[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the quorum call be rescinded.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.

[[Page S1045]]

  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

[[Page S1046]]

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

[[Page S1047]]

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.

                          ____________________