the nomination, along with procedural votes on four other judicial nominees. now, live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. black, will open the senate with prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. almighty god, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, we put our trust in you. today abide with our lawmakers. teach them to speak the right words at the right time. make their speech like precious gold set in silver. may they seek to persuade with patient and gentle words. lord, give them the wisdom to be friends of that which is eternal and abiding. fill them with reverence for the transcendent, as you induce them to ascribe all good things to you. we pray in your gracious name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. mr. grassley: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i'd like to speak for one minute as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: yesterday our colleague, senator marathon it that mcsally -- martha mcsally from arizona, announced her support for the bipartisan prescription drug pricing reduction act. i like to refer to that as the grassley-wyden prescription drug bill, reducing prices. senator mcsally and i worked together on several parts of the bill. her arizonans should know that senator mcsally's leadership is making all the difference in moving this bill forward. i thank her for cosponsorship. president trump, vice president pence and nearly a dozen senate republicans have so far endorsed this bill. several other senator republicans will soon announce their support as well. i expect to introduce an updated version in the coming weeks. i'm confident that if this bill were brought up for a vote, it would pass overwhelmingly. let's not miss an opportunity then to deliver real progress for americans. this always shows up -- in other words, drug pricing legislation always shows up as one of the three, four, or five top issues in the coming election. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. mcconnell: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. moim well, madam president -- mr. mcconnell: well, madam president, with the impeachment trial behind us, the senate can now get back to the business of the american people. as the president laid out in his bold speech last tuesday, the state of our union is strong. over the past three years a combination of major republican policy victories and important bipartisan achievements have helped create an historic economic moment for working americans and middle-class families. unemployment remains right around its lowest point in half a century. the percentage of americans age 25 to 54 who have jobs is the highest it's been in 20 years. the market for american workers is hot and it's pulling people off the sidelines. as "the new york times" recently explained, employers are hiring candidates with disabilities, criminal records, and other barriers to employment, and are offering perks to attract workers. no wonder the percentage of americans who say they are financially better off now than they were a year ago just hit a 44-year high. we've finally seen a drop in opioid deaths. in my home state of kentucky we recently saw the largest decrease in fatal drug overdoses in a decade. we're rebuilding and modernizing the world's greatest military and we continue to renew our federal judiciary with thoroughly qualified men and women who understand that a judge's job is to interpret our laws and our constitution as they were actually written. there's plenty more for the senate to do to keep up this momentum for the american people, so we're glad to get back to business. we'll start this week by confirming more of president trump's well-qualified nominees to lifetime judicial appointments. first up is you judge andrew brasher of alabama to serve on the 11th circuit. judge brasher serves on the u.s. district court for the middle district of alabama. he's a harvard law graduate who clerked on the 1 1th circuit, excelled in private practice and found his way into public service as solicitor general for his home state. in that role he was recognized by the senate association of attorneys general for his legal writing and his nomination earned a unanimous well-qualified rating from the a.b.a. so i look forward to confirming judge brasher for his next post this afternoon. now to another matter, this week we expect the senate will take up a war powers resolution by the junior senator from virginia that would severely limit the u.s. military's operational flexibility to defend itself against threats posed by iran. i will strongly oppose our colleague's effort and urge the senate to defeat it. first let's discuss what prompted this. the president's successful decision to remove soleimani from the battlefield last month. this limited yet decisive precision strike eliminated the mastermind responsible for more american casualties than anyone else alive. this was not some reckless act. it was a calculated and limited response to a significant growing threat of attack against u.s. personnel in iraq by an emboldened adversaries. years ago soleimani concluded america was a paper tiger whose people he could kill with relatively impunity. it was a sign to stop an escalation cycle we knew was underway, to restore deterrence and reduce war. yet when his record was brought to an end some washington democrats immediately suggested president trump was leading us into world war iii, while the middle east rejoiced at the death of the principal architect of iran's campaign of terror, washington's elites fretted. but thus far it appeared the soleimani strike has indeed had the intended effect. as i observed back in january, we appear to have restored a measure of deterrence in the middle east, so let's not screw it up. well, madam president, i'm afraid that's just what our colleagues' resolution would do, just as we have successfully sent iraq -- iran this strong signal of our strength and resolve, a blunt and clumsy war powers resolution would tie our own hands. with china and russia watching, is it really a good idea to suggest that we're willing to let a power like iran push us around? this self-flagellation and self-limitation would be tantamount to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. for eight years