[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 28 (Thursday, February 16, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1253-S1254]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Working Together

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, today is February 16, 2017. President 
Trump was sworn in on January 20, 2017.
  For the past several weeks now, we have come to the floor and talked 
about the slow pace at which the Senate has considered and voted on the 
President's nominees for his Cabinet. Well, there is good reason for 
that because one of our roles is to consider and vote on advisers 
selected by the President, regardless of political party, and to help 
this new administration lead the country.
  President Obama, to his credit, after the election, sat down with 
President-Elect Trump and said he was committed to a peaceful 
transition of power from his administration to the Trump 
administration. But, apparently, some of our colleagues didn't get the 
memo. We continue to slog along at the slowest pace since George 
Washington to vote on nominees to the President's Cabinet.
  The reason it has gone on so slowly is clear by now. It is because 
our friends across the aisle are still upset and have not yet 
reconciled themselves with the results of the election on November 8. 
They just kind of can't get over it. Yes, they are being encouraged by 
the radical elements of their party who don't want us to fulfill our 
responsibilities, who don't want a new President to have the Cabinet 
that he needs in order to govern the country. Yes, there are some who 
want to halt our work in this Chamber and perpetuate dysfunction. They 
don't want us to focus on legislating because they want to keep us tied 
up in the confirmation process.
  I will just interject right here, as I have said before, that we know 
these nominees will be confirmed because, thanks to the nuclear option 
under Senator Reid, the previous Democratic leader, all it takes is 51 
votes to confirm a nominee to a Cabinet post. But the fact is, the 
country needs a functioning Senate. We need a functioning executive 
branch.
  So I hope our colleagues across the aisle will understand soon that 
if they want to be effective--if they want to actually move the needle 
and help those who have entrusted them with the future of this 
country--then we need to turn from gridlock to action.
  Last Congress, even under President Obama in the White House, we did 
not let partisan dysfunction keep us from working together. There is a 
difference between elections and governing. But, for some reason, too 
many people want to keep relitigating the election and not allow us to 
actually govern.
  Of course, during the Obama administration, Republicans had many 
points of departure from the Obama administration, and we used the 
tools available to us to provide the oversight and ask the critical 
questions that the American people demanded. But our friends across the 
aisle are now being tempted to shut down the government, to run away 
from policy debates, and point fingers. Why? Because it is always 
easier to throw stones than it is to actually accomplish something--
roll up your sleeves, focus on the task, and turn to legislating.
  Yes, it may be easier just to criticize and to obstruct, but it is 
not the right thing for the American people. Our colleagues across the 
aisle know that, but, as I said earlier, they are being unduly 
influenced by some of the radical elements in their political base who 
will not let them do it or who say that if you do cooperate on a 
bipartisan basis and actually do your job, then we are going to recruit 
people to run against you in a primary.
  Well, that is part of the risk we all take. We didn't come here to 
appease a portion of our political base and neglect our most basic 
duties as Members of the U.S. Senate. Again, I would point to last 
Congress and the work we did together on a bipartisan basis, I might 
add, as evidence of what you can accomplish when you try to do that.
  The 114th Congress, after the 2014 election, saw a new majority, a 
new Republican leadership, and we did our best to help restore order to 
this Chamber and get it working again after years of dysfunction. Under 
the previous regime, Members of both the majority and minority parties 
were actually prevented from coming to the floor and offering 
legislative ideas in the form of amendments and getting votes on them, 
but that backfired when some of our colleagues who were running for 
reelection in 2014 realized that they had very little to show the 
voters by way of accomplishment--even those in the majority party, the 
Democratic Party, at that time. So one would have thought that there 
would be some lessons learned there.
  In the last Congress--in the 114th Congress that began 2 years ago--
we voted on legislative ideas from both sides of the aisle with more 
than 250 rollcall votes. That represented a sea change from the 
previous administration and the way Senator Reid ran things.
  We were able to get the Senate functioning as the Founders intended, 
and that led to big results for the American people. We took care of 
big, intractable problems that had trouble getting anywhere during the 
previous Congresses. For example, we passed a transportation bill--the 
highway bill--to help Americans deal with safety on the roadway, to 
deal with concerns about pollution due to congestion and people in 
gridlock, and we helped our economy in the process. That was a big, 
important bill. That was the first time we had been able to pass a 
long-term highway bill in about 30 different, separate attempts where 
we had patched the funding mechanism for 6 months or a year, which made 
it nearly impossible for our highway departments across the country to 
actually plan. It actually ended up being more expensive and less 
effective than it would be with a multiyear highway bill, which we

