. >> this weekend on c-span, senator ron wyden on the challenges facing medicare and hospitals. saturday at 10 a.m.. on c-span three is american history tv, the grounds and architecture of george washington's mount vernon, sunday night at 8:00. >> we do not have a criminal investigation role. we have a vast, unfortunate role. we make sure wall street abides by the rules. sets the rules for wall street and broker dealers and advisers. we do not have criminal authority. we have the power to bring, with the approval of our commission, civil actions and negligence actions against those who violate the federal securities laws. we can't send anybody to jail, but we can assess civil penalties. our level of penalties is not as , we canwe would like it require those who commit wrongdoing to discord should their ill-gotten gains, and we have the power in an appropriate case to bar somebody from the securities industries so they can't live another day to defraud again. -- sec chairman mary joe white on sunday at 8:00 p.m.. to show you some of the speakers from day two of the event. we begi

clicked senate finance committee chairman ron wyden on the challenges facing hospitals. the historical ties between russia and the ukraine. c-spanat 5:45 p.m. on 2. sunday night at 8:00, mount vernon. >> former reagan justice department official bruce fein and jim gilmore engaging in a debate on privacy. edwardnsa contractor snowden is a patriot for leaking information while the former governor calls snowden a traitor. this is for the five minutes. -- this is 45 minutes. ♪ >> all right. good morning. good to be here with you today. i have the privilege of being with the panel here to discuss what i think is one of the defining issues of our time, and that is where are we going to set the line as a country between the government that rightfully protects us against some very serious threats, terrorism, for an attorney, and the government that has a capability to invade our privacy and potentially infringe on our liberties. the panel we have today will do a great job of exploiting those issues for you. i will introduce them in a second, but i wanted to make one other ment

i said, do you mind if i tell ron wyden? and he said, that is why i'm here. the phone andd up i called senator wyden and said our just been told i x that bill is dead on arrival. yeah, they have been working on me to get me to abandon it and i won't so he figures, if you works on you and you will tell me to abandon it, i will abandon it. cosponsors, including 10 republicans, including two members of leadership who were willing to work on a bipartisan solution because we believed that the current health care ,tructure was impossible terrible, bad for americans, needed to be changed. and we were frozen out of the conversation and told to go away. and it was passed with 60 democratic votes and not a single one of the 10 republican cosponsors was ever asked to participate in the process of putting it together. where iwas one place chalk it up not to anything evil. i am not rush limbaugh. i am not summit who says he hopes the president will fail. i think this is an example of the president's in experience in dealing with the congress. he had a great opportunity an

next, senator rand paul explained his opposition to the nomination while senator ron wyden defends mr. barron. this is 45 minutes. >> i rise today in opposition to the killing of american citizens without trials. i rise today to oppose the nomination of anyone who would argue that the president has the power to kill an american citizen not involved in combat and without a trial. i rise today to say that there is no legal precedent for killing american citizens not involved in combat and that any nominee who rubberstamps and grants such power to a president is not worthy of being placed one step away from the supreme court. it isn't about just seeing the bear in the memos. some seem to be vacated by the fact that oh, they can read these memos. i believe it's about what the memos themselves say. i believe the barron memo's at their very core this respect the bill of rights. the bill of rights isn't so much for the "american idol" winner. the bill of rights isn't so much for the prom queen or the high school football quarterback. the bill of rights is especially for the least popular amo

one maker of those is in oregon, the home state of ron wyden. dave camp left it out and wyden, of course is is saying it's anti-invasion. he's not happy about that. and going forward, you know, look, those two had a working relationship. they and senator reed were getting close to a deal to make a bunch of these breaks permanent and extend the rest for two years through 2015. that fell apart spectacular last week and there's been a bit of animosity since then. host: ron wyden won't be head of the finance committee, you just tweeted about the future chair, orrin hatch, saying, the president and his liberal allies are unlikely to get a better tax extenders deal in the next congress. what's the likelihood of this moving forward with the -- even into next year? guest: it's likely something will happen before the end of this year, this one-year bill looks most likely right now. you have senate democrats that are fine with it, the white house saying basically they're ok with the general idea of the shoverple extension, they haven't endorsed the bill y

