[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 93 (Tuesday, June 4, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3184-S3187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Remembering Thad Cochran

  Madam President, I would like to take one more minute to talk about a 
dear friend of mine who is no longer with us, who had a funeral 
yesterday and one today in Mississippi. I want to pay tribute to 
someone I was honored to call my friend, and I know that many other 
Members on both sides of the aisle feel exactly the same way.
  Thad Cochran was the senior Senator from Mississippi, but he was so 
much more. He was a wonderful musician. I have some very happy memories 
of joining him to play the boogie-woogie on the piano that was in his 
office. People couldn't believe that he actually not only had a piano, 
but he had a grand piano in his office. As someone who grew up in 
music, we immediately bonded over that, as two people who loved to play 
the piano.
  He was a true gentleman. If he gave you his word, you knew for a fact 
that he would keep it. His honesty and integrity made him a joy to work 
with on the farm bill, as well as on so many other issues.
  He was deeply devoted to public service, particularly fighting for 
his farmers, for cotton farmers and others in the delta, protecting the 
waters of the Mississippi Delta, and caring for Mississippi's children. 
As author of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, 
he helped provide healthy food for children and families from Biloxi to 
Battle Creek and everywhere in between.
  Senator Cochran was a legislative legend in Mississippi, and he never 
stopped fighting for his beloved Magnolia State. He loved Mississippi, 
and I can tell you that Mississippi loved him right back. I had a 
chance to see this lifelong love affair up close when I visited 
Mississippi with Senator Cochran back in 2013. At the time, I was chair 
of the Agriculture Committee, and Senator Cochran was the ranking 
member. We were right in the middle of working on the farm bill, and I 
was invited to speak at the annual meeting of the Delta Council, which 
has been working to promote economic development in Northwest 
Mississippi since 1935.
  I can tell you that you couldn't find a better Mississippian tour 
guide than Senator Cochran. I got to see the delta up close and listen 
to him talk about the waters, the conservation programs he was such a 
champion for, and the people who depend on them, in that soft drawl of 
his. Listening to him was like listening to poetry.
  Senator Cochran certainly wasn't going to bring me all the way to 
Mississippi without stopping by a few holy sites of that American form 
of music called the blues. We visited the iconic Po' Monkey's Lounge in 
Merigold--one of the last rural juke joints in the State--and met its 
operator, a local farmer named Willie Seaberry. We also stopped by 
Clarksdale Crossroads, home of the Delta Blues Museum and the very spot 
where blues legend Robert Johnson said he sold his soul to the devil in 
exchange for songwriting success.
  I will never forget the picnic by the Mississippi River that he and 
others hosted for me. If you have never been to a good old-fashioned 
Mississippi cookout, then I suggest you book a ticket right now. The 
only thing there was more of than food was southern hospitality. I 
might have been the token Yankee, but I was welcomed as one of their 
own.
  At every stop along the way, Senator Cochran was just beaming with 
pride.

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He couldn't have been more proud of his State, and they were always so 
proud of him.
  At first glance, you might think we didn't have a lot in common. I am 
a northerner, and he was a southerner. We were from different political 
parties and different generations, but we both loved the blues and 
loved to play the piano. We were both passionate about agriculture and 
protecting the waters in our States, and we both deeply believed in 
bridging differences and working together to keep our country moving 
forward.
  In his final speech on the Senate floor, Senator Cochran said this:

       We have engaged in heated arguments. But even in full 
     disagreement, I believe all our motivations begin at the same 
     point: the sincere desire to serve our States and country.

