[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 182 (Monday, November 28, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6817-S6819]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             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 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 Baldwin 
     substitute amendment No. 6487 to Calendar No. 449, H.R. 8404, 
     a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and ensure 
     respect for State regulation of marriage, and for other 
     purposes.
         Charles E. Schumer, Richard J. Durbin, Tammy Baldwin, 
           Kyrsten Sinema, John W. Hickenlooper, Tina Smith, 
           Sheldon Whitehouse, Benjamin L. Cardin, Maria Cantwell, 
           Amy Klobuchar, Jon Ossoff, Mark Kelly, Jacky Rosen, 
           Cory A. Booker, Brian Schatz, Mazie K. Hirono, Angus S. 
           King, Jr., Thomas R. Carper, Sherrod Brown, Tim Kaine.

  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 
amendment No. 6487 offered by the Senator from New York [Mr. Schumer] 
to H.R. 8404, a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and ensure 
respect for State regulation of marriage, and for other purposes, 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. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Sasse), and 
the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 61, nays 35, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 358 Ex.]

                                Yeas--61

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lujan
     Lummis
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Romney
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Tillis
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--35

     Blackburn
     Boozman
     Braun
     Cassidy
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Fischer
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Marshall
     McConnell
     Moran
     Paul
     Risch
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Thune
     Tuberville
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Barrasso
     Sasse
     Toomey
     Warnock
  (Mr. HEINRICH assumed the Chair.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Smith). On this vote, the yeas are 61, the 
nays are 35.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  Cloture having been invoked, the motion to refer and the amendments 
pending thereto fall.
  The majority leader.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in 
order to consider the following amendments to the substitute: Lee, No. 
6482; Lankford, No. 6496; and Rubio, No. 6493; that at 3:45 p.m. on 
Tuesday, November 29, all postcloture time be considered expired, that 
if any of these amendments are offered, the Senate vote in relation to 
the amendments in the order listed, with 60 affirmative votes required 
for the adoption of the Lee amendment; that there be 2 minutes for 
debate equally divided prior to each vote; that any remaining 
amendments except Senate amendment No. 6487 be withdrawn; that the 
substitute amendment, as amended, if amended, be agreed to; that the 
cloture motion with respect to H.R. 8404 be withdrawn; that the bill be 
considered read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the 
bill, as amended, with 60 affirmative votes required for passage, all 
without further intervening action or debate; finally, that the 
remaining cloture motions filed on November 17 ripen on disposition of 
H.R. 8404.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  And there is one more important item before I leave the floor.
  Chris Van Hollen, our great Senator from Maryland, has been waiting a 
while to give tribute to Joan Kleinman, his State director. We want to 
thank her for her great work--did he say 17 years?--19 years. I don't 
want to cut this short.
  And one of her other additional great features is that her family is 
from New York. So welcome and thank you for waiting.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.


                        Tribute to Joan Kleinman

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. As the majority leader said, I rise to honor the 
stellar public service of Joan Kleinman, a senior member of my office 
team, who retired in February after 19 years of working on behalf of 
the people of Maryland and the United States.
  Today, I would like to share with the Senate the depth of her 
commitment to

[[Page S6818]]