i know the republicans in the house want to do it and i am sure that ron wyden i know wants to do it and certainly orrin hatch. and the business community is very clear i'm not. so i'm not a pessimist. i am a not to miss. .. hall >> >> is john is right not doing any of the end things the was adjusted to decrease the amount of conversions was no affect then the regulations would not have any benefit but some transaction cost with the analysis they would say don't go ahead i don't know it would not work but that is the issue to be addressed to. but the issuance of the regulations antagonizing the congress that love to work hand in glove and looking at that degree in their work of greenhouse gases such and climate change they begged congress to enact climate change legislation. they said on tax reform is much better if congress does it and if we are to do it. but in any event it has to go ahead to alienate the congress. i would submit know even if you have gone ahead but what it does show so you know, the other marker so this is what is likely to occupy the field that helps to analyze w

will beurse, the leader the finance chairman ron wyden of oregon. he helped to put this package together with senator orrin -- and shall we say , on the other side, we would probably find, patrick toomey who wants to have amendments to the packages and specifically he wants to strike to delete several of the tax breaks for wind energy and energy conservation. and he is going to insist on offering that amendment as people who support those tax breaks to not want to have that amendment offered. >> your latest article has the headline "republicans press on management, will commitments be allowed to be off to the legislature?" what are some the key amendments to look for this week?

ambassador to china caused a bit of a shakeup in leadership with sender ron wyden replacing them on finance. louisiana senator mary landrieu will take over the gavel on the energy committee and senators maria cantwell of washington and jon tester of montana leading up the small business and indian affairs committees. join us tonight at eight eastern for remarks from supreme court justices ruth the ginsburg and elena kagan. they talked recently about the court and women's rights that election -- a lecture series hosted by the new york city bar association. here's a look. >> so in my three and a half years on the court, serving with justice ginsburg, i've come to admire her really more and more each day. as a judge, college and a friend. you know, they say that life on the court can be a little cloistered, and i didn't realize until recently that the folks on the outside justice ginsburg is much more than that. too many of them, she is a hip-hop icon. [laughter] i'm going to disappear from my first crop. the notorious rbg. [laughter] [applause] >> they sell these, truly. she is the subject of

wyden, are you collecting data on millions of americans? moreover, senator wyden had issued that question 24 hours in advance so he could deliberate on it. mr. clapper answered no. a clearly perjurious statement. you are talking about the rule of law? in a democracy the people have a right to know what their government is doing, because we get to decide what the policy is going to be. and when the snowden revelations came forth, the american people have forced changes from what the nsa was doing on a because of mr. snowden's revelations. this cannot not be found without the revelations because before that because of speculations, it would have been thrown out of court. you're just guessing that the government is doing this to you. he needed a rule of law function which was nonfunctioning before that time. i wanted to say about all the members of the senate intelligence committee who did not have the courage to do what a 29-year-old had to do for them. and it is especially outrageous -- they had come as you point out, a duty to uphold and de

ron wyden from oregon. susan collins from maine. and senator debbie stabenow from michigan. obviously, senator menendez was our leader on the democratic side, and we would not be where we are today without his leadership and without the commitment of senator harry reid, who from nevada but recognizes that he has a flooding problem as well, that this is not just a coastal issue that stood up early to tell us if we can build a strong coalition, if we can build 60-plus, he would help us to get to a point where we could actually have a debate on amendments, vote them up and down, and then move this bill with the strongest vote possible to the house of representatives, where i'm proud to say there are 131 cosponsors on this bill. and that number is growing every day because as people hear about what's happening, understand, get notices from their insurance companies, which by the way are taking 30% of every policy off the top and assuming virtually no risk, which is an issue we have to address. it's not addressed in this bill. but as people understand that they are going to be cl

senator ron wyden chairs this committee. >> the finance committee will come to order. the committee meets today to consider the expiring provisions improvement and reform and efficiency act of 2015. we are also going to consider an additional bill making technical corrections and clearing away so-called deadwood in the tax code. finally we are going to consider committee organizational changes. now we will have opening statements. for the next 13 days, millions of americans are going to be searching for receipts, wading through a blizzard of forms and parking themselves for hours in front of their computers doing their taxes. instead of enjoying spring and the opening days of baseball season, millions of americans are required by their government to do their tax maps twice just to see if they are affected by the alternative minimum tax. and too often often when a neighbor's turn tax prepares for help they fall victim to incompetent or predatory work that opens them up to a grueling audit. complying with the staggering complexity of our tax code is now the father of nig

