[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 183 (Saturday, October 24, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6432-S6437]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Senate will soon vote on the 
confirmation of Judge Barrett to become Associate Justice of the U.S. 
Supreme Court. I will be voting in favor of her nomination, and I urge 
my colleagues to do just the same.
  As was made clear to millions of Americans who watched her hearing, 
Judge Barrett has the temperament, the modesty, and the humility that 
we should all expect in a judge. She approaches cases without bias or 
personal agenda. She made that very clear to almost every question 
asked to her by every member of the Judiciary Committee.
  Most importantly, Judge Barrett understands the proper role of 
members of the Judiciary and our constitutional system of separated 
powers. That is, a judge should interpret--not make--the law. Making 
law is, under the Constitution, the responsibility of the Congress, not 
the Supreme Court. She also made that very clear in almost every 
question that she was asked by members of the Judiciary Committee.
  Judge Barrett has an impressive command and, of course, the respect 
for the law and the Constitution. Clearly, from her testimony, she 
respects precedent, and she practices judicial restraint. In her words: 
``A judge who approaches a case as an opportunity for an exercise of 
will has . . . betrayed her judicial duty.''
  She went on to explain to the committee her legal method, how she 
considers statutes and the Constitution and how she interprets and 
applies the statutes and the Constitution. Her judicial method is 
rigorous and exacting but fair. She testified that she would listen to 
both sides in every case. She said: ``We want judges to approach cases 
thoughtfully and with an open mind.''
  When pressed on how she might rule in a particular case, Judge 
Barrett promptly applied what we all know as the Ginsburg rule, and she 
did it just like every other recent nominee to the Supreme Court for 
the last 30 years when Ginsburg first told the Judiciary Committee that 
there would be no hints, no previews, or forecasts, and Judge Barrett 
demonstrated her independence by often repeating the Justice Ginsburg 
rule.
  I specifically asked Judge Barrett if she had made any promises or 
guarantees to anyone about how she might rule on a case. She responded 
this way to my question:

       The answer is no. . . . No one ever talked about any case 
     with me. . . . I can't make any pre-commitments to this body 
     either. It would be inconsistent with judicial independence.

  To quote further:

       I'm not willing to make a deal--not with the committee, not 
     with the president, not with anyone. I am independent.

  That quote or similar words were spoken by Judge Barrett to almost 
every suspicious Judiciary member about whom she might have made some 
deal ahead of time to get on the Supreme Court.
  Contrary to critics' claims about her being biased, Judge Barrett is 
evenhanded and has ruled for both plaintiffs and defendants in all 
kinds of cases. She believes in justice for all, in accordance with the 
law and the Constitution, just like we would expect everybody to say 
who is a lifetime appointee to the Judiciary, but we don't see all of 
them following that practice.
  She went on to tell the committee: ``I am fully committed to equal 
justice under the law for all persons.''
  When asked if she will follow the law wherever it leads, she said: 
``Yes.'' Then she said: ``I have an agenda to stick to the rule of law 
and decide cases as they come.'' Yet that wasn't good enough for our 
Democratic colleagues and their leftist allies.
  However, throughout the hearings, the Democrats and many in the media 
deliberately misrepresented Judge Barrett's views on the Affordable 
Care

[[Page S6433]]