the people of Maryland and her extraordinary legacy of good works, and 
have her story inscribed in the pages of the Congressional Record so 
that it might be a source of wisdom and inspiration for all time.
  I first met Joan Kleinman in 1990, when I started working at the 
Washington, DC, law firm of Arent Fox. Joan was also a fellow lawyer, 
who was in charge of managing the staffing of cases in the litigation 
department. For those of us who were litigation associates, that meant 
we had better be on Joan's good side.
  While I was practicing law at Arent Fox, I was also serving 3 months 
a year in Maryland's part-time legislature. I knew Joan and her husband 
Sam were raising their family in Montgomery County, and that Joan had a 
keen interest in what was happening in our community.
  At the time, I needed someone to be treasurer for my State senate 
campaign committee, somebody who was really well organized, someone who 
cared about our community, and somebody who I could trust completely. 
Joan fit the bill. But would she do it?
  I will confess that I was a little scared to ask her. I finally 
mustered up the courage to knock on her office door, and luckily for 
me, Joan had no idea what she was getting into, and she said yes.
  The rest is history.
  In 2001, with Joan's encouragement, I launched my campaign for the 
House of Representatives. That campaign started at the kitchen table in 
our home in Kensington and with my wife Katherine and a small cadre of 
friends and dedicated volunteers, including Joan.
  We knew it would be a tough fight, but we thought we had a shot. Our 
campaign grew quickly. It was powered by hundreds of volunteers and 
thousands of small contributions that kept coming in.
  And, now, as treasurer of my congressional campaign, Joan would keep 
track of the flurry of small contributions that arrived every week. It 
was a ton of work. And Joan also worked on other aspects of the 
campaign at the same time. As another veteran member of that 
congressional campaign recently told me, ``for Joan, 3 a.m. was as much 
a part of the normal workday as 3 p.m.''
  We won that campaign, and Joan was key to our success. So when the 
campaign ended, I had some very big decisions to make, including who 
would run our congressional district office? I wanted someone who was 
dedicated to our community, someone who could manage that important 
job, and, again, someone whom I could trust completely. The person who 
met all those requirements was Joan Kleinman.
  I will admit--and we would all admit--that in those early days, we 
were flying by the seat of our pants, and Joan was charged with 
building out our constituent services program from the ground up. She 
had to do all of the big picture things, like building relationships 
with community stakeholders and forging bonds with Federal Agency 
officials. She also had to bring on our entire constituent service team 
and our community outreach team and develop an intake and tracking 
system for constituent cases to make sure nothing would fall through 
the cracks.
  Joan built out our Maryland offices day after day, week after week, 
month after month, until we became the gold standard in constituent 
services. She instilled an ethic of persistence in our casework team to 
ensure that we did everything--and I mean everything--in our power to 
deliver results for our constituents.
  I started receiving buckets of handwritten thank-you letters from 
folks across our congressional district. People would stop me in the 
street to thank me for our help. In fact, under Joan's leadership, our 
office became so well known for our top-notch constituent services that 
we started getting calls from people in all the other congressional 
districts in our State.
  We solved that challenge when I ran for the U.S. Senate, and, after 
that campaign, Joan assumed responsibility for maintaining excellent 
constituent services and outreach for all Marylanders. And that she 
did.
  The letters of appreciation we received from constituents are now 
kept in large binders that filled up whole bookshelves. And now people 
across our entire State stop me on a regular basis to acknowledge their 
appreciation for something that Joan and her team did to help them, 
which leaves me with one big question: How does that happen? How did we 
grow from that empty office space after my congressional election in 
2002 into an operation that is renowned for delivering amazing services 
to people throughout our State? And the answer is Joan Kleinman.

  Our story of success is the story of Joan Kleinman and the team that 
she built, and I would like to reflect on the qualities that made that 
happen. And there are many, but three big ones jump out.
  No. 1, follow the golden rule. Joan established an ethic in the 
office that every constituent--every one--was to be treated the way we 
would want to be treated, with respect. She told our team that when 
someone calls our office, handle the case like it is your mom calling 
or your dad or your brother or sister. And it did not matter if the 
problem related to a Federal issue, a State issue, a county issue, or 
anything else. We were there to deliver results.
  Joan knew how frustrating it could be to pick up the phone, call a 
government office asking for help, only to be told to call a different 
government office. So even if the issue fell in someone else's 
jurisdiction, we connected them to ensure they could get the help they 
needed.
  Joan constantly reminded her team that if someone is calling us, it 
is because they need help, and they had likely tried and exhausted all 
other avenues to resolve the problem themselves.
  Another of Joan's sterling qualities is real leadership. Now, 
leadership can mean different things to different people, but you know 
it when you see it. Joan is a strong leader and an excellent manager 
because she leads by example. Like a good general who leads their 
troops into battle from the front, Joan was always willing to take on 
any task, large or small, for the success of the team. She worked crazy 
hours. She read every letter. There was nothing that she would ask 
others to do that she would not do first.
  Her exemplary leadership also flowed from her emphasis on detail and 
determination, a good combination. Good intentions about helping our 
constituents are great, but good intentions without implementation and 
accountability are empty promises. And good advocacy on behalf of 
constituents requires constant coaxing and constant followup.
  So let's be clear. Joan's team has always been civil in pressing 
agencies and organizations to help our constituents, but her team has 
also been firm, polite, but always persistent.
  And Joan's leadership powered a sense of common purpose and joint 
accomplishment. She would always highlight the achievements of members 
of her team who served our constituents, from helping our veterans and 
seniors obtain their benefits, to getting a passport approved so a 
constituent could visit a sick loved one, to getting student loans 
forgiven, to reuniting entire families, to helping folks avoid 
foreclosure, and hundreds and hundreds of other matters.
  Joan ensured that the success of our office belonged to everyone on 
the team. She lifted everyone up. And on those days when this job can 
be frustrating and discouraging--and the Presiding Officer knows we 
face our share of those--on those days, reading the notes of 
appreciation that Joan would circulate from constituents thanking us 
for helping them in their greatest hour of need, or about how our work 
had changed their life for the better, reminded me and everyone on our 
team of the importance of public service and the good that we can do.
  A third quality Joan has in abundance is compassion for those she 
worked with. Like the good Jewish mother she is, Joan brought that same 
sense of caring and nurturing to members of her family away from home, 
her office family. She was often the first to reach out to new staff, 
inviting them to lunch or coffee. She would circulate cartoons from the 
New Yorker that particularly resonated, which mostly got chuckles. She 
would laugh generously at other's jokes, even if they weren't all that 
funny. And she spent hours mentoring and coaching each member of our 
team. As a senior member of my staff remarked recently,