>> senator ron wyden and he put out a statement praising her as an excellent choice. and orrin hatch are put out a statement really stressed and shewill have to prove that is willing to work with republicans on the law and i think the moderate the democrats were facing tougher election races. >> who might and those senators be? taken in north carolina and mary landrieu at louisiana. they are not going to be anxious to vote for anybody that will be the chief implementer of obamacare. like i said, she's a lose five -- she can lose five votes. >> would you think her chances are? will she win approval? it is too early to say by think she will get through. the rest of the democrats will struggle behind her. they are going to face the pressure. they are going to use of the vote if they do vote for her. >> jennifer haberkorn of politico. we appreciate your time as always. >> on the next "washington journal," we will tell but the gender pay gap. peter morici. "washington journal" begins at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> i think what we need as something akin to the great com

and when senators, including ron wyden pushed back on that, eventually he and other intelligence officials clarified okay, well, you know, 702 present was responsible for thwarting most of those, but a lot of them were overseas. section 215, the telephone metadata program which obama says he wants to end, boca collection, was responsible, or would've had a role in maybe only 12 of those domestically. and of those, maybe only one in which it actually yielded some information that was useful to a terrorist investigation, and that one case involved a san diego cabdriver convicted of material support to terrorism for sending $6500 to someone in somalia, al-shabaab, which did not involve an attack on the u.s. at all, the homeland coordinate attacks was ever carried out, which led not only to surveillance review board to conclude that the program was not essential to preventing terrorist attacks, but also the privacy and civil liberties oversight board to say that had not contributed one case to preventing any terrorist attack on homeland. >> just another quick few words. clearly from time to ti

senator ron wyden of oregon shared the meeting. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] of finance committee will come to order. the u.s. tax code is infested with chronic use of loopholes and inefficient use. these are actions are hobbling america's drive to create more good wage rat, white and blue job at homes. they are a significant drag on our economy and our harming u.s. competitors. the latest outbreak is the growing wave of corporate inversion where american companies move their headquarters out of the united state in pursuit of forward tax rate. the inversion by race now seems to be multiplying every few days. mellon crowd and many more either occurred recently or are currently in work. they are trying to propose $42 billion merger was record-breaking when it was announced in june. but the inks in the record account nearly dried when they announced it the intention on friday to require shy up almost $55 billi

interpreting it in the widest possible manner, and some people in congress like senator ron wyden said we never thought this was going to happen. a cosponsor of the patriot act said it exceeded what he thought would happen. host: what was the message when yahoo! lost the battle? guest: the message to the other companies was we have to cooperate. they pushed back and said he wanted tell our customers the kind of information we are handing over and how much. they can only do this in limited ways that did not give a whole picture for what is going on. after president obama announced reforms, modest reforms of the surveillance ask, this january, there is a little more play in what the companies can say. even so, we do not have a complete picture of the nate church of the information they are handing over and how wide the scope is. in a way, it is less relevant now that we know from the back and, the nsa is getting massive amounts of information, and what the companies want to do in those cases is encrypt the information so the government cannot easily access it and read it. >> what does th

paul ryan is a progressive conservative and ron wyden is a progressive democrat. so there's a place were some really interesting things get done. so the affordable care act is nr fixing red the surge in a moment we'll have people saying we don't need to fix that. it's sort of like watching ang thotball game. theall is are on the field and someone fumbles and the ball is bouncing down the field., of cos of course what you do in a gamet like that if you thary to jump a the ball as fast as you can. there are important things about her.n the and it's bouncing down the field. the democrats are standing thero we'vehey are saying that we don't have to jump on the ball. it's not a fumble.stang t and the republicans are standinc there watching the ball bouncing down the field and in that we don'tine have to jump on the bal because we're so far had were going to win anyway. but if you look at this poll. i think the electorate is waiting for someone to jump on the ball and take it to the nex. step and that's where the political opportunity is. way it because this is not goin

wyden in the senate at the hands of his party leadership. the annual continuing resolution replacing appropriation bills in which the entire government is funded for a. 'of time -- a. play strongly to the advantages of the executive branch because it results in one big annual crisis. i worked in the reagan administration for several years. when i was there, congress frequently and routinely interfered with excellent and well thought out policy initiatives we were pursuing by regulation, antitrust, other areas through ryders. the treasury department, the justice department, other agencies. we would see the riders. we would see if we can work around them. something we could do in place of them. if we could not, we would just sort of give up and move on to other mischief. we always took them seriously. routine. they happened all the time. rolledof these had been up into one annual crisis were ronald reagan could have unrolled his national rhetorical skills and competition with a few much less known people on capitol hill, it would've been dandy

