[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 180 (Wednesday, October 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6343-S6371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  UIGHUR INTERVENTION AND GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN UNIFIED RESPONSE ACT OF 
                                  2019



 =========================== NOTE =========================== 

  
  On page S6343, October 21, 2020, second column, the following 
appears: LEGISLATIVE SESSION------------ UIGHUR INTERVENTION AND 
GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN UNIFIED RESPONSE ACT OF 2019
  
  The online Record has been corrected to read: UIGHUR 
INTERVENTION AND GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN UNIFIED RESPONSE ACT OF 2019


 ========================= END NOTE ========================= 
 
 
 

  The Senate proceeded to consider the House message to accompany S. 
178, a bill to condemn gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic 
Muslims in Xinjiang, and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, 
torture, and harassment of these communities inside and outside China.
  Pending:

       McConnell motion to concur in the amendment of the House of 
     Representatives to the bill, with McConnell Amendment No. 
     2652, in the nature of a substitute.
       McConnell Amendment No. 2680 (to Amendment No. 2652), to 
     improve the small business programs.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     concur in the House amendment to S. 178, a bill to condemn 
     gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in 
     Xinjiang, and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, 
     torture, and harassment of these communities inside and 
     outside China, with a further amendment No. 2652.
         Mitch McConnell, John Barrasso, Susan M. Collins, Lamar 
           Alexander, Thom Tillis, Todd Young, Pat Roberts, Chuck 
           Grassley, Deb Fischer, Rob Portman, Richard C. Shelby, 
           Michael B. Enzi, James E. Risch, Kevin Cramer, Lindsey 
           Graham, Roy Blunt, John Boozman.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to concur in the House amendment to S. 178, an act to condemn 
gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, and 
calling for an end to arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of 
these communities inside and outside China, with a further amendment 
No. 2652, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski) and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), 
the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from 
Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 51, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 207 Ex.]

                                YEAS--51

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Loeffler
     McConnell
     McSally
     Moran
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--44

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Jones
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Harris
     Manchin
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Sinem
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 51, the nays are 
44.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  The Democratic leader.


                       Supreme Court Nominations

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, Leader McConnell has argued that what the 
Republican majority is doing by ramming a Supreme Court Justice through 
the Senate mere days before a national Presidential election is 
completely normal, that it is perfectly consistent with precedent. This 
is not true. There is no precedent in the history of the Senate for 
confirming a Supreme Court Justice this close to an election. There has 
never been--never been--a Supreme Court Justice confirmed after July of 
an election year.
  President Lincoln, a great Republican President--one of our foremost 
national heroes--rejected the opportunity to nominate someone for the 
Supreme Court close to an election. I dare say every single Republican 
Senator already knows this because they all argued that exact position 
4 years ago.
  Republicans all argued that the Senate shouldn't confirm Justices in 
Presidential election years because of the supposed principle that 
``the American people deserve a voice.'' Senate Republicans made that 
argument 8 months

[[Page S6344]]

before the election. Now they are rushing to confirm a Supreme Court 
Justice 8 days before the election, while Americans wait in line to 
cast their ballots. They are waiting in line. They are voting. Millions 
of Americans--tens of millions--have already voted. I have no doubt 
Republicans would confirm a Justice 8 minutes before election day if it 
meant they got their Justice. You could not design a set of 
circumstances more hypocritical than this.
  The truth is that the Republican majority is perpetrating the most 
rushed, most partisan, least legitimate process in the long history of 
Supreme Court nominations. Republicans, at the very least, ought to go 
on the record and admit that this is an extraordinary breach of 
fairness, of comity, of honor, of truth, of consistency, and, of 
course, precedent--a black and indelible mark on this Senate majority 
which will last forever.
  Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Has the Senate ever considered 
a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States this close to a 
Presidential election?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. According to the Parliamentarian, the 
Secretary of the Senate's Office confirms that it has not.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I make a point of order that it should 
not be in order to consider a nomination to the Supreme Court of the 
United States this close to a Presidential election.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is not ripe for decision 
and is not sustained.


                            Motion to Table

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I appeal the ruling of the Chair, I move 
to table the appeal, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays have been ordered.
  The question is on the motion to table the appeal of the ruling of 
the Chair.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski) and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), 
the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from 
Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.
  (Mrs. LOEFFLER assumed the Chair.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote or change their vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 208 Ex.]

                                YEAS--51

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Loeffler
     McConnell
     McSally
     Moran
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--44

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Jones
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Harris
     Manchin
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Sinema
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to table is agreed to. The ruling 
of the Chair stands.
  The Senator from Iowa.


                             Biden Tax Plan

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in about 2 weeks, the American people 
will go to the polls to determine the direction of our Nation. There 
are many important issues voters will consider as they decide which way 
they will cast their votes. Their decisions will ultimately determine 
who will be President and the makeup of Congress.
  One issue that is always front and center in any election is the 
economy and the economic policies of the respective candidates. This 
election is no different. There are many differences in the economic 
policies that would be pursued by a Republican-led administration 
versus the path my Democratic colleagues would take if they were to be 
in charge. One particular, stark difference is that of tax policy that 
both sides can be expected to pursue.
  Over the past 4 years, President Trump and the Republicans in 
Congress have enacted historic tax cuts, particularly for middle-class 
Americans. That has been part of a long, overdue revamp of our Tax 
Code. This has included reducing tax rates across the board, 
significantly increasing the standard deduction, and doubling the child 
tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000. As a result of these changes, a 
typical family of four earning $70,000 has seen its tax bill reduced by 
$2,000.
  While my Democratic colleagues have done their best to distort this 
reality about middle-income tax cuts, IRS tax return data of 2018 
confirmed that middle-income Americans saw significant tax reductions. 
In fact, taxpayers in the middle of the income distribution saw their 
tax bills reduced by an average of more than 13 percent. My Democratic 
colleagues and former Vice President Biden have made no bones about 
their plans for tax reform. Their tax reform would be in tax increases. 
If they prevail in the upcoming elections, they will seek to reduce and 
undo the 2017 tax law and impose trillions of dollars in tax hikes on 
individuals and businesses.
  The former Vice President has sought to deflect accusations that he 
would raise taxes on low- and middle-income taxpayers by promising 
plans to increase taxes only on businesses and individuals who have 
annual incomes of over $400,000. There are many reasons to be skeptical 
of this promise of the Vice President's, and I want to discuss this 
skepticism.
  First, a similar assurance was made by the Obama-Biden administration 
in its first term. Many will recall the Obama-Biden administration 
promised not to raise taxes on married couples earning less than 
$250,000 or $200,000 for single filers. That promise was tossed out the 
window when a host of new taxes that fell directly or indirectly on 
middle-income Americans was enacted to pay for ObamaCare. That included 
the individual mandate penalty tax, 80 percent of which was paid by 
taxpayers earning less than $50,000 a year. This is exactly why the 
Republicans repealed that individual mandate as part of the 2017 tax 
law--because it was very regressive.
  A second reason low- and middle-income Americans should take little 
comfort in the former Vice President's promise to tax only the rich and 
businesses is that such taxes too often get passed along. There is a 
well-documented principle in any tax policy that simply because the law 
imposes a tax directly on an individual or business doesn't mean the 
ultimate burden of that tax won't fall on others indirectly.
  Every analysis of Mr. Biden's tax plan by independent third parties, 
from the very liberal Tax Policy Center to Penn Wharton, to the 
American Enterprise Institute--so liberal, moderate, and conservative--
shows taxpayers earning less than $400,000 will shoulder at least a 
portion of Mr. Biden's proposed tax increase. This comes from the fact 
that the tax increases largely reflect the economic consensus that a 
significant portion of the corporate income tax falls on workers in the 
form of reduced wages and benefits. In other words, workers pay even if 
you increase the corporate tax rate. Our nonpartisan Joint Committee on 
Taxation has estimated that 25 percent of the corporate tax increases 
are, in fact, borne by workers. Mr. Biden, of course, has promised to 
increase the corporate income tax from 21 percent to 28 percent.
  According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, this business tax hike 
will mean that over 90 percent of households with incomes between

[[Page S6345]]

$45,600 and $121,000 will see increases in their total tax burdens. 
With the bulk of Mr. Biden's tax agenda being targeted at hiking taxes 
on capital, the consequences will then be felt throughout the economy 
in the form of lower wages, fewer jobs, and slower economic growth.
  According to a study out of the Hoover Institution this week, the 
Biden plan holds the promise of reducing the per capita gross domestic 
product by more than 8 percent when compared to the current law with 
the 2017 Trump tax law being made permanent. This raises an additional 
important issue. Taxpayers should take with a whole grain of salt Mr. 
Biden's promise of not raising their taxes because the vast majority of 
Americans will see a tax increase beginning in 2026 unless the 2017 tax 
cuts are made permanent.
  A top priority for President Trump and congressional Republicans has 
been to make permanent the middle-class tax cuts that were enacted in 
2017 but which will otherwise sunset in 2025. President Trump has 
called for making the tax cuts permanent as part of each of his budget 
submissions to Congress. Now we have the Democrats refusing to work 
with the Republicans to make the middle-income tax cuts of 2017 
permanent law so that taxes won't go up automatically in 2026.
  Keep in mind that the middle-class tax cuts enacted in tax reform are 
not just about lower tax rates for middle-income workers and families; 
they are also about small business owners and family farmers. For the 
millions of small family-owned businesses and family farmers, the tax 
reform of 2017 has provided a 20-percent deduction for qualified 
business income under section No. 199A. The whole purpose was for it to 
be for individual filers in order to reduce the inequity between a 
lower corporate tax rate and what individuals would pay if they were in 
business so as to compensate for the capital that they would have to 
have invested for their small businesses.
  According to the recently released 2018 IRS data, in Iowa alone, in 
my State alone, nearly 215,000 small businesses and farms across our 
State benefited from this 20 percent deduction in section No. 199A. The 
Republicans are committed to making this provision permanent, for it is 
a very important tool for those small businesses and farms to be able 
to grow, invest, and provide critically needed jobs in our communities.
  However, Mr. Biden's tax plan doesn't include any proposal to make 
permanent or to even extend the middle-class tax cuts that have been 
enacted under President Trump. Indeed, every independent third-party 
review of his tax proposal assumes his intent is to allow the tax 
increases to go into effect.
  And with good reason--because on the campaign trail, Mr. Biden has 
stated: ``On day one, I will move to eliminate the Trump tax cuts.'' It 
can't be both that he will only raise taxes on those with incomes over 
$400,000 and repeal the Trump tax cuts in their entirety.
  So who can blame taxpayers for being skeptical when Mr. Biden says 
that he won't raise their taxes? Every indication is that he will raise 
taxes on people below a $400,000-a-year income.
  Under a Biden administration, middle-income individuals can expect a 
Biden plan that rolls back the Trump tax cuts. This means he will 
increase their tax rates, increase the amount of their income subject 
to tax, and reduce tax benefits for families.
  Similarly, small business owners and family farmers can also expect 
him to tax a larger share of their business income.
  While Mr. Biden has tried to position himself as a centrist on this 
tax issue, his tax and economic agenda is not all that different from 
his far-left opponents in the Democratic primaries.
  His sales pitch may be different, but his agenda will have the same 
detrimental effect. As the Wall Street Journal's editorial board summed 
it up, the problem with the Biden policies is ``they will have a long-
term corrosive impact by raising the cost of capital, [by] reducing the 
incentive to work and invest, and [lastly] reducing productivity across 
the economy. Americans will pay the price in a lower standard of living 
than they otherwise would [have]--and that they deserve.''
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.


                              Coronavirus

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, thank you. I rise to talk about Americans' 
health and the health of Virginians.
  We are living through a crisis--the coronavirus crisis--that is 
unprecedented in American life since 100 years ago with the influenza 
of the late 19-teens, and a lot of words have been used on the floor to 
describe the magnitude of the crisis. I needn't dwell on that. Now 
nearly 220,000 Americans have died. A recent study that was put out 
suggested that the actual toll may be closer to 300,000.
  Many States in the country are experiencing dramatic spikes, with 
predictions that we could see the worst levels of coronavirus in coming 
months, at least until a vaccine is developed and widely distributed, 
and that probably won't happen before the spring of next year.
  In Virginia, we have been hit--3,515 Virginians have died of 
coronavirus. My wife and I know three of them--two in Richmond and one 
in Fairfax County. And 168,722 Virginians have had coronavirus. My wife 
and I are two in that number.
  This challenge in Virginia hit first in a tiny part of the State that 
I really love, the Eastern Shore of Virginia. That is one of the least 
accessible parts of Virginia. The Eastern Shore has two sizable poultry 
processing plants, with thousands of workers--a mixture of White 
workers, African-American workers, Latino immigrants, Haitian-Creole 
immigrants.
  In March, at these two plants--one run by Tyson and the second run by 
Purdue Food Company--they started to see cases multiply. Many were 
asymptomatic. People didn't know they had it, but that meant they could 
spread the virus to others. The healthcare network in the Eastern Shore 
of Virginia was dramatically taxed by this fast-moving and little-
understood crisis at the time.
  That was our first hot spot in Virginia. Other States had their hot 
spots; that was ours.
  Thank goodness, as Virginians have grappled with this crisis and as 
we have grappled with it across the country, there have been some 
protections, and I want to stand and talk about the protections that 
have been provided to Virginians during this time by the Affordable 
Care Act.
  About 400,000 Virginians have Medicaid because of the Affordable Care 
Act. Virginia embraced the expansion of Medicaid 2 years ago, so people 
have been able to get insurance, many for the first time in their 
lives, and that 400-plus thousand have been able to access care.
  Virginians have been protected if they had preexisting conditions, 
and now having had coronavirus is a preexisting condition, and the many 
people who suffer from long-haul coronavirus symptoms have preexisting 
conditions. They have been protected.
  Young people have been able to stay on family policies, which has 
been particularly helpful in a time of economic challenge, where a lot 
of young people have lost jobs or not been able to find them. And other 
people who have lost jobs in the private sector have been able to go on 
the exchanges and buy insurance, and if their income isn't high, have a 
subsidy that would make the premiums more affordable.
  So as bad as this has been, it would have been a lot worse were it 
not for an Affordable Care Act providing protections for families and 
individuals.
  I don't pretend to understand everything. I have been around for a 
while, but there are a lot of things I still don't understand, and I 
will just be candid. One thing I don't understand is why the repeal of 
the Affordable Care Act is like the Moby Dick that the GOP and the 
Trump administration has been searching to kill this worthy healthcare 
bill that is protecting people at a critical time.
  During the time I have been in the Senate, since 2013, I have seen, 
during the Trump administration, numerous efforts to, via 
administrative sabotage, weaken the law
  I have been here as we have cast vote after vote after vote to repeal 
the Affordable Care Act.
  I saw a shutdown driven by a Senate colleague from Texas a few years 
ago all around repealing the Affordable

[[Page S6346]]

Care Act. It was important enough to shut the entire government of the 
United States down for more than 2 weeks.
  I stood here on the floor at the most dramatic moment ever in my 
political life. You might think it might have been, like, election 
night 2016. No, the most dramatic moment ever in my political life was 
the night we stood here on the floor at about 2 in the morning and John 
McCain, having been diagnosed with a glioblastoma, came out of the 
hospital and cast the deciding vote to make sure that millions of 
Americans wouldn't lose their health insurance.
  And in addition to administrative sabotage and repeated votes in the 
Chamber, we have seen one court case after the next, sponsored by 
Republicans, to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
  And now we see sort of Moby Dick coming into sight with the 
California v. Texas case to be argued at the Supreme Court on November 
10.
  My constituents in Virginia who rely on the Affordable Care Act and 
are afraid to death for themselves and their family members are 
petrified.
  Let me read you some stories from four constituents of the many that 
I have received.
  Michelle from New Castle. New Castle is in Appalachian Southwest 
Virginia. She wrote in about her 9-year-old son Evan. Michelle moved to 
Virginia from Texas because Texas didn't have expanded Medicaid and 
Virginia did.

       I am new to Virginia. I recently moved from Texas, and [I] 
     am incredibly concerned with the Supreme Court nominee and 
     the protections given in the Affordable Care Act. My son 
     Evan, who is 9 years old, was born with a rare abdominal wall 
     defect called an omphalocele. After many surgeries, and 
     staying in the hospital for the first 8 months fighting for 
     his life, he came home. At the time, he was covered by his 
     father's employer-sponsored health insurance. He was 
     protected under the ACA. His health care, which included 
     ventilator support, tube feeding, and a number of surgeries, 
     easily came to millions of dollars.
       As he has grown, he has received other diagnoses--autism, 
     ADHD, nystagmus and other visual impairments. I know very 
     well from my experience with health coverage in Texas, the 
     constant battle a person faces while trying to get treatment 
     for autism-related therapy, and to even be covered by 
     Medicaid. I was denied coverage for my son, because I ``made 
     too much.'' My income as a single mother was $35,000. I was 
     working sometimes 60 hours a week, paying $650 every month 
     for childcare. The cost of my employer sponsored health 
     insurance for myself and my son and daughter was $800 a 
     month. I could not afford that, and [I] had to choose between 
     having coverage for my children and being able to pay our 
     water and light bills. It took months to receive a decision 
     that we were denied for Medicaid.
       Upon my move to Virginia, I was able to obtain Medicaid not 
     just for my son, who had been denied in Texas, but for every 
     household member. It took two weeks.
       The ACA is protecting my son and his ability to be covered 
     by other insurance is so necessary. . . . I'm contacting my 
     Senators on subjects that affect my family frequently. . . . 
     My family means everything to me. My son's life isn't 
     something I take for granted. I fought for him, every day, 
     while he struggled through pulmonary hypertension, and it was 
     four long months before I [even] heard the words ``WHEN he 
     goes home'' rather than ``IF he goes home.''

  Dawn from Virginia writes about her 20-year-old daughter--she is from 
Vienna in Northern Virginia--who works a part-time job with no 
benefits.

       My daughter is 20 with multiple health conditions and has a 
     part time job with no benefits, but she is able to be on my 
     insurance. I am concerned about the upcoming Supreme Court 
     vote on the ACA.
       What will happen to young people like my daughter if the 
     ACA is gone?

  A veteran, Lieutenant Alvia from Hampton in Hampton Roads.

       I am a 100% permanently disabled veteran. Although most of 
     my medical care is provided by the VA, my care is 
     supplemented by Medicare and the services of a Medicaid Alert 
     Service Dog. The latter two care services are threatened by 
     the abolishment of the Affordable Care Act and challenges to 
     the American Disability Act. . . . With the Supreme Court 
     scheduled to hear arguments to repeal the [ACA] soon, this 
     puts lives and rights at unacceptable risk.

  Donna from Henrico in the Richmond area where I live writes about her 
husband, diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer:

       My husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma . . . back in 
     June of 2020. The insurance claims have now exceeded one 
     MILLION dollars and will continue to rise with doctors and 
     treatments. Thankfully, we have health insurance through the 
     Marketplace. My husband isn't able to work and my job has no 
     benefits.
       I fear what it would be like for us if ObamaCare is 
     overturned by the Republicans. No private insurance will ever 
     accept us, so we must continue to rely on getting our 
     insurance through the Marketplace.

  And now we are rushing a Supreme Court nominee. In 2016, I was in 
this Chamber and saw many of my Republican colleagues make the argument 
that they would not entertain a nomination by President Obama, not that 
they would vote against the nominee--that would be consistent with 
advise and consent--but that they would not let the individual in their 
office, not have a Judiciary Committee hearing, not have a Judiciary 
Committee vote, not have a floor debate, not have a floor vote.
  And the principle that was newly announced in 2016 was ``let the 
people decide.'' Let the voters vote for President and the Senate, and 
then we will see about filling a Supreme Court vacancy.
  And my colleagues looked me in the face and the voters in the face, 
too, and they said: This precedent is a precedent we will apply equally 
to a Republican President as a Democratic President.
  But now that promise is being broken. Those words to colleagues and 
those words to the public are being reversed.
  There are some outside this body who think that is just what 
politicians do. They say things and then do the opposite. They are not 
surprised by that. I don't think that is true. My experience here since 
2013 is when my colleagues tell me something, they do it.
  I have got great relations with colleagues on the Republican side of 
the aisle. When they tell me something, they do it. And if they can't 
do it, they will tell me that.
  This is very, very different. Changing the tune--we will not fill a 
vacancy in a Presidential year. We will let the people decide--what is 
the reason for the change?
  And I have concluded that since people normally don't go back on what 
they said--and this is a rare instance in my time here in the Senate--
the reason is a real important one, and the reason is finally we see 
Moby Dick in our sight, and we have a chance to gut the Affordable Care 
Act. We have one last chance it do it in a case that is going to be 
argued in the Supreme Court on November 10.
  And that is so important to us in a pandemic, with people dying and 
sick and suffering, that we are willing to break our word to rush a 
Justice to repeal the Affordable Care Act. For God's sake, why?
  For God's sake, why?
  I am struck by the fact I have unfairly used a broad brush to cast 
aspersions at the GOP in the Senate. I am struck by the fact that two 
GOP Senators said: You are right. This is wrong. We shouldn't rush the 
Justice. We should let the people decide.
  Who were the two Republicans who said that? Senators Collins of Maine 
and Murkowski of Alaska, who, together with John McCain in August of 
2017, stood on the floor in the middle of the night and cast deciding 
votes to make sure that people would have healthcare instead of 
millions losing their healthcare. They are sticking by their word 
because they know what is at stake and they know what this rush means.
  We shouldn't be rushing a Supreme Court nominee and people breaking 
their word to do so. On the Court, we should hold folks to their 
promises. Let the people decide. They are voting; 37 million people 
have voted already in the United States. Let's let the people decide 
who the next President is and who the next Senate is, and, obviously, 
if it is a Republican President and Republican Senate, everyone will 
understand moving quickly to voting on the nomination of Judge Barrett, 
but let's at least let the people decide. That is what we should be 
doing on the Court. And here's what we should be doing instead of 
forcing an unprecedented rush to a Justice who can be part of 
destroying the Affordable Care Act: Let's work on COVID. Let's work on 
the healthcare crisis.
  But I am disappointed. After good work together on four bills in 
March and April to inject trillions of dollars to help people, 
businesses, and hospitals, we knew we needed to do more. The House put 
a bill on the table at the end of May, and then there were months of 
delay here in the Senate.

