[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 11, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S975-S976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2242

  Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 
2242, the FIRE Act; that the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and 
passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid 
upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I would like to articulate the reason 
for the objection to the legislation brought forward by the minority.
  You would think that, after spending weeks in this Chamber litigating 
the finer points of their disagreements with the President's foreign 
policy, our friends in the minority would be weary of picking another 
partisan fight. But here we go again.
  They are attempting to bypass this body's Rules Committee on behalf 
of various bills that will seize control over elections from the States 
and take it from the States. And where do they want to put it? They 
want it to rest in the hands of Washington, DC, bureaucrats.
  As I have said on this floor before, I served on a local election 
commission. I know how hard our friends and neighbors and our local 
election commissions and our State election commissions work to ensure 
the integrity of the ballot box.
  What would these bills that are going to be brought forward this 
morning do? They would centralize control over the vote, and what we 
have seen is big centralized out-of-control government. We would end up 
having a less safe electoral process. It would be more vulnerable to 
attack.
  It is absolutely baffling to me that the minority would fight so hard 
for such a disastrous vision, but, as I said, here we go again. Their 
actions show complete contempt for the progress that Congress, the 
intelligence community, and State-level authorities have made to 
protect our elections without resorting to a Federal power grab.
  Since fiscal year 2018, Congress has invested $805 million in 
protecting the vote. This is the largest investment in elections since 
the 2002 Help America Vote Act. And do you know what? It is making a 
difference. It is making a difference.
  Why, then, would the minority continue to demand changes that would 
redirect that investment to support groups like the Iowa Democratic 
Party, whose mishandling of their own caucus ended in what has been 
termed by everyone as an unmitigated disaster?
  They know it is not necessary, and yet time and again they are trying 
to force this issue. They feel like only the bureaucrats in Washington, 
DC, can handle this.
  So in response to this gross hypocrisy, today I am filing my own bill 
directing the Government Accountability Office to look into the debacle 
in Iowa.
  I send a bill to the desk, and I ask that it be appropriately 
referred.
  This is not an attack. This is a recognition that any complex process 
comes with the risk of mistakes or mismanagement. We are all 
vulnerable. We must recognize this. We must investigate allegations of 
fraud and mismanagement, and, of course, there should be lessons 
learned from the past. To ignore these problems is to resign ourselves 
to a fatally flawed democratic process.
  On that note, I do object to the motion, and I ask my colleagues to 
remember that we have reached a bipartisan consensus on the importance 
of securing our elections. We are all against election interference. We 
are all against foreign interference in elections. We are all for free 
and fair elections, and we are all for protecting the ballot box.
  So I hope my Democratic colleagues do not resort to sending out more 
fundraising letters saying that the Republicans are opposed to a secure 
election process, because that is a falsehood. We are not. We are for a 
fair process. We do not believe federalizing that process and taking 
the power away from local governments and State governments is the way 
to do that.
  So let's focus on the bipartisan consensus, and let's not throw that 
away in the name of having another partisan grudge match.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague's comments about

[[Page S976]]

State and local election security, which I support.
  I see two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the floor, 
and I am extraordinarily proud of the bipartisan, unanimous work that 
we have done to point out what happened in 2016 and to lay out with a 
great deal of specificity what we need to do as a nation to protect 
ourselves in 2020.
  This legislation I am proposing today is really kind of the simplest, 
lowest hanging fruit. I think we all say that we don't want foreigners 
interfering in our elections. All this legislation says is if a foreign 
government or foreign agents interfere to try to help or hurt any 
Presidential candidate, we ought to make sure there is no ambiguity 
that the appropriate response is not to say thank you but the 
appropriate response is to call the FBI.
  That is the message we have heard from Director Wray. That is the 
message we have heard from the intelligence community. If we can't 
agree on that, gracious, where are we?
  And, candidly, in other times we might not have needed this kind of 
legislation. It seems so patently obvious.
  I am disappointed with the objection. We will keep trying.
  With that, I yield the floor to my colleague from Oregon.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Oregon.