. >> this weekend on c-span, senate finance committee chair ron wyden on challenges facing medicare and hospitals. saturday morning at 10 eastern, and on book technocrats, historical and culture ties between russia and ukraine sunday at 5:45 on c-span2, and on c-span3, american history tv, george washington's mount vernon sunday night at eight. >> state department officials on capitol hill thawrs to discuss u.s.-russia relations after intervention in ukraine, and the support of the president. he testified before the senate foreign relations feet when are two hours. >> this hearing will come to order. let me think the deputy secretary of state for coming. this was planned well before the current state of v.s, understanding the challenges of the schedule, we so appreciate you being here with us and panelists to provide per speck titch on the increasingly violence spillover from the op going conflict in syria and hear from the secretary from russia's military intervention in the ukraine. as a cautionary note, we have a vote that will be taking place at 11:20, and we'll see where we are at

the health care bill we intended and it is written by senators tom harkin and ron wyden and congressman sander levin, george comment henry waxman. it is in defense of the affordable care act. robert is in oregon. go ahead. caller: good morning to all. thank you for the segment on --. i wish that was an option for him. want to talk about in regards to the election this year in oregon. theave the governor and senator rerunning. i cannot believe how why it the quiets in regard -- how the news is in regard to his , and who is a lobbyist cultivating marijuana. no one is talking about that appear. it is a big issue. it is not being brought up. i am concerned about that. our unemployment as above the nation's average. blockingrnor is something that would bring jobs to the state because he feels it is: issues, etc., etc.. have, missr we monica, who is running, who is a brain surgeon, unbelievable woman with experience. host: finally, we will hear from rose. you have a congressional race going on. caller: we lost half of our house during sanda. -- during sandy. my brother-in-law, his car in his

people ask me how do i get along with ron wyden. i said everybody gets along with him. you might not agree with him. everybody gets along with him. that's rare in these times. mr. secretary, one of the issues senator burr referred to and senator isakson, i'm always asked on my visits home whether anybody will be held accountable for the scandals at the irs. i have introduced legislation along with senator flake -- let me get to that here. the bill would stop the irs from intimidating or targeting groups for their beliefs. 40 other senators have co-sponsored this bill last week, the house passed very similar legislation. i hope this is on the fast track. it would simply halt further action on the irs's proposed regulations until ongoing investigations are completed by the justice department, house, ways and means committee and this committee, the finance committee. i don't think it's controversial, just let the full light of day shine on these practices before allowing the irs to move to new restrictions on any political activity. the bill freezes further irs action for

i said, do you mind if i tell ron wyden? and he said, that is why i'm here. ok, so i picked up the phone and i called senator wyden and said i've just been told by x that our bill is dead on arrival. yeah, they have been working on me to get me to abandon it and i won't, so he figures, if you works on you and you will tell me to abandon it, i will abandon it. we had 19 co-sponsors, including 10 republicans, including two members of leadership who were willing to work on a bipartisan solution because we believed that the current health care structure was impossible, terrible, bad for americans, needed to be changed. and we were frozen out of the conversation and told to go away. and it was passed with 60 democratic votes and not a single one of the 10 republican co-sponsors was ever asked to participate in the process of putting it together. so this was one place where i chalk it up not to anything evil. i am not rush limbaugh. i am not somebody who says he hopes the president will fail. i think this was an example of the president's inexperience in dealing wi

senator ron wyden chairs this two and a half hour hearing. >> [inaudible conversations] >> [inaudible conversations] >> finance committee will come to order. there is just a week to go before the april 15 deadline for filing taxes, and millions of americans are spending a good portion of the spring struggling to fill out tax forms and digging through piles of receipts in a painful annual ritual. the complexity of the tax code creates an environment where confusion and errors flourish. congress isn't blameless on this issue, and that's one reason why it's time to rewrite the code to make filing easier. for many americans, maybe even a majority, nothing will have a bigger impact on their pocketbooks all year long. the great majority of americans want to get it right, but because the tax code is so byzantine, so complicated and so overgrown, nearly 80 million americans pay for help preparing their tax return. and was especially alarming most of those pay tax return. prepares don't have to meet any standard, any standards for competence in order to prepare somebody else's tax return. earl

