Congressional Record, Volume 160 Issue 129 (Wednesday, September 10, 2014)

[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 129 (Wednesday, September 10, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5487-S5502]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

PAYCHECK FAIRNESS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED

Mr. REID. I now move to proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote
by which cloture was not invoked on the motion to proceed to S. 2199,
the Paycheck Fairness Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now move to reconsider the vote by which
cloture was not invoked on S. 2199, the Paycheck Fairness Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.

Cloture Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.

[[Page S5488]]

The bill clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to Calendar No. 345, S. 2199, a bill to amend the
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide more effective
remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages
on the basis of sex, and for other purposes.
Harry Reid, Barbara A. Mikulski, Patty Murray, Richard J.
Durbin, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Brian Schatz, Heidi
Heitkamp, Martin Heinrich, Tammy Baldwin, Barbara
Boxer, Debbie Stabenow, Mazie K. Hirono, Kay R. Hagan,
Mary Landrieu, Claire McCaskill, Jeanne Shaheen, Dianne
Feinstein, Amy Klobuchar.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
motion to proceed to S. 2199, a bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards
Act of 1938 to provide more effective remedies to victims of
discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, and for
other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin) is
necessarily absent.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 73, nays 25, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 260 Leg.]

YEAS--73

Ayotte
Baldwin
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Boxer
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chambliss
Cochran
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hagan
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Scott
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Walsh
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden

NAYS--25

Alexander
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Coats
Coburn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Fischer
Flake
Hatch
Hoeven
Inhofe
Johnson (WI)
Lee
Moran
Paul
Risch
Rubio
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter

NOT VOTING--2

Harkin
Murkowski
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 73, the nays are 25.
Upon reconsideration, three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and
sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
The clerk will report the motion to proceed.
The bill clerk read as follows:

Motion to proceed to consideration of S. 2199, a bill to
amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide more
effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the
payment of wages on the basis of sex, and for other purposes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

Border Security

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, Americans across the country have been
riveted by the crisis occurring on our southern border.
President Obama is correct with one regard: What we are seeing is a
humanitarian crisis. But it is a crisis, sadly, of the President's own
creation, and it is the direct consequence of President Obama's laws.
To understand why, one merely has to look at the numbers.
Three years ago, in 2011, there were roughly 6,000 unaccompanied
children entering the country illegally. Then in June of 2012, just
before the election, the President unilaterally granted amnesty to some
800,000 people here illegally who entered as children.
As a direct foreseeable consequence of that--the predicted
consequence of that is: If you grant amnesty to people who enter as
children, you create an enormous incentive for more and more children
to enter the country illegally. That is exactly what we have seen
happening.
As a result of the President's amnesty, we have seen the numbers go
from 6,000 kids 3 years ago to this year, it is expected, when there
will be 90,000 unaccompanied children entering the country illegally,
and next year the Department of Homeland Security predicts it will be
145,000.
I have traveled down to the border of Texas many times. As recently
as the last couple of months I have been down to McAllen. I visited
with the Border Patrol chief in McAllen. I visited with the Border
Patrol agents and line agents down there. I have been to Lackland Air
Force Base where there are roughly 1200 children being housed. I am
sorry to say that President Obama, when he visited Texas, had time to
do neither. He had time to go to Democratic Party fundraisers, to pal
around with the fat cats in the Democratic Party and to raise money but
no time to travel to the border and see the human suffering his failed
immigration policies have produced.
It is worth underscoring, these are little boys and little girls who
are not being brought into this country by well-meaning social workers
with beards and Birkenstocks trying to help the kids. They are being
brought in by hardened, drug-tough coyotes, cartels. And these little
boys and little girls are being physically victimized, physically
abused, sexually abused.
When I was at Lackland Air Force Base, a senior official there
described to me how the cartels, when they have control of these kids
and are smuggling them illegally into this country, sometimes will hold
the kids hostage and try to extract more money from the families. In
order to do so, horrifyingly, they will sever body parts from these
kids. This senior official at Lackland described to me how these
coyotes will put a gun to the back of the head of the little boy or
little girl and order that child to cut off the fingers or ears of
another little boy or little girl, and if they don't do it they will
shoot that child and move on to the next one. They describe how on this
end we are getting, No. 1, some children who have been horribly maimed
by these vicious coyotes and, No. 2, we are getting children who have
enormous psychological trauma from being forced to participate in such
horrors.
The crisis at the border cannot be solved without ending the promise
of amnesty. The data demonstrates that, compellingly, it was when the
President granted amnesty that the numbers spiked, but more recent data
demonstrates that as well. A few months ago the Border Patrol conducted
a survey of over 200 people who entered illegally, many of them
children, and asked the obvious question: Why are you coming? What has
changed? Just 3 years ago it was only 6,000 kids and now it is 90,000.
What has changed? Ninety-five percent of them told the Border Patrol
they were coming because they believe they will get amnesty. They
believed they will get a permiso, a slip of paper that lets them stay
once they get there.
When I was in McAllen, I took the time not just to meet with the
chief but to meet with a number of Border Patrol agents who spend every
day out on the river, up in the air, on horseback, working to secure
the borders. I asked the line agents the obvious question: Why are they
coming? What has changed? What has caused this humanitarian crisis?
Every single Border Patrol agent gave me the exact same answer: They
said they are coming because they believe they will get amnesty.
In fact, they explained to me, they said: Right now the Border Patrol
is not apprehending these kids. When they cross the river, they often
have nothing, sometimes just rags on their back after a long, arduous
journey where they have been subjected to horrible physical and sexual
abuse, but the one thing they almost inevitably have is their
documents. And these children immediately look for the first person in
uniform they can find. The Border Patrol isn't apprehending them; they

[[Page S5489]]

are looking for the Border Patrol, because they come to the Border
Patrol and hand them their documents because they believe they will get
amnesty; they will get a permiso; they will be allowed to stay.
If we want to solve this crisis, if we want to stop these children
from coming and from being abused, the only way to do so is to end the
promise of amnesty.
Before the August recess, I introduced legislation in this body to do
exactly that. It was very simple legislation. It was directed to the
source of the problem. It provided in black-and-white law that the
President of the United States prospectively has no authority to grant
amnesty to anyone. The legislation doesn't address the 800,000 who were
the subject of the 2012 order. It simply says going forward the
President cannot grant amnesty to anyone else, and the reason for that
is the cause of this crisis is these children coming believing they
will get amnesty.
The White House, in their talking points, routinely said that
children coming today are not eligible for amnesty.
I see my colleague from Illinois nodding in agreement with that
statement. If that is the case, then my colleague from Illinois should
join me in sponsoring this measure because the legislation I have
introduced would simply put into law what the White House talking point
is, which is that----
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CRUZ. I will be happy to yield to the Senator for a question.
Mr. DURBIN. Can the Senator tell me what the cutoff date is for
eligibility for DACA?
Mr. CRUZ. I don't have the precise cutoff date in my mind, but the
point that is being raised is these children don't fall under the
precise terms of DACA, but they believe they will get amnesty.
I would respond to my friend from Illinois, does my friend from
Illinois believe these children who are coming today should get
amnesty, yes or no?
Mr. DURBIN. No. I would say, if I might, through the Chair, it is not
the argument that anyone is making that these children should receive
amnesty. What we are saying is they should be treated humanely----
Mr. CRUZ. Absolutely.
Mr. DURBIN. And go through an orderly process returning to their
countries. But what the Senator from Texas is asking us to do is to
disqualify up to 2 million young people who are here in the United
States and can qualify for DACA as DREAMers--people who were here long
before these unaccompanied children showed up at the border. That
was the proposal that came from the House which the Senator inspired
them to vote for. They stood for a standing ovation because they denied
an opportunity to 2 million young people in this country to be able to
stay here without fear of deportation. That is what the Senator is
asking for today.

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from Illinois, but I would note that the
comments he made are not connected to the facts of the proposal. The
proposal is explicitly post-DACA.
Some 800,000 people have already received amnesty. Let's be clear.
The President had no legal authority to grant amnesty at the time. He
did so unilaterally, contrary to the rule of law.
Now we are in a broader context where the President has quite
publicly promised to grant amnesty--again unilaterally and illegally--
to some 5 or 6 million people. Yet at the behest of our friends on the
Democratic side of the aisle, he announced this weekend he is delaying
the decision until after the election, because apparently Senate
Democrats up for election have noticed their constituents don't support
the President in illegally and unilaterally granting amnesty.
I would suggest that Members of this body cannot have it both ways.
My friend from Illinois stated he doesn't think we should be granting
amnesty to these children, and yet the legislation I introduced, the
legislation the House of Representatives passed, does not act
retroactively, does not address anyone who has fallen within the
previous DACA. It simply says going forward the President doesn't have
the authority to grant amnesty. Instead it is Congress that has the
authority to pass or not pass immigration.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CRUZ. I will be happy to yield for a question.
Mr. DURBIN. I wish to ask the Senator this question: If amnesty means
the person has a right to citizenship or legal status on a permanent
basis, is the Senator from Texas suggesting the deferral of deportation
under DACA--is that a kind of amnesty?
Mr. CRUZ. The deferral of deportation under DACA is a written
determination from the President that the individuals who receive this,
No. 1, will be immune from the black-letter text of the immigration law
that subjects them to removal; and No. 2, the administration has
created an authorization-to-work document as a component of DACA that
has no basis or authority in existing Federal law.
Let us be clear. The President has been absolutely explicit. He
intends to expand that to another 5 or 6 million people who are here
illegally.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CRUZ. I will yield for a question in a moment.
The President intends to expand this to 5 or 6 million people who are
here illegally to give them presumably the same authorization to work
unilaterally and with no authorization in law to transfer their status
from being illegally here to legally here on executive dispensation. I
understand my friend from Illinois and other Members of the Democratic
Party support that decision. I believe--and I would allow him in his
question to clarify that. If I mischaracterized it, I would welcome his
clarification. But there certainly are some members of the Democratic
Caucus who do support that. But the American people powerfully don't,
profoundly don't. They recognize it is inconsistent with the rule of
law, is bad policy, and is creating this crisis at the border.
I have to say the President's decision to delay the amnesty until
right after the election reflects a cynicism that even in Washington,
DC, is unusual. Because what it is saying is: I understand the policies
that I, President Obama, am trying to force that are completely
unpopular with the American people, so I am going to jam them through
right after the election. Because what it reflects is that President
Obama and unfortunately many of the Senate Democrats hold their
constituents in very low regard. It reflects the view that if we do
this after the election, even if the people don't like it, they will
forget about it in 2 years.
If my friends in the Democratic Party believe the right policy
solution is amnesty for 5 or 6 million more people and the President
acting unilaterally, then we have a very simple solution. Let's bring
this up for a vote before the October recess.
The House of Representatives took the legislation I introduced in
this body and they stayed over an extra day, they voted on it, and they
stood up and led, acting to solve the crisis at the border. And what
happened in the Senate? The majority leader of the Senate refused to
allow a vote on the proposal and sent every Senator home for August
while having done nothing to address this crisis.
If my friend, the Senator from Illinois, believes amnesty is the
right policy decision, then let's have a debate, let's bring it up for
a vote, and let's have every Senator in this body go on record.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Most people believe amnesty means a free pass. Whatever you have
done, you stay in the United States and you stay in the United States
and you become a citizen.