president obama and senate democrats like my friend the democratic leader himself frequently said when it comes to iran, we should never take the military option off the table. but now that someone else is in the oval office, they seem to want to remove all options from the table. lest we forget, the fact is we're not conducting ongoing hostilities with iran. this was a one-off operation to disrupt and deter planned attacks, not a campaign, not a conflict, not a war. this discreet and limited exercise of american power pales in comparison to the ways in which past presidents of both parties routinely used presidential authorities to utilize military might without consent of congress. president clinton in kosovo, president obama in libya, and so on. to most of my distinguished -- do most of my democratic colleagues agree with leading presidential candidates who is suggesting president trump made a mistake by taking this sort of executive action to eliminate this brutal terrorist? do my colleagues really agree with the prominent voices on their side who promised to exit the middle east altogether rather than continuing to work to support our local partners and defend our national security and national interests in this critical region? i've been trying to have this broader debate for more than a year now. i've repeatedly sought to give my democratic colleagues opportunity to go on record about their actual big-picture strategic vision for the middle east. are they willing to support a continued mitt -- continued mily presence in syria and iraq? do they believe we can magically support our partners like the kurds without a military presence? that we can counter iran and russia and their influence if we are nowhere to be found in the region? do they believe israel will be safer in a region without american influence? the ill-conceived potshots at presidential authorities in the wake of a strike that succeeded using the blunt instrument of a war powers resolution is no substitute at all for answering these broader questions. i will oppose my colleague's resolution tomorrow and i would encourage our colleagues to do likewise. now, madam president, i understand there's a bill at the desk due a second reading. the presiding officer: the leader is correct. the clerk will read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: h.r. 5687 an act making emergency supplementations for the fiscal year ending 2030 and other purposes. mr. mcconnell: in order to place the bill on the calendar, i would object to further proceedings. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. mcconnell: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now, madam president, the 2020 primary elections are ongoing. the national election is only nine months away. if there is anything we can say for certain about our elections at this point, it's that foreign entities, putin, china, perhaps others, are already implementing their schemes to undermine the public confidence in the integrity of those elections, and to bend social media in favor of their chosen outcome. f.b.i. director wray, former d.n.i. coats, virtually every member of our national security and intelligence community has warned us, warned us of this danger. as we have heard over the past weeks, the threat of foreign interference in our elections dates back to the founding days of the country. george washington warned foreign interference is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. adams wrote that as long as elections happen, the danger of foreign influence recurs. the warnings of our founders hold a new and startling relevance today. the current president of the united states, far from having the same fears about foreign interference as our founders, has been very public about his openness to foreign assistance and manipulation in support of his election. if a foreign power had dirt on one of his opponents, the president said oh, i think i'd be want to hear it. at different times, the president has invited russia, ukraine, and china to investigate his political opponents. of course, the president was just impeached over this issue, and the senate just concluded a trial in which it appeared a bipartisan majority of senators broadly accepted the fact that the president leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars of military assistance to ukraine to compel its government to investigate one of his political rivals. the trial of president trump exposed in great detail the president's willingness to accept foreign help in the elections. it also revealed just how little senate republicans were willing to do about it. senate republicans wouldn't even barely examine the charges against the president by allowing witnesses and documents in his trial. the end of the president's impeachment trial does not mean the issue of election security is somehow over. far from it. we now have even a greater need to safeguard our elections than we had before. the president tried to cheat in our elections, and the senate majority of his party decided to look the other way. what do you think the president will conclude? he'll conclude that he can get away with anything. he could try to cheat again and ask china or north korea or russia to investigate the democratic nominee, whoever it is. we know we can't trust this president to stand up to the integrity of our elections, so congress must. democrats are not going to stop fighting to put additional safeguards before the 2020 elections. later today, a group of my colleagues will come to the floor to ask unanimous consent to pass crucial election security legislation. much of this legislation is bipartisan. some of it is already passed out of committee. some of it has passed the house, but it has languished for years and years, because majority leader mcconnell has refused to bring any of these bills to the floor. senator warner and senator blumenthal have duty to report bills. commonsense measures to require presidential campaigns to report offers of foreign help to the f.b.i. senator wyden and senator klobuchar have the safe act, another commonsense measure to authorize funding to harden election infrastructure and protect voting machines from hacking and other intrusions. neither of these bills should be controversial. there is nothing partisan about