Act. They claimed her critique of Chief Justice Roberts' reasoning in 
the 2012 ACA case will dictate how she will vote in some upcoming 
cases. They obviously didn't listen to her when she had no preconceived 
notions about any case and had made no promises to anybody.
  The Democrats even pushed the story line that Judge Barrett signaled 
to President Trump that she would support invalidating the ACA if she 
were confirmed to the Supreme Court. That is nonsense. Judge Barrett 
made it clear that she didn't have an agenda. She testified: ``I have 
no hostility to the ACA.''
  Legal scholars critique court decisions all the time even when they 
don't disagree with the outcome. For instance, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 
before her nomination, criticized the Court's reasoning in Roe v. Wade, 
but no one claimed that Ginsburg didn't support the outcome of Roe v. 
Wade.
  Judge Barrett's critique of Roberts' reasoning was shared by many 
legal commentators across the political spectrum, including by ones on 
the other side of the aisle. Even President Obama rejected the notion 
that the Affordable Care Act was a tax instead of a penalty. The 
question of its being a tax or a penalty and the constitutionality or 
the unconstitutionality of the ACA was what they were critiquing based 
on Roberts' decision to uphold the constitutionality of the ACA, for it 
could be constitutional under the taxing powers of the Congress. Even 
Roberts didn't pay any attention to that fact. We even had Democrats 
saying that the penalty for the individual mandate was a penalty and 
that it wasn't a tax. Moreover, Judge Barrett's critique of Justice 
Roberts' reasoning dealt with an interpretation or a provision that is 
no longer in effect because we did away with the individual mandate.
  The question before the Supreme Court this fall, then, will be 
entirely separate, and it is pointless to speculate. Yet the Democrats 
wasted much time on that type of speculation--question after question, 
Democrat after Democrat, on that side--when they were questioning her.
  Senate Democrats want to portray Judge Barrett as a threat to 
healthcare. They want to distract from the fact that they recently 
filibustered a COVID relief bill that would have protected preexisting 
conditions. This all is just a Democratic election year scare tactic, 
and they are using it almost totally as a reason to vote against Judge 
Barrett.
  It happens, though, that the voters aren't buying it, that the public 
is not buying it. A recent Politico poll shows a majority of Americans 
wants the Senate to confirm Judge Barrett, and a recent Huffington Post 
poll says: ``Voters favor the confirmation of the Supreme Court nominee 
Amy Coney Barrett by a 9-point margin.''
  She will be confirmed. That is what we are going to do on Sunday into 
Monday. Maybe our Democratic colleagues will finally show up for work, 
do their job, and give Judge Barrett an up-or-down vote on the merits 
because I think the public knows now, if it were listening in to the 
Judiciary Committee as it was voting her out, that the Democrats 
boycotted the committee's deliberation. Let's not forget that, just 4 
years ago, the same Senate Democrats declared that the Court needed 
nine to function properly. Judge Barrett is that ninth. Only 4 years 
later, they don't seem to think so.
  Judge Barrett is a jurist of honor, of integrity, and of great 
principle. The Judiciary Committee received a number of letters in 
support of her nomination. They all praised her intellect, her 
judgment, her collegiality, and her kindness. We all saw that kindness 
as she testified over a 3-day period of time.
  Judge Barrett won't be a politician on the Bench. She will make 
decisions as they should be decided--in an impartial manner and in 
accordance with the law and the Constitution. I am pleased to vote in 
favor of Judge Barrett's confirmation to be an Associate Justice of the 
Supreme Court, and I urge my colleagues to support her as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, that sounded really good.
  Senator Grassley knows, of course, she was a good witness. Of course, 
she didn't take positions. Of course, she said she made no promises. Of 