  Senator Cochran was always able to see the good in others, and I 
firmly believe that the Senate and our country would be a kinder, 
better place if more of us would follow his lead.
  Senator Cochran was, above all, a statesman, and he was my friend. 
For that, I will always be grateful. I want to offer his family and 
friends and the entire State of Mississippi my deepest condolences.
  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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today as part of 
our national celebration of the 100th anniversary of U.S. women's 
suffrage.
  Now, 100 years ago today, on June 4, 1919, Congress passed the 19th 
Amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote. This 
hard-fought legislative victory would ensure women's full participation 
in our democracy.
  On August 18 of 1920, women's suffrage became U.S. law. Now, some of 
the people watching may not know that Wyoming was actually more than 50 
years ahead of the Nation when it came to women voting. That is a fact.
  This year, people back home in Wyoming are celebrating both the 100th 
anniversary of the U.S. women's right to vote and the 150th anniversary 
of Wyoming women's right to vote. Wyoming truly is the Nation's 
trailblazer when it comes to women's equality.
  Many people think of Wyoming as the Cowboy State, and that name 
honors our State's great western heritage, but Wyoming is also known as 
the Equality State--the first State in the Nation to grant women the 
right to vote, long before statehood, actually, because, on December 
10, 1869, the Wyoming territory passed the first law in the United 
States granting women the right to vote and to hold public office. The 
law meant full civil and judicial equality with men.
  The following year, on September 6, 1870, Louisa Ann Swain, of 
Laramie, WY, became the first woman in the United States--in the 
history of the entire country--to vote in a general election.
  Twenty years later, Wyoming reaffirmed its commitment to women's 
rights as we sought statehood. Wyoming, categorically, refused to enter 
the Union without the right for women to vote. When standing on 
principle became a major sticking point, Wyoming stuck to its guns on 
women's equality.
  In fact, retaining women's right to vote was so essential that 
Charles Burritt, of Johnson County, a delegate to the Wyoming 
Constitutional Convention, famously declared: ``If we cannot come into 
the union of states with a platform of right, why then we will stay out 
and willingly remain in a territorial form of government until all of 
us have passed away to the grave.'' That is how important this issue 
was to the people of my home State of Wyoming.
  In Congress, Joseph Carey was here as a Wyoming delegate to the U.S. 
House of Representatives. He presented the case for statehood in the 
House of Representatives. He emphasized the strong values of the people 
of Wyoming, values that included political parity between men and 
women. Members of Congress opposed to women's suffrage meanwhile argued 
strongly against Wyoming becoming a State. One Representative opposed 
to statehood even remarked--and I will quote him from the Record of the 
House of Representatives. He said: ``Mr. Speaker, I do not hesitate to 
say that in my judgment the franchise has been too liberally 
extended.'' It is a Member of the House of Representatives arguing 
against allowing Wyoming to become a State.
  Well, Wyoming, of course, won the debate narrowly. On March 26, 1890, 
the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the Wyoming statehood 
bill by a vote of 139 to 127. The measure passed the Senate a few 
months later, and then on July 10, 1890--that is the day we became a 
State--President Benjamin Harrison signed Wyoming's statehood into law, 
naming the 44th State the ``Equality State''--not the ``Cowboy State,'' 
not a ``Western State'' but the ``Equality State.'' Let me just say 
that my State may have been the 44th State to enter the Union, but 
Wyoming will always be the first when it comes to women's rights.

  Wyoming has declared 2019 as ``The Year of Wyoming Women,'' and on 
December 10 of this year, Wyoming will celebrate Wyoming's Women's 
Suffrage Day. It is a time to pay tribute to Wyoming's many women 
trailblazers, such as Nellie Tayloe Ross, who was Wyoming's 14th 
Governor and the first elected woman Governor in the United States.
  Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross completed the term of her late husband, 
Governor William Ross, who had died suddenly in office. She showed 
great courage and resolve by then running for election--and she did 
this against the advice of close family and friends--and she won. On 
January 5, 1925, Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first U.S. woman to be 
sworn in as Governor, serving with distinction until 1927. She didn't 
stop there. Nellie Ross went on to become the first female Director of 
the United States Mint, serving five terms here in Washington from 1933 
to 1953. She died in 1977 at the age of 101.
  I want to recognize another Wyoming trailblazer today--educator 
Estelle Reel. Estelle Reel was the first woman elected to Wyoming's 
statewide office as the superintendent of public instruction. Only 1 
year later, in 1895, she became the first woman confirmed by the U.S. 
Senate to a Federal position, the Superintendent of Indian Schools.
  There are a few more Wyoming women firsts whom I would like to 
mention.
  On March 7, 1870, Esther Hobart Morris was the first woman to serve 
on a jury. That jury was in Laramie, WY. She was also the first female 
justice of the peace, appointed on February 17, 1870.
  In 1870, Wyoming's Mary Atkinson became our country's first female 
court bailiff.
  Wyoming was also home to the first all-woman city government, elected 
in 1920 in Jackson, WY, and they are shown here in this photograph as 
Wyoming's trailblazing women. The Jackson Press dubbed them ``the 
petticoat government.''
  Clearly, the people of Wyoming and all Americans owe an incredible 
debt of gratitude to the Nation's extraordinary women leaders, past and 
present, so this year, we celebrate those first laws that gave women 
the right to vote and ensured their full participation in our 
democracy.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. JONES. Madam President, before I get into my initial remarks, let 
me commend my colleague, the Senator from Wyoming. I didn't know about 
all of the Wyoming women having been first in women's issues. I 
congratulate that State, and I hope that, given the record number of 
women we have in this body and in the Congress of the United States, we 
will continue that march toward progress that Wyoming started over 150 
years ago.


