 | add to del.icio.us | |
| digg this | |
 print | |
 email |
| |
Floor Statement: FISA, Columbian Free Trade Agreement & Judicial Nominations
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
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 don't believe there's anybody, certainly not myself included, who believes 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, and that's what I would like to address here briefly. First of all, let me just 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 of all, it's 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 a reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
It's been 575 days since our manufacturers and small businesses and 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 are not imposed on Colombian goods when they're sold in the United States. This Free Trade Agreement is good for my state and the United States because it creates markets for our goods and produce which creates jobs here at home. But for 575 days now we have seen no action on that important agreement.
720 days while some judicial nominations have been waiting for a vote, and I want to come back to that, 720 days since some of these nominations have been pending.
And as astonishing as it may sound, now when gasoline prices are well over $4 a gallon and the price of oil is up around $135 a barrel, it's been 786 days since Speaker Pelosi, when she was running for the United States House of Representatives and running basically for Speaker, and she promised a commonsense plan to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump. We're still waiting for that plan. We haven't seen it yet, and this, I believe, is the kind of change people across the country would love to see. They would love to see us come together 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 want to talk briefly about the third item here on my list. That is about judges. For some reason the Democrat majority has refused to follow through on a promise made to our side to set hearings and confirm judges to the Federal bench. 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. Our side, I believe, believes judges should not be a roving activist imposing or substituting their views for what is good for us but, rather, judges should have the very important role but 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 at the Federal bench. They're not representatives of the people they are representatives of the law. They serve a very important function. But when judges decide to take the law into 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.
And, of course, we have seen recent examples of this -- whether it is California where the California Supreme Court after some 200 years has decided that the Constitution enshrines the rate 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 be before the people of that state. We have seep it most recently by the United States Supreme Court in a decision where they afforded foreign terrorists precisely the same rights as an American citizen would have even though we're at war with a determined enemy that celebrates the murder of innocent civilians as they did on September 11th to pursue their own goals and to have judges, including the five Justices on the United States Supreme Court say for the first time in the history of our Republic that 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's not the right kind of change.
We need to make sure that 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.
Now, the fact of the matter is, Senator Obama, the Senator from Illinois, who's running for President of the United States, says he wants judges who would put their heart and convictions above the letter of the law. Now, that sounds pretty good at first blush, but the fact of the matter 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, including the constitution of the United States says, that's not law at all. That's sort of a -- you know, 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 that that there's been an effort really to drag feet in terms of confirming judicial nominees, presuming, I guess, 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 that we've experienced when we've had a Republican in the White House and somehow that they believe that that would not be reciprocated. Well, I would hope that we would rise above the temptation not to reciprocate the kind of treatment that this President has received if a Democratic candidate was elected President of the United States. But it's the same sort of tit for tat, the retaliatory mindset that has got us into this quagmire that 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're pretty disgusted with what they see happening here in the United States Congress. 13%, 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 don't see a Congress that's 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 impose their qualifications and experience and then having a vote on the Senate floor. That's the kind of change we need as we address these issues that are important to the American people. And I would hope that if our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are really desirous of change, that they would work with us to help change this broken, dysfunctional United States 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 items of trying to solve problems, but rather speaks more to an attitude of gamesmanship and political points scoring that frankly is beneath the honor and dignity of this institution and of our responsibilities to our constituents.
|