course, Judge Barrett said she was openminded. Cut through it all. I am 
not a lawyer, and I don't serve on the Judiciary Committee. I don't 
think Senator Grassley is a lawyer, but I am not really sure. Maybe he 
is. I might be mistaken, and I apologize if he is.
  Yet we all know why she was nominated. President Trump said why she 
was nominated. President Trump has been very explicit in saying that he 
wants a judge who will overturn the Affordable Care Act and that he 
wants her there quickly because the Affordable Care Act hearings begin 
soon after the election. He wants a judge who will undermine women's 
rights to make their own decisions about their own healthcare. He is 
putting her on because he knows she will oppose workers' rights. He is 
putting her on because he knows she will oppose marriage equality. He 
also wants her on quickly because he said: I want her there when the 
election is contested after the election.
  So, of course, Senator McConnell always does the bidding. Senator 
McConnell comes out of his office. I assume he gets many of his 
marching orders from the President of the United States. He comes down 
here, and 51 spineless Senators--and then there is the Senator sitting 
in the Presiding Officer's chair, and I appreciate his courage--do 
whatever the President tells McConnell to tell them on issue after 
issue after issue. I mean, that is the way this place works. That is 
the corruption of this place. The President of the United States has 
said: I want her confirmed now because I want her there to decide the 
election that I am going to be involved in, and I want her there now so 
she can overturn the Affordable Care Act.
  Of course, Judge Barrett said to the committee: Well, I have made no 
promises. I have made no commitments. I have not cut deals with 
anybody. Of course, she says that, but the fact is that this is why the 
President nominated her. We know that.
  As a result, in my State, I know what the Affordable Care Act has 
done for the last decade. There are 900,000 people who have insurance 
who didn't have insurance before the Affordable Care Act. More than 
100,000 people under the age of 26 have been able to get health 
insurance because they have been able to stay on their parents' 
healthcare plans. There are a million seniors in Ohio who have gotten 
free preventive care--screenings for osteoporosis, physicals. More than 
100,000 Ohio seniors have saved an average of $1,100 on their 
prescription drugs because of the Affordable Care Act. Maybe, most 
importantly, 5 million Ohioans have preexisting conditions. This was 
before the coronavirus. Now that number is higher. There are 5 million 
Ohioans who have had their preexisting conditions covered over the last 
decade. Why? Because of the Affordable Care Act, those people with 
preexisting conditions have been protected. Insurance companies can't 
raise their rates because of preexisting conditions, and they can't 
cancel their insurance because of their preexisting conditions. Those 
will be gone. The protections for preexisting conditions will be gone 
if the Affordable Care Act is gone. Protections for people under 26--
their staying on their parents' plans--will be gone if the Affordable 
Care Act is overturned by the Supreme Court.
  Now, they couldn't do it democratically. They couldn't do it because 
the citizens of this country didn't want it repealed. So President 
Trump has gone to the courts to legislate so they can overturn it. We 
know all of that.
  That is why the comments of my friend from Iowa are just 
disingenuous. He knows that. Of course, she didn't sit in front of the 
committee and say: Yes, I made a deal. Of course, she didn't sit in 
front of those on the committee and say: I have strong feelings about 
the Affordable Care Act and gay rights and women's health. She is not 
going to say that. I am not a lawyer, but I know enough to know that 
she is not going to go to the committee and say that.
  We know what it is about. It is about repealing the Affordable Care 
Act. It is about taking rights away from LGBTQ citizens in this 
country. It is about taking rights away from women. Maybe it is also 
about fixing the election. Deep down, the President and Senator 
McConnell know they are not

