Immigration reforms are always controversial. Our Congress was created to muster political will to answer such challenges. Today we didn't, but tomorrow we will. I yield the floor.

In decision after decision on the bench, Judge [Samuel] Alito has excused abusive actions by the authorities that intrude on the personal privacy and freedoms of average Americans.

If a legislator is safe from competition, or if he represents groups with the same economic and political beliefs, he does not have to change his ideas or respond to the needs of the broader population. He can rest content with a mediocre, absentee performance knowing he will be returned to office. And as he is returned year after year the seniority system gives him immense control over people from other parts of the country whose views he need not heed at all.

It's disgraceful that year after year, Congress has bowed to the tobacco lobby and refused to act.

The real transgression occurs when religion wants government to tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives. The failure of Prohibition proves the futility of such an attempt when a majority or even a substantial minority happens to disagree. Some questions may be inherently individual ones, or people may be sharply divided about whether they are. In such cases, like Prohibition and abortion, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the state.

It is extraordinary that each of the three individuals this president [ George W. Bush] has nominated for the Supreme Court - Chief Justice [John] Roberts, Harriet Miers and now Judge Alito - has served not only as a lawyer for the executive branch, but has defended the most expansive view of presidential authority.

Floating screw - that's what people used to call me.