[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 175 (Monday, November 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6635-S6637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                Midterm Elections and the 117th Congress

  Now, Madam President, let me be the first to welcome you and all my 
colleagues back to the U.S. Senate. There is a lot to do, a lot to say, 
and I am glad to be back here on the floor with my colleagues to 
continue serving the American people. I want to thank the voters of New 
York, who have elected me for a fifth term--the first Senator ever from 
New York to have five terms--and I promise the people of New York that 
I will serve you as diligently and work just as hard for you as I have 
in the previous years. So thank you for the faith that you have shown 
in me.
  And, Madam President, last Tuesday, Americans made their voices heard 
in one of the most remarkable midterm elections in modern history. With 
our democracy at stake, with our fundamental liberties on the line, and 
with a clear choice between moving America forward or holding it back, 
the American people spoke loud and clear. Democrats will retain the 
majority in the Senate, and House Democrats, under the leadership of 
Speaker Pelosi, defied precedent and remain within striking distance of 
defending their majority as well. The election was a great win for the 
Democratic Party but, more importantly, a great win for the American 
people.
  And let me say this. Two things happened, Madam President, in the 
last 2 years. First, this Senate and this Congress passed a huge 
agenda, the most comprehensive agenda affecting and helping American 
families that has occurred in decades. Second, Democrats won the 
elections here in the Senate and many in the House. Those two 
statements are directly related. Because Democrats had a strong agenda 
here and did things for the American people, we won. And despite the 
negativity and divisiveness, the threats of violence and even the 
violence itself that occurred with MAGA Republicanism dominating the 
country, the American people stepped back from the