[[Page S6347]]

  I knew that the Senate Republican majority would not embrace the 
House proposal, but I thought they would do something. But after the 
House acted in May, June went by--nothing. July went by--nothing. 
August went by--nothing. Most of September went by--nothing.
  Eventually, a Republican proposal was put on the table that couldn't 
even generate strong support within the Republican caucus. It was 
dramatically insufficient, from my view, because it provided no 
assistance for housing, rent, mortgage, food, SNAP benefits, State and 
local government. It provided none of those things.
  So Democrats and some Republicans voted against it with the hopes 
that that vote would do exactly what it did when we cast a similar vote 
in March: We vote down a partisan proposal. It opens the door for 
negotiations. The White House gets engaged. We do something that is 
good for the entire American public. Our vote did have that effect--
sort of.
  The ``no'' vote on the Republican proposal in September did start a 
more robust discussion with the White House about what should be done 
to provide COVID relief--but not here in the Senate. Repeatedly, as 
Democratic leadership has been talking to Secretary Mnuchin over at the 
White House, we read in the paper that Senator McConnell, the leader, 
has been telling members of the GOP: We are not doing a deal. Don't do 
a deal--cold water on the deal.
  Now we are having some sort of show votes on insufficient proposals 
this week, but to come to the floor to cast a vote on a motion to table 
a proposal when everybody knows it is not going anywhere because it is 
not sufficient at the same time as we are reading headlines in the 
paper that the majority leader is telling the GOP: Do not do a deal. Do 
not do a COVID deal.
  The PPP package that we voted on yesterday was insufficient. We 
refilled the bucket for small businesses in April, as we should have, 
and we have to refill it again. But the package yesterday didn't do 
anything for restaurants, didn't do anything for many in the small 
business sector, and it included nothing for individuals who are hit 
hard by unemployment or families who need relief or people who need 
testing.
  The bill that we just voted on today, the ``skinny'' COVID bill, was 
insufficient for the same reasons that led it to be voted down by 
Democrats and Republicans in September.
  As I conclude, I want to go back to the Eastern Shore. I have another 
colleague on the floor who wants to talk, but I started off talking 
about the Eastern Shore, where Virginia's COVID experience began with a 
hot spot in two poultry processing plants.
  I have a good-news story for the Presiding Officer because I was on 
the Eastern Shore a couple of days ago, but I have a challenging punch 
line to my good-news story.
  This is where it started in Virginia--hot spots in these poultry 
plants. These low-income workers--many immigrants--saw President Trump 
declare that this was an essential industry, so they stood up and said: 
If the industry is essential, we are not sawdust. We are not 
inessential. We are not expendable. We are not throwaway. If the 
industry is essential and has to sail, then we are essential too.
  They stood up and asked the Governor to adopt a basic safety rule 
about how to return safely to work in these plants during a time of 
COVID. The Governor heard their request and said: Well, maybe, but let 
me see if OSHA will do something. Won't the Federal labor agencies come 
and put a safety rule in place? And OSHA did nothing.
  So, in July, at the request of these poultry workers who are now in 
an essential industry but are risking their health, the Governor of 
Virginia enacted a temporary safety rule, not just for poultry plants 
but for places of work to make sure that, as people are coming back to 
work, they can be safe.
  Good news, Mr. President: After that law was enacted, the cases on 
the Eastern Shore declined and declined and declined, and of the 134 
cities and counties in Virginia, right now, even with two of these big 
poultry plants, the caseload on the Eastern Shore per capita is just 
about the best in Virginia.
  But the bill we just voted down, this ``skinny'' bill we just voted 
down that had a liability protection component to it--it wasn't just 
liability protection. I would be for liability protection. If you want 
to protect someone from liability--normally we don't at the Federal 
level, but you can. What you do is set a standard of care, and then you 
say that everybody who exceeds the standard of care is protected from 
liability.
  The ``skinny'' proposal that we just voted on had liability 
protection, but it didn't set a standard of care. It just excused 
people from liability, and it did something even worse. It did 
something even worse, and that was one of the reasons I voted against 
it.
  The bill that we just voted down would have wiped out the Virginia 
safety rule. It would have wiped out the ability of any State to pass a 
temporary safety rule to protect workers so that they could come back 
to work safely in a time of COVID.
  It is one thing to try to kill the Affordable Care Act in the middle 
of a pandemic and take health insurance away from millions. It is 
another thing to rush a Supreme Court Justice in violation of what you 
said you would do to try to achieve your goal of killing the Affordable 
Care Act. But trying to wipe out State safety laws that are working in 
my Commonwealth to effectively protect workers whom the President has 
declared essential--I have seen everything. I have seen everything
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                    Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

  Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, Judge Amy Coney Barrett is a wise, 
experienced, compassionate, and strong woman. This past week, Iowans 
and all Americans had the chance to see that.
  No matter the question or the topic, she was calm, cool, and 
collected. She invoked the rule set by the late Justice Ginsburg in 
providing no hints, previews, or forecasts as to how she would decide 
any given case. That is how judges should act, because, as Judge 
Barrett points out, judges aren't legal pundits; their role is to rule 
on the law.
  Certainly, that seemed to frustrate some folks. It is like they 
wanted that big TV moment to score just one more point on the political 
scoreboard this election cycle. They weren't focused on understanding 
Judge Barrett's judicial philosophy and temperament.
  What has become crystal clear to me throughout this process is that 
Judge Barrett's academic and professional qualifications are above 
reproach. As a law professor at Notre Dame, her alma mater, she offered 
numerous academic articles on the topic of constitutional law.
  As a Seventh Circuit Court judge, she has authored 79 majority 
opinions. Of those majority opinions, they have been unanimous 95 
percent of the time.
  Judge Barrett has shown a commitment to the law and Constitution and 
has an even hand in applying the sacred tenets of our democracy. Like 
most Iowans, I firmly believe in the role of our Supreme Court. It is 
the defender of our Constitution.
  At the end of the day, that is my test for a Supreme Court Justice: 
Will she defend the Constitution?
  Why is this so important? Because far too often, politicians in 
Washington want the Supreme Court to be a superlegislature to push 
policy that can't make it through Congress. But that is not the job of 
the Supreme Court. We must resist with all effort the push to make this 
happen now and in the future.
  Last week, Judge Barrett demonstrated that she would be a defender of 
the Constitution--a soon-to-be Justice who will rule based on the 
Constitution, who will leave the policy decisions to Congress and 
decide the cases at hand, not the political winds of the moment.
  This week, the Senate will consider adding another woman to the 
highest Court in the land. This is something all women of every 
political party or persuasion should be applauding. But it seems like 
the left can't bring themselves to see this nomination as a great story 
for women.
  I am struck by the irony of how demeaning to women some of the left's 
accusations really are--that Judge Barrett, a working mother of seven 
with a strong record of professional and academic accomplishment, 
couldn't possibly respect the goals and desires of today's women.
  The great freedom of being an American woman is that we can decide 
how

[[Page S6348]]

to live our lives, whom to marry, what kind of person we are, and where 
we want to go. I served in the military--something not exactly popular 
at various points in America's history. We don't have to fit into the 
narrow definition of womanhood. We create our own path.
  So, folks, I implore you to recognize this nominee for who she is. 
Judge Barrett has shown that she has the utmost qualifications and the 
character to serve on our Nation's highest Court. She is a role model 
for young women in Iowa and all around this Nation--a wife, a mom of 
seven, a woman of faith, a midwesterner.
  She did not receive her law degree from an Ivy League school. Some 
folks may not like that, but I appreciate someone, like myself, who has 
lived and learned beyond America's upper crust and coastlines and has 
seen America through the eyes of a farmer and the soul of a railman--an 
accomplished jurist and truly a wonderful and decent person.
  Amy Coney Barrett has demonstrated to the world that this--becoming a 
Supreme Court Justice--is what a mom can do.
  I look forward to supporting her nomination, and I urge my colleagues 
to do the same.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, let me just follow right on with that 
important topic of the vote we will have in a few days to send another 
Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.
  I had the opportunity this morning to meet with Judge Barrett. The 
conversation reminded me exactly why she is the right choice to fill 
the vacancy on the Supreme Court now. I was asked the first weekend of 
this discussion, before the President had made the decision, if I could 
vote for her, and I quickly said yes, having watched her circuit judge 
bipartisan confirmation, having seen how that discussion went. I have 
had her on a short list that I have kept myself for a long time as 
someone who would be an important addition to the Court.
  She was first in her class at Notre Dame; clerked on the district 
court in Washington, DC; clerked for Justice Scalia at the Supreme 
Court; and was a law professor at Notre Dame for 15 years. At least 
three times in that 15 years, she was chosen by students as the top 
faculty member. She was bipartisanly confirmed on the Seventh Circuit 
and has a history over the last 3 years of the kind of Justice she 
would be.
  The dean at the law school at Notre Dame had this to say about Judge 
Amy Coney Barrett. He said:

       Judge Amy Coney Barrett is an absolutely brilliant legal 
     scholar and jurist. . . . She lives a life of humility and 
     grace, devoted to her family and community.

  Somebody else at the Notre Dame Law School said that when Professor 
Barrett was in the room, the smartest person in the room was also the 
most humble person in the room. I think we saw some of that when she 
was before the Judiciary Committee as she answered those questions 
understanding what her job was, understanding the job of a judge is not 
to decide what the law should say but what the law does say; not to 
decide what the Constitution should say but what it does say and even 
more importantly, in her view of what a judge should look at, what 
people thought it said when they wrote it, that textualist, that 
originalist concept. She I think rightly perceived that if we want to 
change the Constitution, there is a way to do that. If we want to 
update it to what it might mean now, we have the chance to do that. 
Certainly, if we want to change the law, we have the chance to do that.
  If you really listened to the questions, particularly from our 
friends on the other side, the Democrats on that committee, they were 
all very much premised on: Well, what do you believe? What do you think 
about this? What do you think about that?
  That is not the point. She, I thought, very consistently, for 24 
hours, made the point that the point is, it is not about what I 
believe; it is about what the law says.
  By the way, members of the committee--she didn't say this, but it was 
obvious--it is your job to decide what the law says. It is the job of 
the Court to decide how the law is applied and whether it meets the 
test of the Constitution.
  A widely respected scholar, a person of faith--by the way, I think in 
the previous hearing, we all heard that comment ``The dogma lives 
loudly in you.'' There may be a good way to use the word ``dogma,'' but 
I don't think I have ever heard it used in a positive way. But if you 
just substituted ``dogma'' for ``faith,'' what a great thing that would 
be to say about somebody. The faith lives--your faith--the faith lives 
loudly in you. No matter what your faith is, that is a great thing to 
hear about yourself or to be able to say about somebody else. Lots of 
people say that about Amy Coney Barrett.
  She has written 79 opinions at the circuit court level, the court 
level right below the Supreme Court. Everything she said as a circuit 
judge, as a witness before the committee, and as a nominee before the 
committee has been exactly what I think a judge should do.
  The day she was nominated by the President, she said:

       A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not 
     policymakers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any 
     policy views they might hold.

  Judge Scalia famously said that a really good judge will often issue 
an opinion that they wish was a different opinion; an opinion that 
doesn't meet their view of what they would like to see happen but meets 
their view of what the law requires to happen.
  The American Bar Association--sometimes not that friendly to 
Republican nominees to the court--concluded that she was well 
qualified. They asked for input from more than 900 people familiar with 
Judge Barrett, and in the end, not one person uttered a negative word 
about her. Certainly, there is nobody who has been elected to this body 
who didn't have lots of negative words said about them. But just to 
find 900 people and none of them have a negative thing to say I think 
is a great indication of who she is.
  One lawyer told the ABA that she is ``an intellectual giant with 
people skills, and engaging warmth.'' Not every intellectual giant is 
praised for their warmth or their people skills.
  It is clear that she is well qualified. It is clear that she is a 
brilliant lawyer. It is clear that she cares about her faith, about her 
family, and about her community.
  As Senator Ernst mentioned, she is the first nominee since Sandra Day 
O'Connor who didn't graduate from Yale or Harvard. There is nothing 
wrong with Yale or Harvard, but there is nothing wrong with having a 
different background as you come to the Court, particularly if all of 
your associations as a lawyer have been that ``she's mind-blowingly 
intelligent''--that was one of her colleagues at Notre Dame--``and 
she's also one of the most humble people you're going to meet.'' 
Brilliant and humble is a pretty good combination. America needs judges 
that bring both humility and brilliance to the court. The Supreme Court 
will benefit from her being there.
  I certainly look forward to voting for Judge Amy Coney Barrett as she 
moves from that job to Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and I 
believe we will be able to do that within the next few days.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from Tennessee
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I tell you, it is quite an honor to 
join my colleagues and talk for a few minutes about our Supreme Court 
nominee, Judge Barrett.
  In the Judiciary Committee, where I hold a seat, we were doing one of 
our most important duties--our constitutional duty to provide advice 
and consent regarding the President's nominee for the Supreme Court. 
Indeed, we do this with all of our Federal judges who come before us.
  Last week, we fulfilled that highest level of duty as we examined 
Judge Barrett's record, her character, and to see if she is qualified 
to sit on the Supreme Court. As you were hearing from my colleagues 
today, yes, indeed, she is qualified.
  Now, I will tell you that unfortunately some of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle spent their time fishing for sound bites and 
feigning confusion over the fact that Judge Barrett takes her cues from 
the Constitution and not from the latest polling and not from the 24-
hour news cycle.

[[Page S6349]]

Honestly, I think that said more about them than it did about her.
  That is what happens when leaders who really ought to know better 
allow politics to take control of their vetting process and their 
thought process. That is what most Americans took away from those 
hearings last week, that in the eyes of those on the Democratic side of 
the dais, there was no way Judge Amy Coney Barrett was ever going to 
make them happy because, to them, only answers that tracked with their 
views--views on the left--on abortion, on religion, and on socialized 
medicine would pass muster. This is an absurd standard, I will tell 
you, and it is no standard at all because those views shift and change 
depending on what the loudest megaphone on the National Mall has to say 
on any given day.
  So, in the interest of refocusing on our duty to offer advice and 
consent, I think we could all stand a quick recap of last week's 
hearing.
  Here is what we know: Judge Barrett is exceptionally smart, she is 
focused, and she is a mindful jurist. Her colleagues, students, former 
clerks, and professional associates from all backgrounds and all world 
views wholeheartedly believe she is competent and prepared to hold a 
seat on the Supreme Court. Her record is consistent with the 
originalist lens she puts over the cases and controversies that come 
across her desk. Over the course of 2 days of intense questioning, she 
did not contradict that record or violate the rules of judicial ethics 
by offering a preview of future rulings.
  The American Bar Association rated her as ``well qualified'' to serve 
on the Court. Based on the testimony and evidence offered to the 
committee, I will tell you, I definitely agree with them.
  I will vote to confirm Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court, and I 
would encourage all my colleagues who plan on voting no to think long 
and hard about why that is. If they have not taken the time to get to 
know Judge Barrett--her background and her record--I encourage them to 
get to know a little bit about her and also to ask themselves how smart 
was it to have spent the past month signaling their willingness to 
dismantle our constitutional framework to score a few cheap points 
against the White House during a political season.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I was in Alaska when Judge Amy Coney 
Barrett was before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but since then I 
have been able to catch up on those hearings. I want to commend my 
colleagues, particularly Senator Graham for conducting those hearings 
in a way that befitted such an occasion--with respect and good 
questioning. I think the American people--certainly my constituents--
learned a lot and were very, very impressed with Judge Barrett.
  As you know, the advice and consent responsibility of the Senate is 
one of the most important responsibilities we have in the Constitution. 
The process that I will have gone through and go through with every 
single judge is to evaluate Judge Barrett's qualifications on her 
record, the hearings, and, of course, in discussions I have had with 
her. This has been an extensive evaluation. I have read hundreds of 
pages of the decisions she has authored. I have listened to and read 
the views of Alaskans both for and against her nomination. In my 
meeting with Judge Barrett, we discussed in great depth her viewpoint 
on a variety of national and Alaska-focused legal issues.
  She clearly understands the separation of powers and federalism, 
holds a healthy skepticism regarding the expansive power of Federal 
Agencies, and is a strong protector and proponent of the Second 
Amendment--all issues that my constituents care deeply about.
  Why are these issues so important to Alaska and central to our 
realizing our potential? Let me give a brief but recent example of an 
issue that recently made its way to the Ninth Circuit, which often is 
the bane of our existence in Alaska, to the Supreme Court not once but 
twice, and was unanimously agreed to by the Supreme Court. It is a case 
that some of the media here would be familiar with, Sturgeon v. Frost--
a moose hunter, a hovercraft, the wild interior of Alaska. It made for 
some great headlines. But the issue being litigated in that case was 
one of control, one of freedom--control of our lands, our waters, our 
fish, and game. The Federal Government, in essence, told John Sturgeon 
he couldn't use his hovercraft on Federal waters to go hunting. ``Yes, 
I can,'' said Sturgeon. He knew the law.

  Then there was litigation. It is one that comes up time and again in 
Alaska--the issue of Federal overreach, agency creep. In Alaska, we 
have a front row to this problem.
  We have seen it happen to us consistently by the courts--
particularly, as I mentioned, the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the Ninth Circuit. When they interpret statutes involving my 
State--and they are many--Federal statutes can only relate to Alaska in 
a way that fits with their ideas and policy notions about the way the 
Federal lands in Alaska should be managed. In essence, they typically 
think that less control by the people and more control by the 
government is what is needed.
  But that often is not what Congress wrote and what Congress intended. 
It is the absolute opposite of judicial humility, failing to read the 
statutes as we, in this body, wrote them. It is failing to exhibit the 
kind of textualism that Judge Barrett ascribes to and was so on display 
during our hearings.
  So why is this important? When the Supreme Court overturned the Ninth 
Circuit twice in 3 years, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her opinion for 
the majority in Sturgeon v. Frost that the Federal laws that govern 
land management in Alaska are often ``different'' from the laws 
governing land management in any other part of the country.
  These laws are often carefully crafted by this body and the House, 
and they are essential for Alaskans, both culturally and economically. 
And when judges misinterpret these laws--as they often do, and this is 
what I talked to Judge Barrett about--they often directly impact the 
lives of my constituents, usually in a negative way.
  Just ask John Sturgeon and countless other Alaskans who, over the 
decades, have seen their rights to legally enjoy our lands--and it is 
our lands--that they call home whittled away, decision by decision, by 
Federal agencies.
  Over the years, various Federal agencies have acted as if Federal 
laws governing Alaska didn't exist. Commercial use permits weren't 
being issued. People couldn't partake in their traditional activities. 
They couldn't harvest their traditional foods. Alaskans couldn't make a 
living on the land.
  I don't know how Judge Barrett would vote on these specific issues, 
but I trust her temperament, on great display during the hearings, her 
stated skepticism about Federal overreach, her strong belief that the 
Second Amendment ``confers an individual right, intimately connected 
with the natural right of self-defense.''
  I trust what others have said about her on both sides of the aisle: 
``brilliant,'' ``humble,'' ``a woman of unassailable integrity,'' and 
``a role model for generations to come.''
  All of this was on display during her hearing and in my meeting with 
her, and I trust that all of this will come to play when these kinds of 
cases--the Alaska-specific cases--make their way up to the High Court, 
which they inevitably do. I don't believe that it is an overstatement 
to say that the future of my constituents depends on these kinds of 
issues.
  It is for these reasons, and others, that I will vote to confirm 
Judge Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I encourage all of my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same for this 
exceptional jurist who is very qualified for this position.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi
  Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, it is an honor to speak in strong 
support of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to serve as an Associate Justice on 
the Supreme Court of the United States. After careful review of her 
record and her outstanding testimony during her confirmation hearing, 
it is clear that Judge Barrett is well suited for a lifetime 
appointment on the Court.
  Last week, Judge Barrett firmly held her own during hours and hours 
of questioning from my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee. She did 
not once falter during her hearing. In fact, she excelled. Judge 
Barrett proved to the

[[Page S6350]]

American people that she is prepared, talented, compassionate, and, not 
to mention, brilliant. Judge Barrett demonstrated that she is an 
independent individual who can think for herself. She made it clear 
that she is an originalist who will follow the law.
  Without a single note or binder in front of her, Judge Barrett 
repeatedly affirmed that she would interpret the Constitution and laws 
passed by Congress as they were written--no more, no less.
  During her hearing, Judge Barrett testified:

       I apply the law. I follow the law. You make the policy.

  The judge kept pointing out that we, the Senate, are the legislators. 
She stressed that she has no mission or agenda to change the law as she 
would want it. Judge Barrett made it abundantly clear that in her role 
as a jurist, she has no issues with setting aside her personal beliefs 
when applying the letter of the law. This mindset and legal philosophy 
is exactly the type of jurist we need on our Nation's highest Court.
  Not only did we hear from Judge Barrett, but we heard from her former 
professors, colleagues, and students. These are the people who know her 
best. These individuals were witnesses not only to her intellect but 
her character as well. The testimonies on her behalf only proved her 
absolute readiness for this position.
  Americans should be celebrating the nomination of Judge Barrett. She 
is brilliant, hard working, ambitious, and a proud mother and wife. In 
a time when we need role models for our youth, Judge Barrett fills that 
role.
  The judge is a family-oriented woman who reveres the Constitution. 
She is a representative for working women across the country and a 
testament that women can have a career and family and be stunningly 
successful at both.
  I also appreciate that she has displayed great strength in 
withstanding affronts to her faith and her family during the 
confirmation process.
  If confirmed--and I am confident that she will be--Amy Coney Barrett 
will have the honor to be the fifth woman in history to serve on the 
Supreme Court. The first judge as a mother of school-aged children, she 
will be the only sitting judge on the Court to not have attended an Ivy 
League law school.
  We must continue to ensure that women like Judge Barrett are 
represented in the highest levels of our judicial system. Judge 
Barrett's life experiences as a judge, lawyer, teacher, wife, and 
mother will bring a valuable and much needed perspective to the Supreme 
Court.
  I am proud to support Judge Barrett. Now the Senate must do its 
constitutional duty and confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett as soon as 
possible.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia
  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I am so proud to be here today to join my 
colleagues to discuss the current Supreme Court vacancy and, 
specifically, the excellent choice President Trump made in selecting 
Amy Coney Barrett to fill that vacancy.
  I, like my colleagues and many Americans, watched the Senate 
Judiciary Committee hearings on Judge Barrett's nomination last week. I 
also have had a chance to meet personally with the judge myself. During 
all of these occasions, I have been extremely impressed with Judge Amy 
Coney Barrett.
  I was especially impressed with her depth of legal knowledge, coupled 
with her demeanor. She very clearly and eloquently expresses herself. 
She reiterated many times in the hearing that judges don't make the 
law. She was levelheaded, open-minded, and firm in all of her 
responses.
  Judge Barrett is a model of professional and personal success. We 
have all heard that she is a mother of seven, which, in and of itself, 
is quite an achievement. And, if confirmed, she will be the first 
mother of school-aged children to serve on the Supreme Court.
  She is absolutely dedicated to her faith and to her community, and 
she is held in very high regard by the many students she has taught and 
mentored over the years.
  You could certainly tell from the questioning of the Judiciary 
Committee members during that hearing that she has been in the arena 
many times with very inquisitive people and students.
  In short, Judge Barrett is a stellar nominee who will show a new 
generation--our daughters and our granddaughters--that anything is 
possible in America.
  I plan to vote to confirm Judge Barrett, and here is why. Evaluating 
nominees for high government offices is an important responsibility for 
this body of Senators. That is even true when the nominee is being 
considered for a lifetime appointment to the Nation's highest Court. So 
I consider, really, three main questions when I am considering a 
Supreme Court nominee.
  First and foremost, is the nominee qualified?
  Second, does the nominee have a track record of independence and 
fairness that befits a judge who will apply our Constitution and laws 
as written, rather than make policy from the bench?
  And, third, do the West Virginians whom I represent believe the 
nominee is well suited to decide cases that impact their constitutional 
rights?
  Based on her impressive resume, Judge Barrett is clearly qualified 
for the Supreme Court. The nonpartisan American Bar Association rated 
her ``well qualified.'' That is the ABA's highest ranking for judicial 
nominees.
  Judge Barrett's judicial philosophy and record on the Seventh Circuit 
are those of a mainstream jurist who considers herself bound by the 
law, not free to decide cases based on her own personal opinions. She 
reiterated that time and again in the Judiciary Committee.
  That is so important because some of my Democratic Senate colleagues 
were seeking promises from her about how she will rule on certain cases 
in the future, and they sought to examine her belief on policy matters, 
such as protections for those with preexisting conditions.
  I, for one, strongly support--as most of us do--legal protections to 
make sure that individuals with preexisting conditions can purchase and 
retain health insurance. Passing laws like those are what we should be 
doing here in this body, not in the Supreme Court.
  After some of my colleagues were not given the hints that they were 
looking for on how Judge Barrett would rule on particular cases, they 
resorted to assuming that they knew what she would do. Specifically, 
they tried to tie Judge Barrett to those who had mentored her in the 
past and insinuated that she would judge exactly how they would judge. 
Well, when that happened, she responded:

       I assure you, I have my own mind. . . . Everything that 
     he--

  Meaning Scalia--

     said is not necessarily what I would agree with or what I 
     would do if I were Justice Barrett.