. >> this weekend, senate finance committee chair ron wyden on the challenges facing medicare and hospitals saturday morning at 10 a.m. eastern. on booktv the historical and cultural ties between russia and ukraine sunday at 5:45 p.m. on c-span2. on c-span3's american history tv, the grounds and architecture of george washington's mount vernon sunday night at 8 p.m. >> dan pfeiffer, senior advisor president obama sat down for an interview yesterday with political correspondent mike allen at the top explained the administrations new sanctions over russia's intervention in ukraine. he also spoke about the white house communication habits, including the reliance on twitter and what the president likes to read. this is about 50 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome politico's chief white house correspondent mike allen. [applause] >> good morning and welcome to the playbook breakfast. thank you for bearing with us as we rescheduled the time and place because of the ice. i think my political colleagues and the white house are making this new gig available and for you all for coming. wa

. >> this weekend on c-span, senate finance committee chair ron wyden on the challenges facing medicare and hospitals. saturday morning at 10 eastern. and on booktv, the historical and cultural ties between russia ask ukraine, sunday at 5:45 on c-span2. and on c-span3's american history tv, the grounds and architecture of george washington's mount vernon, sunday night at 8. >>> c-span2, providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceedings and key public policy events. and every weekend, booktv. now for 15 years, the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. c-span2, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> officials from the state department, usaid and the treasury department testified on capitol hill thursday about russia's actions in ukraine. after the hearing the committee took up a resolution condemning russia's intervention there. this portion is two and a half hours. [inaudible conversations] >> i'm going to call the chao to order at this ti

i said, do you mind if i tell ron wyden? and he said, that is why i'm here. ok, so i picked up the phone and i called senator wyden and said i've just been told by x that our bill is dead on arrival. yeah, they have been working on me to get me to abandon it and i won't so he figures, if you works on you and you will tell me to abandon it, i will abandon it. we had 19 cosponsors, including 10 republicans, including two members of leadership who were willing to work on a bipartisan solution because we believed that the current health care structure was impossible, terrible, bad for americans, needed to be changed. and we were frozen out of the conversation and told to go away. and it was passed with 60 democratic votes and not a single one of the 10 republican co-sponsors was ever asked to participate in the process of putting it together. so this was one place where i chalk it up not to anything evil. i am not rush limbaugh. i hoeot somebody who says pe the president will fail. i think this is an example of the president's in experience in dealing with the co

for the senate energy and natural resources committee now that she's taking the gavel from senator ron wyden, they say senator landrieu favors building a keystone xl pipeline, protecting tax breaks for and sent his for oil drilling in placing limits on the power of federal agencies to set up her career carbon dioxide guidelines for coal-fired power plants. wyden takes the opposite position on all these issues. that is from "washington post".com. >> former israeli ambassador to the u.s., michael oren spoke monday about the future of the middle east and the perception that the u.s. is recoiling from the region. he also discussed the israeli-palestinian peace talks, the fallout from the arab spring and what is next for u.s. policy in the region from the atlantic council, this is an hour and 20 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> it's a great pleasure to welcome you all this afternoon to the atlantic council. and fred camper, president and ceo. this event marks the beginning of an important new initiative that the council, the introduction of the first public events around our first amba

if ron wyden were here, i would say he is a democrat who is an advocate of privacy. i would not that hillary clinton i in that category. >> ok. speaking of the rise of libertarianism you and your , father are popular on the web. they are getting pushback from republican leaders, especially in the house. do you think this internet libertarianism is an overly vocal minority or is your party's leadership ignoring an important part of this country? >> i think there is a growing movement. if you look at the use, they the youth voted three to one for president obama. if you look at the polling data now, because of the nsa spying and president obama has become an extension of the bush administration with less concern for civil liberties, there has not been as many people speaking out on this. if you think it through, there was almost a hatred for bush from people who believed in civil liberties and thought he had gone too far on the war. president obama has carried on all of those things. he did bring some troops home. as far as your right to privacy, he has gone up far bey