[[Page S6434]]

going to win the election this year, so they want that ninth vote in 
the Court just in case the President brings a lawsuit. If it ends up in 
the Supreme Court, he and the Republicans will have appointed six of 
the nine Justices. That is the game in town. That is what we know is 
rigged.
  So many millions of Americans are frustrated and angry with the way 
the President has failed the country during this pandemic. We know we 
have 4 percent of the world's population but that 22 percent of the 
deaths in the world are of Americans. It is not because we don't have 
good doctors in Utah or in Wisconsin or in Ohio; it is because of 
terrible Presidential leadership.
  President Trump and Senator McConnell have essentially left the 
country to fend for itself during this pandemic. The stock market is 
up, so Trump and McConnell seem to think everything is fine. The stock 
market is up. What the heck? They are oblivious to the families staring 
at stacks of bills. They are oblivious to the small businesses that are 
watching years and, in some cases, often decades of hard work and 
investment--or they are family businesses going back many, many 
decades--evaporate in a few short minutes, but the stock market is up, 
so Trump and McConnell seem to think everything is fine.
  It is the same story over and over again. Corporate lobbyists, their 
allies in Washington do whatever it takes to make sure Wall Street 
recovers, and then they say: Oh, no, we really can't afford to help 
anyone else.
  I hear from small, family-owned businesses all the time, how they are 
struggling. They are under incredible stress. They are worried about 
whether they can make rent or make payroll. They have waited on the 
phone for hours and couldn't get answers about loans. These folks 
aren't lounging in a C-suite corner office. They don't have high-priced 
lawyers and accountants who can do all the paperwork. They don't have 
the lobbyists who line up outside Mitch McConnell's office helping 
them. They are fighting for their dreams.
  We know why they are struggling. We know why some of them still can't 
open their doors 7 months--7 months--into this crisis because the 
President and this Senate have so botched this crisis.
  Again, 4 percent of the world's population, 22 percent of the world's 
deaths, and the President said: I take no responsibility. The President 
said: Not my fault. The President said: I get a 10 out of 10 for how I 
have managed this.
  President Trump has no plan, never has, to control the virus. He has 
not even tried. Imagine if President Trump, back in March, instead of 
lying to the American people--he knew how serious it was. He told his 
Wall Street friends, and he told that reporter from the Post. I can't 
remember his name. He told them it was serious, but he didn't tell the 
American people. He lied to us.
  Imagine, instead, if the President had worn a mask and stood up and 
treated us like adults and said to the American public: You know, this 
is really serious. This could turn from an epidemic into a pandemic. We 
have to fight back. I am wearing a mask. I ask every American to wear a 
mask, just like we ask people to wear seat belts and stop at stop 
signs. I want every American to wear a mask. I want people to socially 
distance so we can get this--but he didn't do any of that. Of course he 
didn't do any of that.
  And he also came up with no national testing, contact tracing 
strategy. He didn't invoke the Defense Production Act so that we could 
make cotton swabs and gloves and masks and gowns and all the things we 
needed to do to stay safe. He had none of that.
  He has no guidance on how businesses are supposed to protect their 
customers, no investment of our vast resources to help them do it.
  And we see the results. We saw them in April and May, in June and 
July, in August, in September, and now October. In fact, in my State, 
as in many States, there are more coronavirus diagnoses every day--
almost every day--than there were a month ago, 2 months ago, 6 months 
ago.
  Local restaurants are closed for good. The big chains may recover. 
