[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 31 (Tuesday, February 24, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1044-S1047]
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. Under the previous order, Senators are
permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.
Mr. BENNET. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative 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the quorum call be rescinded.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. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to
10 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Black History Month
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, this week marks the final week of Black
History Month, an annual tradition that celebrates Black history and
culture but also is a call to action to continue our Nation's march, as
halting as it sometimes is, toward equality.
This week we take an important step toward awarding a Congressional
Gold Medal to the foot soldiers who participated in Bloody Sunday,
Turnaround Tuesday, or the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March.
Senator Scott and I and Senators Shelby and Sessions and the banking
committee moved forward on that earlier today. I am proud to be one of
the 65 cosponsors. I am also introducing a resolution this week
instructing the Postal Service to issue a commemorative stamp honoring
the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches.
It is far past time for us to honor the brave men and women who
risked life and limb to demand full participation in our democracy. We
can do this on the Senate floor. We can do it by traveling to Selma.
Next week Senator Scott and I will lead a delegation to Selma for the
anniversary of the march. I understand my colleague from Ohio may be
joining us. I took my daughters Emily and Elizabeth there a number of
years ago. I look forward to the journey to Selma with my wife in a
couple of weeks, marking the 50th anniversary.
Fifty years ago, Dr. King led thousands in that 54-mile march--the
second Selma bridge crossing, if you will. They arrived in Montgomery 4
days later to a crowd of 25,000 Black and White supporters. In his
speech that day, Dr. King told a story of one of the marchers: Sister
Pollard, a 70-year-old African-American women who lived in Montgomery
during the bus boycott a little less than a decade earlier.
She was asked if she wanted a ride during the march instead of
walking. She said: ``No.''
The person said: ``Aren't you tired?''
She said: ``My feet are tired, but my soul is rested.''
Progress is never easy, and as we celebrate Black History Month, we
are reminded of the long journey we have traveled and how far we still
have to go.
This month we celebrate the contributions African Americans have made
to the fabric of our Nation.
When Carter G. Woodson started what became Black History Month in
1926, my State of Ohio--the Presiding Officer's State--had already
produced 19th-century poet Paul Laurence Dunbar; Columbus native
Granville T. Woods had already invented the telegraph device that sent
messages between moving trains and train stations; Mary Jane Patterson
had already become the first Black woman to graduate from Oberlin
College, in my part of Ohio; Garrett Morgan, a Clevelander, had already
invented the traffic signal; Ohio State Representative John P. Green
had introduced a bill to establish Labor Day in Ohio, which later
became Labor Day, which we all celebrate; and COL Charles Young, who
found freedom in Ripley, OH, in the Presiding Officer's old
congressional district, became the highest ranking African-American
commanding officer in the U.S. Army in 1894--120 years ago--and the
first African-American superintendent of a national park.
This month we celebrate these and other pioneering Ohioans: two
Pulitzer Prize winners--Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison from
Lorain and former Poet Laureate of the United States Rita Dove from
Akron.
Olympic Gold Medalist Jesse Owens grew up in Cleveland. Jesse Owens
spoke at my brother's high school graduation in Mansfield.
Howard Arthur Tibbs from Salem served with the Tuskegee Airmen, and I
was honored to meet his family in 2007 when this body posthumously
awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal.
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Congressman Louis Stokes, who so many in this body know, rose from
one of the first Federal housing projects in the Nation, in Cleveland,
to prominence as a lawyer and legislator. Yesterday Louis Stokes
celebrated his 90th birthday. He argued before the Supreme Court in his
legal practice, and during his two decades in Congress he was a
forceful advocate for the city he loves.
This month we honor them and many others. These achievements have
come in the face of centuries of oppression, making these achievements
all the more remarkable. They have not come to be recognized simply
through chance. It took a century of concerted effort--longer than
that, really--led by Black Americans such as Dr. King, to give voice to
the struggles and the stories, the triumphs and the traditions of the
African Americans who have shaped who we are as a country and as a
people. These stories are the ones we celebrate this month and the ones
we must do more to honor and tell.
This month I am introducing legislation to begin the process of
designating the Parker House in Ripley, OH, as a national monument.
