legislation was cosponsored by my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Murphy, as well as sponsored in the House by another Connecticut colleague, Rosa DeLauro, to create a new type of an account that manufacturers can use to help save and eventually make investments in their businesses.

I am proud the Manufacturing Reinvestment Account Act is part of the Senate's manufacturing American jobs agenda led by Senator Coons. Under this initiative, several of my colleagues have come together to make sure we move away from manufacturing crises and toward manufacturing jobs. That is what we should be doing, helping to create jobs, not create crises, especially when they result in self-inflicted wounds.

This bill will allow manufacturers to put up to $500,000 a year in these special manufacturing reinvestment accounts, much like people put away money in IRAs. It would give them 7 years to use the money they deposit for qualified manufacturing expenses. Essentially, these manufacturers can use these funds for investments in physical capital such as equipment and new facilities or human capital such as job training and workforce development. They then would be able to withdraw the funds from their accounts at a low 15-percent tax rate.

This bill is a Connecticut original. I am very proud I sponsored it last session and I am proud to do so again now. I wish to thank in particular Jamie Scott of Air Handling Systems in Woodbridge, CT, for the key role he played in developing this idea. He came to me with the basic concept and we developed it into a bill which is so eminently qualified for support. It makes such clear common sense, and it shows what happens when industry leaders and their elected representatives work together to devise innovative ideas to grow the economy. We not only produce in Connecticut and make the best manufactured products in the world, but we also make ideas, which is why this Yankee ingenuity has produced a bill that favors reinvestment accounts to enable investment at low tax rates and spur and incentivize job creation.

With the support of Mr. Scott and Congresswoman DeLauro, it has been reintroduced on the House side. I have been happy to introduce this legislation in the Senate. I hope it will provide real encouragement for manufacturers to grow and invest and expand job training, taking this money from profits and putting it away so it can be saved without taxation, and then using it at lower rates of taxation is a basic principle that makes eminent good sense. I think it comes at an important time as we all grapple--economists, experts, businesspeople--with how to recognize and spur a manufacturing renaissance throughout the United States. What is needed is dollars and capital and the commitment to make sure we create jobs and use people for those jobs who are not only willing but eager to work.

I also thank our community colleges, such as Asnuntuck and others around the State, that have done so much to provide job training in the skills that are needed, matching skills to jobs that exist and jobs that will be created. Asnuntuck Community College's manufacturing technology program is just one example among all of our community colleges which have trained more than 1,000 students who have transitioned successfully to private sector jobs that make use of the cutting-edge skills they learned on machinery, often donated by businesses, so Asnuntuck can teach those students so they can be matched to those businesses' needs. I have seen those students in action during my visits to Delta Industries in East Granby and ATI Stowe Machining in Windsor. Both of these companies have hired many students from Asnuntuck and are looking to hire more as they grow and expand in Connecticut.

So these programs serve a profoundly important public good for our whole country that should bring us together on a bipartisan basis. We want to work together, not divide ourselves over false crises and unnecessary partisan division. I am confident, if we pass this legislation, our manufacturers will use this innovative tool and the manufacturing reinvestment account will help us to double down on growing America.

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

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, in 2005--May of that year--the Senate faced a crisis that seems very familiar and very much like the one we face today in this body. Very simply, the Senate was unable to approve judges, which threatened to incapacitate a coequal branch of our government, the U.S. judiciary, and it confronted the threat of what came to be called the nuclear option, a change in the rules that would have wrecked the collegiality and civility that have characterized this body.

Members of both parties recognized that the situation was untenable, and they recognized as well that the American court system was too important for the Senate to simply stop approving judges and suspend that very important constitutional responsibility on behalf of this body.

At the time, 14 Senators came together to find a solution. They came to be known as the Gang of 14--7 Republicans and 7 Democrats. I want to read their names for the record because I think their conduct characterized what is really perhaps best about this institution. They were Senators Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, John McCain of Arizona, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Olympia Snowe of Maine, and John Warner of Virginia.

What they devised was a quite simple solution. They were grappling with the same question that confronts us now: What can justify a Member of the U.S. Senate voting to block consideration--in other words, to filibuster a nominee to the judicial branch? Their idea, simple as it was, had tremendous power. They agreed they would oppose a judicial nominee only in ``extraordinary circumstances.'' That was the gist of the agreement. There were other features to it, but their spirit and intent in this short phrase had profoundly meaningful impact. In fact, for the remainder of the Bush Presidency, there were no more filibusters on judicial nominees, and those Senators, with that short phrase, accomplished a historic impact.