Let me say to the Senator from Texas that DACA is a temporary
suspension of deportation. It is temporary. It has to be renewed. And
in order to qualify for it, you must have been in the United States as
of June 15, 2007.
What we have now are 600,000--my number is 600, you say 800--600,000
who have come forward. They have paid the fee--a substantial fee--and
they are allowed to stay here, without being subjected to deportation,
on a temporary basis that needs to be renewed. There are another 2
million who may be eligible.

[[Page S5490]]

What the Senator is doing is not addressing the unaccompanied
children at the border. The Senator is saying to the remaining 2
million: You don't have a chance. You have got to leave. You are
illegal. You are going to be deported.
This isn't about amnesty. It is about whether those who are qualified
under the DREAM Act, which incidentally was endorsed by the House
Republican Caucus when they put out their statement of principles--
whether those under the DREAM Act are going to have a chance to stay.
And to think that the Senator's colleagues in the House stood and
applauded themselves for denying 2 million young people a chance to
stay in the only country they have ever called home to me doesn't speak
well of that caucus or their sensitivity to the reality of their lives.
These children who are brought here by their parents--some as
infants--didn't vote on it. They were brought here. They have been
raised in our schools. They have been taken care of in our hospitals.
They pledge allegiance to the flag, as Senator Menendez says, every
day. They pledge allegiance in the classroom to the only country they
have ever known. And you are glorying in the possibility that you can
deport these children.
Is that what you consider to be--and in your own background--I am a
first-generation American. I believe you have similar claims to make.
Do you believe this is what this country is all about?
Mr. CRUZ. I appreciate my friend from Illinois impugning the
integrity of our friends in the House and also describing the plight of
innocents.
As you rightly noted, 67 years ago my father came here. He came from
Cuba and spoke no English. He had $100 sewn into his underwear. He came
here legally on a student visa to study. He followed the rule of law.
And I would note--my friend from Illinois knows full well--there is no
stronger advocate of legal immigration in the Senate than I am. Indeed,
on the Senate Judiciary Committee I introduced two amendments, one for
high-skilled workers, H-1B workers, to increase that fivefold from
65,000 to 325,000 because temporary, high-skilled workers are
progrowth. Every one of those who comes along produces 1.7 American
jobs. I am sorry to say my friend from Illinois and every Senate
Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted against that proposal--voted
against increasing legal immigration for temporary, high-skilled
workers.

My friend from Illinois is also aware--since we are both members of
the Senate Judiciary Committee--that I introduced another amendment
that would take our current failed legal immigration system and
dramatically simplify it by reducing the barriers and costs and
eliminate the per-country caps which have the effect of discriminating
against nations such as Mexico, China, and India and take the legal cap
from 675,000 and double it to 1.35 million so we can have a legal
system we can continue that welcomes legal immigrants who come here to
celebrate the American dream.
Again, I was sorry to see every single Democrat on the Senate
Judiciary Committee vote against increasing legal immigration,
streamlining it, making the system work better, and eliminating the
discriminatory per-country caps on nations such as Mexico, India, and
China.
I understand the Senator from Illinois just gave a passionate speech
in defense of granting amnesty to people who are here illegally. He is
certainly entitled to those views. We should indeed have a full and
robust debate, but I will note that the Democratic Senator from
Arkansas, the Democratic Senator from Louisiana, the Democratic Senator
from North Carolina, and the Democratic Senator from Alaska are all
busily telling their constituents they disagree with what my friend
from Illinois just said. They are at home telling their constituents:
No, no, no, no. We don't want amnesty. No, no, no, no. We don't want
the President to unilaterally grant amnesty.
If that is indeed their position, I welcome them to come to the floor
right now. If that is indeed their position, there is an easy action.
For centuries this body has been called the world's greatest
deliberative body. Unfortunately, that label is no longer accurately
applied because this body, sadly, under Majority Leader Reid and the
Democratic majority, neither deliberates nor votes on much of anything.
There are over 350 bills the House of Representatives has passed to
address the great challenges in this country--mostly with substantial
bipartisan support--and over 350 pieces of legislation are sitting on
Harry Reid's desk and he will not allow a vote on them.
When it comes to solving the crisis at the border, the only way to do
so is to end the promise of amnesty. The 90,000 children who are coming
believe when they get here they will get amnesty. The position, sadly,
of President Obama and the majority leader and the Senate Democrats is
that they will do nothing--zero--to fix that problem.
Let me say it is not compassionate, it is not humane to continue a
system where tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of little boys
and little girls are being victimized and assaulted physically and
sexually by violent coyotes. Under the Democratic plan that will
continue. It will continue this year. It will continue next year. In
response, they do nothing--zero, nada--to fix the problem. That is a
hard-hearted approach to this challenge.
We have a demonstration, a study in contrast. Looking at a
humanitarian crisis, the House of Representatives stood and voted on
legislation to lawfully make it clear that the President of the United
States has no authority to grant amnesty to people who are here
illegally. The Senate had a chance to do the same.
President Obama has promised the American people that right after the
election he intends to unilaterally and illegally grant amnesty to
another 5 or 6 million people. Every Senate Democrat has an opportunity
to make clear where he or she stands.
In a moment I am going to ask for this body to take up the bill the
House has passed to make clear in law that the President has no
authority to grant amnesty prospectively. I understand my Democratic
friends are going to object to this. That should surprise no one
because my Democratic friends for the last 2 years have objected to
considering almost every major piece of legislation to address the
challenges in this country.
What this means is that the 55 Democrats in this body who are
standing united in blocking this legislation that the House of
Representatives has passed--all 55 Democrats bear responsibility for
President Obama's amnesty, for the amnesty of 5 or 6 million people.
I understand the President thinks it is politically clever to delay
the amnesty until after the election, but I have real faith in the
American people, that it is too clever by half, that all 55 Senate
Democrats who are standing together, standing united with President
Obama and saying we want the President to have the ability to illegally
grant amnesty, every Senate Democrat in this body bears responsibility
for that choice. If they did not, any Senate Democrat is welcome to
come to the floor. I will note that other than the Democratic Senator
from New Jersey, who is the chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee--and I expect will object to my unanimous consent
momentarily--there is not a single Democrat in this Chamber speaking
out on eliminating the President's authority to grant amnesty.
Clarity in elections, enabling the American people to hold all of us
accountable is a very good thing. One body, the House of
Representatives, is leading. The other body, the Senate, under
Democratic control, refuses to even allow a vote on solving the crisis
at the border or stopping the President's illegal amnesty.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 5272

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the
immediate consideration of Calendar No. 551, H.R. 5272. I further ask
consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I will
first respond to the unanimous consent request made by the Senator from
Texas, the son of immigrants himself, to prohibit certain actions with
respect to

[[Page S5491]]

deferred action for students in the United States whom we call
DREAMers. For these young people, as Senator Durbin said, the only flag
they have ever pledged allegiance to is that of the United States. The
only national anthem they have every sung is the ``Star-Spangled
Banner.''
They came to this country not because they made a decision to do so
but because their parents came here, just as Senator Cruz's parents
came here. He now ultimately enjoys the benefit of being an American,
even though it was a different time and under a different set of
circumstances. Nonetheless, he didn't have a choice in that decision
and neither did these children.
We have learned and we have often heard in this Chamber that you
never subscribe to the child whatever errors exist of the parent, but
that is exactly what the Senator from Texas would do.
My friend from Texas is entitled to his views and his opinions, but
he is not entitled to his own set of facts. The reality is that he
continuously refers to the deferred action on deportation for these
young people as amnesty. Amnesty suggests that someone is forgiven for
something they did wrong and they have a clear pathway to permanent
residency and ultimately to U.S. citizenship. That is not what the
President did for these young people who know no other country than the
United States. Any action that would be taken on these young people
will be deferred until after Congress has acted on the pressing
question of immigration reform.
The Senator from Texas suggested that the Senate has failed in
leadership. I wish to say to the Senator from Texas that the Senate
exerted leadership over 1 year ago, when in broad bipartisan votes--
notwithstanding the Senator from Texas--a group of eight Senators, four
Republicans and four Democrats, joined together and got two-thirds of
the Senate to send comprehensive immigration reform to the House of
Representatives. We sent over commonsense immigration reform that was
the toughest on border protection that has existed in the history of
the country, that was in the national security interests of the United
States, that provided for the economic imperative as described by the
Congressional Budget Office of the opportunities that immigration
reform would provide for the country by raising the gross domestic
product of the United States, raising the wages of all Americans, and
reducing the national debt, all by virtue of immigration reform.
Two-thirds of the Senate voted on that at a time when it was rare to
see two-thirds of the Senate come together on controversial or
significant issues of the day. It was sent to the House of
Representatives over 1 year ago, and they did not once cast a vote on
that legislation or their own vision of what immigration reform should
be.
Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MENENDEZ. I will be happy to do so a little later.
At the end of the day, the Senator from Texas argues that this
measure is necessary to deal with the humanitarian crisis at the
border. I will say that has gone dramatically in a downward slope.
He may argue that immigration policy is driving these children to
make a dangerous and deadly journey. While I agree we need a long-term
solution to the humanitarian crisis on the southern border, saying that
this opportunity for DREAMers to stay in the United States is the cause
is simply not true.
DACA, which is the law we refer to that the President did by
administrative order, was announced in June of 2012. The influx of
unaccompanied minors was reported months before that announcement. As a
matter of fact, we can ask Senator Cruz's own Governor, Rick Perry, who
sent a letter warning about the influx of children months before the
President's DACA announcement.
The fact is that all of this talk about ending deferred action for
children who have been here sometimes well over a decade or more
ignores the elephant in the room; that is, that DACA does not cover
these children. It only covers children who were brought here before
the announcement was made. Eliminating DACA, as the Senator from Texas
wishes to do, would not make any of these children less likely to come
here. These children are fleeing extreme violence in Guatemala, El
Salvador, and Honduras, which have some of the highest murder rates per
capita in the world.

