[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 39 (Thursday, February 27, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1175-S1177]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 COMMEMORATING THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HISTORIC SEATING OF HIRAM 
   RHODES REVELS AS THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN UNITED STATES SENATOR

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, as Black History Month comes to a close in 
our land, I rise this afternoon to draw attention to the fact that the 
first African-American U.S. Senator in our Republic's history was Hiram 
Rhodes Revels of my State of Mississippi.
  As a matter of fact, 150 years ago this week, history was made in 
this very room when Hiram Rhodes Revels took the oath of office and 
broke the color barrier in the U.S. Senate. There was celebration. 
There was a congratulation on both sides of the aisle, but it was not 
unanimous. As a matter of fact, eight Senators objected to the seating 
of Hiram Revels as a U.S. Senator, simply because he was a Black man. 
Thank goodness it was only eight and that position did not prevail, and 
Hiram Revels entered the history books of the United States of America 
as being our first African-American Senator.
  In a moment, I will ask unanimous consent for the consideration of a 
resolution commemorating this momentous occasion, some 150 years ago 
this week. I will not read the entire resolution that I have, but I 
point out that I

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have a resolution cosponsored on a very bipartisan basis by 71 of my 
fellow Senators.
  Pointing out a few things about the history of this extraordinary 
public servant, this giant of American history, Hiram Rhodes Revels was 
born a free African American in 1827 in Fayetteville, Cumberland 
County, NC. He was well-educated in a number of States, including North 
Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Then he entered the ministry, 
where he served in Maryland and in Missouri and, eventually, of course, 
coming to the State of Mississippi.
  By 1868, the Reverend Hiram Rhodes Revels was also Alderman Hiram 
Rhodes Revels in Natchez, MS, and he went on to a career of public 
service. Then, the legislature, which made those decisions in that time 
under our U.S. Constitution, chose Reverend Revels to come to 
Washington, DC, and serve as a Senator.
  He served capably. He was well received and well admired, and he 
brought a degree of conciliation and togetherness to this Senate that 
we had not had before. He only served a little over a year. He chose, 
instead, to return to Mississippi to become a college president, 
continue in education, and continue in the ministry in Mississippi, 
having served as president of what is now Alcorn State University and 
also having served in Holly Springs, MS, in what is now Rust College. 
He was in the ministry in Aberdeen, MS, at the time of his death and is 
buried in Holly Springs, MS.
  I very much appreciate the help of Democrats and Republicans in 
getting this resolution right. There have only been 10 African 
Americans in the history of our Republic to serve in the U.S. Senate. 
One of them--the first one--was Hiram Rhodes Revels. Three of them are 
serving today in the U.S. Senate.
  I will acknowledge the help that I received from a number of my 
colleagues in adding information to this resolution to make it better 
and fuller and more complete. I appreciate the bipartisan cosponsorship 
of this but also the bipartisan suggestions that I received and 
incorporated into the resolution to make it better.
  I am honored to represent the same State that this pioneer 
represented and began to represent some 150 years ago this week.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Senate to proceed to 
the consideration of S. Res. 508, submitted earlier today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 508) commemorating the 150th 
     anniversary of the historic seating of Hiram Rhodes Revels as 
     the first African American United States Senator.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the 
resolution.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The resolution (S. Res. 508) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  (The resolution, with its preamble, is printed in today's Record 
under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Braun). The Senator from Ohio.


                           Women's Healthcare

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, over and over, we see the President and 
Republicans in Congress trying to take healthcare away from people, 
particularly women. We see it with the President's lawsuits, trying to 
take away the consumer protections for preexisting conditions. We see 
the vote in the Senate--defeated by one vote, but a vote in the 
Senate--which would have scaled back the bipartisan Medicaid expansion 
in Ohio that my Republican Governor--I am a Democrat--and we did 
bipartisanly in Ohio. We have seen attempts by Republicans to take away 
healthcare then, and now we--especially just this week--see that with 
women's healthcare. That is what the bills we voted down this week were 
all about. They are about politicians putting themselves in the middle 
of the sacred doctor-patient relationship. It intimidates women, and it 
intimidates medical professionals. Doctors aren't sure what might 
happen to them in some cases. It takes away the freedom of women to 
make their own decisions.