  It is clear that Judge Barrett has her own mind and will seek to be a 
fair and impartial judge. The role of judges is to apply our 
Constitution and laws as written to the cases before them and not 
implement their own policy agendas. As Judge Barrett put it in her own 
words, ``Judges can't just wake up one day and say: `I have an agenda . 
. . [I] am going to walk in like a royal queen and impose my will on 
the world.''
  Instead, she explained that it is ``never appropriate for a judge to 
impose the judge's personal convictions in determining the outcome of a 
case.''
  She also went on to say:

       A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not 
     policymakers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any 
     policy views they might hold.

  Judge Barrett's success in applying the law is reflected in the fact 
that over 90 percent of the majority opinions she has written were 
unanimously agreed to by her colleagues on the Seventh Circuit. No 
decision she has written has ever been overturned or reversed by the 
Supreme Court. This record is only possible when a judge is deciding 
cases fairly and in accord with the mainstream views of colleagues 
appointed by both Republican and Democratic Presidents.
  West Virginians want a Supreme Court Justice with experience and 
integrity who will protect the Constitution and decide cases fairly. 
West Virginians want a Supreme Court Justice who will serve as a role 
model for our children and our grandchildren. That is

[[Page S6351]]

why I will be proud to vote to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the 
U.S. Supreme Court.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon in full, complete, 
and all-inspired support for the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett 
to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
  Her qualifications are not in dispute and have been mentioned 
repeatedly on the floor and in other public forums.
  I have had a chance as a Member of the Senate to vote on four 
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court: Kagan, Sotomayor, Gorsuch, and 
Kavanaugh. I was a Member of the House of Representatives down the hall 
here during the confirmations of Justices Alito and Roberts, and I was 
old enough to pay close attention to the confirmations of Justices 
Breyer and Thomas. I can say to my colleagues today, I have never 
witnessed a more impressive display of poise, knowledge, and 
temperament in a candidate for the Supreme Court than I have witnessed 
during the confirmation process of this particular candidate. I think 
that is why, perhaps, there was objection to the process.
  No doubt there was objection to the process in the timing of this 
nomination and this confirmation among a lot of people around the 
United States, but as the confirmation wore on and as more and more 
people came to know Judge Amy Coney Barrett--the student, the parent, 
the member of her community--and as more and more people have seen her 
and listened to her, public opinion has moved in her favor to now where 
a majority of Americans support the elevation and confirmation of Amy 
Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. I certainly am delighted to see 
that and am not surprised based upon the absolutely phenomenal way she 
has conducted herself.
  I think it is worth noting that she is from Middle America. While all 
of our 50 States are great and all of our law schools undoubtedly have 
things to recommend them, I kind of like that she grew up in my 
neighboring State of Louisiana. I kind of like that she graduated with 
stellar marks from a very impressive college in my neighboring State of 
Tennessee, at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, just an hour and a half up 
the road from where I make my home.
  I think Harvard is a great law school. I think Yale is a great law 
school. I think it is OK that we have now a prospective Justice of the 
Supreme Court who went someplace else: Notre Dame.
  So, to me, she represents Middle American values, and there is 
something to be said for that on the highest Court of the land--
Louisiana values, Tennessee values, Indiana values.
  I think she is an inspiration to young women across this country. I 
have two daughters. They have become professional successes in their 
own right. I have five granddaughters. The oldest one is 10. I think 
Justice Amy Coney Barrett will prove to be an inspiration to these five 
granddaughters and to my grown daughters also.
  There is much talk about predicting how this Justice or how any 
candidate for the circuit court or the district court will rule. I have 
seen enough examples during my lifetime of surprises that I would not 
venture to guess how Justice Amy Coney Barrett is going to rule on a 
particular issue. I do think she is committed to interpreting the law 
and to applying the law as it is written in the Constitution, as we 
write it as legislators, and not adjusting the law, manipulating it to 
suit her rule, but I have no idea how she will rule.
  I do know this, and this is what makes me so comfortable with 
elevating her to one of these nine special positions as an Associate 
Justice of the Supreme Court. I know that she is devoted to the 
philosophy of Justice Antonin Scalia.
  If Justice Scalia ever made a profound point about our law and our 
system of the rule of law and our Constitution, it was this: We are a 
special republic and a special democracy because we have enshrined in 
our Constitution the separation of powers. The President has his powers 
to enforce the law. The Congress has the power of the purse, and we 
write the statutes, and the Supreme Court rules on the 
constitutionality and the validity of our actions.
  Scalia made this point over and over, and it was always such a 
wonderful experience to hear him lecture. But if he ever made a point, 
it was this: Any dictator around the world can write down on a piece of 
paper a bill of rights, and around the country, in dictatorships and 
totalitarian systems, there are many bills of rights.
  The way we ensure that Bill of Rights is enforced is that we don't 
give any one part of our government too much power. We don't give any 
one man or any one institution or any one Agency in this Federal 
Government too much power. Those are the checks and balances that 
Antonin Scalia said made the United States special. I think Amy Coney 
Barrett understands that, and I think she will enforce that concept and 
be true to those tenets as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Court.
  So I couldn't be more delighted, I couldn't be more enthusiastic, I 
could not be any more awe-inspired with a candidate for the Supreme 
Court, and I will, with great honor and privilege, vote in favor of her 
confirmation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the nomination 
of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. 
Supreme Court.
  Before I begin, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the reason 
for this vacancy. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dedicated almost three 
decades of her life to serving on the highest Court, and she will 
always be remembered as a talented attorney and jurist. We appreciate 
Justice Ginsburg and her service to our Nation.
  Soon the Senate will consider the nomination of Judge Amy Coney 
Barrett to serve as Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. Judge 
Barrett has an outstanding record of accomplishment, as well as a 
strong record of upholding the law rather than legislating from the 
bench.
  Judge Barrett graduated summa cum laude, first in her class, from 
Notre Dame Law School. She then clerked for Judge Silberman on the DC 
Circuit and Justice Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court
  She currently serves as a circuit court judge for the Seventh 
Circuit. During her time on the Seventh Circuit, she has written 79 
majority opinions. She has also published 18 law review articles. I 
wanted to take a moment to mention this list of accomplishments to 
highlight how remarkable she is as an attorney and as a jurist.
  I had the opportunity to sit down with Judge Barrett to discuss her 
judicial philosophy. She is an originalist and a textualist. Her 
traditional philosophy ensures her own personal beliefs and her views 
will not impact her role as a jurist.
  As a Senator, I strive to ensure we confirm judges who will be 
impartial in their rulings and will take the facts presented and apply 
the law to those facts.
  During our conversation, we discussed the principle of precedent and 
how precedent is important for judicial structure. Judge Barrett 
believes that, as a judge, her main duty is to the U.S. Constitution 
and to ensuring that all judicial opinions uphold the rights, freedoms, 
and principles established in this essential document.
  Judge Barrett's judicial approach ensures she will be fair and 
impartial toward every plaintiff who comes before her and, at the same 
time, that our most vital document--our Constitution--is upheld and 
echoed in every judicial opinion she makes.
  Judges should never have preconceived notions, and they should not be 
able to provide a prediction or any sort of hint as to how they will 
decide a future or hypothetical case. A judge's judicial philosophy 
ensures they have the proper tools at their disposal for reaching 
decisions. Judges' decisions impact lives, and it is important for our 
jurists to be fair, level-minded, and impartial at all times. That is 
why having someone like Judge Barrett on the Supreme Court is best for 
our Nation.
  Another topic I discussed with Judge Barrett was the importance of 
upholding our Federal trust and treaty obligations to our Tribes. As 
chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, I understand the 
importance of

[[Page S6352]]

upholding these responsibilities. Judge Barrett said that she will 
objectively look at every case that comes before her, will apply the 
law to the facts at hand, and will do her part to uphold the Federal 
trust and treaty responsibility.
  Judge Barrett has not only established an outstanding record of 
accomplishment on the bench, but she has also demonstrated her deep 
understanding of the law as a professor at Notre Dame Law School. 
Throughout her career, Judge Barrett has shown a deep respect for the 
Constitution, as well as a strong commitment to upholding the law.
  Judge Barrett is a great choice to join the bench of the Supreme 
Court. Her qualifications, judicial approach, and commitment to 
upholding the Constitution will benefit my home State of North Dakota, 
as well as our entire Nation. Judge Barrett will be a strong, fair, and 
impartial Justice, and I look forward to supporting her nomination.
  The Supreme Court is foundational to the checks and balances 
structure of our government--something that the good Senator from 
Mississippi just talked about very eloquently. Having an independent 
judicial body is crucial to the protection of our democracy.
  Justices of the Supreme Court hold the essential role of being the 
final decisionmaker of disputes in the United States. Such power comes 
with much responsibility, which is why selecting the best person for 
this job is critical for our country. We must have Justices on our 
Supreme Court who uphold the law and interpret the Constitution in the 
way it was written.
  Again, I appreciate President Trump's nomination of Judge Barrett, 
and I look forward to supporting her confirmation to serve as an 
Associate Justice on the Supreme Court.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I am one of the few Senators who 
have appointed people to the bench, and I take this very seriously. I 
believe in selecting judges who respect the separation of powers and 
the proper role of the judiciary in our democratic system.
  Their job isn't to make policy; it is to uphold the rule of law. We 
can't have judicial activism--something my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle refuse to accept. The Democrats have made it clear they 
care more about the election than performing their constitutional duty 
to confirm judges. Because the Democrats only want judicial activists, 
they can't understand a judge who has no plan to change the law and the 
Constitution to align with their personal beliefs about how Americans 
should be governed. The Democrats won't engage in this process even 
though they know Judge Barrett is highly qualified.
  When I was appointing judges as Governor, I would ask each candidate 
one question: Do you understand your role and the distinct branches of 
government? Do you want to make policy, or do you want to uphold the 
law as written?
  That is exactly what I asked Judge Amy Coney Barrett when we met. She 
could not have been more clear in our meeting and throughout the 
Judiciary Committee hearings last week. Judge Barrett is a nominee of 
indisputable credentials and qualifications and will fulfill the proper 
role of a judge envisioned by the Framers when they designed the three-
branch system of government in our Constitution.
  The Democratic attempts to attack Judge Barrett for her faith fell 
flat. Quite the opposite, her faith and her commitment to family have 
earned her the utmost respect. The Democrats were left grasping at 
straws during last week's hearing because they clearly can't question 
her qualifications.
  Her record is irrefutable. Judge Barrett's academic, professional, 
and judicial records clearly demonstrate her devotion to following the 
rule of law. She strictly adheres to the original meaning of the 
Constitution's provisions, setting forth the fundamental rights, 
liberties, and protections on which this great country was founded.
  As Professor Prakash eloquently stated in Judge Barrett's nomination 
hearing, the ABA's rating of Judge Barrett as ``well qualified'' is an 
understatement. I am proud to support Judge Barrett's nomination, and I 
look forward to voting to confirm her to serve as an Associate Justice 
of the U.S. Supreme Court.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.


                       Unanimous Consent Request

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, shortly, I will offer a unanimous consent 
request on legislation to extend enhanced unemployment insurance for 
folks in America who are out of work.
  I am going to begin with a quick check-in on the economic reality in 
our country. Here is where we are in a sentence: Only half of the jobs 
lost earlier this year have actually come back; the other half may 
never come back. There is substantial evidence that many of these jobs 
will be lost forever.
  The permanent layoffs are stacking up. Right now, 25 million 
Americans are receiving unemployment insurance. Their insurance 
payments were slashed when Republicans let enhanced unemployment 
insurance expire at the end of July.
  Here is a particularly important fact. The number of Americans filing 
new claims for unemployment insurance is still higher than any single 
week during the great recession. Upward of 8 million Americans have 
fallen into poverty over just the last few months. In the month of 
September alone--just September--nearly 1 million women dropped out of 
the workforce. To make matters worse, the pandemic that is causing all 
of this economic carnage is just getting worse as the fall coronavirus 
wave begins to rise across the country.
  The restaurant and bar industry has been hurt, and the travel 
industry, the live entertainment industry. We are talking about 
millions and millions of workers who are out of a job right now, plus 
millions more who are worried that they are going to get laid off this 
winter as COVID-19 infections rise.
  The fact is, despite what Donald Trump says, our economy isn't 
anywhere near fully recovered--not even close. This jobs crisis won't 
be over until the public health crisis is over. That is why, in the 
meantime, the only reasonable and logical thing to do is to bring back 
enhanced unemployment insurance and keep those benefits for the 
duration of the emergency. That is what I am calling for this 
afternoon. That is what I believe Members of Congress should be for.
  The proposal that I offer extends the crucial programs from the CARES 
Act--the extra $600 per week, what we developed in the Senate Finance 
Committee. I see the distinguished Republican leader, Senator Thune, 
who serves on our committee. We work together often. We developed it 
there--the extra $600 per week, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for 
the self-employed, and additional benefits for them.
  My God, the unemployment system was actually brought into this 
century. The old system was close to 100 years old. Nobody ever heard 
back then of a gig worker, but we got them covered.
  So we want to extend those programs until January 31, 2021. In 
addition to the enhanced unemployment benefits, what this does is it 
avoids throwing millions and millions of Americans over a financial 
cliff, essentially, at the end of the year.
  It is my judgment that this is just basic economic fairness. This is 
about making sure that tens of millions of Americans who walk an 
economic tightrope during this pandemic will be able to pay the rent, 
put food on the table, and buy medicine. Tens of millions of Americans, 
from sea to shining sea--from Portland, OR, to Portland, ME--
desperately need this lifeline.
  Continuing to block an extension of enhanced unemployment insurance, 
in my view, is the economic equivalent of going for herd immunity with 
COVID-19--telling the most vulnerable people out there that they are, 
in effect, on their own; that their government has no interest in 
standing up for them.
  From the beginning of this pandemic, my colleagues on the other side 
have opposed the enhanced unemployment insurance concept that I am 
talking about. Back in March, Senate Democrats said replacing 
people's lost wages was going to be right up at the top of our 
priorities list for the CARES Act. I consider it one of the most 
important efforts I have been part of during my time in public service, 
and we were all able to get it in the bill. It turned out

[[Page S6353]]

it was the only provision that the Republican majority attempted to 
remove.

  Just process that for a moment. We had a debate on the floor of the 
Senate. There was only one thing Senate Republicans wanted to remove. 
They wanted to remove the provision I am describing that would give 
millions of Americans who are hurting the opportunity to make rent and 
buy groceries and get their kids sneakers and pay for medicine. I am 
still incredulous about this, but, actually, one Member of the minority 
came up to me before we voted and said: Ron, what you are talking about 
is going to cause nurses to leave their jobs now during the pandemic 
and go into retirement and get unemployment. And I said: You have to be 
kidding. I handed the Senator the article from the local paper that 
described how nurses were actually coming out of retirement to work 
during the pandemic because they cared so deeply about their community.
  Fortunately, that Republican effort that night to gut the expanded 
unemployment benefits failed, and now I think we have people from 
across the political spectrum saying that that program has turned out 
to be one of the most successful safety net programs in decades--in 
decades.
  For months, Republicans have been repeating the same story about why 
they oppose the expanded unemployment insurance. They say it is because 
what we did is holding back the economy--that it is a disincentive to 
work and lazy workers are choosing to sit at home collecting insurance. 
Wrong, wrong, wrong. It was wrong from the beginning, and it now should 
be obvious.
  Enhanced unemployment insurance expired at the end of July--July 31. 
If those insurance payments were really shackling our economy and being 
a disincentive to work, then, why wasn't there a megaboom in hiring in 
August? The fact is that job growth shot down immediately after 
enhanced unemployment insurance expired, and it plummeted in September.
  The reasons to bring back enhanced unemployment insurance ought to be 
clear: It is the right thing to do in terms of economic fairness for 
workers. And the main argument against enhanced unemployment insurance 
has been proven wrong.
  Finally, renewing enhanced unemployment insurance is absolutely key 
to protecting our public health. The pandemic is raging now. Cases are 
going up. There are hotspots all over the map. We are in what so many 
of the experts say is the tip of the third wave of the virus: cold 
weather coming up, folks being indoors. And in some parts of the 
country, mayors or Governors may soon face the possibility that certain 
areas could go back into lockdown. Business owners might begin to 
wonder if staying open is too dangerous a prospect--particularly, if 
you are talking about places like restaurants and cafes. Taking the 
steps needed to crush the virus is going to be a lot easier if workers 
have the backstop of enhanced unemployment insurance so they have the 
money--in South Dakota, in Oregon, and every part of the country--to 
make rent and pay for groceries.
  Blocking enhanced unemployment insurance creates a disincentive to 
crush the virus with strong action and will lead to more people 
spending more time in more hotspots, perpetuating both the tragedy of 
the pandemic as well as the tragedy of our anemic economic recovery.
  I will close with this. It does not have to be this way. There is a 
lot more work to be done. State and local governments need more funding 
for hospitals and testing. We need support for our schools. We need 
support for basic municipal services. There ought to be more 
opportunities to talk about those issues in the days ahead.
  Right now, passage of enhanced unemployment insurance is long 
overdue. I see my friend from South Dakota, with whom I have worked 
often in the Finance Committee. We have been on this floor again and 
again over the last few months talking about this.
  I offered a proposal with the distinguished Democratic leader, 
Senator Schumer. We thought that was something that would be appealing 
to both sides. But the bottom line is for this Chamber, as we are 
looking at the coronavirus spike again, to say that we are not going to 
stand up for people who are just trying to make rent and pay for 
groceries.
  Somebody asked me at home. I was just at home. I got into virtually 
every nook and cranny in my State over the last couple of weeks in a 
socially distant way. People said: What do I see people spend the 
unemployment money on? They said: They all seem to be in the grocery 
store. I said: They are paying for rent and groceries and essentials. 
They sure aren't using unemployment money to buy scarves or fancy 
things from overseas. They are using it for essentials. My view is, the 
Senate has no choice but to extend the enhanced unemployment insurance.
  Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of my bill to 
provide continued assistance to unemployed workers, which is at the 
desk; I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read 
three times and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered 
made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). Is there objection?
  The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Reserving the right to object, I just want to say, because 
my colleague from Oregon--as he pointed out, he and I work closely 
together on a number of issues--trade issues, tax issues, particularly 
in the digital space. I know he is a person who tries to find common 
ground, tries to find bipartisan solutions. I appreciate that, and I 
hope there are a lot more issues in the future that we can work on 
together as members of the Finance Committee. He is the ranking 
Democrat on the committee. I hope we can work together and find some 
things we can do that are good for our economy.
  What he is proposing right now is to extend unemployment insurance 
benefits at $600 a week. Democrats have said they don't want to do a 
piecemeal approach. Yet that is exactly what is being offered right 
now. I guess the question is, What has changed? Less than 2 hours ago, 
my Democratic colleagues blocked not just extending additional Federal 
unemployment benefits but also providing more paycheck help for small 
businesses through the PPP program, funding for schools and 
universities to reopen, more money for testing and vaccine development, 
help for the U.S. Postal Service, and relief for farmers. I would argue 
they are all bipartisan priorities. This should be a no-brainer.
  What is ironic about it is that our position on this all along has 
been that just because we can't do everything doesn't mean we shouldn't 
do something. The Democratic position seems to be that just because we 
can't do everything, we would rather do nothing. We think the American 
people are paying the price for that.
  So instead of supporting our comprehensive package, which deals with 
all the issues that I mentioned--all of which, I might add, are 
bipartisan priorities--we have a proposal here that I think, frankly, 
is stuck in the past. For example, this bill would restart extra 
unemployment payments that gave most people more money not to work than 
to work.
  Just to correct the record about one point my colleague from Oregon 
made, the amendment offered by Republicans when the CARES package was 
being considered wasn't to gut the unemployment program. The Senator 
from Oregon fought very hard to get that provision in the CARES 
package. There was an amendment offered on the floor that would have 
calibrated that Federal unemployment benefit to what an individual is 
making--in other words, 100 percent wage replacement. That is what was 
in that proposal, and it was voted down on a party-line vote.
  If you look at what the CBO estimates, 80 percent of people would be 
paid more for not working if the $600-per-week benefit were continued. 
It is not just a few dollars more. There was a recent study under the 
$600 plus-up that median unemployed workers would receive a benefit of 
145 percent of their prior wage. In South Dakota, I will tell you that 
the median wage replacement rate was 155 percent. Think about that. If 
you are making $30,000, making minimum wage--$15 an hour, $30,000 a 
year--in my State of South Dakota, under the Senator from Oregon's 
proposal, that individual would

[[Page S6354]]

make $45,000 a year. That is 150 percent of wages or north of that. One 
hundred and fifty-five percent is the median wage replacement in my 
State of South Dakota. Consider what the incentives are for that person 
making $30,000 working or $45,000 not working.
  My dad just passed away in August. He was 100 years old. He used to 
say: Some things, John, are just kind of old-fashioned horse sense. I 
think in this case, this is someplace where you can apply old-fashioned 
horse sense. If you offer somebody a benefit that dramatically 
exceeds--not by just a little but by a lot--what they would be making 
if they were working, obviously you can see what would happen there.
  I would point out that when I went back for my father's funeral in 
August, in the middle of the travel season in South Dakota--normally an 
incredibly busy time--there were little eating places in my hometown 
that weren't open. Why? They couldn't find workers. I have talked to 
them about that and talked to a lot of small businesses in my State. I 
think the $600 payment has acted as a tremendous disincentive for 
people to come back into the workforce when there might be jobs 
available.
  The $600 ended about 3 months ago. Yet the same idea is being offered 
up even though the unemployment rate has fallen. In April, it was 14.7 
percent. In September, it was 7.9 percent. In my State of South Dakota, 
it is 4.1 percent. The idea that with the economy recovering we would 
now come back to pay people more for not working than working seems to 
be counterintuitive.
  Again, our plan, which was opposed by the Democrats 2 hours ago, 
would have provided an additional $300-per-week payment through the end 
of the year. That is real help that could be made available right now.
  Even without this additional $300 payment, some expanded unemployment 
benefits are still available through December. If you look at--the 
Senator from Oregon mentioned self-employed, independent contractors, 
gig workers who are not normally eligible for unemployment. They are 
going to get that help through December.
  Given the problems with this bill and because it doesn't address the 
broader issues that I enumerated earlier, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Oregon
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, just to respond to the Senator from South 
Dakota, it has always been a bedrock argument from Senate Republicans 
that somehow unemployment insurance is a disincentive for people to 
work. If that were the case--unemployment benefits expired in July, 
July 31. If somehow those unemployment benefits were shackling the 
economy, creating disincentives to work, why wasn't there a mega boom 
in the workforce in August? The reason is pretty obvious: Those 
unemployment benefits were not a disincentive. That has been the case 
as well into September and October.
  The one thing I do want to take exception to with respect to my 
colleague's remarks is--he said Republicans never sought to gut the 
$600. That is just not accurate. On the floor, the Republicans wanted 
to take out that amount, which everybody was going to get, and replace 
it with something that was completely unworkable and wouldn't have 
gotten benefits to unemployed workers quickly.
  You don't have to take my word for it. Eugene Scalia, the Secretary 
of Labor, during days and days of negotiations, as we talked about the 
concept the Senator from South Dakota has raised, the whole notion of 
wage replacement, the Secretary of Labor said, can't be done. The 
States don't have the technology to do it.
  Those discussions went on for days because Republicans were insistent 
on going with this wage-replacement idea, which has now been 
characterized by a Republican labor official in Georgia as one of the 
dumbest ideas he had heard of because it was so unworkable.
  Finally, I said that we are not going to stiff these workers, so we 
will take an average. Some people will get more than they normally 
would; some people would get less than they normally would from their 
wage and benefits. We will take an average, but, by God, the checks 
will get out quickly to people who had been sent home through no fault 
of their own. They were quarantined, as we all know, because we were 
desperate to beat the virus. People would have that money for groceries 
and rent.
  That is why we went with $600, because the idea that my colleague 
from South Dakota has spoken about today and that Republicans always 
talk about was declared by the Republican Secretary of Labor, Eugene 
Scalia, as being unworkable, and if we were going to get a check to 
people in a timely way, we had to go with the $600.
  My staff and I put it together. We used this smartphone to make the 
calculations. We showed it to Secretary Mnuchin because it stayed 
within the budget limits. And that was how we got to $600. It was the 
only way to get an unemployment check out to people quickly.
  Thank goodness the Republican motion to strip it was defeated because 
had the Republicans won, there would have been a lot of people during 
those 4 months--essentially ending July 31--who couldn't have made 
rent, couldn't have paid for groceries. That is just plain old wrong.
  We are going to continue to work in a bipartisan way. My colleague 
and I agree on the point that we want to do big things in the Finance 
Committee. We have to work in a bipartisan way.
  I just say to the Presiding Officer and my colleagues, to go back to 
what my friend from South Dakota says is the way to go even though the 
Secretary of Labor said it couldn't be done is a mistake. That is why 
we have advocated going with something that we know worked and provided 
an awful lot of relief to people and does not create a disincentive to 
work. If it did, when it expired, we would have had a hiring boom in 
August. That wasn't the case.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. I would simply point out that the bill that we voted on 
and the Democrats all voted against earlier today did include a formula 
not unlike what the Senator from Oregon is suggesting, and that is a 
flat payment on top of the standard unemployment benefit. It was a $300 
payment as opposed to a $600 payment. That would not be complicated to 
implement.
  The amendment that was offered when the CARES Act passed was a full 
wage replacement. There were concerns about whether that could be 
implemented by the Department of Labor, to be fair. But honestly, if 
you think about it, I am not sure what would be terribly complicated 
about having somebody come in and asking ``What do you make? Show me 
what you make'' and then saying ``OK. That is what you are going to get 
for a benefit--100 percent wage replacement.'' To me, that makes sense.
  Again, I would come back to the idea that if you pay somebody more 
not to work than to work--people naturally--I think we all do--respond 
to incentives. It seems pretty crazy to suggest that you could offer 
people 150 percent--or more in my State of South Dakota--of what they 
were making while working, in the form of a benefit, and not have them 
say ``Gee, I can make 150-some percent more not working than working'' 
and decide to take that benefit. I think that is what we run into. That 
is the economic disruption created by what the Senator from Oregon is 
suggesting.
  To his point about jobs coming back, that is exactly the point I made 
earlier. The unemployment rate in April was 14.7 percent. In September, 
it was 7.9 percent. Jobs are coming back. In my State of South Dakota, 
it is 4.1 percent. The economy is trending in the right direction as it 
starts to open up again. There is demand out there for labor. When the 
demand for labor goes up, the price for labor goes up. That is what I 
think you will continue to see.
  I believe, along with the Senator from Oregon, that we need to help 
people who are unemployed. The bill that was just voted down by the 
Democrats would have done that at a $300 benefit above and beyond what 
the State unemployment insurance program pays. In most States, that is 
about 90 percent of wage replacement. To suggest that the Republicans 
are being heartless just isn't true.
  Obviously, the amendment that we offered back in March when the CARES 
Act was being considered had 100 percent wage replacement. It seems 
like a very intuitive, practical thing to do to