Communities that already didn't get a lot of investment--Brown and 
Black neighborhoods, rural communities, places you can't see from Trump 
Tower--those places are seeing their homegrown businesses shut their 
doors and lay off workers.
  Black-owned businesses have closed at twice the rate of White-owned 
businesses. We know Latino- and Asian-owned businesses are getting 
disproportionately hurt.
  Our office hears from so many of these Ohio businesses. We have done 
a series of virtual roundtables with Ohio restaurants.
  One Ohioan in Zanesville talked about taking over the family business 
his dad first started 67 years ago. Business is down significantly. He 
tries to pay his employees a living wage and give them time off for 
vacations and family needs. He is a really good employer. He is afraid 
of letting his employees down.
  Another, a bar owner in Bellefontaine, told us his sales are down and 
he is worried about his own businesses. When he wrote to me, he didn't 
just talk about himself. He said that he is worried about the ripple 
effects on the farmers and suppliers, the truckdrivers, and so many 
others.
  Now he is dreading the winter, when he won't even be able to use the 
patio. He wonders what he is going to do, what the suppliers are going 
to do.
  And it is not just restaurants. The media reported on a newsstand in 
downtown Cleveland, owned by Mr. Patel, an Indian immigrant who came to 
Ohio and has lived the American Dream. He built a better life, started 
his own business, was employing other Clevelanders. Now the office 
building is empty. The food court is closed. His sales have dropped 
from $700 a day to just $200 a day. He is looking at impossible choices 
unless the government helps.
  We know we can. We did it in the spring when we passed payroll 
protection. There were all kinds of implementation problems. The 
Secretary of the Treasury and the President seemed more interested in 
the big guys than the little guys. Too many businesses went to the 
front of the line, but despite all that, we hear from businesses that 
are open today only because of PPP.
  I heard from Spangler Candy in Bryan, OH, a family-owned union 
company. I have toured their plant and seen the great work this, I 
believe, fourth generation management team has done.
  They have seen business drop 70 percent. They had to take their first 
Federal support in their 114-year history, using PPP to prevent 
layoffs. They kept their doors open, and they provided pandemic premium 
pay for their Teamster employees.
  A music and arts venue in Youngstown, the Westside Bowl, talked at 
one roundtable about how they how had zero dollars in revenue in the 
past 6 months. PPP kept their office staff and stagehands on payroll, 
but as it runs out, so will their ability to pay employees.
  Ohio Star Forge, a parts manufacturer in Warren, just north of 
Youngstown, represented by the Steelworkers, lost 90 percent of their 
business when auto plants shut down. PPP made a difference. They are 
now back to about 70 percent of their capacity.
  Polter's Berry Farm is a family farm in Fremont. One of their crops 
is pumpkins. The major pumpkin buyers are amusement parks and fall 
festivals. Pumpkin sales were down. PPP was helpful, but now they are 
worried about whether they can repay it.
  A+ Cleaners in Dayton has seen demand plummet. People don't need much 
dry cleaning when they are working from home. They were able to stay 
open with an EIDL loan and a CARES Act grant from the county. They are 
terrified of what happens when the money runs out.
  We have a bill to get more help to these businesses--the Small 
Business Lifeline Act. It would extend PPP through at least next 
spring. It would get more funding to the program so they can get more 
money out the door to these businesses. It would specifically target 
help to the truly small businesses that need it the most, including 
minority-owned businesses. It would extend the debt relief program. It 
would get help to nonprofits that we know are hurting just like 
businesses are.

