[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 75 (Tuesday, April 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2179-S2180]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, it is with a heavy heart that I come to the 
floor of the Senate today. Over the last few weeks, I talked to 
countless people throughout Utah and across the Nation, but especially 
in Utah, about the troubles that they have encountered, about the 
profound sadness that the American people are experiencing right now, 
the frustrations that they have. This is something that we have never 
seen in this country, not on this scale, not during our lifetimes.
  My thoughts and prayers go out to my fellow Americans and my fellow 
Utahns as they are struggling to make ends meet, whether it is figuring 
out how to make payroll or keep food on the table at home or a 
combination of both, as it is for so many. I am mindful of them and of 
all the difficulty that the American people are going through right 
now.
  I want to begin by echoing something that Senator Schumer said a 
moment ago. We need to do what we were elected to do. Now, I don't 
agree with everything Senator Schumer just said--in fact, I would 
strongly disagree with a lot of what he just said--but I do agree with 
that. We need to do the job we were elected to do.
  Let's think about where we are right now and where we have been over 
the last few weeks. We have seen healthcare providers working 24 hours 
a day, 7 days a week. We have seen the President and his staff at the 
White House working 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. We have seen the 
Centers for Disease Control and members of the public health community 
who have continued to work tirelessly--farmers, truck drivers, grocery 
store employees, and pharmacists working to make sure that we continue 
to have access to the things we need in order to live. We have seen 
members of the news media working overtime, even if, as is the case for 
many of them, they do so only to blame all of this--rather unfairly in 
my opinion--on the President of the United States. We have seen parents 
working both their jobs--both of them--from home and simultaneously 
home schooling their children; yet Congress is in recess. This, Mr. 
President, is simply unacceptable.
  If COVID-19 requires Congress to act, then it requires Congress to 
convene. Now, look, I understand the need for distancing, and there are 
ways we can accommodate that here. Support staff can stay home. Policy 
experts can mostly work from home. Many of our meetings--most of them, 
in fact--can be conducted over the phone or by video conference. I have 
seen this myself in the last few weeks. I have been working as many 
hours as ever, just with a lot of meetings over the phone and through 
Zoom and platforms like that.
  The meetings can continue, but all the essential work of Congress--
that is, any steps necessary in order to enact legislation, the task of 
legislating itself--can be done only by Members who are voting and 
present in their respective legislative Chambers, either the Senate or 
the House of Representatives. This is a nondelegable duty. We can't 
delegate it to anyone else in government, and so we have got exactly 
two choices. We can choose to legislate, in which case we have to 
convene, or we can stay in recess and not legislate. Those really are 
the only two options.
  It is no coincidence, it is no accident that the very first clause of 
the very first section of the very first article of the Constitution 
says that ``all legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in 
the Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and 
a House of Representatives.''
  Article I, section 7 then goes on to prescribe the formula by which 
all Federal law will be enacted. This may happen only when the same 
discrete set of words presented in the form of a legislative proposal 
passes the House and the Senate and is then submitted to the President 
for signature or veto.
  Under our constitutional system, under any definition of the term, 
Senators are essential employees. We are being paid. We have a crisis 
to continue to work through. Our services are necessary. In order to 
perform those services, we have to perform them here in Washington.
  To be very clear about this, this isn't entirely a new thing. Sure, 
the most recent iteration of this is new and began when the COVID-19 
crisis began about a month ago, but the fact is Congress has, in many 
respects, been shirking its responsibilities for years--for decades, in 
fact. For the better part of the last--I don't know--three, four,

[[Page S2180]]

