[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 32 (Wednesday, February 25, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S1085]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2015--MOTION TO 
                                PROCEED

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to H.R. 240.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 5, H.R. 240, a bill 
     making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security 
     for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other 
     purposes.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, yesterday President Obama took the 
extreme step of vetoing good American jobs. He sided with partisan 
extremists and powerful special interests over the middle class.
  It says a lot about the priorities of this administration. But if the 
White House thinks this is the end of the new Congress's push for 
American jobs, it is wrong. I will soon have more to say about this and 
what the Senate plans to do.
  For the moment, the Senate is focused on overcoming another extreme 
idea: the Democrats' Homeland Security filibuster to defend Executive 
overreach.
  Many Senate Democrats led their constituents to believe they would do 
something about the kind of Executive overreach President Obama 
referred to as ``unwise and unfair'' and ignoring the law. Those are 
the words of the President of the United States. We have since heard 
excuses from Democrats to cover for their refusal to do so. But the 
time for excuses has now passed. Democrats will soon have another 
chance to prove they were serious.
  Later this week, the Senate will consider a bill from the senior 
Senator from Maine that is about as reasonable as you can get. 
Obviously, President Obama was right to refer to the kind of overreach 
he took in November as ignoring the law. Senator Collins' sensible bill 
focuses simply on preventing the most egregious example of Executive 
overreach from taking effect. It is as simple as that.
  The Collins bill is not tied to funding of DHS, either. So there are 
no excuses left. Democrats should join us in voting for this 
commonsense legislation.
  In the meantime, we have offered Democrats a chance to prove they 
were serious about something else, and that is funding the Department 
of Homeland Security.
  It is really something to watch Democrats vote and block funding for 
this Department one day and then hold a hypocritical press conference 
the next. Democrats need to end their weeks-long filibuster of Homeland 
Security funding and end it right now.
  We have continually offered them sensible opportunities to do so. 
Yesterday, we offered them yet another. But it will require their 
cooperation to achieve.
  The dual-pronged approach I have outlined--allowing the Senate to 
stop unwise and unfair overreach on the one hand and to fund DHS 
through the fiscal year on the other--is a sensible way forward, but it 
can't be achieved without cross-partisan cooperation.
  The onus continues to be on the Democratic Party to keep the 
Department of Homeland Security funded. Democrats can fund DHS now--not 
by holding more hypocritical press conferences but by ending their 
senseless filibuster and cooperating across the aisle.
  That is what Americans expect. That is what Democrats can finally 
work together with us on to get done now.


                       reservation of leader time

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the leadership time 
is reserved.

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