[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 6, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2280-S2281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             REMOTE VOTING

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, a couple of months ago, I introduced 
legislation here on the floor of the Senate with my colleague Dick 
Durbin from Illinois. He is on the other side of the aisle. In a 
bipartisan way, we said: Let's let Congress vote remotely. Let's use 
safe and secure means to do that. The technology is out there to do 
that. It has to be safe, but let's let Congress weigh in and vote 
remotely when we can't meet.
  These last 6 weeks are an example of that, but it is not just about 
this pandemic. I have actually been talking about this for 25 years 
because I believe it is important for Congress to be able to meet when 
there is any reason we can't come together or shouldn't come together.
  After 9/11, a lot of people were more focused on this because a 
terrorist act--particularly a bioterrorist act--could have the same 
effect, of course.
  There have been periods of time where Congress has not been able to 
meet here, and there have been other periods of time like during the 
Cold War, when there was actually a bunker set up in the hills of West 
Virginia somewhere for us to convene for fear that there could be a 
nuclear attack. So Congress has thought about this before, but Congress 
has never been able to put in place the ability for us to vote 
remotely, for us to have debate remotely, and for us to have hearings 
remotely. I think that is too bad because we are the voice of the 
people. We represent individual congressional districts on the other 
side of the Capitol. We represent individual States here. The 
Constitution set it up so that we are out here listening to people we 
represent, and we come here to represent that voice.
  The executive branch has its own role, and it is a very important 
one, but it shouldn't take over the legislative branch role because 
they are different, and the Founders intended it that way, to have this 
separation of powers
  By the way, other countries have done this. The United Kingdom has 
begun to conduct its proceedings remotely. The EU has started to vote 
remotely--the European Union. There are several other countries that 
have come up with one way or another to work remotely--to telework, in 
essence.
  By the way, about 14 States have also figured this out so that they 
can convene meetings and so on, and some of them even vote remotely. So 
I think it is time to do it.
  Last week, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I 
chair, had the first remote hearing in the history of the Congress, and 
it worked really well. We had three witnesses. We had several Members 
of the Senate participate. The witnesses were all around the country, 
so we didn't have to call them here to Washington. We didn't have to 
gather as a group and therefore risk one of us infecting another or 
exposing us to the coronavirus.
  The witnesses were testifying from their homes, from a living room in 
one case. One of the witnesses actually testified from the cab of a 
pickup truck because she was at her sister's place

[[Page S2281]]

and didn't want to do it in the house. So she got in the pickup truck 
with her laptop, and it worked great. It worked great. We were able to 
ask questions and get answers. It worked just like a regular hearing. I 
was appreciative that the Rules Committee allowed us to do that.
  By the way, the technology is, in a sense, off-the-shelf technology 
because it is their technology. They have it. We didn't have to 
recreate the wheel. It worked last week. We used it. I think it can be 
a template for other hearings.
  By the way, I am pleased to say that today, I participated in two 
more remote hearings. Even though we are here in session, we are having 
remote hearings because it is not wise for us to all gather together 
with the staff and with the Capitol Police and others. It is safer for 
us to do this remotely. By the way, both of these hearings went well. 
One was in the Finance Committee, and the other was in the Homeland 
Security and Government Affairs Committee.
  By the way, our hearing last week was online. You can check it out at 
psi.gov. The two hearings today were both online, live-streamed today. 
This does not mean that you cut out the public. In fact, I would say it 
is just the opposite.
  During these last 6 weeks, we could have had hearings every week and 
kept the public informed as to what we were thinking and gotten more 
input from the public in an official way and in a way that was so 
transparent that everybody could have been engaged in it, if they 
wanted to, just like C-SPAN, except it is online. This is something we 
can now do, and I hope we will continue to do it.
  I hope we will be sure that, as we do this, we also take serious this 
idea of not just having hearings and not just having the ability to 
interact as Republicans and Democrats but actually have the ability to 
vote remotely when we shouldn't be here. Again, it needs to be safe, 
and I think we can do that.
  I am convinced that if we put our minds to it, the technology is not 
the problem; the problem is tradition. I am not against tradition. A 
lot of them make sense. But do you know what? Tradition around here has 
changed a lot over the years. There didn't used to be a filibuster, as 
an example, which is how we live right now, to get 60 votes for 
everything. That is OK. I am not saying it is a bad tradition to have 
changed, but the point is that we change tradition here a lot, and it 
is time for us to look at this.
  It is time for us essentially to catch up. Most of the people I 
represent are doing this. To one extent or another, they are 
teleworking. Most people in America today are realizing that you can 
actually get a lot done online, remotely.
  Today, I talked to some healthcare professionals who were telling me 
about one of the rare silver linings in this dark cloud that has 
descended upon our country. It is the fact that telemedicine has been 
proved over the past couple of months to be pretty darn effective. In 
many cases, it has been used because people are concerned or 
afraid about coming to a hospital or going to their doctor, but they 
can get the advice through telemedicine.

  I talked to some educators today. In fact, I also talked to the Ohio 
Farm Bureau today. I talked to a mom who is at home with her kids 
during the day now because her kids are home from school because 
schools have been closed. We talked about how much she has been able to 
learn about telelearning and how there is an opportunity here to do 
more outside of the classroom. It is not that we shouldn't get back to 
classrooms--I think we should. I think that is an opportunity for kids 
to interact, which is important. But we are beginning to acknowledge 
that we can also do more after school in terms of telelearning. So this 
is just another example of it.
  This is a change that I think must be made to prepare us for the 
realities of this 21st century, where these contingencies come up. It 
is a pandemic today. It may be something else tomorrow.
  By the way, the way our legislation works for voting is that it is 
temporary. So I don't think this should be the norm. I think it should 
be only in emergencies and only when the majority leader and the 
Democratic leader--so in a bipartisan way--decide it is the appropriate 
thing to do, and then, under our legislation, every 30 days, Congress 
would have to vote--presumably remotely--to reaffirm it. Otherwise, it 
ends.
  So it would be temporary, it would be in emergencies only, and it 
would be up to Republicans and Democrats alike at the leadership level 
to decide it is time to try remote voting and to be sure that we, as 
the Members of the people's House across the way and the Members of the 
world's greatest deliberative body here in the Senate, as we are 
called, have the chance to represent the millions of people we are 
charged with representing by being their voice here on the Senate 
floor.
  I hope we can, along with the times, change here and begin to be more 
effective in representing those constituents.

                          ____________________