[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 44 (Tuesday, March 9, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1411-S1412]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. SCHUMER. I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The 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 nomination 
     of Executive Calendar No. 31, Debra Anne Haaland, of New 
     Mexico, to be Secretary of the Interior.
         Charles E. Schumer, Chris Van Hollen, Michael F. Bennet, 
           Jack Reed, Tammy

[[Page S1412]]

           Duckworth, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, 
           Christopher A. Coons, Richard Blumenthal, Patrick J. 
           Leahy, Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith, Brian Schatz, Robert 
           Menendez, Richard J. Durbin, Martin Heinrich, Maria 
           Cantwell.

  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call 
with respect to this motion be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.


                    American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, when Senators were last in this 
Chamber, our Democratic colleagues were shooting down amendment after 
amendment to ensure their largely non-COVID-related spending plan 
remained very liberal and purely partisan.
  Republicans proposed amendments to cap extra government help for 
wealthier Americans, to ensure that direct checks would only go to 
citizens and legal residents and not to people in prison, and to rein 
in runaway State and local bailouts and refocus the bill on urgent 
COVID-related actual needs. But Democrats banded together to defeat 
every one of these commonsense changes. As the Democratic leader 
happily explained to reporters later on Saturday, his whole conference 
put lockstep party unity ahead of substance and ahead of bipartisan 
compromise.
  So the nearly $2 trillion partisan spending spree that President 
Biden's Chief of Staff brags is ``the most progressive domestic 
legislation in a generation'' is on its way over to the House. Already, 
we hear reporting that this giveaway will simply wipe out the budget 
deficit of New York State and eliminate a big part of the deficit in 
San Francisco, courtesy of the taxpayers in Kentucky and Middle 
America. Already, we hear the administration saying they want some of 
these sweeping new welfare policies to become permanent, like a no-
strings-attached benefit that disregards all the pro-work lessons of 
bipartisan welfare reform. Meanwhile, it only manages to spend about 1 
percent on vaccinations and less than 9 percent on the entire health 
fight.
  Democrats inherited a turning tide. The vaccine trends and economic 
trends were in place before the bill was ever voted on, before this 
President was sworn in, but they are determined to push to the front of 
the parade with an effort to push America to the left.
  Meanwhile, House Democrats are wasting no time pursuing even more 
purely partisan legislation. Last Wednesday, the House passed H.R. 1, 
their effort to rewrite the ground rules of American elections and 
seize power from States and localities. Just like the spending plan, in 
both Chambers, once again the only thing bipartisan about the bill was 
the opposition.
  This is House Democrats' bid to put Federal bureaucrats in charge of 
local election rules; to undermine voter ID requirements with massive 
loopholes that undermine them; to require every State to permit ballot 
harvesting, which lets paid political operatives produce stacks of 
ballots with other people's names on them; to overturn or change 
hundreds of State election laws; and to turn our highest election 
authority, the equally balanced FEC, into a partisan majority body to 
crack down on speech and ideas they don't like.
  It is quite the recipe for rebuilding public faith in our democracy 
on all sides--a purely partisan effort to seize unprecedented power for 
Washington, DC, on a razor-thin majority. It is a hugely harmful idea 
at the worst possible time.