[[Page S6819]]

``Joan believed in me more than I believed in myself.''
  Her good counsel helped guide staff members while they worked in our 
office and also served them well in their future endeavors. We are 
especially grateful that Joan helped groom one member of our staff who 
started as an intern under Joan's tutelage and then worked as a staff 
member in our office before going to practice law, as Joan had once 
done. This member of our team later returned to our office well 
prepared to take on Joan's job when Joan left the office in February.
  And Joan wasn't just a mentor on professional matters. She was also 
there for staff members navigating the ups and downs of life. She has 
been a consoler-in-chief in times of loss and a cheerleader-in-chief in 
times of joy. Her warmth radiated in moments of hurt and of happiness.
  And my office hasn't been the only beneficiary of Joan's love. It 
also extends to members of her wonderful family, who have joined Joan 
in the Senate Gallery this evening: her husband Sam, their daughter 
Molly, their son Ari, and their son Ben, with his wife Saryn. It is a 
joy to have them here for this special occasion.
  I also want to give a shout-out to Joan's grandson, little Miles, who 
is at home. And I want to salute Joan's late father and her amazing 
mother Evelyn. Both of her parents helped raise her to be the woman she 
is today, and her mother, in particular, has always been very vocal 
about her thoughts about my cable TV appearances.
  Thank you all for sharing Joan with us all those years.
  And Joan's commitment also extends to her family of faith. Joan isn't 
just a good Jewish mother to everyone. She is also a devoted member of 
her synagogue. Her life has been driven by the spirit of ``tikkun 
olam,'' repairing the world. And this year, for Rosh Hashanah, Joan was 
invited by her congregation to speak from the pulpit and offer an 
interpretation of religious text.
  In her remarks, Joan shared this reflection:

       I know we all want to be remembered for the personal 
     qualities that we value. But I think it's important that we 
     also seek to be remembered for how we respond to the 
     challenges of our times.

  That isn't just a meditation on faith; that is a meditation on 
service. In Joan's eyes, each of us has a responsibility to match our 
strong words with even stronger deeds. We honor our values only through 
our action. It isn't enough to envision a more perfect world. We need 
to build it ourselves--brick by brick, hour by hour, good deed by good 
deed.
  Joan has spent her life realizing the promise of that creed, and 
because of it, she leaves behind a legacy of good works that not only 
fill up bookshelves but also fill up the lives and hearts of countless 
people in our State of Maryland.
  She has helped guide people in need. She has met the moment. She has 
changed lives for the better. She has done so much good for so many 
Marylanders for so many years that our State will always be better 
because of it.
  So on behalf of me and my entire family, on behalf of our entire 
staff, past and present, on behalf of all the people in the State of 
Maryland, we thank you, Joan Kleinman. Your legacy of good works has 
left the world a much better place.
  Joan, we love you.
  Even though Joan has retired from our office, I will continue to seek 
her counsel and relish her friendship for years to come.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________