  As important as these steps are, we can't just give businesses loans 
and think that will take care of it when the

[[Page S6435]]

virus is still raging and the customers don't have jobs.
  That is why we need a comprehensive bill that actually meets the 
magnitude of this crisis. This visceral, decades-long opposition from 
my colleagues to unemployment insurance--I don't know how they don't 
realize that when 600,000 Ohioans are getting $600 a week, they are 
spending that money at local businesses. They are keeping the economy 
going from just a total crevasse. They are helping the economy. They 
are helping local businesses. They are giving those businesses revenue, 
but when the $600 just stops, not only are those 600,000 Ohioans' lives 
just so, so difficult, but it makes the businesses of which they are 
patrons, the businesses that they patronize--it obviously hurts them at 
their bottom line.
  I think the stories from these businesses really get to the 
fundamental question of what sort of country we want to live in. When 
we invest in small business, we invest in people and communities, not 
stock buybacks, not executive bonuses.
  I know that Senator McConnell and his colleagues here always are 
looking out for the stock market, always are looking out for Wall 
Street, always want to hear about stock buybacks and executive bonuses. 
I know that is their thing. But during a pandemic, I wish it were less 
their thing.
  The stakeholders in these businesses are not nameless, faceless 
shareholders. They are the owners' neighbors. They are family members. 
They are the people we see or used to see at our kids' schools, in the 
grocery store, and at church.
  A year from now, do we want to be left with only the biggest 
companies that follow the Wall Street business model that treats 
workers as expendable?
  Ohioans know all too well what happens when you let Wall Street run 
things and you ignore Main Street. Our communities have watched for 
decades as factories closed and investment dried up and storefronts 
were boarded over in towns and cities that once were thriving.
  When people in those towns wake up, they realize the only jobs you 
can get are at a big-box chain for rock-bottom wages with no 
healthcare, no paid sick leave, no power over your schedule. Is that 
what we want for our future?
  We have the resources to fix this. We are the greatest, richest 
country in the world. Let's rise to meet the moment. Let's pass a 
comprehensive bill that gets help to our businesses, our workers, and 
their customers. And let's get the communities the support they need.
  Mr. President, in order to proceed to the consideration of H.R. 986, 
the Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act, which the 
House passed with bipartisan support, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senate proceed to legislative business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, where do 
you begin? That was quite the statement.
  At some point in time, it just becomes galling to listen to the 
tactics--the scare tactics and false allegations, particularly from the 
other side that gave us the Affordable Care Act, an Orwellian-named 
bill if there ever were one.
  One of the promises made to promote that bill was, in the end, 
determined to be the PolitiFact Lie of the Year--I think in the year 
2013: If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your plan. If you 
like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
  Millions of Americans lost their healthcare plans. They lost their 
doctors. Premiums didn't decline by $2,500 per family; they actually 
skyrocketed--sometimes two, three, four times the price because of the 
faulty design of healthcare, of the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare.
  Probably the greatest false allegation that is just offensive--and, 
by the way, to call every Member on this side spineless is offensive. 
We have different views. You know, you try to respect the different 
views if you actually want to accomplish something.
  But one of the greatest false allegations--and they go back to the 
well time and time and time and time again about this--is the 
Republicans don't want to protect the coverage for people with 
preexisting conditions. Nothing could be further from the truth.
  That was an argument made back in 2010, and the American people 
decided that we should do that. Republicans agreed with the American 
people that we wanted to protect everybody's coverage, covering people 
with preexisting conditions.
  We just want to do it where it doesn't cost Americans an arm and a 
leg. The faulty architecture of ObamaCare caused premiums to double, 
triple, and quadruple because they actually made a very small slice of 
the American public--5 to 7 percent of the people who had to buy 
coverage on the individual market, who don't have the employer coverage 
plans that cover people with preexisting conditions--they made that 
small percentage of the American public bear the full cost and brunt of 
covering people with preexisting conditions. It was not smart. It was a 
faulty design.
  The way you fix it is, yes, you require insurance carriers to cover 
people with preexisting conditions, not deny them coverage, but you 
spread that cost over everybody.
  Just as I mentioned earlier to the Democratic leader when I objected 
to his bill, our friends on the other side of the aisle are far more 
interested in an issue rather than getting a result.
  How do I know this? Well, particularly on this issue, covering people 
with preexisting conditions, four times in just the last few days and 
weeks, they have voted no, first on two COVID relief packages--the ones 
I was referring to earlier--the target package that does provide 
financial relief to the unemployed, to small businesses, to schools, to 
parents with childcare and provides funding for agriculture and testing 
and vaccines--that also included language to protect coverage for 
people with preexisting conditions.
  Twice in the last few days or weeks, they have also voted no on 
Senator Tillis's bill that does exactly that--protect the insurance 
coverage of people with preexisting conditions.
  Now, if they were really serious about protecting the coverage of 
people with preexisting conditions, they would have voted yes. But they 
voted no.
  So I could go on and on. I have jotted down all kinds of points that 
I would like to refute, but it is really not worth the time and effort.
  Again, let me emphasize that Republicans agreed with the American 
people. This debate is over. We have offered proposals to do just this. 
We want to protect the insurance coverage of every American with 
preexisting conditions. We just want to do it in a way that doesn't 
cost them an arm and a leg like ObamaCare did.
  So I personally am just getting sick of the false allegations, and 
that is only one of them. I could drone on and on about the false 
allegations made by the other side against Republicans and 
conservatives, but I will focus on this: This is a false charge. It is 
canard. It is a scare tactic. I am begging the American people not to 
listen to it or believe it. Republicans want to protect the insurance 
coverage of people with preexisting conditions. If they were serious 
about it, they would have voted yes on what we have already proposed; 
and for that and many other reasons, I object.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, before offering another unanimous consent, 
I just point out there were 10 years of protections for people with 
preexisting conditions under ObamaCare and 10 years of speeches from 
Republicans about repeal and replace, with no real proposal to replace 
the Affordable Care Act. The President has promised it about every 
couple of weeks through 4 years, and he still hasn't put a real bill 
forward.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 1230