John Parker was a slave who purchased his freedom, became a successful
businessman, and helped many others to freedom on the Underground
Railroad through crossing the Ohio River and heading north, some to
Oberlin and ultimately many to Canada.
Stories such as these are too often untold and overlooked. They show
us how African Americans have shaped their own destiny in this country.
I hope today my colleagues will join me in honoring the African
Americans who have made us who we are as a nation. I would add that I
hope this 50th anniversary, this trip that a number of colleagues and I
will take to Selma, will mark progress in voting rights.
We took huge strides in voting rights in the last 50 years. In fact,
in 1964 it was a conservative Republican Congressman from north of
Dayton by the name of William McCullough, who was the senior Republican
on the House Judiciary Committee--Jacqueline Kennedy and others
credited Congressman McCullough, perhaps more than any other single
Member--even more than Hubert Humphrey or Everett Dirksen--for the
Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act passing the U.S. House of
Representatives and the Senate and being signed by the President.
Unfortunately, in the last few years we have seen State legislators
and far too many Members of this body try to scale back and roll back
some of those gains in voting rights--all in the name of stopping
fraud, when in fact voting fraud is much exaggerated by them. It barely
exists. But the efforts to roll back voting rights has resulted from
that. It is wrong, and it is shameful, especially as we celebrate the
50th anniversary.
I am hopeful we can move forward in spite of what this very
conservative Supreme Court has done, move forward in voting rights as
we honor Black History Month, as we honor 50 years of Selma, and as we
honor the work African Americans and Whites have done to make this
country a better place to live.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as my colleagues know, for weeks now
Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked the Senate from even
considering a $40 billion funding bill for the Department of Homeland
Security that would extend through the end of the fiscal year, the end
of September. They have done it not once, not twice, not three times,
but four times. Four times they have filibustered this Department of
Homeland Security funding bill that would pay the salaries of the men
and women who protect our ports, our airports, and our border.
Meanwhile, our friends across the aisle are telling the American
people: No, it is not us blocking this funding, it is the Republicans.
Well, I beg to differ. The House of Representatives has actually passed
a Homeland Security appropriations bill--the bill we tried to get on
four different times and the Democrats don't seem satisfied with the
ability to offer amendments to change it or modify it in any way that
they can command 60 votes to do. Their attitude is: We are not even
going to consider it unless we get everything we want right upfront.
I guess I can kind of understand why they are of that frame of mind
because over the last few years, the Senate has become completely
dysfunctional. Under the previous majority leader, there wasn't any
opportunity to offer amendments and get votes on those amendments on
legislation. It was a ``my way or the highway'' proposition.
In other words, what I am saying is the Senate was broken, and after
years of running the Senate as an incumbent protection program and
voting on only poll-tested messages and blocking amendments, last
November the American people said, enough is enough; no more
dysfunction. Let's have a Senate and a Congress that represents our
interests, not the interests of protecting incumbents against taking
tough votes.
I believe our colleagues who have blocked consideration of this
funding amendment should be, frankly, ashamed of themselves. It doesn't
seem as though they have gotten the message.
The senior Senator from New York, Senator Schumer, who is a member of
the leadership and my friend, told the Huffington Post recently that
``it is really fun to be in the minority.'' By that, I guess he means
it is fun to block Homeland Security appropriations bills not once, not
twice, not three times, but four separate times. But filibustering this
critical funding for the men and women who protect us every day is not
my idea of fun, nor is it, I suspect, for the thousands of men and
women who work in the Department of Homeland Security, from the Coast
Guard to the Border Patrol to all of the people who work day in and day
out to try and help keep us safe in the homeland.
When given the opportunity four times over the last few weeks to
fully fund the Department of Homeland Security while rolling back the
President's unconstitutional Executive action, four times Senate
Democrats have taken the low road and continued to obstruct.
Over the last several weeks, we pointed out the tough talk that came
from some Senate Democrats last fall when the President issued his
Executive action on immigration back when the President made his intent
clear to follow through with a series of unilateral actions that he had
previously said, on 22 different occasions, he didn't have the
authority to do. Twenty-two times the President said publicly he didn't
have the authority to do it, and last November, after being encouraged
to wait until after the election so it didn't have a negative blowback
on people running for the Senate, he went ahead and did it anyway.