What did they mean by it? One of them said at the time:

Ideological attacks are not an ``extraordinary circumstance.'' It would have to be a character problem, an ethics problem, some allegations about the qualifications of a person, not an ideological bent.

An ethics problem, a character problem, some allegations about the qualifications of a person.

Today, I ask for a renewed and revived commitment to the spirit of that agreement, a reinvigorated effort to apply that standard, and offer to work with my colleagues to revive that spirit of opposing a nominee and blocking that individual only in an extraordinary circumstance.

I come to the floor today because we have heard objections to a number of nominees on the basis of claims that clearly cannot constitute an extraordinary circumstance. Opposed through that 60-vote threshold filibuster just last week were a couple of nominees who clearly have the qualifications to serve on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

I rise in support today of another: Cornelia Pillard. Whatever has been said about this process, we have heard no extraordinary circumstance to oppose any of these nominees and certainly not Ms. Pillard. Senators can always disagree about exactly what our courts should do and how we should divide and allocate resources, and the claim has been made here that the reason to oppose those nominees is that there is insufficient workload to justify them. The fact is this Congress has approved the positions that are vacant and they have been nominated to fill.

I know a lot of my colleagues have opinions on how to structure the courts and what the workloads should be, but I would assume these differences of opinion do not amount to extraordinary circumstances. They happen all the time. We debate what the workloads of the courts should be, and certainly the job of this Senate and of every Senator is to advise and consent on judicial nominations. If we refuse to consider the qualifications of a nominee and if we make the judgment based on irrelevant considerations, we are failing to advise and consent. We can debate about the structure and workload and number of cases before a court, but they are not extraordinary circumstances.

The fact is that the workload of this court well justifies these nominations. In fact, it has grown in number since nominees were last approved. The waiting time for decisions on cases makes it eighth out of 12 circuit courts. The cases themselves cannot be judged only by the numbers, by the sheer volume of the caseload; the Senate, in my view, has to look also to the complexity and difficulty of the cases.

I have argued before this circuit court and I participated in cases such as the Microsoft appeal, which took months--in fact, years--to resolve from start to finish and involved precedent-setting issues and decisions by the circuit court and literally hours of argument. So the argument about workload and about the need to fill or leave vacant, as the opponents say, those vacancies is incorrect and wrong.

Agreeing with me are the Judicial Conference and a majority of their colleagues, who also say the vacancies should be filled, as do judges from across the political spectrum and appointees of a lot of different Presidents.

But the point is that disagreement or even the claim that the workload does not justify it is not an extraordinary circumstance, and that ought to be the standard, consistent with the Gang of 14's agreement.

I happen to believe Cornelia Pillard is almost the ideal nominee. If you were to design someone to sit on the court--if you had that ability--on the basis of record and talent and temperament, I do not think you could do much better.

The DC court is said to be the second highest court in the country. I think they are all the second highest court. I do not think any one of them is better than the others.

But what we want is an individual in each of these judgeships who is worthy of the immense responsibility because for most litigants the circuit court is the last stop on the litigation course.

Nina Pillard brings to this nomination not only brilliance in an academic sense but a variety of experiences and a record of thoughtful engagement with diverse views and a dedication to excellence and to public service. She has spent time in the classroom as well as the courtroom, and she is a civil rights hero as well as a public servant and an expert on the judicial system. In other words, if you had to design someone with a record and experience that is ideal for this court or any of the other circuit courts, you would pick Nina Pillard.

Now, I am going to come back to the floor. I am going to speak about her, I am going to speak about this court, I am going to speak about the Gang of 14, and I am going to speak about what should justify blocking a nominee of the President of the United States to serve in the courts. But for now let me just say about her that I hope my colleagues will see her qualifications, listen to her story, and listen to the better angels of their nature.

The present situation cannot stand. If we continue on the present course, we will arrive at the same juncture that existed in May of 2005 when the Gang of 14 helped to save the Senate from a crisis. It would have been a crisis for the collegiality and civility of this institution. It would have also been a crisis for the country. I hope we can again avoid it if we permit this process to move forward and recognize there is no extraordinary circumstance for any of these nominees that should block their approval by the Senate.

I yield the floor.

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