If I saw my father killed and my sister raped, it is likely I would
think about trying to flee that set of circumstances regardless of what
the promise might or might not be, and that is in fact what drove this
humanitarian crisis.
We should solve the roots of the crisis and not try to create some
connection to something that has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I know we are in the season in which--even if 10 angels came swearing
from above that DACA is not the cause of the unaccompanied minor
circumstances or that it is not amnesty, there will be those who will
say, no, those angels are wrong. The reality is that one is entitled to
their own views but not their facts.
Finally, the undeniable consequence of the Senator's attempt to
dismantle these deferred actions for DREAMers would serve only to
further separate families. I have listened time and time again to my
Republican colleagues say they are the heart of family values. Well,
tearing apart families is not my sense of a family value. Tearing
children away from their mothers and fathers is not my sense of family
values. Destroying any hope of a better life and a chance at success is
not the doctrine of family values.
There is a reason the Senate hasn't voted on this bill--and it won't.
I think the Senate Democratic leadership understands it would be a
disservice to our country, a disservice to hundreds of thousands of
these young people who we have already invested in through our public
schools. Now is the time to take advantage of their service, whether in
the military of the United States or whether through their intellect.
Some of them are the valedictorians and salutatorians of our schools
and colleges and universities. It is an opportunity to ensure they can
be productive members of our society, with no guarantee--with no
guarantee--as it relates to their ultimate status.
I hope the immigrant community in this country--I hope the Hispanic
community in this country, I hope the Asian and Indian communities in
this country, I hope the Eastern European community in this country,
all who are rightly concerned about comprehensive immigration reform--
are listening to this debate, because as disappointed as some may be
about the President saying: Well, we cannot move forward at this time
until we get it right because of the politics that have been generated
by the undocumented children along the border--as disappointed as some
may be with the President--listen to what we will get if, in fact, this
November there is a change of who ultimately has the majority in this
Chamber. This is what we will get: We will get what we got in the House
of Representatives, which is over a year of not casting one vote for
their own vision of immigration reform. And every vote they have cast
has been anti-immigrant at the end of the day.
For all of those reasons, I have to object to the unanimous consent
request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MENENDEZ. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. CRUZ. The Senator from New Jersey talked about legislation that
was debated and voted on a year ago--legislation that I believe, if
passed into law, would only make the problem worse, would only increase
illegal immigration, would only exacerbate the problem.
I, as do most Americans, want to see commonsense immigration reform,
but not reform that fails to secure the border, that grants a pathway
to citizenship for those here illegally, and that incentivizes further
and further illegal immigration.
But that legislation was a year ago. The President of the United
States tells us we have a humanitarian crisis on the border today--
right now, not a year ago, today--with little boys and little girls
being subjected to physical and sexual violence and being victimized.
The question I would ask my friend from New Jersey is: Why is it that
neither President Obama nor the Senate Democrats have introduced any
legislation or allowed a vote on any legislation whatsoever that would
actually solve the problems?

[[Page S5492]]

Now, the President did introduce a $3.7 billion social services
spending bill, less than 5 percent of which went to securing the border
and none of which went to the underlying amnesty that is causing this
crisis. That was a bill designed to deal with the symptoms to care for
the kids once they come, but that bill assumed that tens of thousands
and hundreds of thousands of kids would continue to come, continue to
be victimized.
So the question I ask of my friend from New Jersey is: Why have the
Democrats not allowed a vote on anything to solve the problem and
prevent these little boys and little girls from being victimized this
year and next year and the year after that?
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, first of all, I would say to my friend
from Texas that he totally mischaracterizes the comprehensive,
bipartisan immigration reform that was passed in the Senate. Do we know
who voted for that? A whole host of Senators on the Republican side of
the aisle who represent border States and who said: This is the most
significant border protection and security effort we have had in a long
time. They believed the national security of the United States was
better preserved by virtue of that legislation. Our colleague John
McCain worked assiduously on that question, as well as others.

So the bottom line is, that reform was going to end the process of
those coming in an undocumented fashion; it controlled the border,
moved the economy, and would bring out of the darkness those who are
here to pursue the American dream, which is the only way we can secure
America, to differentiate from those who might be here to do harm to
the United States. I can't know that if people who are in the dark
don't come and register with the government, pay their taxes, go for a
criminal background check, and earn their way over the course of a
decade to the possibility of becoming a permanent resident. That is
what the Senate did.
So failure in this regard rests in the House of Representatives--
failure on the border, failure on national security, failure on the
economy, and failure to reunite millions of people with their families.
Now, with reference to the second part of the question, the President
acted. It is the President who brought the Central American presidents
here and said: You have to work with us to stop your young children
from coming to our country and you have to create better conditions in
your country, and we want to work with you to do that. We want to work
with Mexico to ensure that what they call the Beast--the train of
death--ultimately Mexican authorities interceded to stop immigrants
from getting on that train to the United States. It is the President
who ultimately took the resources that existed in the Department of
Homeland Security and reauthorized them to send them to the border and
deal with the challenge. All of that, among other efforts, ultimately
has found us with a dramatic reduction.
So I understand the politics of this. I appreciate everybody in this
Chamber has the right to pursue that. But the bottom line is the
President acted and the reality is we have dramatically reduced it, and
the core challenge here is to have comprehensive immigration reform.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I wish to make two final comments to
conclude this exchange. My friend from New Jersey admitted that Senate
Democrats introduced nothing--zero, nada--to do anything to fix this
humanitarian crisis. Indeed, the majority leader dismissed the Senate
and sent the Senators home for the month of August, perfectly content
to let the crisis continue, to let tens of thousands and hundreds of
thousands of children be victimized. He suggested instead the solution
was Presidential action, unilateral action.
There was a time when the Senate believed we had a responsibility to
legislate, to actually pass laws to address challenges. Yet under the
Senate Democrats, we have a do-nothing Senate. That is why over 350
bills passed by the House of Representatives are sitting on Harry
Reid's desk, because this body no longer votes on meaningful
legislation to address the challenges facing this country.
My friend from New Jersey suggested that the reason the legislation
the House of Representatives passed prohibiting the President from
illegally granting amnesty--the reason it is not going to come up for a
vote is because he said it is a bad idea. Well, I recognize the Senator
from New Jersey may well think that. Indeed, the Senator from Illinois
may well think that. But no one who is paying attention to the Senate
thinks that is the reason it is not coming up for a vote.
If it were objectively a bad idea--if it were a bad idea and the
Democrats agreed on that, bringing it up for a vote would be very
simple. We would bring it up for a vote. The Democrats have 55
Democrats in this body. They could all vote it down and it would be
defeated. If the point were on the merits it is a bad idea, bringing it
up for a vote would be very straightforward.
The reason the majority leader is fighting so hard to prevent a vote
is that a great many of the Members in his caucus are doing everything
in their power to convince their constituents back home they don't
support amnesty.
As we travel the country, the most frequent thing we hear all
throughout the country is that the men and women in Washington aren't
listening to us. Something happens. I don't know if it is the water or
what it is, but they get to Washington, they stop listening to us, and
they don't tell us the truth. They are lying to us. We hear this from
Republicans, from Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, all across
this country. There is a reason why the popularity of Congress rivals
that of Ebola, because the American people recognize the people in this
body aren't telling them the truth. There is one reason and one reason
only that Majority Leader Reid does not want to vote on this
legislation: because he wants to allow Senators in red States--the
Senator from Arkansas, the Senator from Louisiana, the Senator from
North Carolina, the Senator from Alaska, even the Senator from
Colorado, even the Senator from New Mexico--he wants to allow them to
tell their constituents, No, I don't support amnesty. And the reality
is, of the 55 Members of this Senate who are Democrats, who caucus with
the Democratic Party, today it has been conclusively demonstrated that
all 55 support President Obama's illegal amnesty and are responsible
for his promised amnesty of 5 million to 6 million more people right
after the election. If that were not the case, we would have seen one
Democrat show up and speak out to the contrary. Not a single Democrat
showed up.

There is a reason we don't have a vote, because if we had a vote, it
would force Members of this body to be on record.
The Senator from New Jersey is entitled to make the case on the
merits why he thinks amnesty for 5 million or 6 million or 12 million
is a good idea. He is entitled to make that case, and if his
constituents agree with him, he will keep getting reelected. But far
too many Senate Democrats want to pretend they disagree, and a vote
makes that impossible because if we had a vote, we would see all 55
Senate democrats vote in favor of amnesty. They are right now hiding
behind their leadership because they don't want that vote. They don't
want their constituents to understand they support amnesty. So,
instead, they shut this body down.
The American people are frustrated. They are disgusted with the
Senate that won't do its job, that won't allow votes, that won't
consider legislation to address the problems in this country, and that
consistently lies to the voters.
I will tell my colleagues on my side of the aisle, I am happy to have
as many votes as we like. It is interesting. The Senate majority leader
today seems to view as his principal obligation protecting his Members
from hard votes. I wish to point out the concept of a hard vote only
makes sense if there is a disconnect between what a Senator says at
home and what he or she does in Washington. Votes are hard if we have
Democratic Senators who go home to their States and tell their
constituents: I am really conservative and I don't agree with that
crazy stuff President Obama is doing. Then they come here and vote
lockstep

[[Page S5493]]

with the majority leader and the President. Then votes are hard.
I will tell my colleagues from my perspective, I don't consider votes
hard. In 2 years, what I have tried to do in the Senate is very
simple--2 things: Do what I said I would do, and tell the truth. The 26
million Texans I represent, I believe, understood the principles I am
defending when they elected me. And whether we have 1 vote or 10 or 100
or 1,000, it doesn't surprise the men and women back home, because what
I say in Texas is exactly the same as what I say on the floor of the
Senate, and it is the way I have tried to vote since I arrived here.
The reason the majority leader has 350-plus bills sitting on his desk
is because a substantial number of Senate Democrats tell their
constituents one thing and vote a different way. This is all predicated
on deception.
So I am glad for this exchange because this exchange has shined light
and made clear to the voters that, No. 1, amnesty is coming and
President Obama intends to grant amnesty to 5 million to 6 million
people right after the election; and No. 2, all 55 Senate Democrats
bear direct responsibility for President Obama's illegal amnesty
because all 55 Senate Democrats are standing in lockstep, preventing
legislation that would stop that amnesty. That clarity is good. It
allows accountability. It allows decisionmaking to be made by we the
people.
The one thing I would encourage of my Democratic friends is, given
that reality, go home and be honest with your constituents. All 55 of
you go home and say: Yes, I stand with President Obama. I stand with
majority leader Harry Reid in support of amnesty.
Those are not the views of the American people, but they are the
views of every Democratic Senator in this body. We have a natural check
when elected officials ignore the views and values of the people for
whom we work in the place where sovereignty resides in our system: We
the people.
I yield the floor, and I would suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Walsh). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Women's Health Care