[[Page S1254]]

passed. So that was a big bipartisan accomplishment.
  We also made great progress in reforming our public education system 
by passing, again, on a bipartisan basis, the Every Student Succeeds 
Act, which went a long way to devolving power from here in Washington, 
DC, back to the States, back to local school districts, back to parents 
and teachers--something that, fortunately, we were able to agree upon 
on a bipartisan basis. That change was applauded by my constituents 
back home, and, I believe, people around the country.
  We also made great headway in making our country safer and our 
government more just by taking up and passing legislation to support 
victims of abuse and violence and to craft laws to better equip our law 
enforcement to handle growing threats.
  For example, we passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act 99 
to 0. Some people say that nothing ever gets done in Washington; well, 
99 to 0--it is hard to beat that, except by maybe 100 to 0, but we will 
take it.
  That law was signed into law by President Obama 2 years ago, and it 
is helping victims of human trafficking get the healing and recovery 
they need, while also providing help to law enforcement to help root 
out the people who patronize modern day slavery, which is what human 
trafficking amounts to.
  We also, on a bipartisan basis, reauthorized the Justice for All Act 
to strengthen victims' rights in court and increase access to 
restitution and services that can help them recover. It helps reduce 
the national backlog in untested rape kits, forensic evidence collected 
after a sexual assault that is necessary to identify the assailant 
through the use of DNA testing. That was really important, after we 
heard the horror stories of as many as 400,000 untested rape kits in 
laboratories or evidence lockers--evidence which was critical to 
identifying the assailant; many times they were serial assailants. In 
other words, they didn't just attack one time, they attacked multiple 
times over the years--and to get them off the streets. That type of 
evidence is also very important in exonerating the innocent because if 
we can exclude someone from one of these terrible assaults, that means 
a person who is innocent of the crime will be free.

  We also passed a bill called the POLICE Act, signed into law last 
summer, so our first responders and law enforcement officers can learn 
the latest techniques to deal with violence so they are ready to face 
the unimaginable or previously unimaginable threats in our communities.
  I could go on and on, but I will just mention a few more. We passed 
bipartisan legislation to combat opioid abuse and heroin addiction, the 
Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. We passed laws to make our 
government more transparent so it is more accountable to the public and 
to voters. We helped capitalize on our God-given natural resources by 
lifting the crude oil export ban, for example--something important not 
only to domestic producers and job creation here but also to our 
friends and allies around the world who frequently depend on a single 
source for their energy. Unfortunately, people like Vladimir Putin in 
Russia have discovered you can use that sole source of energy as a 
weapon by threatening to cut it off.
  The reason I mention some of these accomplishments is to make the 
point that nothing happens in Congress, nothing happens in the Federal 
Government, unless it is bipartisan.
  It is one thing to fight hard in an election and try to win the 
election so you can gain the privilege of actually being in the 
majority or having the White House, but after the election is over, our 
responsibilities shift to governing. Right now, our friends across the 
aisle are continuing to obstruct and drag their feet and make it 
impossible for the President to get the Cabinet he needs in order to 
get the government up and running.
  We need to return to the pattern we established in the last Congress, 
to work together, to build consensus, to help make America stronger, 
our citizens safer, and our laws a better service to all the people. I 
would plead with our colleagues across the aisle to stop the 
dysfunction, stop wanting to relitigate the outcome of the election. 
You can't. It is over. We know what the outcome was. They need to move 
on, and we need to move on--not just for the political parties we are 
members of, not just for the benefit of those elected here in 
Washington but for the benefit of 320-some-odd million people whom we 
have the responsibility of representing. Instead of foot-dragging, 
obstruction, and dysfunction, let us fight, as we always have, for 
those people we represent and work together to find common ground where 
we can to put forward legislation that serves them well.
  I hope our colleagues across the aisle would remember those lessons 
they learned in the 2014 election; that dysfunction is bad politics. It 
does not help their political cause. I understand the temptation of 
wanting to yield to the most radical elements in a political party, but 
we are elected to the Senate for 6-year terms to be that cooling 
saucer, to try to have debate and deliberation, to try to work out the 
hard problems. That is our responsibility, and just to blindly obstruct 
when you know you can't change the outcome--particularly when it comes 
to the President getting the Cabinet he has chosen and he deserves--
makes no sense whatsoever.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.