them, nothing at all, but they have consistently been blocked by senate republicans and denied time and consideration on the floor by republican leader mcconnell. that doesn't mean democrats are going to stop trying. later today, we'll try again to pass these bipartisan noncontroversial bills. we'll see if our republican colleagues are willing to do what's necessary to protect our elections. now, on the nomination of andrew brasher for the 11th circuit. the nomination is truly a disgrace, a disgrace to our judiciary. i urge every single senator to reject it. mr. brasher is laughably inexperienced. he was confirmed as a district court judge only nine months ago. that is the sum total of his experience as a judge at any level, nine months. now leader mcconnell wants to elevate him to an appellate court. in leader mcconnell's desperate rush to pack the courts with hard-right judges, his party is asking the senate to confirm judicial novices to the most austere and important seats on the federal bench. worse than this nominee's inexperience, though, are his views which are so far outside the american mainstream. in his five years of solicitor general in the state of alabama, brasher defended the indefensible on issues ranging from women's reproductive rights to marriage equality to gun safety. mr. brasher is also -- has also amassed a career's worth of experience undermining voting rights. brasher signed on to an amicus brief that argued in favor of gutting the voting rights act, arguably the most important piece of civil rights legislation in our nation's history. his arguments in defense of an arizona voter i.d. law were roundly rejected by the supreme court, including justice scalia. as a solicitor general for alabama, brasher defended the state's voter suppression efforts including state district lines that courts later concluded were made explicitly to discriminate against african american voters. this is who the senate republicans want to put as a circuit court of appeals justice. whether it's covering up for president trump and cheating in our elections or confirming judges like mr. brasher, senate republicans are showing outright contempt for the very wellspring of our democracy, the right for american citizens to vote in our elections. mr. brasher clearly, obviously, and certainly does not belong on the eleventh circuit court courf appeals. quorum call: mr. thune: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: madam president, last tuesday the president delivered his state of the union address. he discussed some of our biggest accomplishments over the past three years and chief among those accomplishments is the economic progress we made. during the obama administration, our economy spent years in the doldrums, american families and workers worked to advance -- struggled to advance and some predicted the weaker economy would be the new normal. republicans didn't believe that, we should be resigning ourselves to that future. in fact, we knew the real strength of the american economy, american business and american workers was still there. but we also new that burdensome regulations and outdated tax code prevented our economy from thriving the way that it should. so we took action. we cut burdensome regulations and passed an historic reform of our tax code. we doubled the child tax credit and nearly doubled the standard deduction and took aim at the part of the tax code that were holding back american workers and businesses. we cut the taxes for medium sized businesses and lowered the nation's corporate tax rate, the highest in the developed world. we expanded business owners ability to cover the costs in their business that frees up cash that they can reinvest in their operations and their workers. we brought the united states international tax system into the 21st century sew american businesses are not operating at a competitive disadvantage next to their foreign counterparts many madam president, tax reform is working. unemployment is near its lowest level in 50 years. 50 years. think about that. for the past 12 months unemployment has been below 4%, a record last achieved in the 1960's. african americans, hispanic americans, and asian americans all saw record low unemployment in 2019. strong economic growth is has given discouraged workers to come off the sidelines and join the workforce. currently the labor force participation rate is at the highest level in seven years. last month the economy created 225,000 jobs. all told, the economy has created an average of 171,000 jobs per month over the past 12 months, a strong number. wages are growing. for the past 18 months, wage growth has been at or above 3%. and as the president said in his state of the union address, this is a blue collar boom. in contrast to the obama administration and this economy, it's blue collar workers who are seeing the strongest wage growth. gains in the stock market has meant good news for 401(k)s and pensions. while our economy as a whole has triefd our nation -- thrived, farmers have been discouraged. the one of the most important things we can do to help the farm economy is negotiate trade deals that expand markets for american agricultural protects and give our farmers and ranchers certainty about what markets will look like going forward. that's why i pushed for the passage of the united states-mexico-canada agreement, which the president signed last month. this agreement will maintain and expand farmers and ranchers access to the biggest markets for american agricultural products and provide certainty about what these markets will look like for the foreseeable future. i'm particularly pleased about the improvement it makes for the dairy industry which is a growing industry in my state of south dakota. madam president, we need to conclude more strong trade agreements going forward that will expand markets for american agricultural products. the president also mentioned the trade agreement we're negotiating with china. the president recently signed phase one of the agreement which includes a pledge from china to increase imports of american agricultural products that. is slenlt news for farmers and ranchers, but we need to make sure china lives up to its commitments. china doesn't have the best record in this regard and it's important that the united s