[[Page S6355]]

say we are going to replace what you were making when you were working.
  Obviously, the proposal voted down by the Democrats today had the 
State unemployment insurance benefits plus a $300 plus-up, which, 
again, is about 90 percent wage replacement.
  So I think what the Senator from Oregon is suggesting here is, No. 1, 
we do this piecemeal after his side has been saying we have to have a 
comprehensive approach. Secondly, he is calling up an amendment that, 
frankly, we have kind of moved beyond now. We are in a different place 
in the economy.
  We still need to help people who are unemployed, but we don't need to 
encourage people not to work because it would pay them more--the 
government would pay them more than they would make if they were 
working. To me, that sounds counterintuitive. I think the American 
people get that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, just very briefly, my friend from South 
Dakota said I had called Republicans ``heartless.'' That was not my 
word, but when Americans who have a great work ethic and believe, as my 
friend from Ohio has always talked about, in the dignity of work but 
can't get jobs and can't make rent and can't pay for groceries, I don't 
think we should say, when they need a loaf of bread: Well, we will just 
settle for a slice.
  The people I met in Oregon all through last week desperately want to 
work. They know that it is the path of upward mobility in the private 
economy. Yet, as we have seen, lots of jobs are gone. You can go down 
Main Streets, and there is barely a car moving. That is why we have 
said, as my friend from Ohio always talks about, when those workers 
believe deeply in the importance of work, and they know, by the way, 
that it is the only way they can secure upward mobility in the private 
economy. When they can't do it as a result of this pandemic, which is 
spiking again, we don't think it is wrong to make sure people get a 
sufficient benefit to pay rent and buy groceries.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I notice of the Presiding Officer and the 
junior Senator from Arkansas, who was the Presiding Officer right 
before, and far too often of the Presiding Officers that they are 
taking their masks off when they preside. I notice that right below the 
Presiding Officer are always three or four staff people who are fully 
masked. I also know that a number of our colleagues have been diagnosed 
with the coronavirus.
  I would hope that the Presiding Officers, starting today, would wear 
masks when they preside. As they speak and project, it puts people at 
risk who sit right below the Presiding Officer. I know it might offend 
the President of the United States that the Presiding Officer wears a 
mask when presiding because I know the President doesn't believe in it, 
but public health officials in Tennessee and Arkansas and Ohio and 
Oregon and Hawaii do. So I ask this of the Presiding Officer and would 
hope the Presiding Officer and others will consider public health when 
they preside over this body.
  Before I address my issue--and I will note when Senator Crapo has 
shown up on the floor to address--I want to point out a couple of 
things that I just heard from Senator Thune and Senator Wyden.
  Senator Wyden is exactly right. The only amendment to the $2.5 
trillion package that the Republicans offered was to strip away the 
$600.
  I have always been puzzled by how much the Republicans as a party--
almost since Roosevelt--have hated unemployment insurance.
  I know you don't like social insurance. You don't like Medicare, but 
you pay into Medicare, and then you get a benefit when you need it. You 
pay into Social Security and get a benefit when you need it. You pay 
into unemployment insurance and get a benefit when you need it.
  I know the Republicans say they don't like Medicare, but every time 
they have a chance, they try to privatize Medicare.
  Right, Senator Wyden?
  Then they try to privatize Social Security, right?
  I can't believe the number of Republicans I have heard, when they 
have come to the floor, either publicly say or privately grumble to 
themselves or each other: I can't believe this $600 a week for these 
people. We shouldn't be giving that much money to these people.
  I mean, that was the tone of voice. There was, perhaps, derision in 
their voices.
  I was talking to an unemployed worker today who has lost her job, and 
she is hurting. I mean, fortunately she has a spouse, and her spouse 
has insurance, but she was talking about the $600 she got. It has also 
helped local businesses. A whole bunch of people in my communities are 
getting the $600 a week, and it keeps these businesses going too.
  I guess I don't understand the Republican hatred of unemployment 
insurance. I would think it would be trumped--pardon my verb--by how 
much it helps small businesses, but I guess it is not. So that debate, 
I guess, is over.
  I will also note that, when we were giving the $600 a week, one study 
showed it kept 12 million people out of poverty. But I guess everything 
is OK. The stock market is back up, so Trump and McConnell seem to 
think everything is fine


                       Unanimous Consent Request

  Madam President, I thank my colleagues for joining me on the floor 
today to be voices for the millions of people who are frustrated and 
angry because President Trump and Senator McConnell continue to fail to 
get this pandemic under control.
  The stock market is back up, so Trump and McConnell seem to think 
everything is fine. They are oblivious to the families who are staring 
at stacks of bills, who can't pay their rent, who have to run up credit 
cards, who go to payday lenders--who don't know what to do. There are 
600,000 people in my State who lost their unemployment insurance in 
August. What are they supposed to do?
  Senator McConnell and President Trump are oblivious to the parents 
who are under an overwhelming amount of stress. They try to do their 
jobs, juggle remote learning, and worry about whether their schools are 
safe. They are oblivious to the layoffs that keep coming, especially in 
local governments and school systems.
  It just didn't have to be this bad. We are the greatest, wealthiest 
country on Earth. What good is it if we can't rise to meet a moment 
like this?
  Trump and McConnell want you to believe that we can't solve big 
problems, that we can't use our resources to help ordinary families, 
that we can't use our talent to produce tests and PPE, and that we 
can't use our ingenuity to figure out how to open businesses and 
schools safely.
  A half a million Ohioans are out of work, and 220,000 Americans are 
dead. Yet McConnell and Trump have simply said: Not our problem. You 
are on your own. I mean, that is the story of this Senate unless you 
have a family member who is going to be confirmed as a Federal judge. 
Other than that, you are on your own. They want you to believe it is 
the best America can do.
  I think we can do big things. I think we can actually solve problems 
for the people we serve. We did it in the spring when we put $600 a 
week in the pockets of people who lost their jobs and kept millions out 
of poverty. We put in place an eviction moratorium, and we gave people 
stimulus checks to spend in this economy, but then McConnell and Trump 
let it all expire. Families are now forced to choose between rent and 
utility bills and between food and prescriptions.
  Yet nobody around here does. I understand that. Nobody here has to 
choose between food and prescriptions or between rent and utility 
bills. Nobody here does, but a whole lot of people in our States do. So 
they are turning to payday lenders and getting trapped in cycles of 
debt. They are going to lose their homes. One-sixth of renters are 
behind on rent right now. That is 11 million people. Most of them are 
behind on rent because they have lost their unemployment checks and 
don't have any place to turn.
  Even with that, extending UI would not be enough. It doesn't help you 
if you still have a job but have had your hours cut back. It doesn't 
help recent college grads or recent high school grads. It doesn't help 
if you are self-employed or are working odd jobs.

[[Page S6356]]

  As Senator Wyden said, we simply haven't modernized our unemployment 
system well enough. The CDC's eviction moratorium is also not enough. 
Without the dollars to back it up, it is only going to lead to a wave 
of evictions come the new year. We need to get money directly to the 
people so they may pay these bills or there will be a wave of evictions 
in the middle of a pandemic.
  Hundreds of thousands of people a week are dropping into poverty, and 
we know that the $600 kept a lot of people out. Now people are dropping 
into poverty, so there is going to be a wave of evictions, and that 
wave of evictions is going to come. No. 1, it is terrible to be evicted 
anyway. No. 2, it is more terrible to be evicted in the middle of the 
winter. No. 3, it is even more terrible to be evicted in the middle of 
the winter in the middle of a pandemic. How can we sit here and allow 
that to happen?
  Even now, with the Trump administration's flawed eviction moratorium, 
evictions are happening. We see stories every day across the country, 
and more evictions are coming in January. The work we do in this body 
to get help to people can't make up for the lack of leadership from the 
White House, but we could mitigate some of the damage. The House did 
its job and passed the Heroes Act a few months ago. Over and over, I 
don't see a sense of urgency in McConnell and Trump. They have ignored 
the families. They have told the families: You are on your own.
  This month, the House again passed a bill to help families make ends 
meet. It provides the help for renters that I come to the floor to 
offer today. The bill contains $50 billion in emergency rental 
assistance. It extends the CARES Act and the eviction moratorium to 
virtually all renters through March. It will protect families, and it 
will protect public health so that it will not just be those families 
who are protected from eviction; it will be all of us around those 
families who could suffer from a compromise in public health. It will 
also give renters and property owners the help they need to pay their 
bills.
  Senate Republicans have refused to consider it and the bill that I 
offer here today. The multimillionaire majority leader and his caucus 
have the audacity to tell people who have lost their jobs and the 
audacity to tell essential workers making $10 or $12 an hour that it is 
too expensive to give them help to pay their bills in the middle of a 
national crisis. It is never too expensive to help Wall Street. It is 
never too expensive for a corporate tax cut. It is never too expensive 
to help the people who are in charge, but it is too expensive to help 
the people who are making $10 or $12 an hour.
  People are exhausted. They are tired of feeling like no one is on 
their side. The American people shouldn't have to fend for themselves 
in the middle of a once-in-a-generation crisis. That is essentially 
what the President and the majority leader are telling people: You are 
on your own. You are on your own. You are on your own
  It means we should be helping families pay the bills and stay in 
their homes. It means bringing back the $600 UI. It means getting 
support to our schools and communities so they can open. It means 
helping small businesses. It means putting money in people's pockets.
  Madam President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of my bill to 
provide emergency rental assistance and rental market stabilization and 
to provide a temporary moratorium on eviction filings, which is at the 
desk. I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read 
three times 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 Idaho.
  Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, in reserving the right to object, it is 
remarkable that we see here a series of unanimous consent requests to 
pass legislation without debate and without the opportunity for 
amendment and improvement. It is just a few hours after a refusal to 
proceed to legislation by which we could have done just that--
legislation that had $500 billion of additional assistance going out to 
the American people. Legislation that did address these unemployment 
issues--and that has been discussed over the last 45 minutes on the 
floor--was objected to so that we couldn't even get on the bill.
  Following Nancy Pelosi's ``take it or leave it,'' ``my way or the 
highway'' approach, we are now here, seeing our colleagues on the other 
side pick up pieces of the legislation that Nancy Pelosi wants to pass 
without negotiating and without working through the legislative process 
to see if they can drive those through the Senate and object to not 
doing them in regular legislative order.
  We are ready to engage in major legislation. Yet a couple of hours 
after we tried for the second or third time to put it on the floor--and 
had that opportunity refused by my colleagues on the other side--we are 
accused of not working on these issues, and the ``take it or leave it'' 
proposals from the House-passed legislation are being thrown on the 
floor of the Senate.
  Let's talk about the current one--the proposal for rental assistance 
and eviction protection for those who need help in housing markets. I 
will say now that they need help. As I said the last time this effort 
was tried, they need help, and we need to work together instead of just 
trying to lob Nancy Pelosi's bill into the Senate when we can't get 
agreement to even put a major $500 billion relief package on the floor 
for debate and consideration.
  Six months ago, this body came together and unanimously passed a 
package that provided historic, unprecedented support to the housing 
market both for homeowners and renters alike. We gave the majority of 
homeowners in this country the option of hitting the pause button on 
their mortgage payments. We prohibited foreclosures and evictions 
across a wide swath of the marketplace, which was recently expanded by 
the CDC to cover an even broader portion of the market, and we have 
extended it through the end of 2020. President Trump, through his 
Executive orders, has extended this further.
  We have appropriated in excess of $12 billion in supplemental funding 
to specifically enhance Federal housing programs. We have provided $150 
billion in funding to States and local governments through the 
coronavirus relief fund, or CRF, a significant portion of which has 
been used for rental assistance.
  We worked together in a bipartisan way on the CARES Act. I wish we 
could work on this next act the way we worked then, but, no, it is take 
it or leave it. And we are capable of doing the same in coming days if 
we can simply get on the legislation in the Senate.
  As I have said before on this floor, I agree that we can and should 
do more to help in rental markets, to help those who are most 
vulnerable and who are most at risk of eviction, but passing this 
bill--take it or leave it--that received no Republican support in the 
House, was just jammed through the House on a partisan vote, is not the 
way this body ought to do its work.
  The same thing goes for any blanket moratorium--that is what is being 
proposed right now--that would tie the hands of housing providers 
across this country and cause many of them to collapse, damaging the 
very industry and the very sector of our economy that we need to 
strengthen to deal with these critical issues.
  We still have time to reach a bipartisan solution. I believe a 
bipartisan solution is possible to help out the renters across our 
country, and I have been working to develop one. This is likely 
something, if we can get agreement to move on it, that provides 
targeted support to renters who have suffered COVID-19-related 
reduction in their income or job loss and who were current on their 
rent before the outbreak, avoids creating perverse incentives in our 
housing market by ensuring that those who are able to pay their rent 
continue to do so, and is limited to the length of the crisis and is 
delivered through a mechanism--contrary to what is being proposed 
here--delivered through a mechanism that is quick, responsible, and 
minimizes opportunities for fraud, waste, and abuse.
  We can do this if we will stop the ``my way or the highway'' approach 
to the House legislation and work together in the Senate to do what we 
did with the CARES Act in the first place.

[[Page S6357]]

  The argument has been made that we won't even re-up the unemployment 
insurance, when the Senator from South Dakota made it very clear the 
bill that our colleagues rejected just hours ago on the floor of the 
Senate had a 100-percent wage replacement formula--100 percent wage 
replacement.
  But the notion of trying to quickly advance the provision that we are 
talking about by unanimous consent, without the opportunity to properly 
debate it, is a concerning precedent and will only cause more long-term 
damage in the future.
  Accordingly, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Idaho, and I 
regret that he will not be my committee partner next year because he is 
moving on to--I guess he considers it a better committee. I don't know 
for sure.
  But anyway, the Senator from Idaho is right. We passed it unanimously 
back in March, and it worked. The $600 and the help for hospitals and 
schools and governments, local and State governments, actually kept--1 
study said 12 million; say it is half of that--5, 6 million people out 
of poverty. It worked.
  So we said to Senator McConnell in about May or June--because these 
programs and dollars were running out--we see what has worked. We will 
jettison what doesn't work, and we will continue those programs. But 
then, lo and behold, Senator McConnell kept saying: No sense of 
urgency, no sense of urgency, no sense of urgency, and we got zero in 
the end, when we asked Senator McConnell in August to--don't let the 
$600 expire. We know more people will drop into poverty. We know more 
people will be evicted. We know, as Senator Jack Reed has worked on, we 
will see more people foreclosed on.
  Senator McConnell has used the crutch of half the Republicans, half 
my friends on this side of the aisle, don't want to vote another 
dollar. He said they won't vote for anything. So maybe Senator Crapo is 
an exception to that.
  But this proposal of McConnell, we know how cynical it is; we know 
how inadequate it is; we know how pitiful it is; and we know that 
Speaker Pelosi has made several offers. She started with a pretty big 
package that a lot of us thought was pretty close to ideal. We knew 
that there would be compromise. She came back with a significantly 
smaller package, and still they just say she rammed it through, and 
they rejected it.
  So I understand the handwriting on the wall that as long as 
Republicans control this body, that we won't take care of people at 
home, that we won't do adequate--adequate rental assistance, and we 
won't do adequate unemployment.
  We will see a cynical, inadequate sort of pitiful attempt by the 
majority leader to put something on the floor that really doesn't meet 
people's needs.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I know we have yet another UC request 
coming, and I want to give time for that to my colleague here in the 
Senate.
  I, too, appreciate working with the Senator from Ohio, and we worked 
in a bipartisan fashion when we put the first CARES Act on the floor, 
which, as you said, got a unanimous vote. I am hopeful we can do that 
again.
  I just want to respond to one thing, and that is it is constantly 
being said that Senator McConnell said there is not a sense of urgency. 
This was months and months and months ago before our first act had even 
had an opportunity to play out.
  But the urgency that you have seen from Senator McConnell and others 
today is reflective of the refusal or the inability--let me say the 
inability of both sides to come together on a deal. And his reaching 
out multiple times--most recently a few hours ago today--and I am 
hopeful that we will reach out again and give all of our Senate 
colleagues the opportunity to simply proceed to get a bill on the floor 
that we can work on.
  I totally disagree with the argument that what we have been trying to 
get--a $500 billion bill--I can't even remember the negative comments 
that were made at the time, the type of descriptive comments that were 
made about it. It is a very real, significant piece of legislation that 
itself can be enhanced. It could be enhanced with this rental 
assistance that we are talking about right now.
  I believe we need to get some legislation on the floor, stop the 
back-and-forth bantering between parties and between Houses in the 
Congress, and get serious discussion of serious legislation and move 
forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3983

  Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, I am here to talk about who runs 
America--the big tech giants or the American people? I am here to talk 
about the big tech oligarchs' attempts to install themselves as the de 
facto ruling class of this country, to usurp the power of the people, 
and I am here to talk about what we can do about it.
  For years, the tech giants--Google, Facebook, Twitter--they have 
spied on us without our knowledge; they have taken our private 
information without our consent; and they have used all of it to 
manipulate us and turn massive profits in which the American people 
have had no share. That is their business model. It is like the strip 
mining of America.
  But now, not content with exploiting and extracting, the tech 
monopolies want to control our news and opinions, and they want to 
intervene in a Presidential election
  For the better part of a week, the tech giants have been actively 
suppressing the reporting of Alexander Hamilton's newspaper, the New 
York Post. And why? Well, because they don't like the story and they 
don't want people to read it and they are willing to use their power to 
stop the distribution of a story written by the free press in this 
country.
  Now this isn't about Hunter Biden's emails, though those are 
important, and we deserve to know whether Hunter Biden was giving his 
father kickbacks on payments from foreign oligarchs in exchange for 
changes to American foreign policy.
  But this is about something even more than that. This is about 
whether a small handful of corporate executives--Mark Zuckerberg, Jack 
Dorsey, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page--whether they get to decide who is 
allowed to see what; which newspapers are allowed to break the big 
stories and which ones are censored; which political party will get bad 
news suppressed at the height of the election season and which one will 
get it amplified. And most important, it is about you. It is about what 
normal, everyday Americans get to see. It is about what you get to say. 
It is about the news you read in your news feeds and the content that 
comes to you in your notifications and your video playlist because, 
yes, the tech companies control all of those things, and they use them 
to try to shape what you are thinking--even how you are feeling. Oh, 
yes, they have run experiments on all of that. They have run 
experiments on how to manipulate the content that they control and 
deliver to you in order to manipulate your emotions and influence your 
views and influence how you feel and what mood you are in, and, yes, 
what Presidential candidate you favor.
  It is their roller coaster, and we are all just riding on it. That is 
their world. That is the world that they want. That is the America that 
they want.
  The struggle against the tech giants is a struggle for control. Do 
the tech platforms control America or do we control them? And it is 
time the U.S. Senate did something about it. This body is supposed to 
represent the people of this Nation. This body is supposed to defend 
the people's interests, but for too long this body has done the bidding 
of Big Tech. It has given tech lavish government handouts and then 
looked the other way while tech captured one government agency after 
another.
  Do you know a recent news report found that the FTC, the body in 
charge of enforcing--supposedly--much of our antitrust law and our 
competition law, that two-thirds of the FTC's employees have conflicts 
of interest related to tech? That is good old-fashioned government 
capture by Big Business, by

[[Page S6358]]

the megacorporations, and that is exactly what has been going on in 
Washington for years right under the nose of the U.S. Senate.
  And if we are being honest, it is really no surprise. Tech has spent 
outrageous sums of money--outrageous sums of money--to purchase 
influence in the Capitol of the United States. It is time for those 
days to end. This body must act in defense of the American people, and 
we can.
  We can tear down the main pillars of Big Tech's power. We don't have 
to tolerate their monopolies. We don't have to accept their 
stranglehold over speech and our data and our news and our personal 
information and our social communications. We can force them to change 
the way they do business rather than allowing them to force us to 
change how we think.
  We can ban manipulative ads, and we should. We can repeal the 
immunity shield. We can crack down on addictive platform design. And I 
have introduced plenty of legislation over the last 22 months to do all 
of that, and I am still waiting for a vote on almost all of it. Heck, I 
am still waiting for hearings on any of it.
  If this body is not ready or willing to say that these platforms need 
to change the essence of what they do, well, then let's at least tell 
them that they cannot censor us with impunity. Let's at least make them 
live up to their word when they tell us that they want open 
conversation. Let's at least tell them that if they violate their 
promises to us and if they censor us arbitrarily, that we can have our 
day in court to fight back.
  Let's at least put some power back in the hands of the American 
people to fight the tech giants, and let's allow Americans to have 
their day in court.
  And that is why I am moving this legislation here, now, today on this 
floor, to provide every American that right. We should get this done 
now. There should be no further delays.
  And let's haul those tech executives in to testify under oath about 
what they did last week and at whose behest. Let's get binding 
commitments from them, under penalty of perjury, about how they will do 
their work in the short remaining days of this election season and 
about the future of their censorship policies. Let's get the truth out 
of them.