                               H.R. 2157

  Madam President, today I rise to speak about a disaster so many of 
our American citizens have experienced over the last few months. I am 
not talking about the historic flooding that has taken place in the 
Midwest. I am not talking about the devastating

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tornadoes that have touched down all over the country, including most 
recently in my home State of Alabama. I am not even talking about 
Hurricane Michael, which hit Alabama's Wiregrass and wiped out entire 
fields of crops. We all agree those have been tragic and deadly natural 
disasters, but the disaster I want to talk about for a few moments 
today is the self-imposed disaster that was created by this U.S. 
Government that has taken place in the wake of these storms and natural 
disasters.
  President Trump and certain Members of Congress on both sides of the 
aisle have managed to take what has traditionally been a bipartisan 
process and turn it into a political mess. It began last December when 
the President decided to insist on funding for some type of wall along 
our southern border. That demand resulted in the longest government 
shutdown in our Nation's history. It also set off a series of delays 
for badly needed disaster relief. Only after the President dropped his 
demand for wall funding could the government once again open and resume 
full operations.
  After the government reopened and disaster relief was proposed in 
this new Congress, the President was locked into a political dispute 
with leaders in Puerto Rico and refused to provide the necessary aid to 
those American citizens--American citizens--and yet another stalemate 
thus began. As that stalemate dragged on, the President once again 
injected the issue of border security and immigration into the 
unrelated discussions regarding disaster relief. Finally, after a delay 
of several months that saw the occurrence of additional weather-related 
disasters, the President, just as he had done with the most recent 
government shutdown in January, resumed his political demands and 
signaled he would sign a clean bill that included only disaster relief.
  That bill passed the Senate a couple of weeks ago by unanimous 
consent. Unfortunately, it did not pass the House last week because of 
three individuals who refused to let it pass the House also with 
unanimous agreement. It was only after the President withdrew his 
demands that the bill got to the Senate floor with enough support to 
garner the necessary votes to pass.
  What was interesting about the bill that passed by unanimous consent 
in the Senate a couple of weeks ago and passed the House of 
Representatives just last night was the ``lo and behold'' moment as 
Republicans voted for the bill last night. A month ago, they had voted 
against an almost identical bill in order to please the President. They 
obediently switched their votes to aye when the President signaled his 
support.
  Folks, I think it is somewhat shameful to play politics with people's 
lives the way we have done in this Congress over the last few months--
to play politics with people's lives and their livelihoods, especially 
when the political issues that were holding things up had really 
nothing to do with the important issues at hand.
  You can see it here. This photograph shows what happened in the 
Wiregrass area of Alabama just last fall as a result of Hurricane 
Michael. On the left side of this graphic is the ``before'' picture. We 
had a record cotton crop that was ready to be harvested, and everyone 
was excited about the bumper crop we had. Hurricane Michael came 
through, and, with no pun intended, it was just gone with the wind--
literally wiped out. That was last fall.
  Then it was in March that the tornado season once again hit Alabama. 
This is one photograph, but I can show you many of the devastating 
effects of the tornado that touched down in Lee County in March, 
killing 23 people. I myself visited there with the first responders to 
comfort those who had lost loved ones and had lost everything.
  What you cannot see in this picture is the littered countryside of 
Lee County, littered with not only the splintered trees but with 
people's lives--their homes, their belongings, their mobile homes that 
were scattered throughout the entire area. All was lost in that area 
and in Beauregard and in Smith Station. Yet these folks couldn't get 
the disaster relief they needed in a timely manner because it was being 
held up by the President and Congress. These folks had been through so 
much already, and the fact that we put them through so many months of 
uncertainty while they were waiting for help from their elected 
representatives is really unconscionable.
  Now that this bill has passed--and I am assuming that as soon as the 
President comes back, he will sign it, as he signaled he would--I want 
to thank my senior colleague from Alabama, Senator Shelby, and Senator 
Leahy for their leadership in getting this bill across the finish line. 
I want to also say a special word of thanks to my neighbors from 
Georgia, Senator Isakson and Senator Perdue, who worked tirelessly--so 
hard--to make this bipartisan deal such that the President would sign 
it.
  Although it took far too long, I am certainly grateful that farmers 
and Americans across the country who have suffered from these 
disasters, experienced them firsthand, can finally breathe a sigh of 
relief today because of the disaster relief bill that has finally been 
passed.
  (The remarks of Mr. Jones pertaining to the introduction of S. 1708 
and S. 1709 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on 
Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. JONES. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.


