[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 24 (Thursday, February 12, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S967-S968]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2015--MOTION TO
PROCEED--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Unanimous Consent Requests
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, for 2 weeks now Democrats have
continued to filibuster funding for the Department of Homeland
Security.
They are filibustering Homeland Security for one reason, and that is
to defend actions President Obama himself referred to as ``unwise and
unfair'' and ``ignoring the law.''
For 2 full weeks, Democrats have prevented the Senate from even
considering legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
Democrats won't allow the Senate to even debate this funding. Democrats
won't allow the Senate to even consider amendments to this funding.
Democrats appear willing to do anything and everything they can to
prevent the Senate from taking any action to fund Homeland Security,
and all to defend ``unwise and unfair''--the President's words, not
mine--overreach.
This includes Democrats who claim to be against overreach and who
claim to be for funding the Department of Homeland Security. Yet these
Democrats continue to filibuster things they claim to want.
Listen to the things Democrats have been saying too. We have heard a
claim
[[Page S968]]
from them the Democratic filibuster wasn't actually a filibuster. We
heard a call from them for the Senate to start with funding legislation
of its own. Of course, the Democratic leader has been clear in the past
that the Senate can do no such thing.
Well, here is some good news. There is already a funding bill before
us. It has already passed the House. It would fund the Department of
Homeland Security fully, and we can consider it today, right now. All
Democrats have to do is stop blocking the Senate from even debating it.
If our Democratic colleagues don't like provisions of the bill the
House has passed, the Senate has a process for modifying bills. It is
called amending them. But the Senate can only consider amendments to a
bill if it is not being filibustered.
This strained logic of our Democratic friends is very hard to
swallow. We understand Democrats might be having a tough time kicking
this years-long gridlock habit of theirs, but it is about time they
did.
I have already offered a fair and open debate to them several times
now. It is a debate that would allow amendments from both parties--that
means amendments from our Democratic friends as well. If you want to
make changes to the bill, colleagues, that is the way to do it. But to
do so you first need to end the weeks-long Democratic filibuster of
Homeland Security funding.
Why don't we get serious instead and let the Senate fund the
Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to proceed to
H.R. 240 be agreed to, and that it be made in order for the managers or
their designees to offer amendments in an alternating fashion, with the
majority manager or his designee being recognized to offer the first
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DURBIN. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The acting minority leader.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I don't understand why the Republicans in
the House and the Senate have decided to hold up one appropriations
bill of our Federal Government, the appropriations for the Department
of Homeland Security, the one agency that is supposed to protect us
against terrorism.
Last December, the House Republicans said: We are just not going to
give regular funding to this Department--$48 billion this Department
spends on the Coast Guard, border security, and a myriad of different
things to keep America safe--but the Republicans said this is one
agency we are not going to fully fund. We will put them on temporary
funding, called a continuing resolution, and we will get back to you on
February 27.
Then what they did is to lash the budget of this Department to the
thorny, difficult issue of immigration and insist that we can't fund
the Department of Homeland Security unless we take up what I consider
to be some rather outrageous riders put on by the House of
Representatives on the issue of immigration.
The good news is we have come up with a solution on this side. I am
going to make it in the manner of a unanimous consent request, and it
is very straightforward.
First, because Senator Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire has stepped
forward and offered, with Senator Mikulski, S. 272, we have a clean
appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
If the Senator would like me to yield for a question, I will yield at
this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. If I could ask my colleague a question, isn't it true,
I say to Senator Durbin, that the bill you are talking about, the clean
bill Senator Mikulski and I have introduced, is the legislation that
was agreed to last December by Senator Mikulski, when she was chair of
the Appropriations Committee, and Hal Rogers, chair of the House
Appropriations Committee? It was a bipartisan agreement, a bicameral
agreement, and each side gave some.
What is at issue here is not that underlying bill. What is at issue
are the five riders, the amendments the House put on, that have nothing
to do with funding the Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. DURBIN. I would answer in the affirmative. That is why the
unanimous consent request I am going to make is the easiest, quickest
solution to our problem--a clean, bipartisan appropriations bill for
the Department of Homeland Security. But we are not running away from
the immigration issue. Because Senator McConnell is now the majority
leader and controls the business of the Senate and Speaker Boehner
controls the business of the House, they can take up the immigration
issue immediately after we have funded this Department.
So what I am going to suggest in my unanimous consent request is that
they use their power in the majority to take us to this important
debate on immigration after we have given a clean appropriation to the
one Federal agency empowered with keeping America safe from terrorism.
Let's not play politics with terrorism. Let's not play politics with
the budget of the Department of Homeland Security.
Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that following the enactment of
the text of S. 272, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations
Act for fiscal year 2015, at a time to be determined by the majority
leader, after consultation with the Democratic leader but no later than
Monday, March 16, the Senate proceed to the consideration of the Border
Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, as
passed by the Senate by a vote of 68 to 32 on June 27, 2013, the text
of which is at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. McCONNELL. What is the pending business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to proceed to H.R. 240.
Cloture Motion
Mr. McCONNELL. I send a cloture motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The assistant legislative 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,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to H.R. 240, making appropriations for the Department
of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2015.
Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Thad Cochran, Tom Cotton,
Roger F. Wicker, David Vitter, Jerry Moran, Daniel
Coats, Michael B. Enzi, Mike Crapo, Bill Cassidy, John
Boozman, John Thune, Tim Scott, John Hoeven, James
Lankford, Jeff Sessions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
(The remarks of Mr. Cornyn pertaining to the submission of S. Res. 76
are printed in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
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