[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 20 (Monday, February 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S963-S964]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
mandatory quorum call be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending 
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Thomas Price, of Georgia, to be Secretary of Health and 
     Human Services.
         Mitch McConnell, David Perdue, Johnny Isakson, Tom 
           Cotton, Mike Crapo, James E. Risch, Jerry Moran, Pat 
           Roberts, Roy Blunt, Lamar Alexander, John Barrasso, 
           Orrin G. Hatch, Jeff Flake, John Cornyn, Shelley Moore 
           Capito, John Thune, Richard Burr.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Thomas Price, of Georgia, to be Secretary of Health and 
Human Services shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: The Senator 
from Alabama (Mr. Sessions).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 51, nays 48, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 60 Ex.]

                                YEAS--51

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--48

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Reed
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Sessions
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 51, the nays are 
48.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from Alabama.


                         Farewell to the Senate

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues in the Senate. 
Serving in this body for 20 years has been one of the great honors of 
my life. I remember coming up when I was running for the Senate and 
going to the Republican luncheon. They said: Well, you have a few 
minutes. You can say something, but don't talk very long because people 
don't want to hear a lot from you, frankly.
  So I told them that I could think of no greater honor than to 
represent the people of Alabama in the greatest deliberative body in 
the history of the world. That is what I feel about this body. I want 
to say, I appreciate the full debate we have had. I want to thank those 
who, after it all, found sufficient confidence in me to cast their vote 
to confirm me as the next Attorney General of the United States of 
America.
  I have to tell you, I fully understand the august responsibilities of 
that office. I served as United States attorney for 12 years and 
assistant United States attorney for a little over 2 years. During that 
time, the very idea of those great leaders in Washington leading those 
departments I served under make it almost impossible for me to 
conceive, I am that person and will have that opportunity and that 
responsibility.
  So I understand the seriousness of it. I have an interest in law 
enforcement. I have an interest in the rule of law. So I want to thank 
those of you who supported me and had confidence in me. I want to thank 
President Donald Trump. He believes in the rule of law. He believes in 
protecting the American people from crime and violence. He believes in 
a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interest, 
within bounds, and those are things that may from time to time come 
before the Office of Attorney General.
  I look forward to lawfully and properly advancing those items and 
others that we as a body support, and the American people believe in.
  The Attorney General--this is a law enforcement office first and 
foremost. People expect the Department defend us, defend us from 
terrorists, defend us from criminals, defend the country from 
fraudsters who raid the U.S. Treasury time and time again and too often 
are not being caught or held to account for it.
  I believe that is a big responsibility of the U.S. Attorney General 
and the whole Department of Justice. As a former Federal prosecutor, I 
worked regularly, nights, weekends, and became personal friends with 
fabulous Federal investigative agents. They give their lives, place 
their lives on the line

[[Page S964]]

