[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 24 (Thursday, February 12, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S973-S975]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING

  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stand before this body this afternoon to 
encourage my colleagues--particularly my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle--to take into account the need to fund the Department of 
Homeland Security.
  The House of Representatives acted responsibly in passing legislation 
to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, and they did so 
acting more than 1 month in advance of the scheduled expiration of the 
existing funding stream for the Department of Homeland Security. This 
was a good move. It was likewise a good move of

[[Page S974]]

the majority leader to bring up this bill for consideration nearly 1 
month before the expiration of the existing funding. I applauded this 
effort and still do.
  One of the reasons it was so important is it would help us avoid the 
cliff effect. What I mean by that is the dynamic that occurs every time 
we have a scheduled expiration of funding and the House and the Senate 
wait until the last minute, sometimes with only 1 or 2 days, sometimes 
with only 1 or 2 hours to spare before we act.
  What this does is effectively shuts out the voices of most Members of 
the House and most Members of the Senate. It strips us of our right to 
offer improvements, amendments, to legislation before that legislation 
has a chance to become law.
  Ultimately this enures to the advantage of just a few people, and it 
results in the effective disenfranchisement of so many people 
throughout America whose voices don't have an opportunity to be 
considered through their duly-elected Senators and Representatives.
  That is why this time it was going to be different. That is why this 
time it was so great the House and the Senate acted early in bringing 
up this legislation.
  Nevertheless, it has been 2 weeks since we brought up this bill, the 
bill passed by the House to keep the Department of Homeland Security 
funded. Two weeks, and we have cast vote after vote trying to get on 
the bill--just trying to consider the bill--and we have seen those 
efforts to get on the bill blocked by my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle.
  Earlier today I heard colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
trying to explain their reasons for continuing to block consideration 
of this bill. I heard arguments that suggested that although they want 
to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, they don't want to 
consider this bill because, as some of them have put it, they don't 
like everything the House of Representatives put into the bill. They 
don't like the provisions in the bill restricting the administration's 
ability to use those funds to carry out--to implement--the President's 
Executive orders issued in November of this last year, Executive orders 
that would have the effect of granting amnesty to millions of people 
currently inside the United States illegally.
  Look, people are entitled to their opinions about how best we should 
proceed, how best we should deal with those who are currently inside 
the country illegally. There are a lot of opinions about this, and 
everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But Americans are 
overwhelmingly united behind the uncontroversial proposition that when 
Congress has established a law in a particular area, as it has with our 
immigration code, in order for that law to be changed, it needs to be 
changed by congressional action. The House needs to pass it, the Senate 
needs to pass it, and the President needs to sign it into law.
  As the President has acknowledged repeatedly, he lacks the authority 
to make those changes on his own. He lacks the authority to act 
unilaterally. He lacks the authority under our system to behave as if 
he were a government of one. Ours is not a government of one. In fact, 
our Founding Fathers, while they disagreed on a number of issues, they 
were united behind one core principle behind our 227-year-old governing 
document that has fostered the development of the greatest civilization 
the world has ever known. They were united behind the proposition that 
bad things happen when too much power gets consolidated into the hands 
of the few or, even worse, into the hands of one person.
  That is why they put in place this system that would split the powers 
of government into three coequal branches, and within the legislative 
branch--which many of them tended to view as wielding potentially the 
most dangerous power--they split up that power into two bodies and then 
split up the power within each of those bodies so no one person and no 
one group of people could accumulate too much power.
  They certainly never intended a system in which we would have a 
virtual monarch, albeit a monarch serving for a term of years who could 
by the stroke of a pen change the law according to his own will, change 
the law in order to suit his own political interests, change the law 
without going through Congress. Yet that is what has happened, which 
brings me back to arguments made today and over the last few days by my 
colleagues across the aisle. They say we are fine with funding the 
Department of Homeland Security, but we don't like all the provisions 
put in there by the House of Representatives. We don't like those 
provisions that would restrict the President's authority to spend money 
implementing the President's Executive amnesty program.
  Again, Americans, regardless of how they feel about amnesty, as a 
matter of policy, are overwhelmingly of the opinion--and correctly so--
that this is a decision that needs to be made by Congress and not the 
President of the United States.
  Secondly, this is the kind of issue we deal with, with some 
regularity, within Congress.
  Within the system as it has evolved, within the system as dictated by 
operation of the rules of the House of Representatives, typically--and 
for more than a century exclusively--it has been the role of the House 
of Representatives to initiate appropriations bills when we are trying 
to fund a government program that starts in the House, and that has 
been the case for well over a century. So they have the prerogative of 
starting a bill to fund the government, and that is what they did.
  When it comes over here, if you don't like it, that is fine. This is 
a great place to be if you don't like a bill as it starts out. The U.S. 
Senate has been called the world's greatest deliberative legislative 
body with good reason--because our rules, when properly followed, 
protect the right of every Member to make sure his or her views are 
adequately aired and protect and preserve the right of each and every 
Member to offer improvements to bills and offer amendments to make 
changes to legislation before it is put into law. Our rules are very 
clear on this.
  It is unfortunate that in the last few years under the previous 
leadership those rights were trampled. Those rights were suppressed. We 
often didn't have those rights. We often had legislation that came up 
without a fair, open opportunity for each Member to offer amendments.
  But we have moved on. We have a new majority leader, a majority 
leader who has, to his great credit, stood behind his commitment to 
protect the right of each Member to offer amendments to legislation. I 
thank him for that and encourage him to continue following this because 
it is good for this body. But because it is good for us and because our 
rules already provide for it and because we are following those rules 
now, as evidenced by the fact that we have now voted on more amendments 
on the floor in the form of a rollcall vote to pending legislation just 
in the last few weeks than we did in the entire last Congress, as 
evidenced by that, we don't need to fear the old order anymore. We 
don't need to fear the possibility of legislation coming into this 
body, and if we proceed to it, that that legislation will be without 
the opportunity to offer amendments.
  So if Members don't like something in this bill, vote at least to 
proceed to it, vote at least to allow the debate to begin, but that, 
alas, is not what my colleagues across the aisle have chosen to do.
  What they have chosen to do is to say: No. No, no, no. They are 
obstructing. They are obstructing the process as it was designed by the 
Constitution and as contemplated by the rules of the Senate and the 
rules of the House of Representatives.
  They are saying, no, we will not consider this because we don't like 
some provisions of this bill. Yet they are also saying at the same time 
we want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded.
  I agree with exactly half of that statement. I agree with them I 
think when they say they want to keep the Department of Homeland 
Security funded. At least I will take that at face value. But if they 
truly do, then why on Earth would they not proceed to it? And if they 
don't like some of the other provisions, let them offer amendments. Let 
them change that.
  At the end of the day, we have to come to terms with the fact that 
not all of us are going to like every part of every bill that comes 
over from the