  I would just say to my fellow Republicans, we are supposed to be the 
opponents of concentrated power. That is what the fight against Big 
Government has been about all along. So what have we been doing with 
our Senate majority to fight the greatest concentration of power 
Americans face today? What have we been doing to confront this great 
threat to American democracy?
  Let's just tell the truth. The truth is many Members of the 
Republican establishment love Big Tech. They love Big Tech. The think 
tanks love the money that Big Tech contributes to them. The lobbyists 
love the work that they provide. It is a gravy train. The politicians 
love the cheap ads that they get to run on Facebook.
  Now, Washington, DC, does really well under the current arrangement--
really well. Big Tech works really well for Washington. Heck, Big Tech 
owns half the town. But if you are an everyday American, if you are an 
independent journalist, if you are a pro-life advocate, if you are 
somebody who doesn't have the approval of Big Tech, if you are somebody 
who doesn't have an inside track to the good graces of the tech giants, 
well, the message to you is really simple: Do what tech tells you to do 
or they will silence you.
  No corporation should run America, and definitely not Big Tech. We 
have squandered precious time already. The tech giants have been 
allowed to grow too powerful, too big. Now we must act while we still 
have time remaining and stand up and be counted before it is too late.
  Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous 
consent that the Committee on Commerce be discharged from further 
consideration of S. 3983 and the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration. I ask unanimous consent 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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I want to 
be clear about what is going on. I have worked very hard on tech issues 
and introduced bipartisan legislation actually to reform section 230. 
We have had hearings in this area. Senator Thune and I have been 
working in good faith in this space.
  So I want to separate out the kind of legitimate questions regarding 
the tech industry's influence on American society, as it relates to 
privacy, which I have legislation for, as it relates to its impact on 
journalism, and as it relates to whether or not there can be an 
appropriate balance struck in terms of preventing the platforms from 
being hijacked for the purpose of carrying foreign misinformation for 
the purpose of influencing an election and their legitimate rights 
under statutory law and their free speech rights.
  These are complicated issues. Senator Hawley and I briefly had a 
conversation about these issues. I listened to him talk on these 
issues, and I basically said: Look, I divide what you are talking about 
into two categories. I think some of your critique around Big Tech is 
smart and I agree with, and some of it I consider to be not in good 
faith and an effort to influence the platforms in order to carry the 
water for people like Rudy Giuliani.
  So if there is a sincere effort to work on a bipartisan basis on 
something so foundational as section 230 or whether or not to establish 
a privacy right in statutory law, which has never happened at the 
Federal level, then, I am all in for that. But it is quite unusual for 
us to take on something so fundamental.
  The Senator is a Member of the majority. If the Senator could not get 
a hearing, that is absolutely his problem. I could get a hearing for my 
bill because I have bipartisan cosponsors. So, on all of the 
legislation that he is talking about, he has failed to reach across the 
aisle and to work with a Democrat or two or three and to try to reform 
some of these institutions through the levers of power that we are in 
possession of.
  And fast forward to next Wednesday, I think it is, and the Senate 
Commerce Committee, through its Twitter feed, is running a campaign 
ad--literally, a campaign ad--that says: Hunter Biden's emails. This is 
the Commerce Committee of the U.S. Senate, and they are tweeting out 
things concerning Hunter Biden's emails. What a sad moment for the 
institution of the U.S. Senate and the cumulative bipartisan history of 
the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce.
  It is terribly sad. If there is an effort to work on these issues in 
good faith, I will be the first in line. I have been the first in line. 
But if we are going to try to do a unanimous consent--which means, for 
the public watching, that we are going to pass this bill unanimously 
without any debate; we are going to pass this bill without it going to 
a hearing; we are going to pass this bill without any Democratic 
input--that is nonsense.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, I would agree that it is a problem that 
we can't get hearings or votes on serious tech legislation. That is a 
problem.
  The Senator makes my point. That is exactly the problem, and that is 
exactly what one gets from Big Tech's significant investment in the 
U.S. Capitol. They are getting exactly what they paid for
  I would also say to my Democratic friends that you can't separate Big 
Tech's control of information and of the news and love it when they 
agree with you and condemn it when they don't.
  I don't want to influence the platforms. I want to break them up. I 
don't want to influence how they use their power. I don't want them to 
have the power. I don't want them to agree with me. I don't want to 
influence or shape their views. I want them to stop trying to 
manipulate the American people. That should be the goal.
  The goal is not to compromise their power. The goal is not to say: 
Hey, how about Big Government and Big Tech get together? We have had 
too much of that already. The goal should be to put a stop to their 
power and control, because the American people are supposed to be the 
sovereigns of this democracy, not Big Tech.

[[Page S6359]]

  I say again to my liberal friends and to those on the conservative 
side of the ledger, as well: If you are not willing to challenge tech's 
control over news and over information and over communication and over 
messaging and over journalism, then, I don't think you have yet 
reckoned with the truly dangerous threat that these companies pose to 
the functioning of American democracy, and I don't think you have yet 
reckoned with the threat we are facing to the basic control of ``We the 
people.''
  For my part, I will not stop. I will continue to come to this floor 
as often as necessary. I will continue to raise my voice and make a 
nuisance of myself as often and as firmly as necessary until this body 
acts and until the American people are given back control of their 
democracy, their information, and their lives.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.


                    Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

  Ms. SMITH. Madam President, I rise today to tell the people of 
Minnesota why I will oppose the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett 
to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
  Our Constitution's most fundamental charge is to render equal justice 
under the law. This promise is so central to our justice system that 
those words are inscribed above the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court. 
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg devoted her life to advancing the 
principle of equality under the law, and I believe all nominees to our 
Nation's highest Court must share that dedication.
  Unfortunately, Judge Barrett does not meet that standard. Judge 
Barrett was nominated to fulfill President Trump's promise to appoint 
Supreme Court Justices who would do two things which I believe are 
antithetical to equal justice under the law: dismantling the Affordable 
Care Act and overturning Roe v. Wade.
  So let's be clear about what is happening. We know Judge Barrett was 
nominated because President Trump and Republicans believe that she will 
help them overturn the Affordable Care Act and take us back to the days 
when millions more Americans do not have health insurance and insurance 
companies can deny coverage or charge exorbitant rates to people with 
preexisting conditions, like cancer or heart disease. They could charge 
women more and seniors more, and they would be able to charge more to 
people with COVID as a preexisting condition.
  As we know, Judge Barrett was nominated because Donald Trump believes 
she will uphold laws that treat women as less capable of making 
independent decisions about their health, their personal beliefs, and 
birth control than State legislatures.
  A person who can pass these two Republican litmus tests does not 
sound like someone to me who is committed to equal justice under the 
law.
  Now, many of my Democratic colleagues have talked about the terrible 
impact of striking down the Affordable Care Act on American families. I 
share this commitment that they have--that we all have--to protect 
healthcare as a human right. But as the only Senator who has worked at 
Planned Parenthood, I want to take my time today to talk about what is 
at stake if the Supreme Court overturns or weakens Roe.
  When I worked at Planned Parenthood, I saw firsthand how 
comprehensive reproductive healthcare is essential for women to have 
the freedom and the opportunity to live the lives that they choose. I 
also saw how efforts to strip away these protections are an affront to 
the equal rights and dignity of women and their families.
  For all people, healthcare decisions are the most personal. It is 
your body and it is your life, and decisions about reproductive health 
and sexual health are even more personal and intensely private. There 
is still stigma and discrimination around reproductive health, 
especially abortion, and that makes it even more important that people 
have privacy and space and excellent care without judgment, which is 
what Planned Parenthood provides.
  I became aware during my time at Planned Parenthood how personal 
these decisions are for women and how the political debate around 
abortion is disconnected from the facts and the realities of women's 
lives.
  Here is an example. The battle over restricting access to abortion 
has nothing to do with the public health work to prevent unintended 
pregnancies and reduce the abortion rate. Indeed, the Guttmacher 
Institute has repeatedly found that restrictive State abortion laws are 
not causally associated with the decline in abortion rates. In fact, 
fewer unintended pregnancies and lower teen pregnancy rates are 
correlated not with restrictive abortion laws but with access to 
sexuality education and birth control and also to a healthy economy.
  Here is another example. Most restrictive abortion laws seem to be 
aimed at a stereotype of an irresponsible woman who hasn't been careful 
and somehow got herself into a mess. First of all, this is a sexist and 
disrespectful trope. Research shows that women from all walks of life 
seek abortion care. Over half are already mothers. Over 80 percent 
report using contraception. And over half report a religious 
affiliation. These women all have their own unique circumstances and 
needs and beliefs. What they have in common is that they deserve the 
dignity and respect to make their own judgments about what is best for 
them and their families in the course of their own lives.
  What I saw at Planned Parenthood were women, our patients, who were 
working really hard to make good decisions about their own health, and 
they wanted to take charge of their health and their lives. But this is 
really difficult when you can't afford basic healthcare, like birth 
control, if you don't have good insurance or any insurance.
  It is very hard if you have been shamed or threatened or harassed for 
seeking the care that you need. It is even harder when the government 
is looking over your shoulder, telling you what you can and cannot do 
with your body and your life, because the truth is, most laws 
restricting abortion are not about good healthcare. They are about 
substituting the judgment of government for the intensely personal, 
medical, and moral decisions that women, their doctors, and their 
families want and need to make for themselves.
  The truth is, these laws treat women as fundamentally unequal in 
their decision-making capacity, and they are an insult to women's 
individual dignity and freedom and body autonomy.
  I think this is why most Americans disagree with the Republicans' 
rush to roll back Roe. This anti-choice agenda is radically out of step 
with the American people. In 2019, Pew Research, which is a respected 
nonpartisan polling organization, found that 61 percent of Americans 
say that abortion should be legal in all or most instances. Now, some 
of my Republican colleagues must know that they are out of step with 
the American people, which must be why some have suggested that it is 
``fearmongering'' to say that Roe might be overturned if Judge Barrett 
joins the Supreme Court.
  So, after promising over and over to confirm only anti-choice judges, 
judges who would overturn Roe, they now try to claim that we can't 
possibly predict how Justice Barrett would vote on this issue. Well, 
this is completely illogical and completely unbelievable, and I think 
the American people know better.
  Make no mistake, many conservative State legislatures have already 
passed laws specifically intended to create the opportunity for the 
Supreme Court to revisit and overturn Roe, and if Justice Barrett goes 
on the Court and becomes the definitive vote to overturn or weaken Roe, 
22 States are poised to immediately ban all or nearly all abortions. 
There are 16 others that will immediately enact severe restrictions to 
dramatically reduce access, and more States are sure to follow.
  If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, who is hurt most? Poor women, 
women living in rural communities, and women without the means to 
travel to places where women's rights are respected, and this is the 
definition of unequal justice.
  This Supreme Court nominee will have a momentous effect on the lives 
and personal decisions of Minnesotans and Americans. There is so much 
at stake.
  So I urge all Americans to make your voices heard and to hold your 
elected representatives accountable in Congress, in the State house, 
and in local

[[Page S6360]]

governments. Your voices are powerful, but only if you use them.
  I will always stand up for all Americans to have equal justice and 
opportunity to live the lives that you choose, and that is why I oppose 
this nomination. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the 
confirmation of Justice Barrett.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). The senior Senator from North 
Dakota.


                        Remembering Mark Andrews

  Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor former U.S. Senator 
from North Dakota, Mark Andrews, who passed away earlier this month at 
the age of 94.
  Mark was a good friend, a strong leader, and a dedicated public 
servant. It is appropriate that we take this time to remember his life 
and his accomplishments.
  He was a lifelong North Dakotan, only moving away for 2 years while 
attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. After completing his 
education at North Dakota State University--home of the Bison--Mark 
went to work and operated the family farm in the Red River Valley, as 
both his father and his grandfather had before him. So it shows you how 
long his family has been on that land, and it is truly--I know the 
Presiding Officer has been there--a beautiful farm. It is some of the 
best farmland, really, in the country, in the world, and in the Red 
River Valley
  As a farmer, he raised a variety of crops. He operated a cattle 
feeding lot, and he contributed to various agricultural organizations. 
He was very involved with those organizations.
  In addition, he served as the director of the Garrison Conservancy 
District from 1955 to 1964. I remember that. My father and Mark Andrews 
were very good friends. My dad liked Mark very much and respected him 
very much. They shared that vision for the Garrison Conservancy 
project, the Garrison Diversion. They really had this vision of 
irrigating hundreds of thousands of acres, if not millions of acres of 
land in North Dakota.
  You know, my dad shared that dream Mark had that that would just 
benefit agriculture so much across North Dakota in a big, big way. It 
really was an amazing vision and would have been remarkable had they 
been able to complete it. Mark Andrews, for the rest of his life, was 
truly just committed to that project. He always shared that vision of 
Garrison Diversion. I agreed. From the time I was a young boy, I can 
remember my father describing it and describing Mark's leadership and 
just what a wonderful thing it would be and would have been for the 
State of North Dakota. So I will always remember that very vividly, as 
I know the Presiding Officer does as well. Mark Andrews was also 
president of the North Dakota Crop Improvement and Seed Association as 
well.
  These life and work experiences served as the foundation, really, for 
his time in Congress, where he would represent North Dakota for nearly 
24 years--24 years of service in Congress--in the House and, of course, 
in this body. In 1963, he was elected to the U.S. House of 
Representatives during a special election, and he served in the House 
until 1981.
  On January 3, 1981, he was sworn in as a U.S. Senator from North 
Dakota, serving until January 3, 1987. During his time in the Senate, 
Mark was a tireless advocate for men and women in uniform and 
understood the importance of a strong national defense. Again, the 
Presiding Officer and I follow in that legacy, with the Presiding 
Officer on Armed Services and my service on Defense Appropriations. 
Mark was always very, very committed to our military and did a great 
job supporting not only the military in North Dakota but for our Nation 
as well.
  As a farmer himself, he will be remembered for his hard work on 
behalf of agriculture. You couldn't talk to Mark without agriculture 
coming up in some way, shape, or form. Even if you weren't talking 
about agriculture, the analogies that he used and his words and 
verbiage always had that agrarian aspect to them. It was imbued, 
really, in his personality. He always worked very hard on behalf of ag. 
His efforts to help producers through the tough times, the downturns, 
and the challenges that he had in farm country were very, very 
important. Of course, he understood it very well. He was a lifelong 
farmer. I mean, he knew it and he lived it, so he understood what he 
needed to do to help our great farmers and ranchers across this 
country.
  Senator Andrews' legacy also included strong support of Tribal 
communities, and he served as the chairman of the Senate Committee on 
Indian Affairs. I am now very honored to hold that same position.
  Throughout his years of service, Senator Andrews demonstrated 
dedication to the people of North Dakota and an absolute commitment to 
do all he could for our State and, of course, for our Nation as well. 
We are deeply grateful for his work, and we remain deeply grateful for 
all the contributions that he made through his service for our State.
  At the same time, he was joined by his best friend and wife Mary in 
building this legacy. She, too, passed away earlier this year. So on 
behalf of myself and my wife Mikey, we extend our deepest condolences 
to the Andrews family, to all their loved ones, and to their friends.
  Along with the Presiding Officer, I am introducing a resolution 
recognizing and honoring Senator Andrews' public service, which we 
expect will soon pass the Senate. I know colleagues here remember Mark 
very, very fondly. As a matter of fact, when I was first sworn in, Mark 
came down and joined me and was there with me when I was originally 
sworn in as a Senator.
  I note that Senator Cramer is presiding, as I mentioned in my 
remarks, and I know how he knew and liked Mark and how much they worked 
together. The Presiding Officer had a lot of wonderful shared history 
with him.
  So, at this time, I will yield the floor and exchange positions with 
the Presiding Officer so that he can speak on behalf of our friend and 
colleague Senator Mark Andrews.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hoeven). The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CRAMER. Thank you, Mr. President, for the recognition, and thank 
you also for your excellent tribute to Senator Mark Andrews and his 
amazing life of service to North Dakota and to our country. Also, thank 
you for switching places with me for a few minutes so I can spend some 
time remembering my friend and mentor and our predecessor.
  This COVID thing really kind of stinks, all in all. There are lots of 
things about COVID-19 that are awful, but one of the biggest things is 
so often, many people have been robbed of the opportunity to provide an 
appropriate sendoff to a hero, to the heroes whose lives are worthy of 
a more noble celebration than what social distancing and small crowds 
offer.
  As former Grand Forks Herald editor, publisher, and sometimes 
political commentator and observer, Mike Jacobs wrote in the Grand 
Forks Herald: ``Mark Andrews deserves better.''
  I ask unanimous consent to have the Jacobs story printed in the 
Record, along with the official obituaries of both Mark and Mary 
Andrews
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       Obituary for Mary Andrews

       Mary Andrews was born February 10, 1927 in Marshall, 
     Missouri. She died peacefully on July 16, 2020 surrounded by 
     family and friends, including her best friend and husband of 
     seventy-one years, Mark Andrews.
       Mary was the only child and the light of the lives of 
     George and Lucille Willming. They moved to Fargo in 1940 when 
     Mary was in seventh grade. The Willmings attended Gethsemane 
     Cathedral on Ninth Street South and so did Mark Andrews' 
     family. Their friendship began there when the two (neither of 
     great voice) were asked to fill chairs in the choir.
       Mary joined a wonderful potluck in high-school and gained 
     lifelong friendships there. She went on to graduate with a 
     degree from Smith College in political science. Mark often 
     commented that his political success was all due to Mary. 
     They were a great team--both loved serving the people of 
     North Dakota.
       Mary was active in PEO, Homemakers, her church, The 
     International Club, and she was president of Junior League 
     and President of the Congressional Club. She was blessed with 
     many wonderful friends.
       Mary married her best friend, Mark, on June 28, 1949. Mark 
     and Mary were able to be together to celebrate their 71st 
     wedding anniversary a little less than three weeks before 
     Mary's death.

[[Page S6361]]

       Mary was a wonderful mother to Mark III (Sue), Sarah (Doug 
     Herman), and Karen. Mary was a loving grandmother and great-
     grandmother to: Mark Andrews IV; Katie and Aaron Locke and 
     their children: Lucy and Staton; Matt and Poli Herman and 
     their children: Henry and Caroline; Sam and Mia Herman and 
     son: Gage; and Joe and Kristin Herman.
       Mary and her family were blessed by many excellent 
     caregivers, including: Bethany at 42nd and Gracepoint, Ethos 
     Hospice, and especially Missy and Elaina.
                                  ____


                      Obituary for Mark Andrews II

       Mark Andrews II was born May 19, 1926, in Fargo, North 
     Dakota. He died on October 3, 2020. He was 94.
       Mark II was the son of his namesake, Mark Andrews I, also 
     known as the singing sheriff because he sang with the 
     Metropolitan Opera in New York before returning to the family 
     farm near Mapleton, North Dakota and meeting and marrying 
     Mark II's mother, Lillian Hoyler, a Kindergarten teacher from 
     Escanaba, Michigan. As a young boy, Mark II lived in the 
     Sheriff's house, a large brownstone behind the Cass County 
     Courthouse in Fargo.
       Mark's life abruptly changed when his father was seriously 
     injured during a high speed chase of boot leggers and then 
     died. Young Mark was twelve when he and his mother and sister 
     moved to the Siegel Apartments in Fargo. Fortunately although 
     they had very little, his mother always made her children 
     feel secure.
       In 1939 Mark was in 8th grade at Agassiz Junior High when 
     he met his best friend, Mary Willming. They married on June 
     29, 1949, and celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary (81 
     years of friendship) less than three weeks before Mary's 
     death on July 16, 2020.
       Mark served in the United States Army 1944-1946 as a cadet 
     at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, 
     until receiving a disability discharge in 1946. He then 
     returned to North Dakota and attended NDSU where he was proud 
     to be a Sigma Chi and graduated in 1949. He married his best 
     friend and took over management of the family farm, 
     eventually purchasing the land and operating a cattle feed 
     lot.
       Mark served as a director of the Garrison Conservancy 
     District 1955-1964 and was a member and past president of the 
     North Dakota Crop Improvement Association.
       Mark's degree from NDSU was in agricultural science. Mary's 
     degree from Smith College was in political science. Soon 
     politics became an interest. Mark was a Republican National 
     Committeeman 1958-1962. He was elected to the Eighty-Eighth 
     United States Congress by special election October 22, 1963 
     to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Representative 
     Hjalmar Nygaard; he was re-elected to eight succeeding 
     congresses serving North Dakota in the United States House of 
     Representatives from October 22, 1963 until January 3, 1981. 
     He was elected to the United States Senate in November 1980 
     with 70% of the vote and served North Dakota there from 
     January 3, 1981 to January 3, 1987.
       Mark worked hard to serve his state in Congress and was 
     remarkably adept at finding and forming alliances to 
     accomplish good and get problems solved. He frequently said, 
     ``You know in those days people from both parties worked 
     together and we got things done--Quentin Burdick was a good 
     Democrat and I was a good Republican but we were good friends 
     and we worked together for North Dakota. This not working 
     together is foolishness!''
       Following his political career Mark and Jacqueline Balk-
     Tusa established a successful consulting firm based in 
     Washington, DC; he served as a director of Tenneco, Inc. and 
     as a director of Nodak Mutual Insurance.
       Mark was blessed with a long and wonderful life. He was so 
     large at 6'4" and full of stories and love for his family, 
     his farm and his state that it is hard to believe he can be 
     gone. Our sadness is tempered by our knowledge that he is 
     once again with his best friend of eighty-one years and at 
     peace.
       Those blessed to mourn Mark are his sister, Barbara Bertel; 
     his children, Mark III (Sue), Sarah (Doug Herman) and Karen; 
     grand and great-grandchildren: Mark Andrews IV, Katie and 
     Aaron Locke and their children, Lucy and Staton; Matt and 
     Poli Herman and their children, Henry and Caroline; Sam and 
     Mia Herman and son, Gage and Joe and Kristin Herman.
       Mark and his family were blessed by his excellent 
     caregivers, especially Missy Williams, Elaina McDonald and 
     Allison Brocht.
                                  ____


              [From the Grand Forks Herald, Oct. 14, 2020]

                 Mike Jacobs: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

                        (Written by Mike Jacobs)

       Mark Andrews deserved better. He was a prominent and 
     sometimes commanding figure in North Dakota politics for a 
     quarter of a century, the victor in a titanic struggle for 
     control of the Republican Party in the state--the dominant 
     party then as now. In the end, he was an independent voice, 
     as critical of Republicans when they deserved it as he was of 
     Democrats when he campaigned against them. All told, he 
     served for 17 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and 
     six in the U.S. Senate. He lost the Senate seat in a close 
     election in 1986.
       Andrews died Saturday, Oct. 3. He was 94 years old. His 
     death wasn't reported until the following Tuesday, Oct. 6, 
     and then apparently because a funeral home routinely 
     submitted an obituary.
       Andrews deserved a bigger sendoff. Thirty-four years away 
     from the limelight don't diminish his impact or his 
     importance.
       At just 36 years old, Andrews was a prodigy with a pedigree 
     when he first came to prominence as the Republican candidate 
     for governor in 1962. Like many of the state's governors, he 
     had deep roots in the Red River Valley. His family had farmed 
     near Mapleton, just west of Fargo, for two generations, and 
     his father had been sheriff of Cass County, then as now the 
     state's most populous and most powerful.
       Andrews lost that first election to William Guy, who was a 
     bit older, though still youthful, and who ran as the 
     candidate of the emergent Democratic-NPL Party. For newcomers 
     and neophytes, those last three letters stand for Nonpartisan 
     League, an insurgent movement that brought North Dakota a 
     state-owned bank and mill and elevator. The NPL historically 
     filed its candidates mostly in the Republican column; the 
     switch to the Democrats occurred in 1956. This was a tremor 
     in the seismic change that swept over the state. Having 
     dominated the state's politics for half a century, William 
     Langer, known as ``Wild Bill,'' died in 1959. He'd been 
     successively--though not without interruption--attorney 
     general, governor and U.S. senator. The special election for 
     a successor sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, Quentin 
     Burdick.
       The great opportunity for young Andrews came in 1963, when 
     U.S. Rep. Hjalmar Nygaard died of a heart attack in the 
     capitol building. North Dakota was divided into East and West 
     congressional districts then, and the contest for the 
     Republican endorsement for the East District seat was 
     spirited, pitting the youthful Andrews against a coalition of 
     conservatives led by John W. Scott of Gilby, a founder of the 
     John Birch Society. Andrews, the liberal, won.
       Of course, the more conservative Republicans haven't given 
     up. The state's politics today are animated by the same sort 
     of conflict within the Republican Party, though without the 
     hysterical anti-communism of the Sixties.
       Andrews won the election and immediately built a reputation 
     as an independent thinker. A Republican to be sure, Andrews 
     didn't hesitate to take on the party establishment, and even 
     the president. He indicated that he'd vote to impeach Richard 
     Nixon, for example, and he frequently challenged Ronald 
     Reagan's economic and agricultural policies, a posture that 
     drew national attention not to Andrews alone but to North 
     Dakota's once-vaunted exceptionalism in national politics--a 
     heritage that Andrews understood and appreciated.
       As congressman and senator, Andrews proved adept at 
     promoting the state's interests, notably championing the kind 
     of farm programs that Reagan's market orientation rejected. 
     He's probably best remembered for his work to promote the 
     Garrison Diversion project, which would have moved water from 
     the Missouri River to central and eastern North Dakota.
       This issue dominated the state's politics from the mid-
     Sixties when Andrews arrived in Washington. Unlike other 
     state politicians, Andrews sensed that the project wouldn't 
     survive scrutiny, and he worked to salvage what he could of 
     the plan. His efforts met hostility from water development 
     interests in the state, who came to regard Andrews as a kind 
     of traitor.
       They might have provided enough votes to defeat him when he 
     sought re-election to the U.S. Senate in 1986. That's 
     impossible to know for sure, of course; there were other 
     issues of significance in that election, as Richard Fenno's 
     book, ``When Incumbency Fails,'' illustrates in some detail.
       Apart from politics, Andrews had personal appeal. Perhaps 
     the best illustration is his marriage. He'd known his wife, 
     Mary Andrews, most of his life, and she became an integral 
     part of his campaigns. Andrews bought time on Election Eve 
     each year for what became known as ``The Mark and Mary 
     Show,'' where the two of them talked about matters pending. 
     Mary Andrews appeared on their last show, on Election Eve 
     1986, when she was seriously ill. Her illness and its 
     treatment had become an issue in the campaign.
       Mary Andrews died in July 2020, just months before her 
     husband's passing.
       Mark Andrews' own life can be parsed neatly: roughly 36 
     years before his prominence in the state's politics, 23 years 
     as a prominent player, and another 36 years, almost, out of 
     the spotlight--so much so that his passing went unnoticed for 
     72 hours.
       Sic transit gloria mundi. So goes worldly glory.
       For clarity's sake: The State Board of Higher Education has 
     eight voting members, seven citizens appointed by the 
     governor who serve four years, and one student who serves but 
     one year. Faculty and staff each have non-voting 
     representatives to the board. Measure 1 on the November 
     ballot would double the number of citizen members.

