Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I am saddened to have to begin my remarks this morning by acknowledging yet another senseless act of school violence in America.

Less than a month after the 20th anniversary of the tragic shooting at Columbine High School, another Colorado community was shattered yesterday afternoon. Just miles away, at the STEM School Highlands Ranch, one student has been killed, eight others have been wounded, and many more young lives have been changed forever at the hands of two of their fellow students.

I know the entire Senate joins me in holding the victims of yesterday's shooting, their families, and their entire community in our prayers today.

Our gratitude is with the first responders of Douglas County, whose swift action to engage the shooters saved untold lives.

Nominations

Madam President, on a completely different matter, as I have been discussing, the Senate is continuing to make better progress in its filling of vacancies in the executive branch and the Federal judiciary. After last month's action to restore a more functional, straightforward system for considering lower level nominations, we have begun the process of clearing the executive calendar backlog that has been left by literally years of partisan obstruction.

This morning, we will vote to confirm three qualified individuals the President nominated for the Export-Import Bank: Kimberley Reed, of West Virginia, to serve as President and Spencer Bachus, of Alabama, and Judith Pryor, of Ohio, to serve on the Board of Directors. Combined, they have spent years waiting for confirmation. Now, thanks to last month's action, we will consider them on the floor this week.

We will also vote to confirm Joseph Bianco, of New York, as U.S. circuit judge for the Second Circuit. Mr. Bianco is a graduate of Georgetown University and of Columbia University School of Law. He has contributed years of distinguished service as an assistant U.S. attorney and now as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York. The Senate confirmed him to that last role by a voice vote back in 2005. So I hope we can muster another strong, bipartisan vote of confidence in this exceptionally well-qualified jurist.

Finally, the Senate will consider Janet Dhillon, of Pennsylvania, to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and it will consider Michael Park, of New York, to be a U.S. circuit judge for the Second Circuit. I am proud that even amid partisan distractions, this body will continue fulfilling one of its key constitutional responsibilities.

Economic Growth

Madam President, on one final matter, I talked about leaving the ``outrage industrial complex'' behind and returning focus to the issues that impact the everyday lives of the American people. That is what my Republican colleagues and I have been focused on all along, and we are continuing to see that focus pay off.

For the better part of the last 2 years, the Labor Department's monthly jobs report has regularly pointed to an economy that has been opening new doors for millions of Americans. It has reinforced what we have known to be the case--that the pro-growth, pro-opportunity agenda enacted by the Republicans has been helping America's working families, job creators, and entrepreneurs write a remarkable new chapter of prosperity.

Here are just a few of the headlines to emerge following last Friday's jobs report: ``Real gains in the paychecks of average workers''; ``Torrent of job offers, bigger salaries offer more proof U.S. labor market is still red-hot''; ``U.S. unemployment fell to 3.6 percent, the lowest since December 1969.''

Yet there appears to be plenty of disbelief among Washington Democrats that things like rising wages, consumer confidence, and fierce competition for skilled American workers are causes for celebration. At least, that is what their recent policy proposals have left us to assume.

From a massive Federal experiment in one-size-fits-all health insurance to a Washington-dictated ``green'' overhaul of American homes, cars, and jobs, the Democrats seem determined to make the current wave of prosperity and economic opportunity short-lived. They are peddling a wholesale shift away from the free enterprise tradition that has unleashed prosperity and opportunity throughout American history, and they are doing so at the very time that daily headlines confirm those principles are still working to literally lift up American families.

In my home State of Kentucky, the unemployment rate has reached its lowest level on record. Communities across the country are tapping into new opportunities for growth, and families and job creators nationwide are benefiting.

So Republicans will continue working hard, laying the groundwork for American free enterprise to seize on this truly extraordinary moment.

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