  We defeated them earlier this week, but they are not letting up. They 
tried again to pass yet another bill that has only one purpose: 
stigmatizing women's healthcare.
  Supporters of these bills, including the President of the United 
States, have spread lies and misinformation. It is despicable. That is 
why doctors and medical experts alike oppose these bills.
  Think about these groups: the American College of Nurse-Midwives, 
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American 
Medical Women's Association, the American Public Health Association--on 
whom we rely so much now on the coronavirus--the American Society for 
Reproductive Medicine, and the Association of Physician Assistants in 
Obstetrics and Gynecology. All of these organizations oppose this bill 
because they see it for what it is: a compromise of women's health. It 
is politicians, it is elected officials in this body, it is Leader 
McConnell from his office down the hall always playing to his interest 
groups, always playing politics. It is Senator McConnell and his allies 
getting between the patient--the woman--and her doctor, as if mostly 
male politicians should be making these decisions about women's lives 
and about the relationship between a woman and her doctor.
  All of these groups that I mentioned, again, the American College of 
Nurse-Midwives, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 
American Medical Women's Association, American Public Health 
Association--all of these groups have written in to oppose politicians 
interfering in the patient-provider relationship and the criminalizing 
of patient care. Do we want a bunch of male politicians, do we want 
people like President Trump and Vice President Pence from the Presiding 
Officer's home State, and do we want a bunch of politicians like Mitch 
McConnell--do we want them to be able to criminalize a doctor, get in 
the middle of a patient-doctor relationship and criminalize that? There 
is no question that is what this is about.
  They act as though they know better than you--a woman--and your 
doctor. It is nothing new. We have seen it over and over. We have seen 
Washington politicians, we see Columbus politicians in my State, most 
of them men, obsessed with trying to assert themselves into women's 
healthcare decisions. They can't help themselves. They just keep doing 
it. Those decisions should be and are between a woman and her doctor, 
period.
  It is time, if I can say this, that old men in Washington and in 
courtrooms and in State legislatures stop trying to take away women's 
healthcare, particularly when we have so much work to do in healthcare.
  We could be working instead of a bunch of votes--I mean, I 
understand; we know Senator McConnell is in his office down the hall, 
and we know what he does. We know he brings forward legislation to get 
his base excited, to make sure the most conservative voters in the 
country come out to vote. We know he does legislation all the time to 
help his big financial contributors--to help the drug companies, to 
help the insurance companies, to help the gun lobby. We know that is 
what Mitch McConnell does.
  Instead of trying to compromise women's health, take healthcare away, 
instead of eliminating consumer protections for preexisting conditions, 
he could actually do something about drug prices. We could be working 
to protect the millions of Americans with preexisting conditions.
  In this country, 10 years ago, we passed a bill which said that if 
you are sick--you are really sick--and you spend a lot of money on 
healthcare, your health insurance company in the past would just cut 
your insurance off and you were out of luck. You would then choose 
between going to the doctor or not and all that can happen or you go 
bankrupt. We changed that. The Affordable Care Act said: No, you can't. 
Just because you are sick and you are expensive, an insurance company 
can't take your insurance away. They can't cancel it.

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  President Trump has tried for 3 years now to change that and take 
away those consumer protections. He has gotten support from Mitch 
McConnell and from virtually almost every--except for John McCain and a 
couple of other Senators from their side--almost every Republican in 
this Senate to say that it is OK to take away consumer protections for 
preexisting conditions.
  Instead of doing that, we could work to keep drug prices down. We 
could give tax credits to help people afford insurance. We could 
protect the ability to stay on your parents' healthcare. If you are 25 
years old, you could be on your parents' health insurance. They are 
trying to take that away. They are trying to take Medicaid expansion 
away.
  They are trying to make limits on how much you pay out of pocket each 
year. Those are the kinds of things we should be agreeing on.
  Free preventive screening services--if you are a senior, if you are 
on Medicare, you can get free screening for osteoporosis, free 
screening for diabetes. The President and this Congress tried to take 
those services away.
  Five million Ohioans under 65 have preexisting conditions. Basically, 
if you are over 50 in this country, the chances are overwhelming that 
you have a preexisting condition. Do you want to lose those consumer 
protections? Of course not.
  Instead of making it harder for Ohio women to get the care they need, 
instead of tearing down the Affordable Care Act, let's make it 
stronger. Let's get drug prices under control. Let's tell American 
women we trust them; we trust them to make their own decisions.
  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.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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