  Mr. CRAMER. We are confined to watching funerals on the internet, 
leaving us with a sense that our expressions of gratitude and emotions 
are inadequate to the honor that is deserved. But fortunately for the 
Presiding Officer and me, the U.S. Senate does provide an opportunity, 
a venue, and an appropriate way to say goodbye to a friend and a mentor 
that is commensurate with the incredible quality of the life that we 
celebrate.

[[Page S6362]]

  Senator Andrews was a giant to me for lots of reasons, not just 
because he was 6 feet 4 inches. But from growing up in Kindred, just 
about 20 miles south of the Andrews farm just outside of the city 
village of Mapleton at the time, to working on his reelection 
campaign--the first real job I ever had out of college--to seeking his 
guidance as I followed in his footsteps, first in the House of 
Representatives and then to the Senate, Mark Andrews was always a 
larger-than-life figure and personality to me.
  Kris and I were grateful for the counsel he and Mary gave us my first 
year in this Chamber just last year. I am really grateful to Mark and 
Mary's daughter, Sarah, for facilitating a visit for Kris and me to 
come see her parents just last year. This picture will be important to 
me forever. It was an emotional time for me. I don't mind telling you 
that it was emotional for me to be able to go see Mark at the age of 93 
and Mary at the age of 92 and say thank you for the opportunities and 
for the grace he afforded me when I didn't deserve it.
  I mean no disrespect to any of my colleagues today, but what made me 
the most emotional when I walked into Mark's apartment and saw him 
sitting in that recliner was that it hit me for the first time in a new 
way that the people of North Dakota had given me a responsibility that, 
at that time, as I looked at my giant, I didn't feel quite up to. There 
it was, with this job that he had and this giant from my youth who did 
big things, I suddenly felt, by comparison, quite small. But, as Mark 
often did, he encouraged me. He offered a word of encouragement--many 
of them. Likewise, Mary did the same. At the age of 92, she offered 
Kris encouragement that only another Senate spouse really had the 
credibility to offer.
  I was overwhelmed by the blessing of the moment. I was grateful 
beyond words for the opportunity to spend even 90 minutes with Fargo's 
most important power couple. It was pretty cool.
  Mark and Mary celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary just prior to 
her death earlier this year, as the Presiding Officer mentioned. They 
met while attending Agassiz Junior High in Fargo in 1939; then they 
became best friends for life. It is pretty cool. Pretty cool. I love 
that Mary Andrews was her husband's not-so-secret weapon in all of his 
successful campaigns.
  As the Presiding Officer said, Mark served a total of 23 years in 
Congress--17 in the House of Representatives and 6 here in the Senate. 
His hallmark was his fierce independence. Now, that fierce independence 
sometimes was to the chagrin of the Reagan administration. He served 
during a very, very difficult time in farm country, but he fought 
tirelessly with the government on behalf of the people. He always put 
the people ahead of the government.
  As the Presiding Officer mentioned, anyone who spent any time with 
Mark--and he and I did a lot in the last several years--knows that no 
computer hard drive in the world contains as much knowledge and 
information about water policy as Mark Andrews had in his brain, even 
to the end. Of the 90 minutes we talked last year, I am sure 60 of them 
were spent talking about water policy and water politics.
  He was passionate about the accomplishments, as the Presiding Officer 
said, and the shortcomings of the government's promise to distribute 
Missouri River water to the farms and communities of Eastern North 
Dakota. He fought and advocated for water justice for our farmers, and 
I think of him often as we engage in the very same fights today. He was 
also a strong, strong critic of government waste.
  You are right that he supported our military fiercely. There was a 
famous story about when he opposed the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia on 
behalf of our ally Israel, and it took a lot of, shall we say, gentle 
persuasion to convince him otherwise.
  He always looked out for the taxpayer. He cared more about the 
taxpayer than the tax spender. He demonstrated his commitment to fiscal 
restraint when he took on the Department of Defense in 1983, sponsoring 
a bill requiring defense contractors to guarantee their hardware. The 
bill passed and became law. He was also critical of what he called the 
``incestuous relationship'' between the officers who made the weapons 
purchase decisions and the contractors who employed the officers after 
they retired.
  But, as the Presiding Officer pointed out in his remarks, Mark 
Andrews was first and foremost a farmer. Don't take our word for it. It 
is not just a couple of hayseeds from North Dakota who will make that 
claim. No, just look at the headlines surrounding his recent death.
  The New York Times, in an obituary written by Robert McFadden, 
carries the headline ``Mark Andrews, North Dakota Farmer-Politician, 
Dies at 94.'' Did you catch that? Farmer first, the dash of life, and 
politician last.
  McFadden writes this in his story:

       As his 23-year congressional career drew to a close, The 
     New York Times said Mr. Andrews kept ``three items at the top 
     of his priority list:''--

  A lot like you, I might say to the Presiding Officer--

     ``farmers, farmers and farmers.''

  The headline for a story written by Mikkel Pates in Agweek--a friend 
of ours, a reporter; actually, an agricultural reporter--he described 
Senator Andrews' legacy: ``Andrews was a political `laser beam' for 
farm interests.''
  I ask unanimous consent to have both the Agweek and the New York 
Times stories printed in the Record
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Oct. 7, 2020]

        Mark Andrews, North Dakota Farmer-Politician, Dies at 94

                        (By Robert D. McFadden)

       Mark Andrews, a North Dakota Republican farmer whose 
     strident support for farmers helped him win nine elections to 
     the House of Representatives and one to the Senate, but who 
     could not stave off defeat for a second Senate term in 1986, 
     died on Saturday in Fargo, N.D. He was 94.
       The Hanson Runsvold Funeral Home in Fargo confirmed the 
     death on its website.
       As his 23-year congressional career drew to a close, The 
     New York Times said Mr. Andrews had kept ``three items at the 
     top of his priority list: farmers, farmers and farmers.''
       Tall (6 foot 4), plain-spoken and rawboned, Mr. Andrews 
     raised wheat, sugar beets and corn for 13 years before 
     venturing into public life. He was the third generation in 
     his family to work a 1,280-acre Red River Valley spread that 
     had been started by his grandfather, Albion Andrews, in the 
     Dakota Territory of 1881, eight years before North Dakota 
     became a state.
       His father, also named Mark Andrews, was born on the farm 
     in 1886 and became an opera-singing farmer-politician who 
     gave concerts in Fargo and in New York and sang for the 
     voters in his successful 1928 campaign for Cass County 
     sheriff. He served one four-year term, went back to farming 
     and died after being injured in a car accident.
       ``They called him the singing sheriff,'' Mr. Andrews 
     recalled in an interview for this obituary in 2018. ``People 
     used to say to me, `Well, you're the son of the singing 
     sheriff,' and ask me to sing. But I couldn't carry a tune in 
     a bushel basket.''
       With an easygoing warmth that appealed to rural voters, he 
     began his political career in 1963 by winning a special 
     election after the state's lone member of the House of 
     Representatives died in office. In 17 years in the House, Mr. 
     Andrews was a fiscal conservative, favoring spending cuts and 
     balanced budgets, and a faithful backer of agricultural 
     subsidies and farm price supports. His re-election became 
     routine.
       But there was another side to Mr. Andrews, and it said much 
     about his constituents' tolerance. He had a moderate-to-
     liberal voting record on social issues, supporting food 
     stamps and assistance to the poor and opposing bans on 
     abortion and prayers in public schools. He once endorsed 
     Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York's liberal Republican 
     governor, for president.
       In a gentler era when politics was less of a blood sport, 
     he liked Ike and L.B.J.--Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, a 
     Republican, and Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat. And he 
     befriended liberal Democrats like Senator Edward M. Kennedy 
     of Massachusetts and Representative Bob Bergland of 
     Minnesota, who later became President Jimmy Carter's 
     secretary of agriculture.
       ``Sure, he was a Democrat, and I was a Republican,'' Mr. 
     Andrews told Inforum.com, The Fargo Forum news website, in 
     2017, referring to Mr. Bergland. ``He would come to North 
     Dakota and talk about his good friend Mark Andrews, and I'd 
     go to Minnesota and talk about my good friend Bob Bergland, 
     because we really were good friends despite our political 
     differences.''
       The voters did not mind. In 1980, when North Dakota's long-
     serving Republican senator, Milton Young, retired, Mr. 
     Andrews jumped into the race and won the seat with 70 percent 
     of the votes, part of a swing to Republican control of the 
     Senate for the first time in decades. He began making 
     national headlines.
       In 1981, as debate swirled over the Reagan administration's 
     proposed sale of Awacs

[[Page S6363]]

     (Airborne Warning and Control System) planes to Saudi Arabia, 
     Mr. Andrews joined liberal Democrats in opposing the sale as 
     a peril to Israel. But after meeting with a persuasive 
     President Ronald Reagan, he and four other senators switched 
     sides, providing the margin to approve the arms sale, the 
     biggest in the nation's history.
       Senator Andrews took on the Defense Department in 1983 by 
     sponsoring what became a law--backed by a bipartisan 
     coalition in Congress--that required makers of military 
     weapons to guarantee their hardware. He criticized 
     ``incestuous relationships'' between military officers who 
     bought weapons and defense contractors who often hired the 
     officers in retirement.
       And in 1985, as a crisis loomed over the farm economy, he 
     took on the Reagan White House, writing a bill to stabilize 
     farm incomes by subsidizing commodity prices at steady levels 
     over several years.
       Reagan opposed the measure as a budget-buster, arguing that 
     subsidies encouraged surplus production and depressed 
     markets. But he signed the measure anyway, hoping that rising 
     commodity exports might eventually wean farmers from costly 
     price supports.
       As Senator Andrews ran for re-election in 1986, Republican 
     anxiety ran high across the Farm Belt, where a devastating 
     combination of falling land values, slumping market prices, 
     high interest rates and dwindling exports had driven 
     thousands of once-prosperous farm families off their land and 
     inflicted economic pain on small towns.
       Trying to preserve Republican control of the Senate, Reagan 
     campaigned in North Dakota three times for Mr. Andrews. But 
     the dismal farm economy counted for more than the president's 
     charisma. On Election Day, Mr. Andrews lost by 3,785 votes, 
     out of 182,600 cast, to the Democrat Kent Conrad, the state 
     tax commissioner. South Dakota's Republican Senator, James 
     Abdnor, also lost. (Mr. Conrad would have a long career in 
     the Senate, retiring in 2013.)
       ``The farmers were saying they were not happy with the 
     president's farm policies,'' Mr. Andrews' campaign manager, 
     Bill Sorenson, said in a day-after analysis. ``Yet they were 
     saying this president is a great fellow, and they took their 
     resentment of his policies out on senators.''
       Mark Andrews II was born in Fargo on May 19, 1926, to Mark 
     and Lillian (Hoyler) Andrews, a former kindergarten teacher 
     from Michigan. He graduated from Fargo Central High School in 
     1943. After a year at North Dakota Agricultural College (now 
     North Dakota State University), he attended the United States 
     Military Academy at West Point for two years, leaving on a 
     disability discharge, his family said, then returned to North 
     Dakota Agricultural and graduated in 1949.
       In 1949, he married Mary Willming, whom he had known since 
     eighth grade. She died in July. He is survived by a son, Mark 
     III; and two daughters, Sarah Herman and Karen Andrews; and a 
     sister, Barbara Bertel; as well as grandchildren and great-
     grandchildren.
       After his political career, Mr. Andrews became a Washington 
     lobbyist and consultant. In 1995, he retired to his farm, in 
     Mapleton, N.D., which had grown to 3,000 acres. In recent 
     years he had resided at Bethany Retirement Living at Grace 
     Pointe in Fargo.
       Mr. Andrews called 1980 the high point of his political 
     life. ``It was the year I was elected to the Senate,'' he 
     said in the Times interview ``and in North Dakota I outpolled 
     the head of the Republican ticket, Ronald Reagan.''
                                  ____


                      [From AGWEEK, Oct. 15, 2020]

        Andrews Was a Political `Laser Beam' for Farm Interests

                           (By Mikkel Pates)

       Mapleton, N.D.--Former U.S. Sen. Mark Andrews, R-N.D., who 
     died at age 94 on Oct 3, 2020, had an outsized impact and 
     intimate knowledge of the region's agricultural industry--
     both in Washington, D.C., and back home.
       His agricultural roots ran deeper than the state itself.
       Officially, he was Mark Andrews II. His grandparents were 
     from New York state and were Michigan-trained medical doctors 
     who moved to Dakota Territory in the late 1870s, prior to 
     statehood in 1889. The Andrewses bought some farmland near 
     Mapleton, N.D., and established a farm.
       Later, Andrews' father, Mark I, and uncle Arlo farmed it in 
     a partnership. Mark I was trained as an opera singer and sang 
     in the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He was dubbed the 
     ``singing sheriff' and died from injuries in an auto chase 
     with a perpetrator. Mark II was 12.


                           Farming, politics

       Mark II grew up in Fargo and was active in Boy Scouts and 
     Republican politics, said his daughter, Sarah Andrews Herman. 
     He started West Point, but resigned because of a back injury, 
     and took up agriculture at what is now North Dakota State 
     University. In 1948 he married his wife, Mary, a political 
     science graduate of Smith College in Massachusetts, where 
     Nancy Reagan, Gloria Steinem and Barbara Pierce Bush had 
     graduated.
       The Andrewses moved on the farm in 1949. With Mary at his 
     side, in 1960 he ran unsuccessfully for governor against Bill 
     Guy, an Amenia farmer and agricultural economist. It was the 
     first year John F. Kennedy was elected president and the 
     first year of the Democratic-Nonpartisan League party in 
     North Dakota.
       Standing 6-foot-4, Mark II went on to win a House seat in a 
     special election in 1963. He became a member of the 
     Appropriations Committee, and served as the chairman of the 
     agricultural subcommittee, working with two North Dakota U.S. 
     senators--Milt Young, a Republican, and Quentin Burdick, a 
     Democrat.
       Bob Christman, a former agricultural aide to Young (often 
     dubbed ``Mr. Wheat'') recalled that Andrews was always a 
     ``spokesman for, fought for agriculture.'' Andrews was known 
     for cross-party alliances, including with Burdick.
       In 1980 Andrews won the Senate seat with 70% of the vote. 
     Mary Ann Bond of Fargo, an aide to Andrews from 1964 to 1983 
     in the House and Senate, said Andrews was an advocate of 
     sugar policies, but worked on other projects, including with 
     then-University of North Dakota President Tom Clifford in 
     establishing UND as an aviation education leader, which later 
     paved the way for the state's leadership in drone technology.
        ``Agriculture is what we worked on every day,'' Bond said. 
     ``It was the one area he wasn't willing to compromise on.''


                             `A laser beam'

       Clare Carlson, today's state director of the USDA's Rural 
     Development agency in the Trump administration, worked for 
     Andrews as an ag aide in the Senate as he contributed to the 
     1985 farm bill, at the height of the farm credit crisis.
       ``He was the master of staying on the outside of a deal 
     until he was needed,'' Carlson recalled.
       Carlson said the 1985 bill offered benefits to the farm 
     economy--including the Conservation Reserve Program land-
     idling program and strong increases in allocations to the 
     Farmers Home Administration loan allocations. The help didn't 
     come quickly enough for some farmers.
       Randy Russell, principal in the The Russell Group Inc., one 
     of today's top Washington, D.C., lobbying firms, was chief of 
     staff to then-Secretary of Agriculture John Block for the 
     1985 farm bill, and was a deputy assistant USDA secretary of 
     economics. Russell noted that agriculture faces its 
     challenges today, but not like the 1980s when asset values 
     declined by 25%. People simply couldn't repay loans.
       ``He was a force to be reckoned with. He was tough,'' 
     Russell recalled, of Andrews. ``He was a fierce advocate for 
     rural development and sugar. He focused like a laser beam on 
     things that he wanted.''
       Andrews lost his seat in 1986 in a close election with Sen. 
     Kent Conrad, D-N.D., despite bringing in President Ronald 
     Reagan and Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan. Pundits 
     speculated some voters were looking for different leadership. 
     Others said Andrews hurt himself politically when his family 
     sued St. Luke's Hospital in Fargo, for $10 million, alleging 
     medical malpractice in Mary's meningitis case. The Andrews 
     family won the suit in June 1984 but received no financial 
     damages.
       After his children were grown, the Mark and Mary Andrews 
     lived in the famed Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., but 
     his heart was on the farm, where the Hermans now live, 
     retired from legal careers.


                          Progressive farmers

       The Andrews family were progressive farmers. In the past, 
     they'd fed cattle and raised sugar beets before and after 
     American Crystal Sugar Co. became a cooperative. They built a 
     grain elevator and were growers of certified seeds. In the 
     later years, their crops were primarily com, soybeans and 
     wheat.
       For many years, the senator's son, Mark III, ran the 
     operation until the land was rented out about five years ago. 
     At its apex, the farm grew to 5,000 acres, including 3,000 
     owned acres. They raised com, soybeans and wheat.
       As the worldwide farm crisis deepened in 1986, Steiger went 
     into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization and emerged by 
     selling to J.I. Case, which since the 1970s had owned half of 
     J.I. Case. (In 1984 Case had acquired International Harvester 
     assets, eventually marketed as Case-IH.)
       Mark III said his father had used John Deere equipment, but 
     also liked Steiger tractors, developed in the Red River 
     Valley and manufactured in Fargo--high horsepower, four-
     wheel-drives with an oscillating, articulated design. 
     Sometimes company engineers would test their prototypes on 
     his farm--only about 15 miles from the factory.
       In the 1990s, Mark III surprised his dad when he bought a 
     Case-IH tractor and set of grain drills from Jim Williams, 
     who ran Arthur (N.D.) Mercantile, the oldest one-family farm 
     equipment company in the state. He remembers his father--
     flying in from Washington--wondering ``what the hell I'd 
     done.'' But, in fact, the Andrewses had purchased Case 
     equipment from the Williams family in earlier decades, so 
     they shifted almost entirely to Case-IH. (Arthur Mercantile 
     merged into Titan Machinery of Fargo in 2009 and Williams 
     went on the board of Titan, the largest string of Case-IH 
     stores in the country.)
       Out of the Senate in January 1987, Andrews started a 
     political consulting company in Washington. He connected with 
     Jim Ketelson, Tenneco's CEO, who invited him to run for the 
     parent company's board of directors.
       Tenneco's sold its ag interests to Fiat in 1999, which 
     later merged the company with

[[Page S6364]]

     New Holland Agriculture to form CNH Global. Andrews stayed on 
     at Tenneco until 2001.
       Howard Dahl, chief executive of Amity Technology in Fargo, 
     whose father, Gene, had been chairman of the board at Steiger 
     Tractor, said Andrews had a ``positive role, after the 
     Tenneco acquisition, for keeping Steiger jobs in Fargo.'' The 
     company would go on to add construction wheel-loaders to its 
     Fargo production line, adding to its stability.
       In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Case-IH developed a 
     ``Quadtrac'' tractor with four tracks to replace four wheels. 
     Mark III said his father was a big fan of four tracks 
     offering particular turning capabilities and traction in Red 
     River Valley heavy soils that had turned wetter after 1993.
       Titan CEO David Meyer said Andrews was a ``gentleman'' and 
     big proponent of the Quadtrac. The Quadtrac went into 
     production as a 360 horsepower tractor in 1996. Today there 
     are eight models from 370 to 628 horsepower, including the 
     470, featured on a pedestal at the company's factory in 
     Fargo.

  Mr. CRAMER. ``Farmer,'' ``fiercely independent,'' ``fiscal hawk''--
all of the good things the Presiding Officer said about him--they 
describe a part of Senator Mark Andrews, but to me, he is still a 
giant.
  At his funeral, the Gospel text that was read was from an agrarian 
parable in Matthew 13--a very familiar one to most people--where Jesus 
talks about the teeny mustard seed. In verse 32, He is recorded as 
saying: ``Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it 
is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree so that birds can 
come and perch in its branches.''
  Mark Andrews was a really big tree with really big roots into the 
soil of the Red River Valley of North Dakota. I felt as though I had 
found a perch on his branches and stand on his shoulders.
  Mark and Mary also died with the Gospel promise that Christ has 
prepared a mansion for them in Heaven. I am pretty sure it is a 
farmhouse.
  Thank you, Senator Andrews. You served North Dakota well and will be 
missed.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.