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I have come to the floor today to talk
about an important piece of the Democrats' ``fair shot'' agenda:
ensuring that women across America have access to the basic and often
lifesaving health care benefits guaranteed under the Affordable Care
Act.
Just a few months ago five men on the Supreme Court decided that
there should be a group of woman across America who are required to ask
their bosses for permission to access basic health care and that a
corporation should have more rights then the women it employs. Just a
few months ago those five men rolled back the clock on millions of
women across America.
As the ink was still drying on Justice Alito's misguided opinion in
the Hobby Lobby case, I made an unwavering commitment to do everything
I could to protect women's access to health care since the five male
Justices on the Supreme Court decided they would not. That is why I
worked with my partner, the senior Senator from Colorado, to introduce
the Not My Boss's Business Act to restore those lost benefits and
protect women's health care. I am proud that in the months since we
have received strong support from men and women across the country.
Our straightforward and simple legislation would ensure that no CEO
or corporation can come between you and your guaranteed access to
health care, period. This should not be a controversial issue. In fact,
nearly 7 in 10 people say health plans should cover birth control. The
only controversy about birth control today is the fact that it is 2014
and we are still fighting for this basic health care that is used by 99
person of sexually active women in this country.
Despite the resounding outrage we have heard from women and men
across America, Senate Republicans stood with this misguided Supreme
Court decision and blocked our efforts to right this wrong. If our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle thought their obstruction of
the Not My Boss's Business Act in July would end this conversation,
they were dead wrong. Since then, millions of Americans have taken
action. They have voiced their outrage on social media. They have
organized action in their communities. They will continue to speak out
until our Congress in turn takes action.
Unfortunately, it appears this message has fallen on deaf ears among
some Senate Republicans. It has become increasingly clear on that side
that some of the Members have decided to put the tea party ahead of
women and have no intention of even allowing a debate on the Not My
Boss's Business Act in the near future. I am extremely disappointed by
that. I would have hoped our colleagues on the other side of the aisle
would have maybe--just maybe--spent a little time at home in August
listening to women in their States. If they had, they would have heard
the women across America asking Congress to fix this horrible decision
that resulted from Hobby Lobby.
By the way, it is not just women who want Congress to act. People
across the country understand that if bosses can deny birth control,
they can deny vaccines or HIV treatments or other basic health care
services for employees and their covered dependents. I think what men
across America understand is that it is not just the female employees
at businesses who are affected, it is their wives and their daughters
as well who share that health care plan.
The data is clear. Ensuring access to contraception coverage is not
just the right thing to do, it is also a critical part of making sure
women and their families have a fair shot in the 21st century. Women
and their family members should not be held back by outdated policies
and unfair practices. As I said yesterday on the Senate floor, it is
not just about access to contraception, it includes pay equity, access
to childcare, a higher minimum wage, and it absolutely includes the
right to make their own medical and religious decisions without being
dictated or limited by their employer.
The bottom line is this: Women use birth control for a host of
reasons, none of which should require a permission slip from their
boss.
Unfortunately, Americans are most likely not surprised at what they
are seeing. This obstruction is coming from Members of the same party
that has been threatening to subject women to invasive and degrading
ultrasounds; the same party that had candidates making outrageous
statements, as we all remember, about legitimate rape and then
defending those comments during their disastrous book tour; the exact
same party that on Capitol Hill, in State houses across America, and in
courtrooms at all levels is actively attempting to block
women's ability to make their own decisions about their own health.
They have shown they will go to just about any length to limit access
to care.

Just in the past few weeks we have seen last-ditch efforts from
Republicans to distract from their embarrassing record on women's
health by claiming to support ``cheaper and easier access to
contraception'' by simply making it over the counter. Well, the reality
is that these proposals would actually cost women more by forcing them
to pay out of pocket for the birth control they are getting now at no
cost thanks to the Affordable Care Act. This is a basic piece of
women's health care. It should not be available only to those who can
afford it.
The American people are not fooled. In fact, just yesterday
PolitiFact rated one Republican birth control claim as ``Mostly False''
given that it was ``lacking in concrete detail.''
Time and again Republican leadership has put politics between women
and their health care. Now, with their continued obstruction, they have
put employers between women and their access to free or low-cost basic
health care under the Affordable Care Act. They have shown us they are
not focused on what is best for women; they are focused on political
calculations, appeasing the far right, and their continued efforts to
do whatever it takes

[[Page S5494]]

to pitch their extreme agenda even when it burdens working women and
their families.
Despite this disappointing turn of events, I stand here today to say
the deck is stacked against them because millions of women who benefit
from this basic and often lifesaving health care will not be silenced.
They are still watching.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, how much time am I allocated?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has up to 1 hour postcloture.
Mr. CORKER. Well I assure you that will not be the case. I will speak
for possibly 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.

ISIS

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, tonight the President is going to address
an issue on which I know almost every American has been focused; that
is, the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the beginning of that in
many other places around the world. This is obviously a big speech. It
is one that I know all of us will be paying attention to and watching.
I am hopeful that what the President will do tonight is, first of
all, explain to the American people from his perspective what our
national interest is in ISIS. I think that should be very easy to do. I
also hope that what he will do is lay out a general strategy.
Obviously, in a speech such as this you never want to give every detail
of what it is you want to do, but I hope he lays out the objectives he
wishes to accomplish as he talks to the Nation and really the world
about how he plans to deal with ISIS.
So I wanted to say at the onset that I look forward to listening. I
hope this is a speech that is meaty. I hope it is a speech that speaks
to the essence of why we as a nation need to deal with the threat ISIS
poses not only in the Middle East but, over time, in the West, with us
being the greatest symbol.
I know there have been many conversations with the administration
about ISIS. I know that obviously their concern about ISIS has risen
over time. Again, I look forward to very clearly listening to the
speech.
Most of us here in the Senate, if we were in the White House, might
choose to guard the authorities we have. Many Presidents have said--
most Presidents have said they themselves have the authority to conduct
operations of this nature. While that is debatable, that is not a topic
I wish to debate. I know the President has said he has the ability to
go about these actions, to take these actions without any additional
authority from Congress. What they have said is they plan to not come
to Congress. I think that is absolutely preposterous.

If you think back in history, back in 1991 President Bush 41, in
getting ready to undertake the activities in Desert Storm, felt as
though he had the authority to move ahead with those activities. Yet
they realized within the administration that the best thing they could
do was to get the American people behind what they were doing, and the
best way to do that was to seek an authorization from Congress, to have
that debate, to have Members of the Senate be able to ask questions
about how this operation was going to take place, to get people
comfortable with what the objectives were going to be, and to finally
win over the Senate. As a matter of fact, as I understand it, Sam Nunn,
the chairman of the Armed Services Committee at the time, was opposed
to this effort. Yet, with Bush 41 coming up with his Cabinet members to
talk to Members of Congress, they were able to pass it over the
objection of the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. But what
that meant was there had to be interaction, there had to be questions
and answers, and there had to be a feeling by Members of this body that
what was getting ready to happen was something that was going to make a
difference. So they came and did that. They were successful, and the
operation itself was successful.
President Bush 43 did the same. In 2001, after what happened with the
Twin Towers and other activities around 9/11, the country was outraged.
He actually sent forth his own AUFM, the Authorization for Use of
Military Force. Action was taken. It was 60 words, it was broad, but
action was taken. The same thing occurred in 2002, which led us to what
happened in Iraq. So President Bush 43 did those same things even
though he felt as if he himself had the authority to take on those
activities without Congress approving them. But they felt it was much
better for the American people to see what was going to happen and for
Congress to be fully informed, to understand what the objectives were,
and then to have Congress authorize it.
This President, President Obama, came before us last year--almost 1
year ago exactly--and asked for an authorization on Syria.
I find it truly preposterous and hugely lacking in judgment that this
President is discussing--and hopefully he will change his mind in the
next few days--undertaking activities in Iraq. Remember, the President
declared that in 2011 the war in Iraq was over, that we had won, that
it was a stable country. Yet this new enemy--I do not want to get into
the past too much, but because of policies of this administration in
both Iraq and Syria, things have changed. So now we have a new enemy--
ISIS--that has arisen. They are incredibly well funded, well equipped,
well energized, and savvy to social media.
We have seen the detestable things that this group is doing to people
of all kinds of ethnic persuasions in Iraq. We understand the threat
this is to Iraq and to the Middle East.
What we also know is this is something that is affecting directly
today not only Iraq but Syria. There is really no border there. It is
porous.
We actually know the ISIS headquarters are in Syria. So this is an
operation that can in no way be confined just to Iraq. We have to deal
with this in Syria.
The President hopefully tonight--while laying out what our national
interest is, while laying out what his general strategy is, while
laying out what his objective is--certainly will talk about the fact
that we have to deal with this in Syria.
I will say to the Presiding Officer of the Senate that it seems to
me, even if the President feels that he has the authority to do this
with his own constitutional powers under article 2--even if he feels
that--it is totally preposterous that he would not seek our
authorization to take on a different enemy. Certainly, to take this
into another country that we have not been involved with in this way in
the past--Syria--to take on operations in that country with a different
enemy and not come to Congress, to not seek the approval of the people
whom the people of this country have elected to weigh in on these
matters to me, again, is tremendously lacking in judgment.
One of the benefits of the President coming to seek our approval is
that he has stated over the weekend that he believes this could take 3
years. Let me say this one more time. This is a conflict that he
believes could take 3 years in duration and take us into another
country where we are now not involved in this matter anyway. He is
talking about not coming to us.
Again, bad things happen in conflict. Our Presiding Officer has a
distinguished career in serving our country--and I honor that--a
distinguished public service in the military, and he knows that things
don't always go the way we intend.
For the President to undertake something of 3 years in duration--by
his own words, in another country and an enemy that is one of the most
well-funded terrorist operations that we have dealt with, knowing that
he has to pull together a coalition of people with very different
interests but with like interests relative to this particularly
detestable group of folks--to think that this President would undertake
that without Congress being behind him and having 535 Monday morning
quarterbacks because there was never any buy-in by Congress to me is
foolish.
But because of what happened 1 year ago where our allies in the
region who were going to help us deal with Assad were waiting by the
telephone to respond because they, with us, were going to conduct
activities against Assad about 1 year ago today--they watched on CNN as
the President had changed his mind without even notifying them, without
notifying their leaders or their armed services--there is a credibility
issue.

[[Page S5495]]

The President has talked about building a coalition, and he says that
there are 12 countries that are already interested.
I would say to him that coming to Congress would show that there is
durability, that he has sought our support, that he has answered our
questions, that his Cabinet members have laid out their plan, both in
public and in private--talking about details that have no business in
the public sphere--and that he has the buy-in of the Congress.
I would say to the other members of the coalition, the people in the
region who question our durability, question, candidly--I hate to say
it--his credibility. They would say that after he had done this that
they believe this Nation is unified in dealing with this issue.
I just want to say again I hope the President is good tonight. I hope
he delivers to the American people why this is in our national
interest. I hope he lays out a strategy that makes sense. I hope he
deals with the objectives that he wants to come forth with.
Importantly, to me, I understand how we are going to deal with the
ground in Iraq. I understand we have an Iraqi military--as weak as they
are--that we can build off of. I understand that we have the
Peshmerga--the Kurds--who we can build off of in support.
What I don't understand in Syria, especially since year after year we
have done nothing to support the moderate opposition like we have said
we would do--or very little--let me not say nothing, but really very
little. Since we have nothing of substance on the ground in Syria, how
are we going to deal with that?
Our Presiding Officer knows more about military officers than I do by
far. But how do we deal with a country with nothing on the ground. I
want him to explain that. But I think all of us would like to
understand that.
But, again, I think if he were to come to the Senate to seek our
support overtly and to explain to the Presiding Officer, myself, and
many others in this body how he has a strategy that could be effective,
I believe that he would receive overwhelming support, and I believe he
would have the durability necessary to deal with an enemy of this sort.
I do hope, again, the President is on target tonight. I hope the
President will seek our authorization for the use of military force--
now.
I hear people say: Well, gosh, Corker, it is right before an
election.
So our President is going to talk to the Nation about what we are
going to be doing with this enemy in Iraq, in Syria--candidly--and in
other places. Because there is an election coming up, maybe he is not
going to--I don't know that this is his reason, but I know there are a
lot of people in Congress who say they don't want to deal with it
before the election.
Are you kidding me--the most significant decision that is made; that
is, sending men and women in harm's way--because it is 2 months before
an election. If there are people in this body who don't want to be put
to the task by the President of asking for an amount, whether it is 2
hours, 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months or 2 years before an election. Someone
shouldn't serve in the Senate if they don't want to take up these
issues and deal with them.
I hope the President will change his mind. I hope the President will
come to the Senate and seek our input and say that he wants an
authorization and send us that authorization.
That is what he did with Syria. Let's look at it. Let's deal with his
Cabinet Members, both in public and private. Let's deal with him. Let
us see his commitment. Let's understand the coalition that is being put
forth and let's deal with this in the manner that people in the Senate
should deal with it, but it should come only after the President seeks
that authorization. That is an important thing for him to do. I hope he
will do it tomorrow after giving his speech.
I stand by ready to work with him in that regard, and I close with
those comments.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The Senator from Vermont.