[[Page S975]]

House of Representatives. In fact, I dare say it hardly ever happens 
that any one Member of this body immediately, automatically feels great 
about every jot and title, about every section, every syllable, every 
paragraph of a bill that comes over from the House of Representatives.
  That is exactly why we have the rules we do. That is exactly why 
parliamentary procedures, as they have evolved over the centuries, 
generally have as their central feature the protection of Members of 
any body such as this of the right to offer amendments, to offer 
helpful suggestions. But under our rules in the Senate, that cannot 
operate, it will not operate, it is not available, it doesn't exist 
unless we first vote to proceed to the bill.
  So I invite my colleagues across the aisle--I challenge them--if they 
want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, vote to get on 
this bill. If they care about America's national security, there is a 
way to prove it. There is a way to prove they mean what they say when 
they say they want to keep it funded. Vote to get on this bill. It 
doesn't mean they have to agree with me, but it was not only acceptable 
but entirely appropriate and even necessary for the House to act to 
protect the constitutional order and to do so by restricting the 
President's ability to spend money to implement his Executive amnesty 
program.
  People don't have to agree with me on that, but if Members want to 
keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, they can and they must 
and they will vote to proceed to this bill. Now we may disagree on what 
amendments you offer, but the Senate majority leader has repeated his 
offer, to make sure that we have an open amendment process, and we 
will.

