[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 113 (Wednesday, July 13, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5020-S5022]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATION BEFORE THE SENATE AND JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Republican leader celebrates the opioid
legislation and the FAA bill, but both are missed opportunities. There
is no funding in the opioid bill. There were editorials all over the
country yesterday about that. I read here on the Senate floor, it is in
the Record, about The New York Times saying it was really wrong to try
to claim credit for doing something on opioids when there is no money
to do it.
The FAA bill--I will talk about that in a little more detail in a
little bit--is another missed opportunity to do what is right to help,
to help the Republican leader keep his word.
CARA, the opioid legislation, has no real funding to solve the real
problem.
Over the last week, Democrats have exhausted every avenue to try and
work with Republicans on a Zika funding measure. Democrats had the
audacity to expect the Republican leader to live up to his promise in
April of bipartisan work on Zika. This is what the Republican leader
said in April:
We all are very much aware that this is a serious crisis.
We'll be working with the administration, with Democrats.
But his actions, especially over the last couple of weeks, clearly
illustrate that he was never really interested in a bipartisan
solution. For example, the President offered a meeting with Senator
McConnell, Speaker Ryan, Secretary Burwell, and Director of OMB Shaun
Donovan, to work on the Zika crisis. The Speaker and the Republican
leader refused that meeting. We offered to reintroduce the Senate's
bipartisan Zika compromise from what we sent to the House. We would do
it again as a freestanding bill. That bill had 89 votes. Eighty-nine
Senators voted for it.
We have offered Republicans legitimate compromises in the hopes they
would join us at the negotiating table, but it is clear that they don't
want to stay in DC. They want to rush to Cleveland and wave the flag
for Donald Trump. That is why they are imposing imaginary deadlines on
Zika legislation.
[[Page S5021]]
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that ``Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell today rejected that offer, saying the time for
such negotiations had passed''--talking about our offer, our latest
offer. The Republican leader is saying there is no time to work on
Zika. Well, I would suggest that I disagree with that.
Starting this Friday--right here, July 15--we are going to begin the
longest recess in the Senate in 60 years. Sixty years ago, there was
not much going on in this country, relatively speaking. We had far
fewer people, 100 million fewer people. We had a less complicated
government in many ways, so there was an opportunity at that time to
take the time off, but 60 years later, there is no time to do that.
To say there is no time to work on Zika--give us all a break. There
is plenty of time--7 weeks, to be exact. I guess a couple months of
paid vacation is more important than protecting pregnant women and
their babies from the terrible birth defects caused by Zika. There is
no reason we can't stay here and work on protecting women and their
babies, but Republicans are in such a hurry to coronate Trump in
Cleveland, they are willing to sacrifice helping their constituents.
The Republican leader announced yesterday that he will be speaking at
the Republican convention next week. I guess the Republican leader is
rushing for the exit without funding Zika so he will have time to
prepare his speech and polish it because I am sure it will really help
Donald Trump a lot in his election efforts. The Republican leader cares
more about his time off and cheering Donald Trump than protecting the
women of America and their babies from this horrible virus.
Let's be clear. It is obvious that Republicans are choosing Trump and
some time off over protecting American women from the Zika virus. This
is a really bad, revolting set of priorities, and every Republican in
this building and the office buildings surrounding this Capitol should
be ashamed. They shouldn't fool themselves--every Republican in
Congress should know that if they walk away without funding Zika, the
repercussions are going to be severe.
I can't recall ever, having been around here a long time--even before
I came to Congress, I worked here--watching a party so willingly move
to its own destruction. That is what Republicans seem to be intent on
doing. Maybe they don't like being in the majority. It is hard to be in
the majority. We are trying to save the Republicans from themselves,
but they won't let us. We have pursued every avenue possible to find a
bipartisan Zika bill path forward that can pass both Houses and be
signed by the President. It shouldn't be hard. Women and babies across
America are counting on Republicans to come to their senses and pass a
bill before we leave here on a 2-month vacation, but if Republicans
refuse, if they can't see the writing on the wall, we can't make them
read the writing on the wall. It is up to them to open their eyes and
read the writing on the wall.
Look at the time we have to do something on Zika. Look at the time--
July 15, August. See all these big black lines? We are not here. We
come back on September 6. July is gone, August is gone, and part of
September is gone. We have a lot of time to be here and do some work.
I say to my Republican colleagues, sit down with us. We have offered
compromise after compromise. To hear my friend talk about, oh, I can't
understand why they won't accept preventing Planned Parenthood from
taking care of these women--if there were ever a time in the history of
America where women wanted to do something about birth control, how
about now?
My Republican friend says: I don't understand why they are concerned
about Planned Parenthood not being able to take care of these women. I
don't understand why they are concerned about changing the
environmental laws dealing with the Clean Water Act. I don't understand
that.
Their legislation takes $500 million from veterans that we were going
to use to process claims. For him to come and say we are increasing
veterans money is just not true. Everyone knows that the $543 million
they have here is an offset from ObamaCare. I could raise a point of
order right now, and it would fall automatically. Everyone knows that.