Constitutional Amendment

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, later this week, one of the most
important Senate votes in the modern history of this country will take
place, and that vote will be about whether the Senate begins the
process to move forward on a constitutional amendment which overturns
the disastrous 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision on Citizens United.
What the Citizens United Supreme Court decision was about 4 years ago
is to say to the billionaires in this country, to say to the largest
corporations in this country: OK, you already own much of the economy
of the United States of America, but now by a 5-to-4 Supreme Court
decision we are going to allow the billionaires and the large
corporations of this country to own the U.S. Government because they
will now be allowed to spend unlimited sums of money on political
campaigns.
Poll after poll tells us that whether you are a progressive, as I am,
a moderate, or a conservative, all over this country people are
profoundly disgusted by the ability of big money to buy elections. What
democracy means, what people fought and died for is the right of you,
her, and him to have one vote.
What democracy is not about is allowing the Koch brothers--a family
worth $80 billion, the second wealthiest family in this country--to
spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to elect candidates
whose job it is to make the wealthiest people in this country even
wealthier while they continue to attack the needs of the middle class
and working families of this country.
There was a piece the other day in the Washington Post talking about
how the Koch brothers alone--just one family--has already in this
election cycle put 44,000 ads on television and radio, and we have 2
months left before this election.
Does anybody believe that is what democracy is about?
In this country today we are suffering a major economic crisis. What
that crisis is about is the disappearance of the middle class, the fact
that since 1999 the typical middle-class family has seen its income go
down by more than $5,000 after adjusting for inflation. The crisis is
that all over America, working people are not working 40 hours a week,
they are working 50, 60 hours a week. They are not working at one job--
they are working at two jobs, they are working at three jobs, trying to
cobble together an income and maybe some health care to take care of
their family.
The crisis in America today is that unemployment is not the official
rate of 6.1 percent, it is the real rate of 12 percent if we include
those people who have given up looking for work and are working part-
time.
The crisis is that youth unemployment today is 20 percent; African-
American youth unemployment is 35 percent. The American people are
calling out. They are saying to the Congress: Why doesn't Congress
create the millions of jobs our people need. Why don't you rebuild our
crumbling infrastructure. Why don't you transform our energy system so
we can address the crisis of climate change and move away from fossil
fuel to energy efficiency, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and create
huge numbers of jobs. Why don't you rebuild our crumbling bridges,
roads, water systems, and wastewater plants. Why don't you raise the
minimum wage to a living wage.
That is what people tell me in Vermont and that is what people are
saying all over this country.
People ask that today, despite the modest gains of the Affordable
Care Act, how does it happen that the United States is the only major
country on Earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a
right?
We have 40 million people uninsured, even more paying large
copayments and premiums.
Why don't we join the rest of the world and guarantee health care to
all of our people?
The answer is very simple. The answer is that Members elected to the
House and the Senate increasingly are dependent upon big money campaign
contributions in order to win their seats. That is not what democracy
is about; that is what oligarchy is about. Oligarchy is when you have a
nation owned and controlled by a handful of wealthy families. That is
where we are moving today.

On issue after issue, the American people are very clear about where
they

[[Page S5496]]

want to be going. On this issue of Citizens United, the American people
are very clear that we need real campaign finance reform to prevent
billionaires from buying elections. That is what the American people
want. That is what they say in poll after poll. Yet it remains to be
seen whether, in a few days when we vote on this issue, we will get one
Republican vote. And I can understand that because the Republicans
today are the beneficiaries in a very big-time way of all of this
billionaire money.
A couple months ago a constituent of mine in Vermont made a very
interesting suggestion. He said: Bernie, do you ever see these guys in
NASCAR, the racing car drivers, and they wear their jackets, and their
jackets have all of the sponsors on them? They are sponsored by
Goodyear Tire Company, and they are sponsored by this oil company, and
they are sponsored by this brake company. Maybe we should have the
Members of the U.S. Senate wear jackets which tell us who is sponsoring
them. So somebody can come forward in their nice blue blazer and say:
Hey, I am owned and sponsored by the Koch brothers. Somebody else can
come forward and say: No, I am not owned by the Koch brothers, I am
owned by the oil industry or I am owned by Big Energy or I am owned by
Wall Street. It would be very instructive, when you see people get up
and vote, about why they do not want to raise the minimum wage, to find
out they are controlled by significant contributions coming from large
corporations.
I think it would be very interesting to see Members of the Congress
wear those types of coats.
The men and women of our country know there is something profoundly
wrong when 95 percent of all new income generated in this country goes
to the top 1 percent. They know there is something profoundly wrong
when one out of four profitable corporations pays nothing in Federal
taxes in any given year. Yet the reason we are unable to come up with
real tax reform--so we can find the money to help our kids go to
college, so we can deal with the fact that we have the highest rate of
childhood poverty in the industrialized world--has everything to do
with large corporations not paying their fair share, and that has
everything to do with the types of campaign contributions these
institutions make.
There was a poll that came out just the other day. They asked the
American people: Should we cut Social Security? Do you know what the
American people say, whether they are progressives, moderates, or
conservatives? They say: You have to be nuts. We can't make it on
Social Security benefits today, and you want to cut Social Security?
You want to cut Medicare? But that is exactly what the Business
Roundtable from corporate America wants us to do.
So we are living in two separate worlds. On the one hand you have an
agenda here in the House and among many of my Republican colleagues
that says: What we need to do is give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest
people and the largest corporations. Is that what the American people
want? Overwhelmingly, they do not want that.
You have an agenda among many who say: We have to cut Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Is that what the American people
want? No, they do not.
There is an agenda among some Republicans that says: Not only should
we not raise the minimum wage, we should do away with the concept of
the minimum wage so that in high-unemployment areas people could work
for $4 or $5 an hour. Is that what the American people want? Quite the
contrary. They want to raise the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an
hour.

So you have an amazing dynamic right now in American society. On the
one hand in the real world outside of the beltway, ordinary people are
hurting. They are struggling. They are worried about their kids. They
are worried about their grandchildren. They are worried about their
parents. They want the U.S. Government to do something to create jobs,
to raise the minimum wage, to change our disastrous trade policies.
They want us to do something to make college affordable, to lower
interest rates on student debt. They want us to create jobs by
rebuilding the infrastructure. They want everybody in this country to
have health care as a right. They want us to address the crisis of
global warming. But we do not do that. Why not? Because increasingly
the Congress is not responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans. They
are responsive to the big-money campaign contributors, and that has
everything to do with this constitutional amendment beginning the
process to overturn Citizens United.
So of all of the issues out there--whether you are concerned about
education, health care, the environment, the economy--the most
important issue underlying all of those issues is the need to end this
disastrous Supreme Court decision which allows billionaires to buy
elections. That is not what people fought and died for in the name of
democracy. That is called oligarchy. Abraham Lincoln talked about a
government of the people, by the people, and for the people, not a
government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the
billionaires, and that is where we are today.
I hope the American people are watching. The media has not paid, for
interesting reasons, a lot of attention to this issue, but there is no
domestic issue that I can think of more important for the future of
this country.
Do we elect Members of Congress who are beholden to the constituents
back home, to the middle class, to working families, or do we elect
Members of Congress who are beholden to corporate America and the
billionaire class? Do we fight to sustain the democratic foundation of
this country or do we move toward an oligarchic form of society
controlled by a handful of billionaire families? That is the issue.
That is what this debate is all about, and that is what this vote in a
few days will be about. I hope very much the American people will
demand that every Member of this Senate vote for this piece of
legislation which begins the process of overturning this disastrous
Citizens United Supreme Court decision.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I would like to follow up on the Presiding
Officer's comments a moment ago about the crux of this issue--why this
big money in campaigns is so bad for our country.
The public does not really care who has an advantage, who has a
disadvantage. They do not really care if a Republican wins or a
Democrat wins. They care about what we do here and how we can help
people's lives.
The Presiding Officer talked about the minimum wage. In my first year
in the Senate, 2007--my first speech on the Senate floor, four or five
desks over from here, was about the minimum wage. It passed the Senate
with a bipartisan vote. It was signed by a Republican President,
increasing the minimum wage. That was then. Today we cannot even get a
minimum wage out of the Senate because of a Republican filibuster.
The minimum wage is worth one-third less in real dollars, in
purchasing power, than it was in 1968. The subminimum wage--the tipped
wage--has been stuck at $2.13 an hour for 20 years. People who push
wheelchairs at airports, valets, and waiters in downtown diners can
make as little as $2 or $3 an hour, and they hope to get up to $7 or $8
or $9 on tips.
If it were not for the political pressure, the money that just rolls
across the political landscape, that washes across the candidates for
the Senate, the candidates for the House, we could pass the minimum
wage. But Members of the Senate, when they think about voting on this,
they think about the big money that might come in against them if they
vote for the minimum wage.
I am convinced that if we could pass this constitutional amendment,
we could begin to address the issues of Wall Street and oil companies
and Big Tobacco buying elections, spending not millions, not even tens
of millions, but hundreds of millions of dollars. We could pass the
minimum wage. We

