but the point is, and i agree with the comments made by our friend, senator schumer, that it is the judicial record which tells us the most about how a judge will perform once elevated to the united states supreme court. at another point, the democratic leader said with regard to then-judge sotomayor, he said we have heard precious little about the body and totality of your 17-year record on the bench, which everyone knows is the best way to evaluate a nominee. again, i agree with him. in one final instance, he said addressing judge sotomayor, he said i want to turn to your record on the bench, which i believe is the best way to get a sense of what your record will be on the bench in the future. again, common sense. you heard it, the best way to get a sense of how a judge will perform in the future is how he or she has performed on the bench in the past, and that's according to our friend, senator schumer. not me, although i agree with him. as i said, democrats have 12 years' worth of cases and opinions from judge kavanaugh, and i hope they have started to look at them, but i'm not so sure t

schumer: madam president. are we in a quorum, madam president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader. we are. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, as the senate continues to mourn the loss of our friend and fellow senator, john mccain, let us dwell on how best to remember this great man. his friendship, his service, his integrity, his career in the senate. one of the ways to carry on his memory is for us to try to live up to the expectations he had for the senate, expectations he shared with us even in his waning days. to act with more humility, to ignore the critics, to put aside our differences when necessary, learn to trust each other more. in senator mccain's memory, we can try to live by those principles and make the senate a place where, despite the noisy d you in of politics -- din of politics, progress can still be made. that's a sentiment that i hope will long outlast the memorials, tributes, and observances this week. i also

schumer: thank you, mr. president. now, for several weeks our republican colleagues have been stonewalling our efforts to gain access to judge kavanaugh's full record on behalf of the senate and, more importantly, on behalf of the american people. in doing so, they've discarded a tradition of bipartisan cooperation when it comes to requesting a nominee's record. whether you've been for a nominee or not, we used to all agree that the senate should be able to review their full record. for the sake of transparency and openness for a vote, advice and consent on one of the most important jobs in the country and in the world -- a lifetime job of tremendous power, not an be a tract power, but the decisions the supreme court makes affect the daily lives of americans. so this is just incredible. for justice kagan, democrats joined with the republican minority to request all of her records. for justice sotomayor, democrats did the same. we could have come up with some fake reasons why you couldn't get the records. we didn't. we

schumer: thank you, madam president. as the senate to work on appropriations, i want to thank the chairman, senator sheldon and the ranking member, senator leahy. the work has been productive. both sides have worked to avoid poison pill riders. next up is the annual appropriations bills for labor, the department of health and human services. we've already achieved substantial increases in funding for important priorities through the appropriations process, including significant new resources for the n.i.h., significant new resources to combat the opioid epidemic, significant new investments in infrastructure, child care, social security, and the v.a. that's a big victory for the american people who have waited too long for our country to invest in them. middle-class families are worried about staying in the middle class. people trying to get to the middle class are worried that the ladder is steeper and longer. these kinds of things help them, college affordability, helping with child care, building infrastructure, makin

schumer: thank you, mr. president. now, yesterday i met with president trump's nominee for the supreme court, judge brett kavanaugh. our conversation covered many different topics, unfortunately judge kavanaugh refused to answer even the most basic questions about his jurisprudence. he refused to say if rowe was correctly decided. he refused to say if casey was correctly decided. he could not name a restriction on a woman's right to choose that he would consider an undue burden. even when i asked him would a ban on abortion after four to six weeks would be an undue burden, he said he couldn't answer that. he could not tell me if he believed the affordable care act was constitutional, nor would he answer or recall his level of involvement in a number of controversies during his time in the bush white house, a portion of his record the senate has been denied access to by the republican majority. now, i understand the imperative all judges face not to bias themselves by commenting on cases that could come before their cou

schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. schumer: on saturday, auguso the day since the death of his friend senator kennedy, our friend and colleague, senator john s. mccain passed away. knowing his prognosis prepared us for the inevitable but it has not softened the blow. we feel a great and inexpressible loss. i know i do. but i also feel lucky that i was able to call this great man a friend. today i'd like to share a few reflections, unorganized and incomplete although they may be, i suspect i will have more to say about senator mccain with the benefit of a few days' time. senator mccain and i didn't get along very well at first. he was close to my mentor in the senate, ted kennedy, but not so with me. i never served with senator mccain on any committee. we get to know other senators up close. before our friendship, my closest brush with him was over a comment he made during a debate on defense policy when he said that long island was, quote, regrettably part of the united states. i blasted john's pejorative, which of cou

we worked with senators crapo and schumer and graham and corker and cardin to pass tough new sanctions on russia, iran and north korea. he's always been clear that we don't only honor the rule of law or refrain from torture when it's easy or convenient. he authored his 2015 amendment to prohibit the use of torture as an interrogation method. he's been forceful in defending our allies against russian aggression in crimea and georgia and montenegro and after the helsinki summit, senator mccain one of the few republicans in this body that is willing to call the president out when he does something especially on foreign soil to attack the united states of america, he spoke out forcefully against the president cozying up to putin and his attacks on journalists. he said, the president of the united states -- do not he said the president made a conscious choice to defend the putin to spew propaganda and lies to the world. all that makes -- all that makes us who are we a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad. those words stood out because so few republica

in 2013, senator mccain was part of the gang of eight, along with senator schumer, the bipartisan group of senators who wrote a 2013 measure to overhaul the country's immigration system and border security. i supported that bill which passed in the senate but sadly was never taken up in the house, although we all know there was enough support in the house to pass that legislation. senator mccain believed in working together to get things done. he listened, fought passionately for what he believed in, but wanted to make sure we got things done, in the best tradition of the united states senate as the greatest deliberative body in the world. senator mccain lived by that tradition. in his memoir, senator mccain said that his failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform was, quote, a harder disappointment than other defeats. we failed twice and then once more after ted had passed away, despite big majorities in both houses of congress in favor of it. i'd like to say i will try again, but that's not up to me anymore. that's a harder disappointment than other defeats have been because, f

i thank senator mcconnell and senator schumer. we worked together. it's kind of nice when something works out. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order -- under the previous order, the murkowski amendment, number 3400 is withdrawn. the clerk will read the bill for the third time. the clerk: h.r. 6147, an act making appropriations for the department of interior, environment, for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2019, and for other purposes. the presiding officer: there are now two minutes equally divided prior to a vote on passage of h.r. 6147, as amended. mr. shelby: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. shelby: i ask unanimous consent that my written statement be made a part of the record before we vote. and i just want to say again what we've been doing here, working together in a bipartisan way, is something senator schumer and senator mcconnell were talking about hadn't been done basically in 30 years. and we're on the right track of the we want to stay there, and i said many times, bo

schumer: yes. i just asked if under the rules, all committee senate records are the property of the senate as a whole and that all senators shall have access to those records, shall have access. and the presiding officer said yes, those are in part the rules. of course, that's not all the rules. is there anything that the presiding officer knows in the rules that would undercut that ruling? in the senate rules? the presiding officer: rule 10-a reads as follows. all committee records, data and charts shall be kept separate and distinct from the congressional records of the members serving as chairman of the committee and such records shall be the property of the senate and all members of the committee and the senate shall have access to such records. each committee is authorized to have printed and bound such testimony and other data presented at hearings held by the committee. mr. schumer: then it's clear there's nothing that undercuts. i appreciate the chair reading the entire rule. nothing in the

president, without the partnership of vice chairman leahy and the leaders mcconnell and schumer with us. i want to thank both of them once again. mr. president, our work continues, starting now. we have a great opportunity to extend the success we have generated thus far. it has been more than a decade since the senate passed a labor h.h.s. appropriations bill, period. and it's been a dozen years since the president was able to sign a defense appropriation bill into law before object 1. -- october 1. these two records i believe, mr. president, must be broken. we must not only provide the resources necessary to rebuild our military, we must do so before the end of the fiscal year. there's no time to waste when it comes to our national security. with the confirmed cooperation of my colleagues, i'm confident that we will continue to do our work done in a deliberate and a timely manner, and i want to thank all senators for working together to produce regular order in the appropriation process. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will ca

schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now, madam president, by any account, this has been a momentous week in the history of the trump presidency and in the history of presidents in general. president trump's former campaign manager was convicted on eight counts and still has another trial yet to go. the president's former personal attorney, his lifelong compadre for so long, pled guilty to multiple violations of bank fraud and campaign finance violations, implicating the president of the united states himself in one of those crimes. let me just repeat that. president trump was named as an unindieted coconspirator in a federal crime. and what did we hear from our republican friends on the hill? was this the moment when republican leaders finally stood up and said, enough? amazingly, parentally not. apparently my republican colleagues cannot rouse themselves to offer even a word of criticism for a president now implicated in a federal crime. a president who casually to

schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: democratic leader. mr. schumer: today, president trump's nominee for the supreme court will be making the rounds in the senate. i'll be making with him this afternoon. several members of the judiciary committee will be meeting with him over the course of today and the rest of the week, as well some other members. i hope that he comes prepared to answer direct questions about his writings, speeches, opinions, and judicial philosophy. the nominee has weighed in on a number of legal issues publicly and in his role as a circuit judge. there's little reason why he should be unable to answer direct questions about his judicial philosophy, his record, and already -- in already decided cases. i also hope he's willing to shed some light in the areas in his record that remain opaque. the senate and the public have only been able to see a finey fraction of the nominee's extensive written record because, unfortunately, the republican majority continues to block access to the great bulk of these document. i'd ask judge

we made a commitment along with leader mcconnell and leader schumer to only move forward on the one hand appropriations bills that have bipartisan support or spending levels agreed to. the bipartisan budget deal wejected poison pill riders, we did it. we set a arerd to get through. everybody cooperated. to cooperate here, as i see some people checking their flight schedule, i'd ask consent to put my full statement in the record, which especially praises the staff that, woulded with and a half -- that worked with senator shelby and myself because there is a realization that our senators have the constitutional impediments to the staff. they work very long hours. i'll yield back tie time. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blunt: let new england just mention quickly -- let me just mention quickly the labor-h.h.s. staff. it's been 11 years since this bill has been on the floor. consequently, none of these staffers has probably ever been mentioned on the floor before even though every single year they've made this continued great effort. senator shelby, s

senate minority leader chuck schumer said democrats stand ready to sue the national archives where documents regarding supreme court nominee judge brett kavanaugh's work in the white house during the george w. bush administration. he and senators richard blumenthal and sheldon whitehoupo

senator schumer and blumenthal and i have introduced a resolution that just -- that does just that. it affirms that the press is not the enemy of the people and it reaffirms the vital and indispensable role of the free press serving to inform the electorate, uncover the truth, act as a check on the inherent power of the government, further discourse and debate and advance our most basic and cherished democratic norms and freedoms. this resolution also condemns attacks on the institution of the free press and views efforts to systematically undermine the credibility of the press as a whole as an attack on our democratic institutions. and so, mr. president, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 607 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 60 7, reaif i recalling the vital and ins expensable role the free express serves. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. shatt-al-arab i further ask that the resolution -- mr. schatz: i f

well senator schumer the same logic applies to judge kavanaugh 's long judicial track record of 12 years. despite this record being more than sufficient to assess how judge kavanaugh's approaches -- kavanaugh approaches legal issue, i requested hundreds of thousands of additional pages from his time as a government lawyer in the interest of full transparency. but even the most transparent confirmation process in history is not enough for those who decided to oppose judge kavanaugh before they even saw his record. the document request for justice kagan's confirmation provides strong support for how the judiciary committee is proceeding now. then the senate requested justice kagan's white house records but not internal documents from the solicitor general's office. we refrained out of respect for the sensitivity of internal deliberations in the solicitor general's office. we did not even -- we did so even though these documents would have been extremely helpful to our assessment of justice kagan's views on the law, given that she lacked any judicial experience or record. and justice kagan