                       75th Anniversary of D-day

  Mr. GARDNER. Madam President, 75 years ago tomorrow, June 5, 1944, 
General Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a speech to U.S. soldiers the day 
before the invasion of Normandy.
  In that speech, he said this:

       Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary 
     Force!
       You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward 
     which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the 
     world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving 
     people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave 
     Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring 
     about the destruction of the German war machine, the 
     elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of 
     Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

  He ended his comments by saying:

       I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty 
     and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full 
     Victory!
       Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty 
     God upon this great and noble undertaking.

  It was an undertaking not just remarkable for its logistical effort 
and massive supply planning but for what it meant to humanity: a 
mobilization in the name of freedom to stand against evil and a massive 
undertaking uncertain of outcome to fight oppression for a free world.
  I hope every American will take some time this week to reflect on 
that massive undertaking 75 years ago that ultimately led to the 
liberation of Europe, the destruction of Adolf Hitler, and the end of 
World War II and to reflect on the sacrifice and courage, the selfless 
acts of bravery, and the stories of families who never saw a loved one 
return.
  The decision to move forward with the invasion was reached in late 
1943. By May of 1944, nearly 3 million Allied troops were amassed in 
southern England. Gathered along with the millions of soldiers was the 
largest armada in world history, with over 4,000 ships from Canada, the 
United States, and Great Britain. There were 11,000 airplanes that 
participated in the invasion, pounding the shores and Nazi positions, 
and delivering supplies and thousands of troops up and down the coast 
of France.
  The assault began shortly after midnight on June 6, 1944, with Allied 
bombers attacking targets along the coast and inland. More than 24,000 
American, British, and Canadian airborne assault troops and 1,200 
aircraft followed the air bombardment. At 1:30 a.m., the 101st Airborne 
Division began landing behind Utah Beach, and the 82nd Airborne 
Division began landing at 2:30 a.m. The second phase on the coast began 
at 5:30 a.m. when six Allied divisions and numerous small units began 
landing on five beaches. In total, the Allies landed more than 160,000 
troops at Normandy--73,000 American, along with 83,115 British and 
Canadian forces--on Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches.
  By the end of the first day, Allied casualties were estimated at 
10,000 killed, wounded, and missing in action: 6,603 Americans, 2,700 
British, and 946 Canadians. From D-Day through August 21, the Allies 
landed more than 2 million men in northern France and

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suffered more than 226,000 casualties, with nearly 73,000 killed or 
missing. They paid the ultimate price to save the world from tyranny, 
and their average age was 26 years old.
  Etched in the pavement of the U.S. Armed Forces Memorial Garden in 
Normandy, France, are the words: ``From the heart of our land flows the 
blood of our youth, given to you in the name of freedom.'' Let us never 
forget the sacrifice of the greatest treasure this Nation has and what 
these men and women did for a free world and free people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.