[[Page S5497]]

could pass a real jobs bill. We could reform Wall Street. We could pass
consumer protection bills. We could invest in education and community
colleges and federally qualified health centers and veterans' benefits
the way we should. That is why this constitutional amendment is so
important on campaign spending. That is why it matters.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, as we all know, we are discussing a
constitutional amendment sponsored by 45 members of the Democratic
Party to restrict free speech.
This constitutional amendment pending before the Senate is a real
threat to one of the two most vital developments in our Nation's legal
and constitutional history.
One of those legal successes was the development of a body of civil
rights laws to protect the basic freedoms of all Americans. That took a
long time and required massive effort and even bloodshed as well as
judicial rulings. The second development was the enhancement of free
speech as protected by the First Amendment. That process also required
massive time and effort and judicial rulings.
Both of these struggles were made necessary because the Supreme Court
failed to give effort to the intent of the authors of the First and
14th Amendments in guaranteeing liberty and equality. It took President
Jefferson assuming office--not the courts interpreting the First
Amendment--to address the criminalization of free speech under the
Alien and Sedition Acts.
When Congress in the 1830s and 1840s denied the right to petition for
redress of grievances to those who opposed slavery, it took John Quincy
Adams and Congress--not a court relying on the First Amendment--to
change those rules.
The reality is the First Amendment had a very limited scope until
well into the 20th century. After a judicial sea change, the courts now
give broad protection to free speech.
Political speech is now constitutionally protected unless the
government has a compelling interest, and the restriction is narrowly
tailored to further that compelling interest. Those free speech battles
took many years to win. If the arguments that proponents of this
constitutional amendment are making were adopted, we would be turning
the clock back on 100 years of progress of protecting free speech. The
constitutional amendment before us is a content-based restriction on
free speech.
Speech influencing campaigns for elective office would be restricted.
No other speech content, however, would be restricted. Some of that
speech by corporations and other entities could be prohibited entirely,
and those who engage in such speech could be criminally prosecuted.
The Supreme Court has allowed content-based restrictions on speech in
only a very few cases, such as obscenity, defamation, child
pornography, and threats.
The proposed constitutional amendment would restrict the most
important speech the First Amendment protects--and that happens to be
core political speech. It would treat that speech as if it were like
child pornography.
In the Judiciary Committee, one Democrat actually compared core
political speech to child pornography. It is incredible that would be
said. Comparing the core political speech the Bill of Rights protects
to the video recording of an unspeakable crime against a child doesn't
make any sense.
That same Senator and the sponsor of the amendment on the floor both
argued that campaign-related speech can be restricted because free
speech doesn't include the right to falsely shout fire in a crowded
theater. This is the argument that would reduce free speech protection
in this country to the minimal level that it enjoyed 100 years ago,
before there was expansion of protection under the First Amendment.
When Justice Holmes made that famous fire statement in that case, the
Supreme Court wasn't being asked to rule on the legality of a
conviction of someone who had falsely yelled fire in a crowded theater.
Rather, the case involved a man who was convicted of distributing
leaflets urging young men not to comply with the draft laws during
World War I.
Justice Holmes compared that peaceful protest to a shout that would
immediately lead to serious bodily injury and perhaps loss of life for
larger numbers of people. That is obviously a false analogy.
Those who speak in support or opposition to candidates are comparable
then to those who pass out leaflets in opposition to government policy.
It is obviously false analogy to compare that speech designed to
persuade fellow citizens in their voting to falsely yelling fire in a
crowded theater.
It is easy for the government to determine whether a cry of fire is
true or false, but a campaign ad isn't often clearly false. Even a
false ad doesn't create the risk of death. When a government prosecutes
those who falsely cry fire in a crowded theater, that prosecution will
have the beneficial effect of deterring others from engaging in that
same conduct. But when government criminalizes ads that it determines
are false or limits how much can be spent on those ads, backed up by
criminal penalties, that in fact will produce the harm of reducing the
likelihood that others will speak about important public subjects--
hence, weakening our democracy.
Justice Holmes quickly came to realize the errors of his ways. In
subsequent Supreme Court decisions, he and Justice Brandeis dissented
when the majority applied the clear and present danger test that the
fire-in-the-theater analogy supported. They voted to protect peaceable
free speech. They understood that in a free country, the way to address
controversial speech was through speech by others with different
views--not by shutting up people with the threat of jail.
It took a long 50 years for the Court to adopt the protections for
free speech that Justice Holmes and Judge Learned Hand had advocated to
no avail. And if this constitutional amendment passes, that glorious
history of the understanding of the importance of free speech in a
democracy will be undone.
It was only a few years after its 1969 ruling providing strong
constitutional protections of free political speech that the Supreme
Court ruled on its first campaign speech case; that is, Buckley v.
Valeo. In that case the Court ruled that the independent expenditures
could be limited. The decision wasn't the work of supposed conservative
judicial activists. Wealthy individuals have been able to spend
unlimited amounts on campaign-related speech since then. That isn't a
novel development that dates only to Citizens United. Buckley also
permitted nonprofit corporations to engage in independent expenditures
designed to influence campaigns. Corporations and others could
contribute to these nonprofit entities.

In context, Citizens United represents an advance over the prior law,
especially in promoting transparency. Floyd Abrams, the Nation's
foremost First Amendment litigator, wrote to the Judiciary Committee in
questions for the record:

What Citizens United did do, however, is permit
corporations to contribute to PACs that are required to
disclose all donors and engage only in independent
expenditures.
If anything, Citizens United is a pro-disclosure ruling
which brought corporate money further into the light.

So I don't think my colleagues are correct in saying this amendment
is about so-called ``dark money.'' And limiting speech is totally
separate from disclosure of speech. This amendment says nothing about
disclosure.
It is the constitutional amendment, not Citizens United, that fails
to respect precedent. It doesn't simply overturn one case. The Supreme
Court has repeatedly found that engaging in campaign speech is fully
protected by the Bill of Rights. Time after time it has ruled correctly
that because effective speech can only occur through the expenditure of
money, government cannot restrict campaign expenditures by candidates
or others. Repeatedly, the Court has recognized that effective campaign
speech requires that individuals have the right to form groups that

[[Page S5498]]

will spend money on campaign speech. Those Supreme Court decisions were
joined and sometimes written by great liberal Justices.
This proposal represents a radical departure from long-established
free speech protections. It is at war with an entire body of
jurisprudence. It extends well beyond corporations.
Despite the sponsors of this amendment limiting their criticism to
one or two cases, the amendment would overturn not just those few cases
but 12 Supreme Court decisions, according to that expert, Mr. Abrams.
As the amendment has been redrafted, it may be only 11.5 cases now,
depending upon what the word ``reasonable'' means. And why the word
``reasonable'' was left out in the first place and why it was included
now, I don't know, but it is included now because people realize the
extremities to which this constitutional amendment would take it. But
even with the word ``reasonable,'' that extreme position would take us
down a slippery slope, amending the Bill of Rights, and I don't think
we want to go down that slope.
Justice Stevens, whom the committee Democrats relied on at length in
support of the amendment, voted with the majority in three of the cases
the amendment would overturn.
It is hard to imagine what would be more radical than the Congress
passing a constitutional amendment to overturn a dozen Supreme Court
decisions that have protected individual rights. Free speech would be
dramatically curtailed. That is why the arguments made here on the
Senate floor that matters were fine before Citizens United 4 years ago
are beside the point.
Also off-point is the argument by another Democrat that the debate
here concerns only whether Citizens United was correctly decided under
the First Amendment and that the overall protection of free speech is
not at issue whatsoever. The amendment before us doesn't just reverse
Citizens United. It doesn't just take us back 4 years. It reverses
decades of precedent that gave broad protection to free speech. That is
why the stakes are so high and why we are spending so much time
debating this constitutional amendment.
Yet another argument was raised on the floor that overturning
Citizens United through a constitutional amendment is comparable to
overturning earlier Supreme Court decisions on women's suffrage or poll
taxes. In response to a written question from the Judiciary Committee,
the same scholar, Mr. Abrams, forcefully rejected any such comparison.
He wrote this back to us Senators:

The notion that a Supreme Court opinion protecting First
Amendment rights should be viewed as comparable to one
depriving slaves or women of their rights is both
intellectually flawed and morally repugnant.
How can constitutional amendments assuring freedom of
slaves or equality for women possibly be viewed as analogous
to taking away--

Emphasis on ``taking away''--

citizens' First Amendment rights?

This morning the lead sponsor of the amendment contended that the
amendment wouldn't lead to banning books or putting people in jail. He
also claimed that Congress had not provided for such results in earlier
years and would not do so now. He said that even if Congress tried, it
would be very unlikely that both Houses would pass such a measure. He
maintained that even if such extreme measures were enacted, the
Supreme Court would strike down them as unreasonable. It reminds you
that the alien and sedition laws never put anybody in prison. But this
sponsor did not deny that Congress could, in fact, pass legislation
that would have the effect the opponents have raised. What does he
think would happen if someone violated the reasonable spending limits?
Some government agency would have to enforce them with criminal
penalties. Violating them would subject people to jail for speaking.
The Obama Justice Department, which would enforce those criminal laws,
told the Supreme Court that if Citizens United had been decided as the
sponsors of the amendment desire, it would prosecute book publishers.

In this country constitutional rights do not depend on the kindness
of politicians not infringing them. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had the
Alien and Sedition Acts. Those limits prevent Congress from violating
rights in the first place.
The Bill of Rights was adopted precisely because the citizens
rejected the argument that the Constitution's difficult passage to
legislative enactment by itself was adequate to protect fundamental
liberties such as free speech. And it is cold comfort that after the
election is over and they have been barred from speaking, citizens can
spend money to ask the Supreme Court to reverse their convictions.
I have made clear that this amendment abridges fundamental freedoms
that are the birthright of Americans. The arguments made to support it
are very unconvincing. The amendment will weaken, not strengthen,
democracy. It will not reduce corruption but will open the door for
elected officials to bend democracy rules to benefit themselves, and
that is benefiting incumbency.
The fact that the Senate is considering such a dreadful amendment is
a great testament to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers in insisting
upon and adopting the Bill of Rights in the first place, a necessary
forerunner to whether the Colonies would approve the Constitution in
the first place.
Justice Jackson famously wrote:

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw
certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political
controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and
officials and to establish them as legal principles to be
applied by the courts.
One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech,
a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other
fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend
on the outcome of no elections.

