[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 176 (Tuesday, November 5, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6370-S6371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2557

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration 
of S. 2557--that is my bill--and that the Senate proceed to its 
immediate consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill 
providing permanent funding for historically Black colleges and 
universities and other matters be considered read a third time and 
passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid 
upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object and for 
the reasons I have already stated, there will be ample time to bring up 
the permanent reauthorization of the funding for historically Black 
colleges and universities and minority institutions. That is why the 
unanimous consent for which I asked was for 2 years.
  My party doesn't control the activities on the floor of the Senate. 
This reauthorization bill is going to take some time on the floor. We 
are going to have to deal with amendments, and we are going to have to 
reconcile the differences between the House and the Senate. There is no 
other category of expenditures that is mandatory of this nature to 
underserved and historically discriminated institutions that is being 
held hostage as we debate a broader bill. I think this is a truly 
unique circumstance and should not be held hostage.
  We need to have a way of debating the issues to make sure that in a 
reauthorization that occurs only every so often within the Higher 
Education Act that we deal with the current gaps we have for 
diversity--for students with disabilities, for students of color, for 
students from low-income families, and for those who are the first in 
their families to attend college.
  For those reasons, I object to the request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, we have been working for 5 years, for 
example, on simplifying the Federal aid form that students fill out to 
go to college--5 years. We have bipartisan support for it in the Senate 
and in the House. We have families who, in my State, will be 
discouraged from going to college because of this complex form.
  Why don't we pass it? It is important to fund historically Black 
colleges; that is true. They have funding for another year. So why 
don't we add to that the simplifying of the FAFSA form, which, I would 
imagine, 95 percent of the students in historically Black colleges have 
to fill out every year? In addition to that, they have this 
verification process that they go through during which somebody catches 
them telling the IRS one thing and the Department of Education another 
so that they jerk their aid. They think that is important.

[[Page S6371]]

  I have the president of a community college in Memphis who tells me 
he loses 1,500 students a year because of the burdensome nature of the 
application.
  Former Governor Bill Haslam, of Tennessee--our State--has the highest 
percentage of students who fill out the FAFSA, which is the Federal aid 
form for grants and loans. He says the single biggest impediment toward 
there being free tuition for 2 years of college in our State is the 
complex FAFSA.
  I don't think it is unreasonable to say, while we help students at 
historically Black colleges, that we help those same students by 
simplifying their FAFSAs. Why don't we give them the short-term Pell 
grant that Senator Kaine and Senator Portman and a dozen other 
Senators, including the Senator from Maryland, have introduced? Why 
don't we increase the size of the Pell grant in a way that we agree in 
a bipartisan way?
  In other words, we don't have to discuss something until we find 
something we can't agree on. Why don't we take the things we do agree 
on, which are considered in the package that the Senator just objected 
to, and pass them?
  There are 29 Senators--more Democrats than Republicans--who have 
formed these bills. If we can add to that other pieces of legislation, 
let's do it. Yet let's take the permanent funding for historically 
Black colleges--the simplification of the FAFSA, the short-term Pell 
grants, and the Pell grants for prisoners--and pass that.
  As I said, we are not on vacation. We should be able to do this in 
the next few weeks or in the next few months. I mean, how long does it 
take just to pass something we already agree on? It shouldn't take us 
very long.
  I am disappointed that the Senator has objected. I hope to keep 
coming to the floor and asking for the Senate to approve it. More 
importantly, I hope to keep working with the distinguished Senator from 
Washington State on our Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions. We have often been able to work these matters out even when 
they are contentious and offered to the Senate a bipartisan package. I 
hope we can do that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.