Taking money from Ebola--there is not much left there. Ebola is still a
crisis. We know that. We remember that from 2 years ago.
But what is always so interesting is why in the world, if they are so
interested in doing something about this, would they stick a provision
in their legislation that they reinstate the ability to fly the
Confederate flag over military cemeteries? How is that for a
compromise?
So this calendar is going to stay here. Let's look at it for a while
and see what time we have left. The Republican Senate is being defined
by its unfinished business. It is not just Zika; we could go on for
quite some time. I will mention a couple things.
How about giving serious consideration to protecting Americans by
funding our military and our national security, addressing gun
violence, or providing the necessary resources to attack our Nation's
opioid crisis.
Through their historic inaction, Republicans are refusing to treat
the Federal judiciary with the respect it deserves and the Constitution
demands. The senior Senator from Iowa has turned the once proud and
independent Judiciary Committee--my friend--we have been together for
34 years in the Congress of the United States--the senior Senator from
Illinois is a member of that committee. He loves his work on that
committee; he has told me numerous times. But that once proud and
independent Judiciary Committee has been turned into a partisan
Republican opposition research operation. The Republican Judiciary
Committee now has a singular focus: winning the White House for Donald
Trump.
The Judiciary chairman has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars trying
to embarrass Hillary Clinton during her stalwart term as Secretary of
State of this great country. They failed, of course. Senator Grassley
wrote countless letters demanding State Department documents. He even
once went after a woman who worked at the State Department and was
having a baby. He wanted the records to make sure he could document
that. He scoured sensitive records belonging to Secretary Clinton's
aides. He was obsessed with digging up political dirt. He found none.
But, like the Benghazi Committee in the House, Senator Grassley has
wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and produced zero. Now that the FBI
has closed the book on Secretary Clinton's emails, Senator Grassley is
resorting to questioning the integrity of career FBI officials, calling
their investigation ``suspect.''
Senator Grassley's efforts to elect Donald Trump don't end with his
partisan attacks regarding Secretary Clinton. The senior Senator from
Iowa has obstructed qualified, consensus judicial nominees in the hopes
that Trump will win in November and remake the judiciary in his image.
Think about that. Unlike past Judiciary Committee chairs, Senator
Grassley is content to put partisanship above a functioning judiciary.
The number of vacancies under President Obama has skyrocketed.
Republicans' obstruction is putting them in the history books--but for
the wrong reason. Last year, Senate Republicans made history by
confirming the fewest judges in a long time. This year, they seem
determined to shortchange the judiciary even further. We have a myriad
of judicial emergencies around the country, meaning the judges can't
get their work done. These courts have more cases than judges can
handle, and that has more than doubled.
Justice is being denied for millions of Americans, but under Chairman
Grassley, the Judiciary Committee spends its time playing politics, not
confirming judges. It seems the only thing deserving the chairman's
attention is electing Donald Trump, ensuring he gets as many judicial
appointments as possible. Nowhere is that more apparent than with the
current vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court and Grassley's obstruction of
the highly qualified Chief Judge Merrick Garland. No one can find
anything dealing with his education, his qualifications, his judicial
temperament, his integrity--he is top of the line, as was indicated
some time ago by Orrin Hatch.
President Obama nominated Garland 100 days ago. He serves as the
chief judge of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. He was unanimously
rated as
[[Page S5022]]
``well qualified'' by the American Bar Association--the highest rating
possible. By any measure, he is exactly the type of fairminded,
consensus nominee the Senate should be considering for the vacancy. But
Judge Garland can't make his case to the American people because
Senator Grassley refuses to even hold a hearing on the nomination.
Chairman Grassley has come up with a myriad of excuses to block the
nomination, none of which hold water. As the Des Moines Register said
recently, ``Grassley's excuses are purely political.''
Iowans aren't being fooled. They know that the chairman's real goal
is holding the Supreme Court open for Donald Trump to do with what he
wants. The Judiciary chairman has already said Trump would ``appoint
the right type of people''--boy, I will tell you, that must be a real
stretch--``the right type of people'' to the Supreme Court. The senior
Senator from Iowa obviously places a high value on Trump's judgment,
which has proven to be so good the last year. Senator Grassley is
holding a Supreme Court vacancy for a man who accused an Indiana-born
judge of being unable to do his job because of his racial heritage. His
parents came from Mexico. Apparently he would like to see that brand of
thinking brought to the Nation's courts.
It is time for Senator Grassley to stop playing politics with his
committee and give Judge Garland a fair hearing. It is time for his
committee to address the numerous lower court vacancies and damaging
judicial emergencies throughout the country. The American people
deserve a functioning judicial system led by the Judiciary Committee in
the Senate. They have had enough with Republican excuses. Iowans and
the Nation are waiting. It is time for Senator Grassley and Senate
Republicans to do their job.
Mr. President, I would ask the Chair to announce what the Senate is
going to do the rest of the day.
____________________