We must preserve our Bill of Rights, including our right to free
speech. We must not allow officials to diminish or ration that right.
We must not let this proposal become part of the supreme law of the
land.
I yield the floor.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I wish to discuss legislation pending before
the Senate which wages an unprecedented attack on a fundamental
American freedom. The Framers of our Constitution were clear when they
stated in the Bill of Rights . . . ``Congress shall make no law . .
. prohibiting the free exercise of speech.'' However, this week, the
Senate majority has sought to undermine this fundamental freedom by
offering a constitutional amendment to give Congress more control over
the free speech rights of Americans.
I opposed moving forward with this amendment because political speech
is essential to the American way of life. Our Nation was founded on
those who openly criticized the king and argued for a better form of
government. All branches of our government rely on the ability for
Americans to passionately defend their interests. Additionally, when we
elect candidates for office we the electorate rely on open dialog about
why he or she ought to serve a particular community or State. The
Constitution would have never been adopted without the Bill of Rights.
Political speech is exactly the type of expression the Founders sought
to protect when they adopted the Bill of Rights--however, this proposal
completely forgets about that freedom.
Giving the Federal Government the ability to regulate what we say is
flat out dangerous. What is a reasonable limitation on political
speech? The sponsors of this proposal can't answer that and it is
reckless to assume that Federal courts will determine the correct
answer. What concerns me the most is where does this regulation stop?
The answer is not clear and at the very end of the day this
constitutional amendment limits the way in which Americans can voice
their concerns about their elected officials.
With all that the Senate needs to accomplish it is an embarrassment
that the majority leader would bring this up now, not allow amendments
and expect this institution to forget about the very freedoms our
Founders sought to protect when they drafted our Federal Constitution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Lamest Lameduck Session

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I became a practicing physician over 30
years ago. I delivered well in excess of 4,000 babies. And right now in
my Senate career and where the Senate is, I

[[Page S5499]]

feel as if I am the father in the waiting room. I keep wondering when
we are going to make any progress, when we are actually going to have
the delivery of something positive for the country.
What we are seeing this week is really disappointing to me because if
you read just the headlines in the last 4 days, here are the headlines
about Congress.
Here is today's Politico: ``The Lamest Lame Duck Looms Over
Congress.''
``Lame Ducks Will Roost in a Do-Nothing December.''
``December will be the lamest lame-duck session in a long time.''
The Economist: ``Congress is useless.''

America's legislature has become something of a joke in
recent years, a place where good policy ideas go to die and
where decent policy ideas go to be twisted into something
incomprehensible.

It is enough to make one lose faith in representative democracy, I
tell you.
CNN:

Congress has taken off the whole year. But here's the
current math: What is less than nothing? And if you do less
than nothing, at what point does it become completely
counterproductive and silly?

That is our debate. The sum total of our big ideas right now is not
wanting to start any fights within our own party and unity above all
else as we head into the midterm election.
What is the political solution? No substance, no ideas, no serious
debate that might actually engage voters. Instead, each side suits up,
armed with its slogans and its bromides.
This is a quote from CNN: ``Congress defined: `Useless,' `worthless,'
a `joke.' '' That is according to the most recent response of the
popular responses on CNN's Web site from 5,000 respondents on social
media.
Also:

Still trying to get a pulse on the most common feelings
toward Congress? The other words on the top 10 list are
``corrupt,'' ``incompetent,'' ``lazy,'' ``inept,''
``idiots,'' ``selfish'' and ``dysfunctional.''

The article goes on to say: ``I'll describe Congress with two
words,'' he said. ``Term limits!!''
The CNN article also had a Washington Post poll that said a majority
of Americans feel their representatives in Congress are part of the
problem.
From the Washington Post: ``Congress is making a lot of history by
being so unpopular.''
The real topic of today is what is not happening in the Congress. I
will describe where we are. This year we are going to have borrowed an
excess of $500 billion that we won't pay for. We have a continuing
resolution coming up with $49 billion worth of fake dollars in it. That
way everybody can say they stayed within the requirements of the Ryan-
Murray agreement. So there is no integrity in that.
We have done nothing to markedly increase the opportunity for jobs in
America. What is not happening is a reversal of the decline in the
median family income in this country, which is now at 1988 levels.
The big story is what is not happening. The big story is that
Congress is not addressing the needs of the Nation. The big story is
that Congress has not passed its first appropriations bill. The big
story is what is not happening. It is not what is happening. What is
happening is a political farce. Everybody knows it. It is all about the
election, it is all about reemphasizing where we are, and the country
suffers for it.
We know that there is no opportunity to actually amend the bill on
the floor, but I have filed an amendment which would place term limits
on Members of Congress. The No. 1 requirement--right now in this body--
for most politicians on both sides is to get reelected. That is why we
are not addressing the real issues; that is why we are not addressing
the fraud in the Social Security disability system; that is why we
threw $30 billion at the VA system rather than effectively rearrange
and totally rewrite the VA health care system.
Cyber security is important for this country. Bills have passed out
of the Homeland Security Committee. Bills have--these are all
bipartisan bills--passed out of the Senate Select Intelligence
Committee. What is not happening is that they are not coming to the
floor even though that is a great threat to our country right now
because what is important is what is important to the politicians and
not what is important for the long run, the best for our country.
If we are going to amend the Bill of Rights and take free speech away
from people in this country, we should at least do something to secure
the future--so our own worst tendencies won't be exaggerated in the
future--and put term limits on Members of Congress. This system is
rigged for incumbents. It is totally rigged for incumbents.
At one point last year the approval rating for Congress got down to 8
percent. That means only 1 in 12 people in this country thought
Congress--and it is a little better than that now. I think it is 12 or
14 percent; 1 in 6 or 7 people have confidence that we have their back
and that our motivations are pure in terms of wanting to fix the
problems with our country. They see the lack of leadership. They see
the political posturing, and they don't like what they see because what
they see is selfishness. They see politicians putting themselves first
and the country second. That is where we are. It is the dirty little
secret that people won't talk about but Americans outside of Washington
innately know is true.
So we have a bill on the floor to amend--for the first time in
history--the Bill of Rights to limit First Amendment speech. Why?
Because the Supreme Court rulings have maybe changed the dynamics in
terms of elections. Well, if you didn't care if you got reelected, you
would not care about that.
So we are only going to be here in session--actively in Congress
before the election in early November--for 7 or 8 more days so that
everybody who is up for reelection, and those who are not, can go out
and campaign and raise money so we can continue the progress of career
politicians and the rigged incumbent advantage can stay in process.
So I know it is not in order to offer my amendment. It has been
filed. One way to fix this is to put term limits on Members of the
Senate. Oklahoma has term limits for its Members of Congress.
Oklahomans believe in it. It is a 72-to-80 percent issue all across the
country. Americans believe in it, but the politicians in Washington are
never going to vote for it because it puts them second and the country
first.
We have a Defense authorization bill that needs to be passed. It is
critical for the future of our country. We are not talking about it,
and we are not doing anything on it.
As I have mentioned, we have several cyber bills that need to be
passed that have gone through committee--bipartisan bills--and they are
not on the floor. We have significant appropriation bills that need to
have the attention of the Members of Congress--and this is not the
committee's fault.
The committee is a bipartisan committee and has done good work. This
is a leadership problem within the Senate. They have done their work,
but the bills can't come to the floor because we don't want to have to
take up and defend those votes back home. So when you read what the
press says about Congress, they are actually pretty nice to us given
where we are today. We are lame ducks. We have taken the year off. We
are worthless. We are a joke. We are useless, incompetent, corrupt,
lazy, and inept. I don't think those words are too harsh. We are
repeating votes that we have already voted on that are political votes
that are designed to enhance turnout in certain groups.
So this place is a show place, and the downside is that the country
suffers for it--our country. Whether you are a conservative male who is
66 years old like me or you are a liberal Latino female at 18, our
country suffers because our eye is off the ball. Our eye is off the
oath that we took. Our eye is off our commitment and the historical
lineage that has been here before us as Members of Congress willing to
do what was necessary to solve the problems for the country. What is
not happening in the Senate is that there is no leadership. We say
leader, but there is no leadership in the Senate.
The leadership of the Senate is now totally disconnected from what is
needed by the country. So instead of the greatest deliberative body in
the world, what we have in the Senate today is the greatest political
body in the world that doesn't care about deliberation

[[Page S5500]]

and only cares about winning the next election. There are a lot of ways
to cure that, and when you read and see the poll about Congress and
read the words and look at it, the majority of Americans today believe
that their Member of Congress is part of the problem. The average
Member of Congress has a lower reelect than nonreelect.
The American people get it. The question is: What can they do about
it? What you have to do is you have to eventually have term limits so
that we take the inherent bias of the career politician out of the mix,
and we make it not about the politicians but we return the Senate to
its original intention; and that is, what is in the best interest of
the country.
Quite frankly, for the last 3\1/2\ years, that is not what has been
happening in this body. It is a soulful, shameful period in the history
of our country. The thoughts and creative power of our Founders as they
instituted a body that was meant to consider very straightforward, very
solemnly, every issue that came--that was meant to drive consensus, to
force consensus. We have no consensus when the whole goal is not to
solve problems for the country but to win elections.
I would love to be able to take a poll of Democrats, Republicans,
Whigs, Independents, and everybody else who has ever been in this
body--it is less than 2,500, although I don't know the exact number--
and see what they would say about how the Senate operates today and how
it is not doing its job and what is not happening at a time when our
country's economic growth is anemic at best, when job creation doesn't
come anywhere close to what we need, where deficit spending is kind of
a yawn, and the moral fact that every day we have mortgaged the future
of the next two generations. I would love to hear what the other
Senators who stood in this building would say about what we are doing
today. I think there would be a rousing round of condemnation.
So I think it is important for the American people right now to look
at the Senate and say: What are we doing? I mean, it is true that
Social Security disability will go bankrupt next year. It is true that
in less than 15 years Medicare will be bankrupt. It is true that in
less than 18 years Social Security will be gone. Those are all true
things. It is true that we are going to have a $500 billion deficit--at
least $500 billion--which is about $1,400 a person. We are spending
more than we are taking in this year, and we are charging it to the 2,
3, 4, 5, and 6-year-olds in this country today. Those are true
statements.
Is that anywhere close to integrity? Is there any moral value in
mortgaging the future of the next generation? Probably not.
I have listened to a lot of speeches on the floor this week. I hardly
ever come down and talk except for maybe once every 2 weeks now since
we have no opportunity to offer or debate our amendments.
I wonder what the American people must be thinking about what we are
not doing, what we are not addressing, the problems that are unfixed
that need a fix, that need a bipartisan solution, that need compromise,
that need the power of the original Senate, with the rights of the
minority and the majority running toward a compromise that gives us the
best we can get based on where we are as a country. There is no
opportunity for that anymore in this body. We don't pass muster, and we
don't pass muster not because there are a lot of those on both sides of
the aisle who don't want to pass muster but because the leadership
isn't there.
The Senate has been run into the ground as far as its intended
function and its intended working. I think that is highly unfortunate
for our country. I think it is highly unfortunate for our children. In
this time of world morass and trouble all around the world--conflict,
complications, difficulty--and in this time when we are having trouble
ourselves staying above water, in almost every aspect of what we are
doing, we need a vigorous, alive, functioning Senate that is full of
riveting debate about the issues of today that are presented to our
country. Instead, we have political games, and we are going to have
political games the rest of the week.
I wonder what our future holds when we have this kind of leadership.
What does it portend for the country when the U.S. Senate no longer
debates the current topics and issues before the country and spends all
its times trying to get its Members reelected. That is a sad
commentary, and it is a Senate that is very far away from the Senate I
joined 10 years ago.
I yield the floor. I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I first wanted to acknowledge the severity
of the challenges we face as a country right now, whether it is
military action to stop the threat of ISIS or the crisis in Ukraine.
Colorado is waiting to hear from the President tonight. We are all
concerned with that, as we should be.
Today on the floor of the Senate is a proposed constitutional
amendment. While it is on the floor I wanted to take a minute to talk
about it.
Tonight in Colorado, a swing State, families will endure an avalanche
of political ads. Many of them will come from obscure interests with
deceptive names such as America, Inc., the Government Integrity Fund
Action Network, something called Citizens for a Working America, and so
on and so forth. There will be no way to tell who these folks are,
because under the laws of the United States many of these organizations
do not have any obligation to disclose where their money comes from, a
privileged status that individual Americans do not have when it comes
to funding political campaigns. It is enough to make everyone in our
State, in Colorado, hate their TV, much less American politics, and
probably not in that order.
In Washington, on the other hand, which--I guess I should say only in
Washington, which has become a Disneyland when it comes to any sense of
reality, there are people defending the current system--the current
campaign finance system--on the grounds that it is a great victory for
free speech and a great victory for our democracy. It is the position--
it is the position of the defenders of the current system that what we
need in our politics is more money, not less, that more money is going
to help our politics, not less.
I have never met a Coloradan who thinks what is wrong with our
politics is that we do not have enough money. In fact, they believe the
reverse. They believe the exact opposite. That is because they know our
system of financing campaigns, far from being about elucidating the
truth, is a system expressly designed to obscure the truth. From
Colorado's perspective, it is a system that is really good for the
special interests and the occupiers of the past, and really terrible
for the American people and for our future.
Over the last several months, almost every one of us at some point
has lamented the Senate's inability to address the big issues facing
our Nation, whether it is reforming our broken immigration system,
creating a more competitive Tax Code that encourages innovation and
helps produce an economy that lifts middle-class family income again in
the country. Energy, climate, education, and infrastructure are left
unanswered as we barely summon the votes to approve another
noncontroversial judge or nominee.
My colleagues, we share the pathetic distinction of being on target
to becoming the least productive Congress ever. Ever. Close readers of
American history will know this is a particularly ignominious
achievement. How will it feel when the next history books are written
to know that we managed to do even less than the do-nothing Congress?
That is how you acquire a Congress that now has a 14-percent approval
rating, below President Nixon even had during the height of Watergate.
This less-than-do-nothing Congress is not just failing the American
people on the big issues. We have given up on those for now around
here. We are struggling to pass basic appropriations bills, to keep the
Highway Trust Fund solvent over the long term. Some of my colleagues in
this Chamber, this land of flickering lights, have argued that the