  In light of that, there is no excuse--there can be no excuse for my 
Democratic colleagues to continue to insist on the one hand that they 
care about our Nation's security and funding the Department of Homeland 
Security, while voting on the other hand against proceeding to this 
funding bill to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. There 
is no excuse and there can be none.
  It is most unfortunate that we have gone now 2 weeks without being 
able to proceed to this bill--2 weeks in which we could have offered 
amendments, 2 weeks in which my Democratic colleagues may well have 
succeeded in getting rid of some or perhaps all of the provisions they 
don't like added by the House of Representatives. They may have ended 
up with a piece of legislation that is exactly what they would have 
written had they started it over here, but they didn't do that.
  Meanwhile, they have the audacity to accuse Republicans of causing 
this problem. This is something I don't understand. There are those 
among them who insist that Republicans did this very thing in the last 
Congress. Well, there were times when Republicans voted in the last 
Congress not to proceed to something, but overwhelmingly--and if I 
recall correctly, perhaps entirely--when Republicans stopped their 
motion to proceed, when Republicans blocked cloture on a motion to 
proceed to the legislation, it was on the basis of a well-founded 
complaint that there would be no open amendment process. But there is 
no such argument to be made here. That argument has thankfully been 
taken off the table by our majority leader, who has thankfully opened 
up the Senate once again and made an amendment process possible.
  Perhaps my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are still 
fearing the shadow cast by the previous leadership exercised in the 
previous Congress in the Senate that blocked out the amendment process, 
that made amendments impossible. If that is what they are afraid of, 
they have no need to fear. The Sun is now shining. The opportunity to 
offer up amendments and have those amendments considered has been 
restored to the Senate. There is no reason to be afraid. No reason to 
be afraid, of course, unless we somehow do the unthinkable--unless we 
continue to kick this can down the road farther and farther until we 
have no options left on the table.
  We have just a few legislative days remaining between now and the 
time the existing funding for the Department of Homeland Security will 
expire. Our next vote has been scheduled on this, as I understand it, a 
week from Monday. I would implore each of my colleagues to reconsider 
their current strategy. Whether you like it or not, the way our system 
is set up is that the House of Representatives starts our spending 
bills. They have to pass spending bills first. If you don't like 
everything in the Homeland Security bill that the House passed--fine, 
vote to proceed to it and then change it. Change it back however you 
want. Propose amendments. I might not vote for all of them, I might not 
agree to all of them, but propose them. Have them aired out, have them 
considered by this body, by the American people, and let's have the 
debate, because our clock is ticking and our Nation's homeland security 
is too important for us to continue to put this off. But that is what 
we have been doing. That is what my colleagues who have been voting 
against cloture on the motion to proceed have been doing every time 
they voted no on this important issue.
  The time has come for this body to accept the fact that a new day has 
dawned and we now have the ability once again to offer amendments, and 
because that opportunity now exists again, there is no reason to be 
afraid to move to legislation that has been passed by the House of 
Representatives to keep one of our government's important departments 
operating--no reason to fear whatsoever. In fact, if you are worried 
about what you should be fearful of, you should be fearful of not 
proceeding to this bill.
  The next time we cast a vote on this, I encourage each of my 
colleagues to vote yes. Let's get on the bill and have an open, robust 
debate and whatever the outcome of that debate, we will get something 
passed. We will get it to the President, and we will make sure we keep 
this Department funded.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Barrasso). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________