As I noted before, some of our colleagues on the other side expressed
their concerns at the time. Some said it made them feel uncomfortable,
and some said: I wish he wouldn't do it. Well, no kidding.
When the President usurps the authority given under the Constitution
to the legislative branch of government and seeks to arrogate to
himself the power to unilaterally change the law, they should feel
uncomfortable. One by one these same folks who were so concerned and so
uncomfortable with what the President did last November have come down
to the floor and voted in lockstep. They voted, in effect, to reaffirm
the President's actions.
In justifying these votes, we heard the common refrain, we don't
necessarily agree with the President's Executive actions, but an
appropriations bill is not the proper vehicle to address them. That is
what they said time and time again. So now we have a pretty simple and
straightforward message to our Democratic friends who were so concerned
and so uncomfortable and who wished the President had not gone around
Congress on immigration. We are here to say: Here is your chance.
This week the Senate will take up a bill that will address the
President's Executive actions that were announced last November.
Senator McConnell, the majority leader, made it clear last night that
this targeted bill is not tied to the Department of Homeland Security
funding.
Under the regular rules of the Senate, the process he set in order
last night will come to fruition on Friday, and that will be the time
for all of our colleagues on this side of the aisle and
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the ones on the other side of the aisle who expressed disapproval of
the President's Executive action to vote for a bill that expresses that
disapproval--the so-called Collins bill.
My strong preference would be to pass the House bill--that has been
filibustered four separate times by our Democratic friends--because it
fully funds the Department while reining in the President's overreach.
But since the Democrats have refused on four different occasions to
even allow the bill to come to the floor with the excuse that it is
tied to the Department of Homeland Security funding, we are going to
give them an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is. In
other words, we are going to see if they can take yes for an answer.
If all of the occasions where my colleagues said they were
uncomfortable with the President's actions are not enough--if the 22
times the President himself said he didn't have the authority to issue
this Executive action--well, we now know that during the recess last
week a Federal judge in Texas has given us one more reason.
A week ago U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, TX, ruled
in a lawsuit brought by 26 different States, including Texas, that what
the President did was illegal. He issued a temporary injunction
blocking implementation of the President's Executive action.
If that were the end of it, any amount of money that was appropriated
by the Congress to fund the Department of Homeland Security could not
legally be used to fund the President's Executive action because there
is an injunction in place issued by a Federal court that says you can't
do it, and, indeed, the administration has acknowledged that. They
stood down, but now they have come back to the judge and asked for a
stay of the judge's temporary injunction. They said if they don't get
that, they will go to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans
and ask the appellate court to stay the judge's temporary injunction.
Judge Hanen's ruling enforces what I and many others have been saying
for a long time, that the President acted outside of the law when he
went around Congress to unilaterally change our Nation's immigration
laws.
But the judge's ruling gets to a broader issue, and there is one part
of it that I found particularly important. In writing his opinion
explaining his ruling, Judge Hanen looked at the Obama administration's
case and imagined how you could take their argument and apply it across
the board.
It is easy to overlook and overreach what the President has said if
you perhaps agree with what he actually accomplished, which is, in
effect, to give legal status to roughly 5 million people. If you think
that is a good idea, you are likely to turn a blind eye to the way the
President did it. But if the courts establish the precedent that this
President--or any future President, Republican or Democrat--can pick
and choose which laws to enforce, what could end up happening? Well, it
doesn't take a lot of imagination. Judge Hanen writes: ``then a lack of
resources''--which is the argument that was made by the
administration--``would be an acceptable reason to cease enforcing
environmental laws, or the Voting Rights Act, or even the various laws
that protect civil rights and equal opportunity.''
That is what Judge Hanen said in his opinion in repudiating the
argument made by the administration that the President had this
authority and talked about what kind of dangerous precedent it would
set if it were accepted by the court as legal.
I am sure I am not the only one who would hate to see our country
head down that sort of lawless path where the laws don't make any
difference, it is just the preference of whoever is President which
determines the direction the country should take. That is a dangerous
path. It is completely inconsistent with who we are as a country that
believes in the rule of law.
So now that the President's actions have been settled in the court of
public opinion, where they are deeply unpopular, and ruled upon by a
court of law, my friends from the other side of the aisle need to take
note because they have a very clear choice. They can continue to give
excuses for why they are filibustering this $40 billion Homeland
Security appropriations bill or, as I said, they can put their money
where their mouth is and vote to stop the President's 2014 Executive
action separate and apart from any issue of funding of the Department
of Homeland Security.