  Mr. President, in order to proceed to the consideration of H.R. 1230, 
Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, which passed the 
House with bipartisan support, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 1759

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, in order to proceed to consideration of 
H.R.

[[Page S6436]]

1759, BRIDGE for Workers Act, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I guess I am not surprised about that, 
considering I hear my colleagues talk about how outrageous it is that 
we were spending $600 a week to help unemployed workers, and this 
bipartisan bill that passed the House would help workers to get 
retrained and get jobs, and they are not willing to do that either, but 
we also know that this is a bill that--we have seen this act before.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 3659

  Mr. President, in order to proceed to the consideration of H.R. 3659, 
Danny's Law, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 4029

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, in order to proceed to the consideration of 
H.R. 4029, Tribal Access to Homeless Assistance Act, I ask that the 
Senate proceed to legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 5084

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, in order to proceed to the consideration of 
H.R. 5084, Improving Corporate Governance Through Diversity Act, 
legislation to require corporations to disclose--just disclose the 
racial, ethnic, and gender composition of their boards, which again 
passed the House with bipartisan support, I ask unanimous consent that 
the Senate proceed to legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I will hold the floor for just another few 
moments.
  I have watched Senator McConnell--and I am sorry to call some of my 
colleagues spineless, Senator Johnson, but, you know, when the 
President made comments about our soldiers who had died in battle, I 
didn't hear hardly any Republicans speak up. I admire the courage of 
the Presiding Officer. I admire Senator Murkowski and her courage over 
a number of things. But I see my colleagues--I hear what you all think. 
I know what Senator Sasse said during that townhall. I know many of 
you, if not most of you, maybe all of you--probably not--think that 
about the President's lack of integrity and lack of character and 
dishonesty and the lies he tells. And I know, I have watched, and I sat 
right here and I looked across the aisle during impeachment and I saw 
the look of fear in my colleagues' eyes because they didn't want to 
cross the President; they didn't want to get the President to tweet 
about them or even get a primary opponent to them. That is why I use 
that term, but more importantly to the citizens of this country, we 
spent most of the last month after month after month after month, 
confirming very conservative, very young judges. I understand why you 
want to do that, but we are not doing anything for the public.
  We had a high moment in March when Senator Johnson said we 
unanimously approved the CARES Act. A study shows the CARES Act kept 12 
million Americans out of poverty. But then we ask to continue the CARES 
Act and do something similar like the Heroes Act, and instead Senator 
McConnell--and I know the lobbyists that line up in front of his door, 
I know they have a lot of influence on him, but we saw Senator 
McConnell say: no urgency, no urgency.
  My favorite Abraham Lincoln quote is Lincoln wanted to--his staff 
wanted him to stay in the White House and win the war and abolish 
slavery and protect the Union, and they wanted him to stay in the White 
House. And he said: No, I have to go out and get my public opinion 
baths. Are none of my colleagues hearing the pain of laid-off workers 
who have lost their unemployment?
  Haven't they seen schoolchildren--their parents saying: ``I want to 
send my kids back to school, but they are not safe'' because we aren't 
voting dollars to help?
  I talked to my daughter last night. Just a few days ago, they 
announced that instead of school opening in person in Columbus next 
week, it is going to open in January, if even then, because we are not 
helping schools open.
  We are not helping people avoid eviction. We are not helping local 
governments keep police and firemen on the streets and people who work 
in the parks and people who provide help for abused children and all 
the things that local governments do--we are doing none of that, but we 
have plenty of time to do judges. That is the frustration and why I 
made the comments I made
  It just breaks my heart that we all sit here. This is a group of 
pretty affluent and pretty privileged people. Yet we can't look out for 
people who are hurting like this country hasn't hurt for decades.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, this deserves a response.
  The pandemic is an act of God. Maybe--maybe--and we don't know. We 
don't know what complicity China had in--the chance that it was 
developed in a lab in this. We just don't know. But we certainly know 
that China controlled the spread in China while they allowed their 
citizens to go all over the world and spread the pandemic. It is an act 
of God. It is certainly nobody's fault in the United States.
  As chairman of Homeland Security, we have had before our committee 
the men and women in charge of these agencies who are trying to respond 
to an incredibly difficult situation.
  I never criticized President Obama or Vice President Biden during 
H1N1. It was a contagious disease, and 60 million Americans were 
infected by it. I am not sure there is anything you really can do to 
prevent infections.
  Now, I think we have actually been pretty successful in flattening 
the curve, people taking responsibility, becoming germophobes. We shut 
down our economy. Now, I never thought we should shut it down to the 
extent that we have because I have always tried to keep things in 
perspective, the human toll of the economic devastation of those 
shutdowns. But again, I find it galling when I know people like Pete 
Gaynor, General Giroir--the men and women--Dr. Birx, Dr. Hahn, the men 
and women in this administration who have been working 24/7 to respond 
as effectively as they can to an act of God, a pandemic.
  Now, I have been on the conference calls. This administration has 
been as transparent as any I have seen. To accuse this administration 
of hiding the truth--I don't know where you were during the early 
months of this, but I was watching the hour- and 2-hour-long press 
conferences where the truth was being laid out in all its gory detail. 
Any American who watched that that wasn't concerned about COVID, I 
don't know what they were looking at. There was no hiding the ball 
here. President Trump and his administration made it very obvious what 
was at stake.
  I am also aware of the fact that because of this act of God, because 
of this pandemic, there was an enormous demand for products that should 
have been in the national stockpile but wasn't there because the 
previous administration had run the stockpile down, and then we, all of 
us collectively, took our eye off the ball and didn't restore it. So 
the product just wasn't there. But I do know, in a very difficult 
situation, when demand outstrips supply by two or three times, the men 
and women in this administration, again, working tirelessly, allocated 
that PPE.
  I am not aware that anybody ran out. Now, I know that everybody 
didn't get everything they wanted because some tough decisions had to 
be made. We had to surge PPE product to those hotspots, and where the 
pandemic wasn't raging, people didn't get everything they needed