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precipice and chose progress and getting things done, rather than the 
voices of divisiveness, nastiness, and lack of complete truth and 
honor. So those two things are definitely related.
  First, let's talk about some of the things we got done. It was an 
incredible, incredible 2 years. The list is a long one: the most 
significant bipartisan infrastructure bill in decades, making sure that 
millions of new, good jobs will occur--with union labor, I am proud to 
say--employing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of 
people in good working jobs.
  We reformed the post office for the first time in a very long time. 
We dealt with the issue of chips that were made overseas, and now we 
have said to the American people: We are going to make them here, 
creating thousands and thousands of good-paying jobs, and we are going 
to not let any country--China or any other, Germany--take away that 
dominance. We have developed the chips here. We are going to make them 
here.
  We dealt with our veterans who were exposed to toxins from burn pits. 
And when the VA wouldn't help them, we said the VA must. We dealt with 
climate in the IRA, for the first time ever, and we will reduce the 
amount of carbon flowing into our atmosphere by 2030 by 40 percent. In 
the same bill, we took on the prescription drug companies, and we are 
getting a $35 price for insulin on Medicare and lowering prices of 
drugs for so many millions of Americans on many other drugs, starting 
as early as next year, with the cap of $2,000 that anyone must pay.
  We increased healthcare. We expanded the ACA, making healthcare less 
expensive for many and dealing with so many other healthcare issues, to 
the benefit of the American people.
  So it was a huge agenda, and despite what some of the pundits and 
prognosticators say, that is what the American people wanted.
  How did we win the election? Because we stuck to that agenda.
  And on the other side, what we saw from MAGA Republicans was, first, 
the Big Lie--the Big Lie--that said that the election was stolen. It 
was a lie, plain and simple, but MAGA Republicans, so many in this 
Chamber, repeated that lie over and over again.
  And, Madam President, if one political party or a large group of 
people abandon the view that the elections are on the level, that is 
the beginning of the end of our democracy.
  Not only did we see the Big Lie, but we saw nastiness, divisiveness, 
threats of violence, and even violence itself, not only on January 6 
but often directed at the people running our elections. These are nice, 
hard-working people. All they want to do is do their job and make sure 
the votes are counted properly, and they get threatened.
  And what bothered the American people even more than this was the 
fact that too many Republican leaders either condoned the violence or 
even aided and abetted the threats of violence. It was outrageous, but 
lots of people saw right through it--and not just Democrats. Large 
numbers of Republicans said: This new MAGA Republican Party is not the 
party of Ronald Reagan, not the party of the Bushes; it is a different 
party, and I can't countenance it.
  And that is why so many of them voted for Democratic candidates who 
were paying attention to the specific issues--nondivisive, not 
incendiary, just helping people. And that is why, I believe, we won the 
election.
  So where do we go from here, Madam President?
  Well, I will say one more thing. The midterms are not over. 
Obviously, there is an election in Georgia, and once again we have the 
contrast. Senator Warnock is a man dedicated to service. He first 
served people in the ministry, and he still is the minister, the 
pastor, of one of the most famous and revered pulpits in the entire 
country, in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, the old pulpit of Martin 
Luther King, Jr. But he became a Senator, and that devotion to service 
continued.
  He was one of our leaders in establishing a $35 cap on insulin for 
tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of Georgians and 
millions of Americans, the elderly, who needed that insulin. And the 
drug companies, even though it is not a patented drug, were charging 
$600, $700, $800 a month. He helped with healthcare.
  He helped get $4 billion for Black farmers, who had been 
discriminated against for decades.
  And so I believe this election--this new election in Georgia--will be 
like the election that we have had last Tuesday: The candidate who is 
trying to help people, the candidate who is not being divisive and 
incendiary, will win: Raphael Warnock.
  Now, where should we go in the next 2 years? I hope this Chamber, for 
the good of the American people, will continue on its record of getting 
bipartisan things done. Of the six major bills we passed in June and 
July and early August, five were bipartisan. And our hierarchy as 
Democrats is to work on a bipartisan basis whenever we can, and we 
showed we were able to.
  There are times when we can't get our Republicans to join us. None of 
them wanted to go against Big Pharma, and we had to pass prescription 
drugs ourselves. None of them wanted to go against Big Oil; so we had 
to pass climate change by ourselves. But we got a lot of bipartisan 
things done.
  And my hope for America, for the sake of America--this is a swirling 
world, and people are not happy with their circumstances; they want 
help--is that this Senate in the next 2 years, under the leadership of 
this caucus, will rise to that occasion. And I say to my Democratic 
colleagues, let us proceed in the next 2 years by putting them first 
and getting things done, even if we have to compromise. We may not 
accomplish everything we want, but if we can get real things done, that 
will measure how good a Congress we can be.
  The guns bill that we did under Senator Murphy's leadership last 
summer is an example. Almost every one of us on this side of the aisle 
is for universal background checks. I am the author of the Brady law. I 
care a lot about it. We couldn't get that, but we got some significant 
changes. We fought the NRA, and young people--18 years old--will not 
automatically be able to go into a gun store and buy an assault rifle, 
as the horrible perpetrators of the crimes in Buffalo and Uvalde had 
done.
  And once we got this done, even though we didn't get everything we 
wanted, the American people were elated. They said: They finally broke 
the logjam and got something done. For our side, that ought to be a 
motto: Get it done. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The 
American people want us to make their lives better and help them. 
Speeches won't do it. Putting down just a bill that has everything we 
want that fails won't do it. Getting it done will.
  I say to my Republican colleagues, including Leader McConnell, work 
with us. Work with us. We are willing to work with you to get things 
done, as the past Senate has shown. Let's sit down and talk about how 
we can come together. That is what we need to do.
  And I say to my Republican colleagues, embracing the MAGA way of 
divisiveness, nastiness, negativity, without constructive compromise--
that is how Donald Trump wanted it, and some of our colleagues follow 
him--that will be a disaster. That will be wrong. It will be bad for 
America, but it will also be bad for the Republican Party because these 
elections have shown that the MAGA Republican way is not where the 
American people want to be. The election of 2016 showed it. The 
election of 2018 showed it. The election of 2020 showed it. And this 
election, more than ever, shows it because no one thought Democrats 
would succeed in the election because we were climbing uphill. But the 
combination of us actually accomplishing things and focusing on those 
things in our campaigns and the fact of the distaste that a majority of 
Americans have for the MAGA Republican way of intransigence, 
divisiveness, nastiness, and tossing incendiary language over the wall, 
is not going to succeed.
  So we can have a great, great 2 years if we work together, and I am 
urging Leader McConnell to work with us. I am urging the hopefully 
large group of non-MAGA Republicans on the other side to work with us 
so we can get things done.
  Now, finally, I want to thank a few people in the aftermath of this 
election. First, I want to thank President Biden for his leadership, 
for working with us on climate change to lowering costs for families on 
drugs, to delivering action on student debt. And, by

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the way, I forgot to add that we focused on our younger generation as 
well. And two issues they cared about most were climate and student 
debt. We delivered on both. President Biden took great leadership on so 
many of these issues and delivered on so many. So I want to thank him 
for his leadership. He helped set this bold agenda that we in the 
Senate were proud to hone and enact.
  I want to welcome our two new colleagues to the Senate on our side of 
the aisle: Peter Welch of Vermont and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. I 
have had a chance to talk to them over the phone before and after their 
victories, and they will be excellent Senators.
  And I want to thank all of those who knocked on doors, who 
volunteered, who said: This democracy should not be left to others; I 
must be involved. Thank you. All of that hard work has produced a very 
good result, at least in my opinion, last Tuesday.
  So the election of 2022 is approaching the end, but our obligation to 
serve the American people continues. Let us move forward with the same 
spirit of cooperation and compromise that made the 117th Congress one 
of the most successful in recent history. If we do it, it will be good 
for Democratic Senators, it will be good for Republican Senators, but, 
most of all, it will be good for this grand experiment in democracy: 
the United States of America and its people.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.