for us to promote public safety, to try to do the right thing for 
America.
  Sometimes people think of them in terms of taking away our freedoms. 
That is not so. They are out there every day putting their lives on the 
line to advance our freedoms, to protect our liberties, to protect 
public safety, to stop terrorism that threatens our government.
  So I feel strongly about that. I had the honor to lead some of the 
finest assistant United States attorneys in America. Our goal--well, 
before I became an assistant, I was told that Mobile had the best U.S. 
attorney's office in America.
  So when I came back as U.S. attorney some 6 years later, I told them 
that was our goal. We were going to have the best United States 
attorney's office in America. What a great time we had. We had 
wonderful people. They worked nights and weekends to prepare their 
cases. We went before great Federal judges. It was a glorious time. It 
was really a special time.
  I will never ever forget that. I was before the Judiciary committee 
in 1986, and Senator Kennedy--later my friend--spoke harshly about me. 
It was on the TV. They would show his statement. He said I should 
resign my office. So a few minutes later I had a chance to say 
something. I said: Senator Kennedy, what you said breaks my heart. 
Nothing I have ever done have I been more proud of than serving as 
United States Attorney. I still believe that. Nothing I have ever done 
am I more proud of than the work we did in that little office in 
Mobile, AL, representing the United States of America.
  You go into court, you stand before the judge, and you say: The 
United States is ready. I represent the United States of America in a 
litigation. So this is a big deal. So I would say to you, friends and 
colleagues, that this is a special honor. I feel it in my bones. I hope 
and pray I can be worthy of the trust you have given me. I will do my 
best to do that.
  Let me comment a minute on the heated debate we have had here in the 
Senate on my nomination and others. It was an intense election. There 
is no doubt about that. There have been strong feelings expressed 
during the election and throughout this confirmation process. Sometimes 
we have philosophical disagreements, just sincere disagreements about 
policy, what is right and what is wrong, what the law says, what it 
does not say.
  I believe words ought to be given their fair and plain meaning. Words 
are not tools that can be manipulated to make it say what you want it 
to say. I believe words have objective meanings. So sometimes we have 
differences about that, but that is what elections are about. I have 
always liked the debate. I have always enjoyed participating in this 
great body, where we are free to speak and be able to advocate for the 
values that we have.
  But I don't think we have such a classical disagreement that we can't 
get together. I have always tried to keep my disagreements from being 
personal. I have always tried to be courteous to my colleagues. Still, 
tension is built in the system. It is there. The plain fact is that our 
Nation does have room for Republicans and Democrats. That is what 
freedom is all about. I am fairly firm, I have to say, in my 
convictions, but that does not mean that all of us have to agree on the 
same thing.
  We need latitude in our relationships. So let's agree on what we can 
agree on, and I suggest that to my colleagues as I leave here, and take 
action where we can agree on things, but denigrating people whom you 
disagree with I think is not a healthy trend for our body.
  After I had been here for a number of years, I had gotten along 
pretty well with Senator Kennedy on the Judiciary Committee. He asked 
me to be the lead sponsor with him on the significant, pretty 
controversial bill to eliminate prison rape. There were a number of 
honorable people who opposed it, some friends of mine. He said: I want 
to do this with you. People asked me: Did you ever have a 
reconciliation? Did he apologize?
  He said: I want to do this bill with you. And I knew what that meant. 
I appreciated that. I said: I want to do this bill with you. And so we 
were able to pass that bill together. It was a moment of reconciliation 
that meant a lot to me. I think he appreciated it too. We later got 
involved in another major piece of legislation, just the two of us, 
that would have established a portable savings plan for young workers 
like the Federal thrift plan.
  About that time, the financial crisis hit, and then he became ill and 
it never came to fruition. But reconciliation is important. We ought to 
do that in this body. We ought to try to fight for our values and not 
give an inch. You don't have to back down if you believe you are right, 
and you should not back down.
  But there are ways that we can get along personally. I would say that 
would be my prayer for this body; that in the future maybe the 
intensity of the last few weeks would die down and maybe somehow we 
would get along better.
  So, colleagues, I can't express how appreciative I am for those of 
you who stood by me during this difficult time. I could start calling 
all their names, but it would not be appropriate. I want to say again, 
I appreciate the President and his confidence in me, and by your vote 
tonight, I have been given a real challenge. I will do my best to be 
worthy of it. I look forward to working with each of you during that 
time and maybe make sure that we have a good open door at the 
Department of Justice.
  My wife has picked up pretty quickly that we have a chef, and we can 
actually invite people for lunch or breakfast there. Maybe we can do 
that.
  Finally, let me thank my family because without their support, I 
could not be here. It is great. My children have been so engaged in 
this. They were young when my 1986 adventure occurred. Now they are 
grown. Your support and affirmation have meant much to me.


                         Letter Of Resignation

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I present to the body my letter of 
resignation, which I ask unanimous consent be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                 Washington, DC, February 8, 2017.
     The Hon. Robert Bentley,
     Governor of the State of Alabama,
     Montgomery, AL.
       Dear Governor Bentley: I hereby give notice that I will 
     retire from the Office of United States Senator for the State 
     of Alabama. Therefore, I tender my resignation at 11:55 pm 
     Eastern Standard Time on February 8, 2017.
           Very truly yours,
                                                    Jeff Sessions,
                                                     U.S. Senator.

  Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you all.
  (Applause, Senators rising.)

                          ____________________