[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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