                              Coronavirus

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to urge my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together to resume 
negotiations on a comprehensive relief package for Granite Staters and 
Americans across this country.
  Six million Americans have missed their rent or mortgage payments 
since September. The lines at food pantries in my State of New 
Hampshire and across the country are growing longer and longer. Yet the 
partisan Supreme Court nomination seems to be the only priority of the 
Republican leadership here in the Senate.
  The American public are tired of partisan posturing. They need 
relief, and they need it now. That is why Congress should pass a 
bipartisan, comprehensive package that addresses the challenges we are 
facing in the short and long term.
  Congress needs to provide assistance for our hospitals and healthcare 
providers, especially nursing homes and long-term care facilities, 
which account for 81 percent of COVID-19 deaths in New Hampshire. That 
is the highest percentage in the country.
  We should also provide additional support for childcare centers and 
schools that are working to safely reopen and operate during the fall 
term, and we shouldn't condition those education dollars on whether a 
school is physically open, as Republicans have repeatedly proposed. 
That decision should be made by State and local officials, and it 
should be based on safety.
  We also need to support our local communities so they can continue to 
pay our first responders, firefighters, police, and teachers. Under no 
circumstances should our communities have to cut essential services and 
frontline workers.
  After months of inaction, Leader McConnell has forced the Senate to 
vote twice on a partisan package that was written in his office without 
any bipartisan input. Not surprisingly, that package doesn't even come 
close to addressing the public health and economic issues that our 
country is facing. We need to provide more financial support to 
hospitals, long-term care facilities, and other healthcare providers 
that are struggling on the frontlines of our fight against this 
pandemic.

  Senator McConnell's skinny bill does not provide any money for grants 
to healthcare providers. That is zero dollars for our Nation's 
hospitals, even though hospitals like the Lakes Region General Hospital 
in New Hampshire just filed bankruptcy this week and hospitals across 
New Hampshire are projecting hundreds of millions of dollars in losses 
this year due to the cancelation of elective procedures and 
nonemergency visits to deal with the pandemic.
  It also provides zero dollars for nursing homes and long-term care 
facilities at a time when nursing facility residents account for 81 
percent of our COVID-19 deaths, and nursing homes, while they have seen 
40 percent of the fatalities from this pandemic nationwide, have gotten 
only 4 percent of the funding.
  The bill provides zero dollars for community health centers across 
the country--community health centers that are providing care to 
millions of individuals, newly uninsured because they have lost their 
jobs due to the pandemic.
  The most recent version of the Heroes Act that passed in the House 
earlier this month would provide $50 billion in new grants for 
healthcare providers, as well as $7.6 billion to support our community 
health centers.
  I have joined Senator Casey in pressing for additional dedicated 
funds, specifically for long-term care facilities, to help them retain 
and hire staff--one of the biggest challenges they are having right 
now--acquire testing materials and PPE, and take other steps to ensure 
that our Nation's seniors are kept safe.
  We also need much more funding to support testing. The Heroes Act 
provided $75 billion for a national testing and contact tracing plan. 
Leader McConnell's bill would only provide a fraction of that amount.
  It is pretty simple. We are not going to get ahead of this pandemic 
and help our economy recover if we fail to make investments in testing 
and contact tracing and if we leave our healthcare providers in a 
financial hole. These investments are key to getting life back to some 
semblance of normal.
  We also need to provide more funding to support our ongoing fight 
against the opioid epidemic. In New Hampshire, we have seen that 
epidemic exacerbated by the pandemic, and we are beginning to see 
overdoses go up again.
  The McConnell skinny bill provides no financial help for families 
struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table and no funding 
for State and local governments that are facing massive revenue 
shortfalls due to COVID-19.
  The State of New Hampshire is facing a budget shortfall of nearly 
$540 million, about 20 percent of our State revenues. The Republican 
proposal would provide no assistance, forcing local governments to make 
very difficult choices about cutting essential services, including 
whether to lay off teachers, firefighters, and police officers or 
reduce trash collection and other essential services.
  And the Republican bill includes nothing to address broadband needs, 
depriving communities from making improvements in telehealth and remote 
learning.
  And it doesn't do nearly enough to address the needs of our small 
businesses. Congress must also provide additional support to help small 
businesses survive the economic fallout caused by the COVID crisis.
  As a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and 
Entrepreneurship, I was proud to be part of the bipartisan working 
group that came up with the Paycheck Protection Program. As part of 
what we did for small businesses in the CARES Act, we greatly expanded 
and added a grant component to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan 
Program. We provided 6 months of relief for existing SBA borrowers to 
make use of the 7(a), 504, and Microloan Programs.
  Our intent then was to deliver relief to small businesses that are 
truly hurting, and that effort has been largely successful. To date, 
501 million small business borrowers have received more than $525 
billion in assistance through PPP. That includes over 24,000 small 
businesses and nonprofits in New Hampshire and $2.5 billion that has 
come into our State alone. Over 11,000 New Hampshire small businesses 
have received EIDL loans totaling over $660 million.

[[Page S6365]]

  Collectively, these programs represent the largest small business 
relief effort in our Nation's history by far, but we know that more 
needs to be done because there are some small businesses that have 
bounced back and are doing well and have returned to their pre-COVID 
revenues, but, unfortunately, too many of them still need help to get 
through the rest of this pandemic.
  Authorization for PPP has expired with more than $130 billion still 
unspent, and the funds appropriated for the EIDL Grant Program have 
been exhausted.
  I hear frequently from New Hampshire small businesses that have used 
PPP effectively to keep workers on the payroll and make rent, but many 
of them, as I said, still need more assistance as our economy reopens, 
particularly in the tourism and hospitality industries, which are so 
vital to New Hampshire's economy.
  This is a critical time. Restaurants in New Hampshire account for 
nearly 70,000 jobs and $3 billion in sales, according to the National 
Restaurant Association. Hotels represent another 29,000 jobs and $1 
billion in wages and salaries, according to the American Hotel and 
Lodging Association. We have got to do more to help them.
  Now, based on these conversations, I worked with Senator Cardin, the 
ranking member on the Small Business Committee, and others to come up 
with legislation that recognizes the continuing need for small business 
assistance. Our bill would extend the deadline for PPP applications and 
let businesses that have already received a PPP loan but are still 
struggling to apply again. It would streamline the process for 
borrowers to obtain forgiveness for their loans, and it would allow 
local chambers of commerce and destination marketing organizations 
access to the PPP program. It would also significantly increase funding 
for EIDL grants and make important reforms to that program.
  This and other measures must be part of any future COVID-19 relief 
package, and I would urge the majority leader to quickly bring a 
package of legislation to the floor that addresses both the public 
health crisis as well as the economic pain that our communities--
especially our small businesses--are facing.
  COVID-19 is the worst crisis our country has faced during my 
lifetime. More than 220,000 Americans, including 468 Granite Staters, 
have lost their lives to this virus, which has also taken a historic 
toll on our economy
  Congress has an obligation to address this pandemic aggressively and 
thoughtfully. I am optimistic that we can come to bipartisan agreement, 
but we can't wait until after the election. Americans need help putting 
food on the table and paying the bills today. Too many can't afford an 
arbitrary timeline for delivering assistance.
  We need to set aside our differences and the partisan jockeying and 
do what is right for the Nation. That is what our constituents sent us 
here to do. We did it before, and we can do it again.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, I join my Democratic colleagues today to 
voice my frustration with the Senate Republicans' drive to manufacture 
votes on anemic half measures instead of focusing on enacting robust 
and comprehensive COVID-19 relief for the American people.
  With over 220,000 deaths, positive cases surging throughout the 
country, and flu season right around the corner, it is unconscionable 
that we are not taking up legislation to address the health and 
economic needs facing this Nation.
  Simply put, this week's votes have been engineered as political 
theater. They were designed to feign action, while failing, and to 
further divide this body along party lines while making no progress on 
another bipartisan coronavirus relief package.
  Earlier this summer, I took to the Senate floor to address the 
ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on our Nation's health and economy. The 
majority of the $8 billion in CARES Act relief funding had barely 
gotten out to Tribes by then, thanks to the administration's delay and 
fumbled distribution. Now the administration wants Indian Country to 
believe it championed that funding for Tribal governments, but the 
truth is the administration and Senate Republican leaders offered 
nothing for Tribes in coronavirus relief.
  Tribes didn't see progress until Senate Democrats fought back, 
demanding targeted relief for Tribal governments. We ended up securing 
over $10 billion to fight the virus, stabilize Tribal economies, and 
support Native health systems.
  Yes, it was obvious even then more would need to be done. I sounded 
the alarm that Native communities, like every American community, 
needed more help and were bearing the brunt of the virus's continued 
spread.
  As vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, I am 
compelled to speak out again and urge immediate bipartisan action to 
provide more targeted relief for Native communities and to urge my 
Republican colleagues who represent a number of Native communities to 
join me in this effort. Our shared trust and treaty obligations demand 
nothing less.
  Throughout this pandemic, I have heard directly from Tribes, Pueblos, 
and Native Hawaiian communities about their urgent and ongoing needs 
for healthcare and economic resources to combat the virus. I have heard 
how existing Federal policies, practices, and program structures have 
left these communities particularly exposed to severe and long-lasting 
impacts from the coronavirus pandemic.
  In a recent oversight hearing on implementation of Federal programs 
to support COVID-19 response efforts, Tribal panelists testified about 
how their communities have been hurt by congressional inaction, funding 
shortfalls, and a lack of coordination between the Federal agencies.
  Among other things, we learned that existing Federal policies and 
failures have exacerbated health disparities, economic barriers, and 
institutional inequities among Native communities; that the Indian 
Health Service, Tribes, and Urban Indian Health clinics have faced 
challenges securing personal protective equipment and testing supplies; 
that they were excluded from most Federal public health emergency 
preparedness planning; and that Indian Country continues to struggle to 
navigate the bureaucratic maze of COVID-19 programs because many 
agencies had little to no meaningful engagement with Tribes prior to 
this pandemic.
  This testimony is key to putting into context what little data exists 
on COVID-19 impacts in Native communities.
  Even though data was slow to come in, it confirms our worst fears; 
that the pandemic will extract a heavier toll on Native communities if 
decisive Federal actions aren't taken immediately.
  Thirty four percent of American Indian and Alaska Native adults--the 
highest percentage of any race--are at high risk of serious health 
complications due to COVID-19; and they are 4\1/2\ times more likely to 
be hospitalized due to COVID-19 complications. These statistics are 
staggering, and they appear to be worsening in parts of Indian Country.
  Just this week, Indian Health Service officials told Congress that 
COVID-19 trends in the Bemidji, Billings, Great Plains, and Oklahoma 
City service areas were ``very concerning.'' Each of those regions have 
had a 7-day rolling positivity test rate in double digits. Several IHS 
service units are reporting that their network for transferring 
patients in need of ICU care are nearly full.
  There is so much we still don't know about COVID-19. But what we do 
know is this: Throughout this crisis, Native communities have fought 
back. They are resilient. For example, in my home State of New Mexico 
and in Arizona and Utah--the Navajo Nation has instituted strict 
curfews to prevent the spread. They have ramped up testing, despite the 
complete lack of testing supplies in the beginning. But the U.S. trust 
and treaty responsibilities remain.
  Our obligation to provide quality, accessible healthcare to all 
Native Americans doesn't end with this once-in-a-century pandemic. And 
it cannot be fulfilled by partisan half measures meant to score 
political points rather than provide meaningful health.
  Congress must do better. We must do much more. Each day we fail to 
act--to advance policies to address the disparities faced by Indian 
Country--is a day

[[Page S6366]]

we fail to uphold our oath of office. It is a day we fail to meet the 
single most defining moment of this Congress--perhaps, of our entire 
careers.
  American families are struggling. Our country is struggling. We in 
Congress have the tools to help end that. Instead, we are wasting time 
with sham votes. History will not forget this inaction. That is why it 
is imperative that we pass comprehensive COVID-19 relief legislation 
with targeted resources for Native American communities.
  We must infuse the IHS with additional funding for Tribal healthcare 
and ensure Indian Country has parity in accessing Federal public health 
programs. We must provide Tribal governments with the resources they 
need to keep their communities up and running safely by providing 
additional funding within the Treasury's Coronavirus Relief Fund.
  The Senate should pass bills I have introduced that have already been 
adopted by the House of Representatives in its Heroes Act, passed over 
3 months ago. We must make the strategic national stockpile available 
to Tribes. Tribes should be able to access PPE, ventilators, and other 
necessary medical equipment, just as States can.
  We must make sure the Tribes have equal access to the Centers for 
Disease Control resources to prepare for public health emergencies, 
like this pandemic. We must equalize the Medicaid reimbursement rate 
for Urban Indian Health facilities and help the 41 Urban Indian Health 
facilities across the Nation expand their services.
  And as so much of our lives move to the internet, we must make sure 
that Native schools, healthcare facilities, and government services are 
not left on the wrong side of the digital divide. All Tribes must have 
access to high-speed broadband.
  This public health and economic crisis has impacted every community 
in every State in the Union, but it has hit Native communities 
particularly hard. We must take real action. We need to lock arms, 
negotiate in good faith, and get immediate relief out the door--not 
engage in insincere, sham votes on ``skinny'' relief bills going 
nowhere, marked by continued partisan bickering.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader


                    Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, by now, the American people know the rank 
hypocrisy of the Republican majority, who, so many, when Merrick 
Garland was proposed as a nominee, said we must wait, even though it 
was 8 months before an election. When Merrick Garland was nominated 8 
months before an election, we have to wait for an election. Now that an 
election is ongoing, we are rushing through this nomination. It is one 
of the worst moments the Senate has ever seen.
  Leader McConnell and the Republican majority have defiled the Senate, 
and one can wonder if it will ever recover from this kind of rank 
hypocrisy. And so, because this has been the most rushed, most 
partisan, and least legitimate process in the history of Supreme Court 
nominations, Judiciary members will boycott the markup tomorrow and not 
provide the quorum that is required because it is a bipartisan quorum.
  The bottom line is very simple. We should not be moving forward on 
this nomination. She is so out of character with American views. Her 
views are way, way, way to the right. She has stated she wants to 
repeal the ACA and take away healthcare. She has said she would oppose 
Roe v. Wade and remove American women's right to control their own 
bodies. She has opposed labor rights. She is to the right of Justice 
Scalia on gun safety.
  On issue after issue, this nominee is so far out of the mainstream 
that her views, if she had to get them to pass in a legislature, would 
never pass even with all Republicans. But, of course, now they are 
rushing through the process.
  Trump has said he wants someone who repeals ACA. Trump has said he 
wants someone who would repeal Roe. Trump has said he wants someone who 
would be on his side if there is an election dispute.
  These are all such violations of American norms, values, decency, and 
honor. And that is why the Judiciary Committee will not provide the 
quorum tomorrow when the markup goes forward.
  We should also adjourn. We should not do this nomination. We can come 
back after the election and do just what Republicans have said they 
wanted to do when Merrick Garland was on the floor: wait for the 
election to decide.
  And this sophistry that now because it is a Republican President and 
a Republican majority, that makes a difference? No. Everyone sees 
through that. That was never mentioned when Merrick Garland came up. It 
only came now with a coverup--to cover up the hypocrisy, and it just 
doesn't work. We can see through it.
  The bottom line, we have never moved a nominee so close to an 
election. Abraham Lincoln, when he had the opportunity to fill a 
Supreme Court seat, said it would be unfair to do it so close to an 
election. But this Republican Party has forgotten the principles and 
the honor and the decency of Abraham Lincoln as they move forward in 
their rush--in their rush--to push a nominee through, whose views are 
decidedly at odds with the vast majority of Americans on issue after 
issue. That is why the Judiciary Committee members will boycott 
tomorrow. That is also why I am going to move to adjourn until November 
9, after the election is decided and do what is fair and right for the 
American people.


                           Motion to Adjourn

  Mr. President, I move to adjourn and to then convene for pro forma 
sessions only, with no business being conducted, at 12 noon on the 
following dates and that following each pro forma session, the Senate 
adjourn until the next pro forma session: Friday, October 23; Tuesday, 
October 27; Friday, October 30; Tuesday, November 3; and Friday, 
November 6. Furthermore, that if there is an agreement on legislation 
in relation to the COVID pandemic, the Senate may convene under the 
authority of S. Res. 296 of the 108th Congress; and that, finally, when 
the Senate adjourns on Friday, November 6, it next convene at 4:30, 
Monday, November 9, and that following the prayer and pledge, the 
morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved 
to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later 
in the day, and morning business be closed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That motion would require consent and is not 
in order.


                            Motion to Table

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I appeal the ruling of the Chair, and I 
move to table the appeal.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. 
Feinstein), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from 
West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), 
the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. 
Wyden), are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 41, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 209 Ex.]

                                YEAS--53

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Loeffler
     McConnell
     McSally
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--41

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Gillibrand
     Hassan

[[Page S6367]]


     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Jones
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse

                             NOT VOTING--6

     Feinstein
     Harris
     Manchin
     Sanders
     Sinema
     Wyde
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to table is agreed to, and the 
ruling of the Chair stands.
  The Senator from Georgia.


                    Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

  Mrs. LOEFFLER. Mr. President, as the first U.S. Senator to call for 
the nomination and confirmation to fill Justice Ginsburg's seat before 
the November 3 election, I am proud to support Judge Amy Coney Barrett 
as President Trump's nominee for Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme 
Court, but I am not the only one who is proud. Two weeks ago I joined 
Concerned Women for America in Marietta, GA, to kick off their 
nationwide bus tour in support of Judge Barrett's confirmation. Dozens 
attended, including men and women from every walk of life--families, 
business owners, policymakers, faith leaders, and students.
  Judge Barrett has inspired millions of us across our country. She has 
reached the pinnacle of her profession, while upholding her Christian 
faith and values. She is a wife and a mother of seven children. She 
will become the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court with school-
aged children.
  Now the majority of Americans in the most recent Gallup poll agree we 
should vote to confirm her.
  As I have traveled around the Peach State, the enthusiasm and 
admiration I hear from Georgians is very clear. President Trump 
established a group of highly qualified candidates for the bench. He 
was transparent and well prepared for the moment. It is clear that he 
could not have made a better nomination.
  Judge Barrett is a woman of remarkable intellect and character, with 
the judicial philosophy of originalism, and, as a textualist, she 
understands and respects the Court's role to interpret the law as 
written. As such, I believe Judge Barrett will uphold the Constitution 
in protecting our God-given rights, including the right to life, the 
Second Amendment, free speech, and religious liberty.
  The need for judges who will uphold the intent of the Framers is 
especially clear when the left is showing their disregard for our 
Constitution. Democrats are attempting to change article I and trying 
to federalize the election system through the creation of a national 
universal ballot system, and Nancy Pelosi has attempted to politicize 
and weaponize the 25th Amendment in another desperate move to form a 
committee to remove an elected President.
  That is why I introduced a resolution condemning the Speaker for her 
political gains in the middle of an election while refusing to support 
relief for hard-working families impacted by this pandemic.
  Now, Big Tech is aggressively limiting the First Amendment right to 
free speech and free press. Created before the existence of the very 
companies that are silencing conservatives, the 1996 Communications 
Decency Act's section 230 provision no longer suits our country's 
needs. Last week, Justice Clarence Thomas called on Congress to update 
these laws to ``make them more appropriate for an Internet-driven 
society.''
  In the Senate I am leading the charge to modernize the law to suit 
the reality of the digital marketplace of ideas by introducing the 
Stopping Big Tech's Censorship Act in June to give all Americans a 
process to bring claims against companies when they remove or limit 
constitutionally protected free speech.
  Today I introduced a bill to eliminate ambiguous language in section 
230 and to codify the more concrete terms recommended by the Department 
of Justice.
  In Congress we must act to hold Big Tech accountable, but we also 
must have strong judges in our courts who will uphold the 
Constitutional rights of all Americans. That is why it is concerning 
that Democrats are fighting so hard to oppose an eminently qualified 
nominee. As retaliation, they have threatened to pack the Court if we 
follow clear precedent in filling this seat, attempting to constrain 
our well designed system of checks and balances.
  Unable to criticize Judge Barrett's sterling credentials, Democrats 
have resorted to scare tactics, claiming she will take away healthcare 
coverage or advance her own policy views. At her confirmation hearing, 
Judge Barrett put those leftwing talking points to rest, saying: ``It 
is never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal 
convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else, on the 
law.''
  These accusations make clear that there is little Democrats fear more 
than strong, conservative women. I know firsthand what it is like to 
step into public service and then be attacked by the left and the fake 
news. There is a playbook for trying to stop conservative women and 
their place in public service.
  Nonetheless, Judge Barrett has been the definition of grace under 
pressure. At her confirmation hearing, Senator Graham asked why she 
decided to put her family in the spotlight and accept the President's 
request to serve. She said, abridged:

       We knew that our lives would be combed over for any 
     negative detail. . . . our faith would be caricatured. . . . 
     the benefit . . . is that I'm committed to the rule of law . 
     . . and dispensing equal justice for all.

