[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 176 (Tuesday, November 5, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6368-S6369]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Legislation

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I return to the floor again this week to 
discuss Congress's progress on important legislation--or, rather, the 
lack of it--since the obsession with impeaching the President began.
  When the House decided to proceed full steam ahead on impeachment, 
they promised that it wouldn't interfere with our ability to get other 
important work done for our constituents. While it has been less than a 
week since the House formally authorized their impeachment inquiry, the 
crusade to impeach the President and remove him started nearly 3 years 
ago.
  For example, on January 20, which was actually Inauguration Day, 
2017, at 12:19 p.m. the Washington Post ran the story with the headline 
``The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun.'' That was on 
Inauguration Day in 2017. Nineteen minutes into his Presidency, the 
writing wasn't only on the wall. It was on the front page of the 
Washington Post.
  Our Democratic friends are on a kamikaze mission to get President 
Trump out of office less than a year before the next election, and, in 
the process, they are preventing Congress from solving the big problems 
facing the American people.
  The latest casualty of this impeach-at-all-costs strategy is a bill I 
introduced with my Democratic colleague from Connecticut, Richard 
Blumenthal, called the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act. This 
legislation would lower the cost of Americans' prescription medication 
and save more than a half billion dollars in taxpayer money.
  Here, in the Senate, it counts the Democratic whip, Senator Durbin 
from Illinois, as well as the Assistant Democratic Leader, Senator 
Murray from Washington State, as cosponsors. With that kind of lineup, 
you would think this would be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, drug pricing 
legislation isn't the only consensus effort that has gotten caught up 
in impeachment mania.
  For a quarter of a century, the Violence Against Women Act has 
provided resources to assist women who are victims of domestic violence 
and sexual assault. Unsurprisingly, this program has consistently 
maintained broad bipartisan support. There is agreement that we must do 
more to provide services and protection for victims of domestic 
violence and sexual assault, but it is safe to say that there are 
disagreements on how best to accomplish that goal.
  Those differences in opinion came to a head in February of this year. 
We were fresh off the heels of the longest government shutdown in 
history and working to fund the government through the remainder of the 
year, but our Democratic colleagues threw a curve ball when they 
insisted that we should not include a temporary extension of the 
Violence Against Women Act, which had expired in September of 2018.
  Even amid the political jockeying we have been seeing in this 
Congress, this was a shocking omission. Republicans were in favor of a 
short-term reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act to provide 
time and space for bipartisan negotiations for a long-term 
reauthorization. Surprisingly, our Democratic colleagues in the House 
blocked this reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. So it 
expired.
  Fortunately, though, our friends on the Appropriations Committee have 
continued to fully fund these programs, but the authorizing statute has 
expired because of this gamesmanship. Despite continued bipartisan 
negotiations led by the Senator from Iowa, Ms. Ernst, over the last 8 
months, we haven't been able to come up with a consensus agreement to 
reauthorize the program on a long-term basis.
  This has been an 8-month negotiation. This isn't all that 
complicated. We should be able to do it in the space of an afternoon, 
but, clearly, there is no desire to get this resolved.
  Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act is a top priority for 
Members on both sides of the aisle, and I hope we will work harder to 
make it happen rather than to use this important law to play partisan 
political games. Sadly, the Violence Against Women Act is not the only 
program to get caught up in the political crosshairs.
  The Debbie Smith Act, another traditionally bipartisan bill here in 
the Senate, expired at the end of September because of the refusal of 
the House to take up the Senate-passed version and to send it to the 
President.
  The Debbie Smith Act, you will recall, provides funding to State and 
local crime labs to test DNA evidence and reduce the rape kit backlog. 
The Senate unanimously passed the bill in May to reauthorize this 
program, but the House simply refused to act. At a roundtable I held in 
Houston, a few months ago, I heard from rape victims and their 
advocates about how troubling and, frankly, how insulting all of this 
was.
  After months, the House has now finally relented and voted to 
reauthorize the Debbie Smith Act, after the pressure on them became 
unbearable. I am glad they changed their minds, and I am hopeful we can 
get this bill to the President's desk soon. Although I would have 
welcomed less drama this time around, the Debbie Smith Act 
reauthorization will hopefully be an example of what Congress can 
accomplish when you put partisan political fights aside and work for 
our constituents; in other words, do the job we were elected to do when 
our constituents sent us here.
  It is really disappointing that some of our colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle would rather relitigate the 2016 election--again, 
less than a year before the next election--rather than do the work of 
the American people. This obsession with impeachment mania has consumed 
our Democratic colleagues and is preventing us from getting work done 
on a nonpartisan basis. That is what our constituents want us to do.
  Texans are worried about high prescription costs, worried about the 
state of our roads and bridges, and worried about our national 
security. In the case of the Democratic leader, I would be willing to 
wager that New Yorkers are worried about many of these issues too. So 
it is time to stop the partisan games. They don't result in pay raises 
for our troops, which have now been voted against two times by our 
Democratic colleagues. They don't advance victims' rights and give 
justice to survivors like the reauthorization of the Debbie Smith Act 
and the Violence Against Women Act would do. They don't increase the 
public's trust in our institutions of government and assure them that 
we really have their best interests at heart. Definitely, these games 
don't help make Americans' lives better.
  We have heard our Democratic colleagues say ad nauseam that 
impeachment will not interfere with their ability to legislate, but the 
evidence suggests otherwise. What Americans want is action. What 
Americans want is for us to do our job. We can give them what they want 
by allowing legislation we know has a chance of becoming law, such as 
my drug pricing bill, the Debbie Smith Act, and the Violence Against 
Women Act, to come to the floor, get passed, and sent to the President. 
That would be doing our jobs, and I believe that is what our 
constituents want from each of us--not this single-minded obsession 
with impeachment that started the day the President was

[[Page S6369]]

sworn into office, less than 1 year before the next election.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Ms. ERNST. Madam President, before I begin my remarks today, I do 
want to thank the senior Senator from Texas for his remarks on the 
Violence Against Women Act and the Debbie Smith Act. I think it is 
vitally important that both of these acts are reauthorized this year 
and the sooner the better so our advocates can get their work done. 
Thank you very much for those remarks.