[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 146 (Thursday, September 19, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6202-S6203]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

   CORPORAL MICHAEL D. ANDERSON JR. POST OFFICE BUILDING--Motion to 
                                Proceed

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 457, 
H.R. 1555.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed on Calendar No. 457, H.R. 1555, a bill to 
     designate the facility of the United States Postal Service 
     located at 2300 Sylvan Avenue in Modesto, California, as the 
     ``Corporal Michael D. Anderson Jr. Post Office Building''.


                             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 motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 457, H.R.

[[Page S6203]]

     1555, a bill to designate the facility of the United States 
     Postal Service located at 2300 Sylvan Avenue in Modesto, 
     California, as the ``Corporal Michael D. Anderson Jr. Post 
     Office Building''.
         Charles E. Schumer, Patty Murray, Raphael G. Warnock, Ben 
           Ray Lujan, Benjamin L. Cardin, Jack Reed, Richard J. 
           Durbin, Tammy Baldwin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Robert P. 
           Casey, Jr., Angus S. King, Jr., Michael F. Bennet, Mark 
           Kelly, Jeanne Shaheen, Tim Kaine, Chris Van Hollen, 
           Debbie Stabenow.

  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls 
for the cloture motions filed today, September 19, be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I return the floor to the Senator from Maryland for his 
outstanding, excellent, perspicacious remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.


                              Project 2025

  Mr. CARDIN. First, let me thank my leader for those kind remarks.
  Mr. President, as the Senator from the State of Maryland, I am so 
proud to represent so many Marylanders who are Federal workers 
dedicated to helping their fellow citizens with the essential work that 
they provide. So I come to the floor today to speak about the threat 
Project 2025 poses to our Federal workforce and to our Nation.
  This is a plan that, if enacted, would take America back to some of 
the darkest chapters in our history, from a nationwide abortion ban, to 
eliminating civil rights for millions of Americans, to gutting the 
checks and balances enshrined in our Constitution by the Founding 
Fathers and putting unlimited power in the President's hands. This kind 
of extremism is deeply disturbing.
  As the Senator from Maryland and chair of the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee, I want to focus on one particular reason I think 
these ideas are so dangerous, and that is the way Project 2025 targets 
nonpartisan public servants in the Federal Government.
  In the State of Maryland alone, there are over 150,000 Federal 
employees serving our country and their fellow Americans. They are 
dedicated, and they believe in public service, and they have always 
played important roles: repatriating stranded Americans who were stuck 
overseas when COVID-19 hit; leading negotiations to get the release of 
wrongfully detained Americans in Russia and Venezuela; coordinating the 
resettlement of Afghan refugees who supported our mission for over two 
decades; global drug prevention efforts; hurricane response training; 
emergency food assistance; counterterrorism. In every region of the 
globe and in every State of our Nation, public servants, our civil 
servants, put principle over politics in order to serve their fellow 
citizens.
  So that is why we need to be clear-eyed about what Project 2025 will 
mean not only to our Federal workforce, but to our national security.
  Project 2025 is a blueprint for a government that is so radical and 
disturbing even Donald Trump himself doesn't want to take credit for 
it. He said, ``I have no idea who is behind it''--well, despite the 
fact that six of his former Cabinet Secretaries helped write it.
  Let me quote from the president of the Heritage Foundation, the think 
tank organizing the project. This is what he said about the federal 
workforce:

       People will lose their jobs.

  Talk about an understatement.
  Project 2025 envisions Federal employees who will be politically 
loyal to an individual and a cult of personality rather than loyal to 
the Constitution and the letter of the law.
  Our Federal workforce are career diplomats, career servants, career 
people trying to serve their fellow citizens. We do not want to 
politicize our civil workforce.
  As the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I must tell 
you, this is the kind of thing authoritarian governments do.
  Project 2025 will weaken our country and put it in a place the United 
States has not seen before.
  Now these ideas aren't exactly new. There is a long track record of 
smearing Federal employees as being part of the deep state. Back in 
2020, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee produced a staff report 
detailing the concerning efforts the last administration had on the 
State Department, on its morale, and on trying to affect its 
professionalism.
  A culture of fear and mistrust, vacant positions, nominees with 
extreme views and concerning records--unfortunately, that seems to be a 
glimpse of what could lie ahead with Project 2025.
  The President and American Federation of Government Employees said:

       Project 2025 will take away freedoms and rights from every 
     American, will hurt the middle class and working families, 
     and is a threat to our democracy.

  They want to gut Federal workers' pay and benefits; they want to 
eliminate millions of Federal jobs; they want to make it easier to 
discriminate against people of color, women, and LGBTQ people. From the 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to Veterans' Administration 
to the Environmental Protection Agency, they want to make big changes. 
They want to dismantle support for public education. They want to 
eliminate the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security.
  These are extreme ideas. I believe these ideas are incredibly 
dangerous, and we must do everything we can to support our public 
servants. That is why I applaud the Biden-Harris administration and the 
Office of Personnel Management for issuing a rule in opposition to the 
previous administration's Schedule F classification.
  I have also cosponsored legislation with Senator Kaine to codify the 
same effort.
  As a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--now 
its chair--I have been working to strengthen its workforce at the State 
Department, USAID, and other international affairs Agencies.
  From making sure our personnel have the ability to compete globally 
to increasing recruitment and retention--that should be our focus. 
Let's make our civil service more competitive with the best, most 
innovative people leading our national security, diplomacy, and Federal 
Agencies--not dismantling them.
  At the time of its implementation more than a century ago, our merit-
based civil service was an anti-corruption initiative. President Teddy 
Roosevelt, who is known as the father of modern civil service, wrote 
that its ``importance lies in the fact that it is the most powerful 
implement with which to work for the moral regeneration of our public 
life. No other force so strongly tends to increase the political weight 
of decent citizens.''
  That was the motivation behind the civil service, and it is more 
important today than ever.
  So I agree our Federal work employees are a tremendous force of good 
for our community. We don't acknowledge them enough on this floor. We 
don't do enough to help them and to support them and give them the 
resources they need. We certainly don't want to make it more difficult 
for people to serve our country.
  That is why we must say no to targeting of American public servants 
for doing their jobs. No to loyalty tests. No to bypassing 
congressional oversight. No to taking our country backwards to a time 
before there were civil rights and reproductive rights, and no to 
weakening our democratic institutions.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.

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