  Judge Barrett's commitment to the rule of law and equal justice are 
clear from her writings, decisions, and testimony. In fact, on the 
Seventh Circuit, 95 percent of her adjudicated cases were unanimously 
decided.
  I am so grateful that Judge Barrett has accepted the call to serve 
our country. President Trump could not have chosen a more qualified, 
impressive jurist than Judge Barrett, and I will be honored to vote to 
confirm her as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Would my colleague yield for a question?
  Mrs. LOEFFLER. Sure.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you.
  You know that the process we are in right now is based on clear 
precedent.
  I have scoured American history to find the precedent of conducting a 
debate and vote on a Supreme Court nominee during an election, and I 
haven't found it. So I just wanted to check in on, essentially, what am 
I missing? Where is there a precedent for conducting this debate and 
this vote during an election?
  Mrs. LOEFFLER. Thank you for the question.
  There have been 29 such cases. When, in fact, the executive branch 
and the Senate are controlled by the same party, the nomination 
proceeds, and that is the case that we are now in, and we will proceed 
with the vote and the nomination.
  Mr. MERKLEY. So thank you to my colleague. I think what you are 
confirming is that never in American history have we conducted such a 
debate and voted during an election. You have a different precedent 
argument but not a precedent that shows that conducting this debate 
during an election is appropriate.
  Mrs. LOEFFLER. The President is the President for 4 years--for a full 
4-year term--and we will carry out our Constitutional duty.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I thank my colleague, because, 4 years ago, I was on 
this floor, and I know you weren't here in the Chamber, and I listened 
to so many Members of the Senate say that they were establishing a new 
precedent--a precedent they felt was a precedent born of deep 
conviction, passionate conviction, that there should never be a debate 
and a vote during an election year, not just during the election. We 
are already in the process of casting ballots, but never in an election 
year.
  So that also is a precedent set 4 years ago that this is overturning; 
is that not correct?
  Mrs. LOEFFLER. No, that is not correct.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, may I respond?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia has the floor.
  Mrs. LOEFFLER. Mr. President, I will yield the floor to my colleague 
from Wyoming.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I want to associate myself with every 
remark that we heard from the distinguished Senator from Georgia. She 
has

[[Page S6368]]

shown a strong voice and strong leadership in this, and, of course, she 
knows that 29 times, as she was trying to explain before being 
interrupted, that there have been vacancies in an election year of the 
Supreme Court. It happened.
  What we know, historically, if we talk about historical precedence, 
is if the President, asked by the Constitution--told by the 
Constitution to nominate, and if the Senate is of the same party as the 
President, generally, that person gets confirmed.
  But on the other hand, if the President who nominates is of a 
different party than the Senate--which is what happened in 2016 with 
Merrick Garland after the Republicans had won the Senate--that nominee, 
historically, is not confirmed. That is the history going through the 
U.S. Senate confirmations.
  The Constitution is clear. The President nominates, then advice and 
consent by the Senate, and we know what happens there, generally--same 
party, consent happens; different parties, divided government, and that 
is what happened in 2016. President Obama was reelected in 2014, but 
come 2016, the American people voted to put the Republican Party in the 
majority.
  So I actually have my dates wrong. It was 2012 that President Obama 
was reelected, and in 2014, the majority went to the Republican Party. 
So when a vacancy occurred in 2016, we had, as I stated, the majority--
a President of one party and a Senate majority in the other, and the 
nominee, through advice and consent, was not confirmed.
  That is what I am talking about, when I see this ongoing abuse of the 
nominee, whom I had a chance to meet with today who believes in the 
Constitution, follows the Constitution, is true on the Constitution--
and that is why the people of Wyoming are so delighted with her 
nomination and why I am so happy to support her. But I appreciate the 
Senator from Georgia for letting me come in a little bit on her time. I 
am just grateful for her leadership and the strong statement she is 
making on behalf of this very impressive, well-qualified judge.
  I am really looking forward to voting to confirm her to the U.S. 
Supreme Court.
  I apologize to the Senator from Georgia if she has additional remarks 
to make.
  Mr. MERKLEY. To my colleague from Georgia, do you have additional 
remarks to make?
  Mrs. LOEFFLER. No, I really don't.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you very much.
  To my colleague from Wyoming, would you yield for a question?
  Mr. BARRASSO. Well, I have something to present, and I have the mic 
at this point to speak and I would like to complete that. And I know 
the Senator from Oregon is scheduled to speak after that, so if we 
could just go in regular order, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Regular order.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Let the record note that my colleague--
  Mr. BARRASSO. And I appreciate the remarks of the Senator from 
Georgia, and I come to the floor today also in support of the 
nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to serve on the U.S. Supreme 
Court.
  I will state that she is terrific. She is so impressive--so 
exceptionally well qualified to take on this new responsibility.
  But the partisanship that she has experienced from Democrats--well, 
it has predictably backfired on them, certainly by the American people. 
The majority of Americans of all parties, a majority of Americans have 
said get her confirmed--put her on the Supreme Court because that is 
what they saw when they watched the hearings last week--somebody who is 
ready to serve our Nation and apply the law, not legislate from the 
Bench.
  This is an important moment in our history. Judge Barrett, the 
Senate, the American people deserved a hearing that matched the moment 
and that highlighted her qualifications and capabilities. Regrettably, 
Americans got a weeklong lecture by Democrats which turned out to be a 
partisan infomercial on ObamaCare.
  This is a law that 10 years on, Democrats are still trying to explain 
to the American people, still trying to explain how many--all these 
millions and millions of people who lost their health insurance, trying 
to explain millions and millions of people whose costs went up--more 
than doubled
  Judge Barrett is very clear and has been clear. She has no agenda for 
any case, and as a judge she considers each case on the merits.
  There is only one real explanation for Democrats' fixation on 
ObamaCare during the Supreme Court hearing. They are trying to score 
political points, appeal to their far-left base before an election. It 
is shameful. It is a scare tactic.
  I hear scare tactics and false attacks on healthcare that frighten 
people. That is not the way we ought to be doing things. They never 
mentioned that Senate Republicans have voted now five times to protect 
people with preexisting conditions, including today on the bill that 
every one of those Democrats voted against with a targeted relief plan. 
There was a component in that to make sure that people with preexisting 
conditions were protected and that coronavirus is now listed as a 
preexisting condition. Every Democrat voted against adding coronavirus 
as a preexisting condition. Every Republican today voted in favor.
  So Democrats seem to be trying to make a standard confirmation 
process about anything other than the qualifications of an 
exceptionally qualified nominee.
  The Presiding Officer has seen this, and we have talked about this. 
These attacks began before her nomination was even announced. She was 
criticized for being a mom, criticized for having seven children, and 
criticized for going to church--criticized for going to church. There 
are Democratic candidates now running for the U.S. Senate criticizing 
her religion or faith in God. Astonishing.
  The delay tactics and the defamation has continued. We have seen this 
before. The American people saw through the Democrats' disturbing 
attacks on Brett Kavanaugh 2 years ago. Americans rejected the cheap 
character assassination. They rejected the low road, and now Democrats 
are leaving open the possibility--and I hear this from Members of this 
body--Members of this body, as well as candidates for the U.S. Senate. 
They are leaving open the possibility that if they win the election, if 
they take the White House, if they take the Senate, of expanding the 
size of the U.S. Supreme Court--expanding the size from 9 to 11 or 13. 
They haven't decided yet.
  The Presidential candidate won't even announce what his thoughts are 
on it. He won't say. He won't tell the American people. Oh, wait until 
after the election is over. It is just like it was with ObamaCare, 
first you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it.
  The size of the Supreme Court has been nine for 150 years--since 
1869. Ruth Bader Ginsburg said nine is the right number. She said to go 
beyond that would be politicizing it. But that is what we see happening 
today with the sorts of threats that we see coming from the other side 
of the aisle.
  What do the American people think about that? Well, the New York 
Times poll this week--58 percent of voters said they are against adding 
additional members to the Supreme Court. How many favored? Just 31 
percent, but they are the liberal activist base of the Democratic 
Party. That is who they are. Those are the ones who want to call the 
tune if they have Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and Chuck 
Schumer as majority leader and Joe Biden in the White House.
  That is why Joe Biden won't tell the American people what he plans to 
do.
  Let me just get through that Americans can rest assured that 
Republicans in the Senate are committed to this nominee. Just as the 
Senator from Georgia has just said and as I have said and others have 
said, Republicans in this body are committed to this nominee. We will 
confirm this exceptional Justice regardless of the delay tactics, 
regardless of the seek-and-destroy mission the Democrats have launched. 
We are going to confirm this exceptional Justice to uphold the law as 
written.
  The Senate will vote, and the Senate will confirm Judge Amy Coney 
Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.
  With that, I yield the floor
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Georgia for 
yielding to a question. It was not that

[[Page S6369]]

long ago that we actually had conversations and debate on the floor of 
the Senate, and now when we are even in debate on bills, we don't have 
dialogue back and forth. So I appreciate the Senator attempting to 
answer my question about precedent.
  Let's be clear. This is a precedent-shattering event. This is not 
consistent with the history of the United States.
  In fact, we have seen a situation where never in our history has any 
President asked for a debate and vote during an election. So that 
shatters a precedent. Never before in our history have we had a 
majority leader agree to hold a debate and a vote during an election. 
So that shatters a precedent.
  Then there is the President Lincoln precedent in which he 
deliberately said: We are not going to violate the sanctity of a vote. 
I don't want you to debate and vote during an election.
  Now, Lincoln happened to be a Republican President, but he cared 
about the institution. He cared about the Constitution. He cared about 
the voice of the American people, and so he said the two shouldn't 
exist together.
  Then, of course, there is the McConnell precedent from 4 years ago, 
in which McConnell came to the floor and was supported by his caucus 
and said there should never ever be a debate or a vote of a nominee 
during an election year.
  Now, my colleague from Wyoming just noted, well, he has a new theory 
about split government and unified government. Well, that theory wasn't 
here on the floor 4 years ago. That wasn't part of the McConnell 
precedent. That is called an after-the-fact justification of an 
inconsistent position.
  In fact, so many colleagues across the aisle came to the floor and 
said: I have this deep and passionate conviction that I want to defend 
the Constitution. There should never be a debate on a Supreme Court 
Justice during an election year. And now every single one of them 
coming before us is saying: Well, you know that deep passionate 
conviction I had 4 years ago? It was a convenience of political power 
to make that argument because what I was really saying is, we, as 
Republicans, don't want to debate a nominee from a Democratic 
President. We only want to debate a nominee from a Republican 
President.
  Well, I am shocked really by the complete lack of integrity. I am 
shocked that arguments are being put forward that were never raised on 
the floor 4 years ago about split government as some justification. I 
guess I am not so shocked about the power grab involved because it 
began some 40 years ago when a group of very wealthy, very White people 
got together and said: We don't like this vision of government of, by, 
and for the people, because, you know, the people kind of like things 
we don't want. We want to rig the tax system so we pay very little. We 
want to get those tax deductions and those tax subsidies. We want to 
make sure that people of communities of color don't vote. We want to be 
able to suppress the vote. How do we do that?
  Well, you know, the problem is that people who are elected get 
elected by the people, and we might be able to influence those 
campaigns some of the time, but, you know what? There is one 
institution not subject to the vote of the people--the Court. If we can 
corrupt the Court, we, this very small group of White, wealthy power 
brokers in America can control this country and install government by 
and for the powerful, rather than our constitutional vision of 
government by and for the people. So this is a norm-shattering, 
precedent-shattering situation.
  There have only been two real objectives by the leadership of this 
body over the last 4 years. One was a $2 trillion tax cut--$2 trillion 
with a ``t''--with virtually all the benefits going to the richest 
Americans. You know, if a thief grabs an orange off a stand, they might 
go to prison for 6 months or a loaf of bread, maybe they will get a 
couple years. But through this bill, $2 trillion from the American 
Treasury was given to the richest, most powerful Americans. Well, that 
is certainly not government by and for the people. That was one 
objective.
  The other objective was to dismantle healthcare for ordinary 
Americans who aren't rich and powerful. Let's tear down the ACA. Well, 
in my State, 400,000 Oregonians proceeded to gain healthcare through 
the expansion of Medicaid and the ACA, and since March, add another 
120,000 to that list--120,000 more. Why? Because they are losing their 
jobs. They are losing their jobs in this economic implosion caused by 
the failure to address the pandemic.
  The people in Oregon--I go to every county every year. I have a 
townhall in every county, and most of my counties are deep red--as red 
as anywhere you will find in the country.
  And do you know what? People say: Healthcare bill of rights, thank 
God for that. What are they talking about? Children can be on their 
policy until age 26. They think that is a step forward. I know because 
I have been out there every year, and I ask them: Children on your 
policy until age 26, how many people here like it? These are very, very 
Republican and very, very conservative rural areas. No, we like that.
  Tax credits so lower income families can afford to buy health 
insurance on the marketplace? Oh, no, we like that.
  Having a marketplace where you can compare policies, one to the 
other? Oh, no, no, we like that.
  Having preventive conditions covered because an ounce of prevention 
is worth a pound of cure? Oh, yes, we think that is a step forward. 
That is in these conservative, red districts.
  And the expansion of Medicaid? A lifesaver.
  Do you know what happens at these rural townhalls? People who are at 
the local healthcare clinics stand up and say: You know, we doubled the 
size of our healthcare clinic because now our very low-income 
constituents can pay the bill, so we have been able to hire more 
people. We have a substance addiction program now that we didn't have 
before. We have a mental health program we didn't have before. Don't 
take that away from us. We really love our rural healthcare clinic. We 
love the investment in rural clinics that the ACA made. That list goes 
on and on.
  My colleague from Wyoming said that there is this whole scare tactic 
about healthcare. Yes, people are scared, not because we are saying 
they are scared but because they are calling our offices and saying: We 
are worried.
  They are saying they are worried because they heard the President of 
the United States say: I am only going to nominate a person who will 
tear down the ACA and will strike down Roe v. Wade. Don't you trust the 
word of the President of the United States to do what he said? He said 
it repeatedly. He said that was his goal.
  And he said to the Federalist Society: Go get me nominees who can 
complete my goals. The Federalist Society has been at work now for four 
decades to bias the courts for the wealthy and powerful. That is what 
they are all about. It is about preventing people of color from voting. 
Now it has expanded to college students. Now it has expanded to Native 
American reservations. Now it has expanded to poor communities.
  Oh, we see the manipulation being planned on election day because now 
there is a Court that by 5 to 4 gutted the Voting Rights Act and allows 
voter intimidation in this country and allows voter suppression. So we 
see the efforts. You decrease the number of polling places where you 
don't want people to vote. You move them so people aren't sure where to 
go. You understaff them so there are long lines in blue districts and 
short lines in red districts. You stick machines in there that don't 
work so well. Maybe that will slow things down. You put out messages 
saying ``Thank you for voting last week'' to confuse people when the 
vote is actually coming up next week. You say: Oh, by the way, you can 
use any State ID to vote, but you can't use a college ID. This is 
because they don't want college students to vote.
  You know, I am proud of the Constitution of the United States. I am 
proud of the vision of voter empowerment, citizen engagement, and 
participation as a foundation for what we do in this country. But I 
have really been stunned by the scope of those in this Chamber who 
believe in voter suppression and intimidation. I am stunned that they 
don't share the view of a government of, by, and for the people because 
that is the oath of office we took. It was to our Constitution.
  I am also stunned that it has been 5 months since the Heroes Act was

[[Page S6370]]

passed in the House, and this body has sat on its hands for 5 months--
for 5 months--and now the leader of this body says: Mr. President, 
don't negotiate with Speaker Pelosi. We don't want to vote on a bill 
that will really help America. You have the Treasury Secretary and the 
Speaker ready to reach a deal, and the leader of this body is saying: 
Don't do it. For 5 months, don't do it.
  I always think of the phrase you hear growing up: Rome burned while 
Nero fiddled. Well, America suffers while the Senate slumbers under the 
leadership that says: No vote on a comprehensive package to help both 
the healthcare pandemic and the economic implosion that is associated 
with it.
  There are 220,000-plus Americans who lie in the grave because 
President Trump refused to have a national strategy on personal 
protective equipment, because President Trump refused to have a 
national strategy on testing, because President Trump refused to have a 
national strategy on contact tracing, and because President Trump 
decided to try to continue the polarization of America over the use of 
masks and social distancing rather than bringing America together to 
fight this.
  Now, some say: You know, couldn't America do just as well as Canada? 
Couldn't we do just as well as our neighbor to the north? Don't we have 
more resources than they have? Don't we have more research institutions 
than they have? Can't we do just as well as the Canadians?

  Well, if we had done as well as the Canadians, 135,000 fewer 
Americans would have died if we had the same deaths per capita as the 
Canadians. There are 135,000 deaths lying at the doorstep of the Oval 
Office and this Chamber, sitting on its hands for the last 5 months--
not investing in testing and tracing, not insisting we have an 
aggressive strategy from the very start, and working in partnership 
with the incompetence of the President to make the pandemic so much 
worse for America. There are so many more people infected, so many more 
people dead, and so many people damaged for a lifetime by the 
experience of being sick with coronavirus and then having lasting side 
effects.
  And what else? Country after country is putting their economy back 
together because they don't have coronavirus in any significant numbers 
anymore--Taiwan and South Korea. But as long as you have this pandemic, 
you damage the economy. So not only have people died and people 
suffered with the illness and not only will they carry consequences 
forward, but the number of people who have lost their jobs--that is a 
big deal.
  Just last week, we saw the highest jump in jobless claims since 
August with about 900,000 Americans filing for unemployment. I live in 
a blue-collar community. I grew up in a blue-collar community. My dad 
was a mechanic. I went to the public schools. My kids went to the same 
public schools. I can tell you that those lost jobs affect those who 
have the least resources to tide them over.
  Back in April, 40 percent of the people who earned $40,000 or less 
lost a job. That was in April. So there is a lot of suffering going on 
economically, as well as in healthcare. We need to do everything in our 
power to help those families weather this storm--not sit on our hands 
for 5 months and not talk about the emaciated package that was put on 
the floor, one that is cutting to a fraction the previous Republican 
package, which was pretty darn skinny.
  We have a responsibility to address unemployment insurance that has 
tied hard-working blue-collar Americans through. I know that for many 
of my colleagues, all they want is to rebuild the economy from the rich 
down--from Wall Street down. But do you know what? That just increases 
the wealth and income inequality. Do you know how effective those extra 
unemployment checks were in keeping people working and buying products 
because then other companies were employed and they could pay their 
mortgages, they could pay their utilities, they could pay their rent, 
they could buy their groceries, and keep the economy moving?
  But the extension of that has been blocked by the leadership of this 
body. The leadership of this body, the majority party, has refused to 
invest in that national strategy of testing and tracing, which is 
essential in every country that has gotten ahead of the coronavirus. 
They are restoring their economies. They are supercharging their 
economies because the disease is out of the way. They invested in 
testing and tracing, but the leadership of this Chamber has ensured the 
pandemic gets worse and afflicted our economy in the process.
  It may not matter to rich folks across this country who have seen 
their S&P 500 index go through the roof. Why is it going through the 
roof? Because those companies are replacing the products produced by 
small business across America. Hundreds of thousands of small 
businesses have been ravaged and destroyed by this lost economy. OK, 
the S&P 500 is doing fine; your stock portfolio is doing fine. But 
Americans--ordinary Americans are not doing fine.
  The majority in this Chamber did not want to increase the Medicaid 
matching rate to strengthen healthcare across this country. Why is it 
so important? Because the States have lost so many revenues during this 
downturn, and in the process, people losing their jobs lose their 
employer-based health insurance and, therefore, need to qualify for 
Medicaid. On and on, one issue after another--it is an issue of basic 
decency and of basic humanity to address the challenges Americans are 
faced with because of the incompetence of the President's efforts to 
address the pandemic, and it has produced, therefore, an economy that 
is just a shambles.
  One of the things that ordinary families face is having their 
utilities cut off. We know how essential it is to have water, to have 
electricity, and to have broadband to get through this. This whole 
crisis has shined a light on the importance of broadband. That 
broadband is necessary to apply for employment. That broadband is 
necessary for the school children to go to class. That broadband is 
necessary for the college students to go to class. That broadband is 
necessary for every family to stay in contact with their friends and 
family. That broadband is necessary to follow the national news. It is 
at the heart of the communications of America, so cutting it off is 
unacceptable.

  Turning off the electricity is unacceptable. You can't have a 
computer or broadband if electricity is turned off. You can't have 
light and heat as winter approaches if it is turned off. Water is 
essential to health. You can't have basic sanitation if you don't have 
access to water.
  So let's make sure we protect ordinary families. Let's make sure they 
have the electricity, they have the water, and they have the broadband. 
Let's not let American families be put at such risk.
  Now, yes, there are States and cities that have taken action and 
produced such moratoriums, but aren't we all America together? Instead 
of a patchwork of neighborhoods that got some help and protection and 
ones that didn't, why don't we stand together as Americans and protect 
the utilities? That is what we should be doing right now with a robust 
bill--a robust bill to address the pandemic and to address the economic 
implosion.
  So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous 
consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further 
consideration of S. 4362 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered and 
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 North Dakota.
  Mr. CRAMER. Reserving the right to object, I served as an economic 
regulator of utilities for nearly 10 years before coming to Congress. 
This idea of a moratorium--a national moratorium--violates all kinds of 
things, not the least of which, by the way, seems to me to be, at the 
very least, the spirit, if not the literal Constitution that my 
colleague from Oregon says he is so proud of.
  Remember, the States created the Federal Government, not the other 
way around. As a State regulator of natural gas and electric utilities, 
I saw

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from time to time the attempted overreach of the Federal Government to 
mandate things. It violates the principles of the Constitution, and it 
violates, really, the best practices of States' rights, of communities' 
rights, of rural electric's rights because it assumes that somehow we 
here in these Chambers know better than the utility regulators who are 
appointed by Governors--the ones who are elected, like I was--the 
municipalities that set the rates for water and sewer; that somehow we 
are better equipped to make the decisions for a local utility and, yes, 
their consumers; that somehow we are better at doing that. It makes no 
sense. In fact, it would be very harmful to the very consumers the 
Senator from Oregon says he wants to look out for.
  Let's just take some examples. Utilities are not capitalized to 
provide services for free. That is what this bill would do. And guess 
what happens to a regulated utility, an investor-owned utility, when 
something like this happens, when the Federal Government throws a 
wrench into their local rate structure. Well, somebody eventually has 
to pay for that. And guess how the money is raised to pay for the 
moratorium? The rates go up. They have to. That is how rate structure 
is designed.
  If you are a utility--let's say a rural electric cooperative or a 
rural telephone cooperative that is providing broadband--that is even 
better yet because it is actually the consumers who are the board of 
directors. It is the most direct experiment of self-governance that we 
have.
  So let's please leave the regulation to the locals and to the States. 
If there is a need for a moratorium or a design for some different 
structure, they can do it in concert with the consumers, the 
regulators, and, of course, the utilities in a way that does the least 
harm. That makes all the sense in the world.
  But here is, in my mind, the richest irony of this moment. The 
Senator from Oregon talked about the high unemployment rate, the large 
unemployment numbers. Just today we had the opportunity on this floor, 
when Republicans brought a bill that would have provided $300 a week of 
federally funded supplement to unemployment insurance benefits to those 
unemployed people--$300 a week--do you know how many utility bills that 
would have helped pay without disrupting the utilities' rate structure? 
Just today we had that moment, and the Senator from Oregon and every 
one of his Democratic colleagues voted against it--not for the first 
time, by the way, but for the second time. And here we are tonight 
coming up with a piecemeal solution when the more comprehensive one was 
rejected.
  So for those reasons and several others I could think of, but the 
hour is getting late, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Oregon
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, my colleague not only objected but laid 
out his thinking on the idea that has been adopted at local governments 
across the country, and he said it is unconstitutional. Of course he 
didn't bother to actually check to see if it was unconstitutional 
because, no, it is not. If it was, it would have been ended in all of 
those places at the State and local levels where it had been done. So 
much for that false argument.
  He brings in his experience as a regulator, but it might be helpful 
to actually check the lawbooks before making a spurious argument.
  Then he says: You know, a moratorium would hurt ordinary families.
  Well, try talking to an ordinary family. An ordinary family says: You 
know what, I lost my job because of the economic collapse. We have an 
economic collapse because of the failure to address coronavirus, and 
now you are telling me it is good for me if I lose my electricity and 
my water while I try to help my kids get through this year when they 
can't attend class or school and they have to do it at home. But you 
are OK having my electricity turned off.
  That is hardly helping the families get through this. I must say, it 
represents an awareness that is so distant from the experience of 
ordinary Americans as to confound the mind and really challenge the 
heart.
  My colleague notes that, my goodness, the utilities have expenses. 
Yes, which is exactly why I have proposed that we compensate those 
utilities for those expenses. So why don't we have this bill on the 
floor, and then we can actually have the arguments and get the facts 
out about it?
  My colleague said: I have these arguments--arguments I have just 
noted and disagree with, but at least we are having a debate, which is 
rare in this Chamber. So let's have this bill on the floor, and let's 
have everyone bring their experiences to bear, and let's open it to 
amendment.
  My colleague noted that there are piecemeal items that the majority 
leader brought forward because there is an election in a couple of 
weeks. He didn't say ``because there is an election in a couple of 
weeks,'' but that is why they were brought forward. That is my opinion. 
I would have been fine bringing those to the floor if they were open to 
amendment, but, no, they were a political stunt. It is, here is our 
version we want to vote on so we can do a campaign commercial, but we 
are not going to let there actually be a debate, a possible amendment. 
The Senate might actually legislate? We haven't done that in years. Why 
would we start now? Because that is the vision of our Constitution, 
that there actually be debates on this floor; that we actually allow 
relevant amendments to have a majority vote and be considered so that 
the collective interaction of Members can produce a better outcome for 
America. By voting on those amendments, we can be accountable to the 
people of the United States of America.
  So bring back the bill and guarantee that it will get amendments by 
simple majority, and let's have a real debate because we owe it to the 
American people.
  Let's bring the Heroes Act to the floor--the one that has been 
trapped for 5 months. Amend the hell out of it if you want, but at 
least you are taking votes to be accountable to the people of the 
United States of America. At least we are having a debate--a debate--in 
front of Americans about what works and what doesn't. We need more of 
that in this Chamber. We need a bipartisan consensus that will restore 
the ability of Senators to amend.
  It is not that long ago that in this Chamber, amendments were common 
and blockades were rare. That was a functioning legislative body. That 
benefits every single Member. I can't tell you how many Members on both 
sides of the aisle say that we need to restore the vision of a 
functioning legislative body.
  I want to do amendments. Let's restore that vision. Let's work 
together to restore that vision for the betterment of this Chamber but 
certainly for the betterment of America. And one idea that should be 
considered is protecting Americans from having their utilities cut off 
until we are on the far side of this crisis.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). The Senator from Wyoming

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