under the leadership of chairman ron wyden of the senate finance committee, his partner, ranking member hatch, chairwoman barbara boxer from california, chris murphy from connecticut, bob corker from tennessee and senator tom carper from delaware held forth on critical legislation to be able to help america deal with crisis.astructure america, it's no secret it's falling apart and falling behind. it is well overdufort us to have a robust, important six-year re-authorization to deal with our transportation needs. we can't do that unless we resolve the funding conundrum. we've been limping along. we can't even get through the current 27-month extension without a summer slowdown. cutting back on critical federal funding for contracts around the country. what the senate did was tackle this issue head-on. they have a funding proposal that was thoroughly debated where they were able to provide enough funding to get us through the end of the year but not so much that it allows this congress off the hook to slide into next congress and probably the congress after that but face up to our respons

they thought this was something and effect ron wyden from oregon who is a senator, a democratic senator, is looking at something similar like my trust idea. ringo: and i will say that i was talking about shifting the federal land management to the state. it's been discussed for so long and not the congressman specific proposal try for you had a follow-up rebecca. >> representative ringo to utah to needing a permanent funding source that you also talk about counties on how to operate as best they can within the current status quo because it sounded like he said they have to start working with what they currently have in addition to using the federal funding. what are some ways that they could do that? can they really replace that -- do they really focus their efforts, without managing those federal lands? and how would he do that? i become an increase infrastructure? what needs to happen? ringo: i'm not sure i heard myself say that, but let me just address the issue. what i will say i thought under to make the system work more appropriately, we need to have a reform of the national fores

wyden oneekend, ron the challenges facing medicare and hospitals, saturday morning at 10:00 eastern. then the historical and cultural ties between russia and ukraine, sunday at 5:45 on c-span2. on american history tv, the grounds and architecture of mount vernon. sunday night at 8:00. >> new unemployment number's out today. the economy added 175,000 jobs last month. the unemployment rate was up to 6.7%. reaction from leadership. a statement issuing saying while it is good news that more americans found work last month, there are still far too many asking the jobs? they have been waiting for more than five years from an answer from this president. the second ranking house democrat says with 100 62,000 private sector jobs created in february, or must be done to add jobs at the pace we need in order to put all those who are still seeking employment back to work. c-span, public affairs events from washington to you, looking you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, conferences, and offering coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. we a

moreover, senator wyden had issued that question 24 hours in advance so he could deliver it on it. mr. clapper answered no. clearly p-- a erjurious statement. you are talking about the rule of law? in a democracy the people have a right to know what their government is doing, because we get to decide what the policy is going to be. revelations snowden came forth, the american people have forced changes from what oing on aas d because of mr. snowden's revelations. this it cannot not be found without the revelations because before that because of speculations, it would have been thrown out of court. you're just guessing that the government is doing this to you. he needed a rule of law function which was nonfunctioning before that time. i wanted to say about all the members of the senate intelligence committee who did not have the courage to do what a 29-year-old had to do for them. and it is especially outrageous -- they had come as you point out, a duty to uphold and defend the constitution, including the fourth amendment, which they were not doing. in addition, unlike mr. snowden,

wyden, for his leadership in ensuring that the tax extender package is available now here for us on the floor to consider, that these provisions were included and his support for moving forward on these vital job-creating proposals. now let's work together here in this chamber to move across the finish line and get the job done so america can get more of our best people to work. thank you. mr. president, i come to the floor today briefly to recognize the men and women of law enforcement across this nation in the annual police week ceremonies, from last night's candlelight vigil to tomorrow's wreath-laying ceremony, we here in the capitol offer our gratitude, our thanks and our support to the men and women of law enforcement and their families, and i wanted to simply comment for a few moments today on how difficult it has been earlier today to be a member of this body as two different senators who are strong supporters of law enforcement have come to this floor to attempt to move forward important pieces of legislation only to have that effort blocked. earlier today, senator patrick