[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 181 (Thursday, October 22, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S6388]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Madam President, the last point I want to make--and I know we have a 
vote in a few minutes--is this: If you ask the American people ``What 
is the business of the Senate for the next 5 days?'' I don't think 
anyone, if they follow it closely, would ever guess the business that 
we are about.
  We live in a country now where 222,000 people have died from this 
COVID-19 pandemic--222,000. Eight million have been affected. A country 
that represents 4.5 percent of the world's population, the United 
States counts for 20 percent of all the COVID-19 deaths in the world. 
Sadly, it is getting worse before it gets better.
  In the State of Illinois, the Governor announced yesterday that 
because of the increased incidence of infection from COVID-19 in the 
four major counties surrounding the city of Chicago, we have to close 
down restaurants and other establishments. It is heartbreaking. I know 
what it means to these business owners. But it is also heartbreaking to 
read the numbers day in and day out of what this COVID-19 virus is 
doing in America--not just to the poor hapless souls who are infected 
and some dying but to the economy of this country.
  Wouldn't you think that would be the focus of business on the floor 
of the U.S. Senate? Wouldn't you think that the Senate majority leader, 
Senator McConnell from Kentucky, who controls the business of the 
floor, would make that job one for all of us and stick together on a 
bipartisan basis to come up with an agreement before we did anything 
else? Well if you guessed that, you are wrong, because for the next 5 
days, we will be consumed with filling one Supreme Court vacancy. He is 
determined to fill that vacancy at any cost, including ignoring the 
major issue of our time, the major issue of the moment--the pandemic, 
which affects this country so gravely.
  We have lost 222,000 souls, sadly, in America, and it is estimated 
that it may reach half a million by January 1. What a heartbreak. And 
we are here spending 5 straight days not dealing with COVID-19 relief, 
not providing the testing that is needed, not providing unemployment 
benefits to those who lost jobs, not providing help to small 
businesses--no. We are focused on one nomination for one vacancy in the 
Supreme Court. As important as that may be in the ordinary scheme of 
things, we are not in the ordinary scheme of things. We are dealing 
with an extraordinary pandemic, which is causing grave damage to this 
country, to its families, and to our economy. The President may not 
take it seriously. Obviously the Senate Republicans don't take it 
seriously. If they did, they would be engaged.
  I cannot explain or even imagine how he explains why Senator 
McConnell refuses to sit down for the negotiations for COVID-19 relief. 
That is right. They have had negotiations that have involved Senator 
Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, and the 
President's Chief of Staff, and Senator McConnell refuses to attend 
those negotiations where they are trying to come up with a bipartisan 
measure to help us through this crisis. All he does is offer throwaway 
votes on the floor, take-it-or-leave-it votes on the floor that don't 
have any bipartisan route to them. They come to us because he wants to 
have a symbolic rollcall--a symbolic rollcall--for his Members to take 
home and say: Well, I tried.
  No, you didn't try.
  If for 5 straight days we do nothing about COVID-19 and focus 
exclusively on this nominee, how in the world will any Senator explain 
that was the American priority of the moment? It is not. The American 
priority of the moment is not this vacancy on the Supreme Court; it is 
the fact that there are vacancies in homes across America from 222,000 
deaths in this country, and they continue apace every single day.
  We ought to be coming together on a bipartisan basis. The person who 
should be leading us in the Senate is the Senate Republican leader. He 
does not, and as a consequence, we waste our moments here when they 
should be spent helping America with its highest priority.
  I yield the floor.

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