[[Page S5501]]

tea party and obstruction are to blame. Others have argued that the
majority's limits on debate and floor amendments are at the root of the
problem. But I think it all starts with our broken campaign finance
system, which has never been perfect but recently has become
substantially worse.
First, let me say when I first studied the Court's most significant
prior opinion on finance, the case of Buckley against Valeo, decided in
the early 1970s, it seemed to me that if the Court had actually
understood what had happened as a result of that decision, they might
reconsider their holding that money is speech. But by then it was
abundantly clear that the wealthier you are the louder your voice, an
outcome that seemed to me at odds with a democracy grounded on the
notion of one person, one vote. This is not to say we should expect to
live in a country where everybody has equal speech. We could never
succeed in ensuring that, and we would certainly fail if we tried. But
we could address unfair practices and advantages. We could devise
commonsense regulations of our campaign finance laws to make sure our
government could actually function. We could hope to lift the voices in
the town square and on every street corner in the country and reward
the effort of each individual American, no matter what they believe, no
matter who they were, who became involved in politics to help create
the future of this country. We could do that. In fact, we did do that
for decades. We could do it until Citizens United was decided, when the
Court not only did not wince at its holding in Buckley, but doubled
down, holding, among other things, that independent expenditures do not
give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption, an absurd
proposition on its face to anyone who serves in the Congress.
Also, in McCutcheon, another opinion, the Supreme Court held that
there is ``only one legitimate governmental interest for restricting
campaign finances: preventing corruption or the appearance of
corruption.''
That is it. It can't be regulated to do anything else.
The Court went on to hold that ``spending large sums of money in
connection with elections, but not in connection with an effort to
control the exercise of an officeholder's official duties, does not
give rise to quid pro quo corruption. Nor does the possibility that an
individual who spends large sums may garner `influence or access to'
elected officials or political parties.''
Think about that for a minute. The majority in McCutcheon doesn't
believe that an individual who spends large sums of money would garner
influence or access to elected officials? The Court doesn't think they
are trying to influence our official duties? Could anyone in this
Chamber agree with this conclusion with a straight face?
In fact, some do agree, but there isn't a single soul in Colorado who
does.
But to me the more significant point is that the Court failed to
recognize how unlimited and undisclosed campaign spending corrupts the
very act of government. This extends far beyond the traditional notion
of quid pro quo corruption.
In search pretty much in vain--not entirely but pretty much in vain--
for the pitiful politician hiding cash in his icebox or somewhere
beneath the south 40, the Court missed the real corruption. In doing so
these decisions and the looming threat of unchecked spending have led
to almost complete paralysis--the end of principled compromise on
behalf of the public interest.
In his dissent in Citizens United, Justice Stevens warned of this
potential problem when he wrote:

The influx of unlimited corporate money into the electoral
realm also creates new opportunities for the mirror image of
quid pro quo deals: threats, both explicit and implicit.
Starting today, corporations with large war chests to deploy
on electioneering may find democratically elected bodies
becoming much more attuned to their interests.

That is precisely what we found. Inertia has become the new reality
in the Senate and in the House. Congress is now frozen by its own fear
of taking on incumbent interests, whether it is our failure to address
long-term deficits or to create a coherent energy policy.
We can see this corruption in the difficult decisions we avoid. It is
the tough vote that we will not take. It is the bill we can't pass even
in the face of urgent need. It is the deal that can't be reached. It is
the speech that is never made. It is the story of the do-less than the
do-nothing Congress.
This corruption, by its nature, is difficult to prove because it is
invisible, but it suits the incumbent interests just fine.
The Court imagined a world where people with bags of money are
wandering around Capitol Hill--and only then could you regulate it--
trying to get people to do something for them. Ninety percent of what
happens around here is people coming and trying to keep you from doing
something, trying to keep things the same, trying to keep the incumbent
interests embedded in our Tax Code, in our regulatory code, and in our
statute book.
The Supreme Court was silent completely on that corruption. I would
argue that is at the core of our dysfunction as a Congress.
There is a reason the dysfunction that is so hated by the people I
represent coincided with the era of these Supreme Court opinions.
This is why everybody in Colorado continue to scratch their heads and
wonder how we can be so disconnected from their set of priorities, so
decoupled from their set of priorities--what they care about, for the
future of their families, the future of their business--and how we can
come here all week and just vote on judges.
To my knowledge, there are no super PACs devoted to votes on judges
one way or another, which is maybe why that is what we spend our time
doing.
I have a lot of respect for the Supreme Court, as I know the
Presiding Officer does, and the separation of powers, and I know how
serious it is to consider a constitutional amendment, an amendment to
the Constitution, which is why it should be a last, not a first resort.
But the Court got it wrong when it came to the practical day-to-day
operations of this Congress and the way its campaigns work, and its
decisions have unleashed a new torrent of spending that is corroding
the vibrancy of our democracy.
I think it is useful for us to take a moment to think about or to
consider the practical effect of these decisions.
During the entire 2010 election cycle--that is the year Citizens
United was decided--super PACs spent a total of $63 million in this
country.
So far, September 10, in this election cycle, super PACs have spent
$116 million. That is almost twice what was spent in 2010, and it is
only the beginning of September. There are States where you cannot buy
TV time because so much TV time has been bought by these outside
groups.

For the three election cycles before Citizens United, outside
spending totaled about $113 million. In contrast, in the three election
cycles since Citizens United was decided, outside spending has totaled
about $530 million. This is almost a fivefold increase in spending.
There probably are people around the country who aren't beneficiaries
of this incredible speech. Unfortunately, folks in Colorado are because
we are a swing State, as I mentioned at the beginning. You can't
actually at this point watch anything else on television.
In 2012 the top 100 individual donors to super PACs--the top 100
people, people along with their spouses--represented 1 percent of all
individual donors to super PACs, but their donations totaled 67 percent
of the funding and therefore 67 percent of the spending.
But the spending doesn't only affect how this place works, as I
mentioned earlier, it affects what we work on in Congress.
That is why Congress has repeatedly enacted reasonable limits on
campaign spending, which have largely been upheld until very recently,
until 2010.
In fact, as recently as 2003, in FEC v. Beaumont, the Supreme Court
found that ``any attack on the federal prohibition of direct corporate
political contributions goes against the current of a century of
congressional efforts to curb corporations' potentially `deleterious
influences on federal elections.' ''
The Court made the point that our current laws grew out of the late
19th century belief ``that aggregated capital unduly influenced
politics, an influence not stopping short of corruption.''
It is an influence that stops the work of the Senate and the House
dead in its tracks.

[[Page S5502]]

This concern about aggregated capital and its effect on our democracy
actually goes back to the earliest days of our country.
In the Federalist Papers James Madison wrote:

We may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that
name on, a government which derives all its powers directly
or indirectly from the great body of the people. . . . It is
essential to such a government that it be derived from the
great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable
proportion, or a favored class of it.

So there is nothing unprecedented about seeking to regulate campaign
spending. What is unprecedented is the ease by which the Supreme Court
has undone decades of campaign finance laws, which has led to this
dysfunction in Congress and the misery the folks in Colorado are
suffering as they watch these ads.
What is unprecedented is the sheer volume of money that is flooding
the Senate and congressional races. What is unprecedented is the
corrupting influence this money is having on the institution of
Congress.
Because of this new world of unlimited spending, Members of Congress
are a lot less likely to seek compromise than they once were and work
together if they know they may become the target of a super Pac from
people who can write checks that are larger than my imagination.
Reasonable limits on campaign spending can help address this problem.
We believed for decades and decades and decades that the Constitution
allowed us to do that.
The Supreme Court has now decided that we can't, and we are looking
at this choice.
I would say also on this point that notwithstanding my observations
about the Court, it is also true that eight of nine Supreme Court
Justices have said that disclosure requirements are constitutional,
that disclosure does not require a change to the Constitution. I, for
one, say at least let's pass that, Republicans and Democrats coming
together and saying, You know what. We have always had an expectation
about the First Amendment that we are going to be willing to stand and
say who we are--or maybe we will not require people to say who they
are, but we will just say at the end: Paid for people who are so
embarrassed about what they are doing that they refuse to put their
actual names on this advertisement.
But it seems to me that if we can be required to say: I am Senator so
and so and I paid for this message, we ought to be able to say that
about everybody who is advertising in political ads.
Changing these rules would bring more compromise and consensus
building to this institution but, most important, above all else, it
would help give individual families a greater say in the political
process. We offer this amendment not as a one-size-fits-all solution
but to allow Congress and the States to place reasonable limits on
campaign spending to experiment with what works and put away what
doesn't work, similar to the rules that had existed for decades,
similar to the rules that existed when the Congress actually
functioned, similar to the rules that existed when Democrats and
Republicans didn't seem to have such difficulty working across the
aisle.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

____________________