At the end of the day, the Senate will make sure the people who
protect our borders and our ports and our skies get paid because that
is the responsible thing to do. Senate Democrats, who were so concerned
and so uncomfortable with what the President did last fall, are out of
excuses, and they are going to have a chance to vote on the Collins
amendment on Friday or at some other time mutually agreed upon by the
majority and the minority.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the remarks of my
friend and my colleague from Texas.
If my friend has a moment as he walks out this door, he should take a
sharp left and stop at the staircase and look up. At the top of the
staircase the Senator from Texas will see this amazing portrait that
has been copied and referred to over and over again. It is an
incredible painting that shows President Abraham Lincoln signing the
Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War while
surrounded by his Cabinet. This Emancipation Proclamation freed 3
million slaves in America from involuntary servitude.
Was the President signing a bill that had been passed by Congress?
No. He was signing an Executive order--the same type of Executive order
used by President Obama to address the issue of immigration.
All right, Senator Durbin, you found one moment in history. According
to arguments you heard on the floor, there could not be very many more.
Let's fast forward to the late 1940s with President Harry Truman.
President Harry Truman, after World War II, decided to finally end
racial discrimination in the ranks of our military. How did he do it?
Did he do it by signing a law passed by Congress? No. He signed an
Executive order ending the discrimination and segregation taking place
in our military.
I don't argue that Presidents can exceed their constitutional powers.
It has happened. But to argue that Executive orders that have been used
by President after President are inherently unconstitutional defies any
accurate, honest reading of history.
Here are some realities. The immigration system in the United States
of America today is broken--broken terribly--to the point where we may
have 12 to 13 million undocumented people in this country, where our
borders are stronger now than they have ever been, but still have to be
fortified to make sure we don't have the unnecessary migration of
people into the United States in an illegal status. There are so many
things we need to do to fix this broken immigration system, and we
addressed them.
Two years ago eight Senators came together--four Democrats and four
Republicans. I was honored to be part of it. We sat down for months and
wrote a comprehensive immigration reform bill. We brought it to the
floor of the Senate after considering 100 amendments in the Senate
Judiciary Committee, and it passed on the floor with 68 positive votes.
Fourteen Republicans joined the Democrats for the bipartisan bill which
was supported by the Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, and
conservatives and liberals across America.
Pretty good work for a Congress that is blamed many times for just
being obstructionists. We passed it with 68 votes, sent it to the House
of Representatives, where it languished for almost 2 years, never being
called for a vote--never.
At that point the President stepped forward and said: I have to do
something to deal with the problems of illegal immigration in America.
Here is what he proposed--two things, basically. He said: If you are
here in America and are the parent of a child who is a U.S. citizen or
the parent of a child who is a legal resident alien, you can come
forward, pay about $500 as a fee, subject yourself to a criminal
background check. If you clear it or you committed no serious crimes
and are no threat to America, then we will give you a temporary work
permit to be in
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the United States and work. We want to know who you are, where you
live, the members of your family, and where you work. That is what the
President proposed, and that is what they want to stop.
We would continue the current situation with millions of undocumented
people working without background checks, working without any
registration to this government, so we know their whereabouts and what
they do. That is what they want to end. They think the President went
way too far in setting up this process. I think they are wrong.
The Republicans had a chance to pass a comprehensive immigration bill
and they refused. In refusing, they left the President no alternative.
He is trying to make sense out of a broken immigration system. It would
be better if the Republicans joined us in the House and the Senate in a
bipartisan effort to achieve that.
The last point I want to make is this: I think one of the most
heartless things I have seen in my time in the House and Senate is the
effort by the Republicans to end DACA. DACA was the protection the
President gave to DREAMers. DREAMers are children brought to America--
children, infants, toddlers, and young kids--by their parents, who grew
up in America and went to school, have no serious criminal issues in
their background, and who simply want the chance to be part of
America's future. That is all they are asking for.
The President's Executive order gives them that chance to prove
themselves, and the Republicans want to eliminate that order. I don't
understand it. If they take the time to meet some of these young
people, they would realize what a waste it would be of such great skill
and talent and love of America.