[[Page S6437]]

  I am not aware of anybody who wanted to get placed on a ventilator 
who didn't get one because they used the war production act. We did 
extraordinary things in terms of ramping up production. Now we are 
supplying ventilators to the world.
  You can overlook all these things, and you can say the administration 
wasn't honest with the American public, but I think the actual facts 
refute those charges.
  Maybe in other people's world there is perfection, and in this 
pandemic you can stop it in its tracks. You can prevent further 
infections. But that didn't happen with H1N1, even though they tried. 
Sixty-million Americans got it. Fortunately, it was not as deadly as 
the coronavirus and COVID-19.
  Again, among many things that are galling, the false allegations--to 
me, to politicize a pandemic, to politicize a virus that is killing 
Americans, to denigrate the efforts of the men and women in these 
agencies who have worked 24/7 is just simply wrong. This is not 
something that should divide us; that we should politicize. It is 
something that should unite us as prior crises in this country have. 
So, again, there are so many more other things I can say, but I see the 
Senator from Alaska is here, and I don't want to take any more time on 
the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BROWN. One last comment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. I just don't really understand what I just heard, when the 
President went straight to the American people and told them it was 
going to disappear. He said it was a Democratic, liberal hoax to bring 
down his campaign.
  But look at a little history. I wear on my lapel a picture of a 
canary in a birdcage. It was given to me at a workers' Memorial Day 
rally, a rally to honor workers who had been injured or killed on the 
job.
  This canary in the birdcage--you know, the mine workers used to take 
it down in the mines 120 years ago. If the canary died, the mine worker 
got out of the mine. He knew that he didn't have a union that was very 
strong or a government that cared very much. He was on his own. So I 
always cared a lot about public health. That is really the best 
prevention for the canary in the mine.
  I wrote a letter to President Trump in 2018, after he had closed the 
Office of Global Health Security in the White House and essentially 
fired or transferred Dr. Ziemer, a Bush appointee who was one of the 
world's great malaria doctors. His job--he had 40 people on his staff. 
His job was to surveil the world and look at potential disease 
outbreaks that might turn into an epidemic which then might evolve into 
a pandemic. That was his job. The President eliminated the office. And 
I wrote a letter to the President asking him to reinstate it, and he 
didn't even answer the letter.
  Then, the following year, 2019, he brought Dr. Linda Quick home from 
China. And her job was to make sure, if anything was happening in 
China, that we would know about it and could help them prevent the 
disease. Our CDC--our Centers for Disease Control, we are the best in 
the world. It was the United States of America leading the charge to 
eliminate smallpox. It was the United States of America that led the 
job to all but eliminate polio in this country. Some of us here are old 
enough--the Presiding Officer, anyway, will remember knowing people who 
had minor cases growing up in our schools. So we know what that meant. 
It was the President of the United States who pulled CDC employees out 
of China because of a trade or some--depending on when the President 
loved Xi or disliked Xi--I mean, it was back and forth with the Chinese 
leader, and we just unilaterally disarmed. Then the President denied 
that the virus meant anything.
  I know he took care of ventilators, but other kinds of protective 
equipment, just talk to nurses and doctors and healthcare workers in 
our States--in Madison, in Cleveland, in Columbus, in Milwaukee, in 
Kenosha and Fairbanks and Salt Lake City.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.