five, six decades, Congress has been sort of backing away from its 
lawmaking responsibilities. We have ceded voluntarily--sometimes 
willfully--the responsibility for making law, in some cases, to the 
courts--in many, many cases to executive branch agencies. This, for 
many, is a feature, not a bug, but it is an unconstitutional feature. 
It is something we should dismiss and render a bug. You see, we can't 
delegate that power. It is supposed to belong only to us, and that 
means we are not supposed to enact law saying, Entity X, Y, or Z shall 
enact good law in the area of expertise of that agency.
  But in this crisis, we have doubled down on that decades-long bad 
habit. In many cases, within Congress itself, we have empowered party 
leaders to negotiate in secret, sort of asking us to rubberstamp out 
these take-it-or-leave-it proposals without individual Members being 
able to read them, let alone have meaningful input in their 
negotiation, and reducing the role of each individual elected lawmaker 
in the law-making process through a series of tweets and press 
conferences. This isn't legislating.
  I was interested a few minutes ago when Senator Schumer was talking, 
as he was referring to provisions that were negotiated successfully 
just last night to add this or that provision into this deal. Well, 
most of us were not part of that process. Most of us saw this 
legislative package, this bill, only within the last few hours. That 
isn't a true negotiation, and it is not a true legislative process. 
Now, I understand that we are in unusual circumstances, but we can't 
let it happen this way again. This is not acceptable. We should not be 
passing major legislation--especially legislation providing nearly a 
half trillion dollars in new spending--without Congress actually being 
in session, without Members actually being here to debate, discuss, 
amend, and consider legislation and vote on it individually, rather 
than on an absentee basis, rather than by delegating that power to 
someone else.
  This crisis is too big to leave up to a small handful of people. 
Different parts of the country will face different kinds of threats 
and, therefore, have different kinds of needs. Different industries 
will need different kinds of help in order to recover the health of the 
economy. As long as Congress remains in recess, Democrats are free to 
politicize and stifle legislation with impunity as they did just a 
couple of weeks ago. Only returning to work and indeed actually working 
will give the American people the government they deserve.
  The American people need to know who is helping them and who is 
simply playing politics. We can't allow them to know that if we are not 
in session. We can't just spend another half trillion dollars every 
week or 2 or 3 and hope and pretend that it is going to turn out okay.
  The upcoming challenges are far too numerous and onerous and complex 
to leave up to just a few staff meetings behind closed doors. We have 
got issues involving testing, masks, healthcare policy, liability, 
leave, regulatory reform, immigration, and the judicial system, just to 
name a few. All of these things require serious legislative action. We 
can't just give those issues the attention that they deserve simply by 
sitting in our respective homes.
  Now, look, I am not saying that Members aren't working. I and most of 
the Members I know have been working as hard as ever in the last few 
weeks, but we can't do that which is uniquely our job--sure, we can 
have meetings. We can make phone calls. We can help solve problems just 
like any other American could, but we cannot do the job for which we 
were elected without actually being here.
  You see, the reason Congress works so little, even in moments like 
this one, is because Congress has chosen to prioritize its own 
convenience.
  The 3\1/2\-day legislative workweek, blocking tough amendment votes, 
nuclear options, things like this are all reminders of the fact that we 
have to get back to work, especially if we are going to have a debate 
about when everyone else will be able to return to work. If it makes 
anyone feel better, remember the Senate floor is often empty--just as 
it is at this very moment--making it perhaps the safest place in 
America. We can, in fact, structure our votes in such a way that we can 
distance ourselves. We have proven that in recent weeks. We can do it 
again.
  In closing, we have to remember that challenges don't, themselves, 
build character. They reveal it. Our character is revealed rather than 
built on challenging times. The character of our institution is on the 
line here. It is being exposed and revealed for all the world to see.
  COVID-19 certainly has revealed to us the character of the Chinese 
Government and its lackeys inside the World Health Organization. It has 
revealed the character of America's doctors and nurses, our priests and 
our pastors. Our families and our communities have pulled together. 
Many State and local leaders have proven themselves to be up to the 
challenge, especially, I say with great pride, both Democrats and 
Republicans in my home State of Utah.
  Congress stepped up before we recessed to appropriate money for 
workers and businesses who were facing an unprecedented monumental 
crisis, but that was weeks ago. That was literally 20 million lost jobs 
ago. There is more to do--there is a lot more to do--more than we have 
ever faced. The country is changing along with the rest of the world, 
and we need policy to change with it.
  Unlike millions of our constituents, Members of Congress are still 
receiving paychecks. It is time for us to earn them. It is time to do 
our job. It is time to return to Washington and get to work. We are not 
currently scheduled to come back until May 4. When we come back on May 
4--which I hope we do--I hope the force will be with us, but we have 
got to get back together even sooner than that because we can't 
legislate without our Members here. We can't do that from recess.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

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