I will close--and I see my friend and colleague Senator Murray--and
say this: We are a nation of immigrants. Our diversity is our strength.
The people who are willing to risk everything in their lives to come to
this country, to be part of this great American experiment, to have an
opportunity for their next generation to have a chance for a better
life, that is what defines us. That is who we are.
I stand here--and I have said it so many times and proudly so--the
son of an immigrant mother who was brought here at the age of 2. She
was the first DREAMer in my house, and she raised a son to serve in the
U.S. Senate. That is my story. That is my family's story. That is
America's story.
It is time for us to fund the Department of Homeland Security and
protect America and then have an honest debate about an immigration
policy consistent with American values.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his
passionate remarks. That rings so true to all of us. I thank him for
all his work on the DREAM Act and making sure young people who are
raised in this country have the opportunities that all of us do.
As we count down the final days before funding for the Department of
Homeland Security potentially runs out, I want to take a few minutes to
talk about how we got to this point. As this deadline gets closer and
closer, I have been continually reminded we have been down this road
many times before. This is a manufactured crisis, and it is no
different than so many others we have faced in Congress over the last
few years. What is happening in Congress right now is not a debate over
government spending policies or priorities. That much is certain. This
is not a debate over how the Department of Homeland Security should
function. It is certainly not a debate about our national security.
This is, pure and simple, a political fight Republicans are having with
themselves across the two Chambers of the Capitol and across the
different factions of the Republican Party. That is not the case for
every Republican in the Senate. Several Members have said clearly we
should fund the Department of Homeland Security without any strings
attached.
The fact remains some Republicans are making it clear they are
willing to hold hostage the basic operation of our government over
rightwing politics and nothing else. While this process might seem
complicated, it is actually very simple.
Democrats--along with national security experts, law enforcement
experts, State and local officials, and three former Secretaries of
Homeland Security, including two Republicans--want to do nothing more
than fund the Department of Homeland Security cleanly, no strings or
unrelated political amendments attached. But because they are so angry
about the President's actions months ago to improve our country's
immigration laws, some Republicans are demanding to pass a bill that
will tear apart families who are working hard to make it in America,
put our security at risk, and seriously threaten all of the work we
have done recently--including the budget agreement I reached with
Congressman Paul Ryan--to keep our government functioning. That is not
only bad policy. It doesn't make any sense.
The bill passed by Speaker Boehner and House Republicans would be
devastating to families across the country, and it would make day-to-
day operations for the Department of Homeland Security needlessly
difficult. For example, TSA agents who work to keep our airports safe
and secure would be forced to work without pay. These men and women
should be worrying about doing their jobs, not knowing whether they are
going to be able to pay their bills and put food on their table. That
is not what we want them worrying about. But because of political
pressure from the extreme anti-immigration, rightwing party, that is
what Republican leaders in the House are demanding.
This looming shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security has
become to them nothing more than collateral damage. The national
impacts of not funding the Department of Homeland Security have been
discussed for weeks now. This would also cause problems all the way
down to individual fire departments in our local communities.
Right now the Whatcom County Fire District 18 located in my State--
close to the northern Canadian border and it is about an hour north of
Seattle--is applying for an assistance to firefighters grant which is
funded through the Department of Homeland Security. This is a very
rural fire district. They only have one paid employee--it happens to be
the fire chief--along with a volunteer firefighting force of 16 and a
volunteer EMT force of 6.
They have applied for a very small $24,000 Federal grant to replace
their heavily used and outdated equipment--everything from boots and
helmets to gloves and fire hoods--that are now over 11 years old. I
have been working with them to help them get that needed equipment
which protects those volunteers who put their lives on the line to save
others, but if Congress does not fund this department those grants are
at risk. That is unacceptable. It is proof this political mess the
Republicans have made is not a hypothetical problem. It is something
that will have real impacts on every one of our communities across the
country.
My colleagues are not going to give in and let the Republicans play
politics with the Department of Homeland Security. For years now we
have seen that strategy doesn't work. It holds us back. I am encouraged
the majority leader has said they are willing to bring up a clean
Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill to the floor. We
need the same commitment from the Speaker of the House of
Representatives. Time is running out. The country is waiting. We need
to fund Homeland Security.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
____________________