[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19575-19577]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SENATE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, we are on the downward trajectory of 
this year's Congress, the 114th Congress, and I thought it would be 
appropriate to take a few minutes to talk about what this Chamber has 
been able to accomplish since we convened in January. I know there is a 
lot of cynicism and indeed outright fear about the way the Federal 
Government has been operating, and unfortunately I think a lot of that 
is attributable to the fact that this President has shown a complete 
unwillingness to work with Congress in many areas; for example, such as 
immigration reform. So when people see the President acting 
unilaterally--thank goodness the courts have stopped it,

[[Page 19576]]

but it causes them to lose confidence in the Federal Government's 
ability to address the problems they live with day in and day out and 
which they have a right to see us do our very best to address.
  I can't help but think about this time last year and how, with great 
anticipation and high expectations, the American people decided to give 
our side of the aisle, the Republican side, the opportunity to serve in 
the majority. Our task was a daunting one. The Senate had basically 
been ground to a halt, and I think Members on both sides of the aisle 
came back in January ready to change the way we do things around here. 
I think some of our friends across the aisle found that the do-nothing 
strategy didn't work for them either, even though they were in the 
majority, because a number of Senate incumbents--having to face the 
voters without anything to show--ended up being defeated in last 
November's election. It didn't work for the American people. So it 
didn't work for the American people, and it didn't work for those 
Senators. As I said, the American people deserve better.
  We tried to do better, and I think we have made some progress. We 
have been getting a few things done, delivering on promises made to the 
American people and working to find real solutions to the problems 
faced by those whom we are honored to represent. One of those areas 
that has been particularly important to me is doing something about an 
issue that plagues every State in our country; that is, human 
trafficking. At the beginning of last year, I was honored to lead a 
bipartisan effort to pass legislation designed to help victims of human 
trafficking get a helping hand and hopefully find a path to healing.
  The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which is now the law of 
the land, will help these victims, who are too often children, be 
treated like the victims they are instead of common criminals. After 
about a month on the floor of the Senate, that bill ultimately ended up 
passing, 99 to 0, and it was signed into law by the President. It 
points out that the Congress can work with the President on a 
bipartisan basis to fight some of the most tragic and troubling issues 
that face our Nation.
  There are other examples. In the fall we passed a major cyber 
security bill that will help protect the American people from cyber 
attacks. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act fosters information 
sharing to help address the growing cyber threats we face. Of course we 
read about them in the news, if we haven't experienced them in person 
ourselves. The need for this legislation couldn't have been more 
pressing because over the summer the administration confirmed that 
hackers had accessed sensitive background information of more than 21 
million people on the computer systems of the Office of Personnel 
Management--21 million Americans. That followed a similar breach at the 
Internal Revenue Service in which the personal data of more than 
100,000 taxpayers was stolen. So passage of the Cybersecurity 
Information Sharing Act was the right thing to do, and it was done on a 
bipartisan basis. We are now engaged in a conference discussion with 
the House to try to reconcile the differences between those bills 
before it goes to the President.
  That is the way we ought to be doing business around here--trying to 
find solutions that make America stronger and make our cyber 
infrastructure more resilient.
  Another example was from last week. Last week we passed a multiyear 
highway bill for the first time in more than a decade. My State is 
blessed to be a fast-growing State, and of course that has encouraged a 
lot of people to move there--voting with their feet, as I like to say, 
and coming from places where jobs aren't being produced because the 
economy is not growing.
  This bill helps Texas on the State and local level to prepare for 
those growing infrastructure needs that come with this increased 
growth. Just as significantly, it will help the rest of the country as 
well by creating jobs to build and maintain that infrastructure as well 
as the commerce that travels on that infrastructure and the environment 
which will be served by avoiding unnecessary congestion.
  This bill also specifically grants States like Texas the flexibility 
to invest in infrastructure projects--in our case, along the border. We 
have a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico. It is a unique part of our 
country. I like to kid my constituents back home. I say: What most of 
my colleagues in Washington know about the border they read in novels 
or saw in a movie somewhere. It is a unique and wonderful part of our 
State, but it is also one that deserves our undivided attention because 
of the security threats, drug trafficking, and other illegal activity. 
It is no small thing for the Nation's top exporting State, one that 
shares almost 1,200 miles with Mexico, to be able to direct some of 
these funds to help build and maintain that infrastructure.
  By the way, I know people frequently talk about Mexico and our 
relationship with Mexico in a negative way, but we also understand 
there are enormous benefits to our proximity to Mexico and our shared 
border. There are about 6 million jobs in America that depend on 
binational trade with Mexico. While Mexico has its problems--and they 
certainly have serious problems--we are working with them on their 
security and corruption issues and the like. It will take all of our 
efforts in order to address them. By promoting better border 
infrastructure, Texas can build on our strong trade record, which 
already includes the export of more than $100 billion in goods to 
Mexico each year and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs--6 million 
jobs nationwide.
  This multiyear highway bill will also give Texas and other States 
across the country more certainty. Before this we had been looking at 
temporary patches, which makes it impossible to plan, and it also makes 
the expenditure of those dollars enormously inefficient. This bill 
gives us greater certainty to make sure our States can deliver projects 
to facilitate greater volumes of trade and travel along interstates and 
other critical transportation corridors.
  An area where we have not yet achieved success but where I think 
there is great promise--there are other areas, such as criminal justice 
reform, where I believe we can in the months ahead register another 
success, again for the benefit of the people we represent.
  Last week, at the President's invitation, I joined a bipartisan, 
bicameral group of legislators to come to the White House to discuss a 
way forward for bringing substantive criminal justice reform to our 
country.
  For too long, in my State we learned that we treated prisons like 
warehouses, warehousing people and ignoring the fact--or perhaps just 
not recognizing the significance of the fact--that sooner or later most 
of them were going to get out of prison. So what we decided to do in 
Texas in 2007 was to get smart on crime, not just tough on crime. 
Nobody doubted how tough we were on crime. But what we realized is that 
some of the money we spent on corrections could be plowed back into 
educational programs that would help willing inmates actually learn job 
skills, deal with their drug and alcohol problems, if they had those, 
and, in short, better prepare for life on the outside so they didn't 
end up a frequent flyer or in that turnstile, going from prison to the 
outside and then back again.
  So we have been working on this issue for some time, based on the 
success we enjoyed in Texas and in other States. The product is a bill 
called the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which passed out of 
the Senate Judiciary Committee 15 to 5. I know Chairman Goodlatte in 
the House of Representatives is working on a bipartisan bill in that 
Chamber as well. So I think this is one of those pivotal moments where 
folks across the political spectrum see the advantage of working 
together in favor of bringing real progress that will benefit the 
American people by making our criminal justice system more effective 
and our communities safer. By the way, we can save money at the same 
time.

[[Page 19577]]

  On another matter where we have seen significant progress, this week 
we will be voting on the conference report that accompanies the Every 
Child Achieves Act. This is the bill that actually fixes No Child Left 
Behind. This legislation was passed here in the Senate by wide margins 
over the summer. Chairman Alexander and the conference committee and 
Ranking Member Murray were able to achieve an amazing thing in this 
divided, polarized political environment we are in, with, I believe, a 
39-to-1 vote in the conference committee for a bill that combines both 
the House and the Senate product. This is really landmark education 
legislation that will help parents and local communities take control 
of their children's education instead of ceding to the Federal 
Government. Certainly, this bill is another win for the American 
people.
  Where I come from, people like the fact that we essentially have 
repealed the common core mandate, that we have eliminated the Federal 
Government as a national school board, and that we have sent the power 
back where it belongs, which is to parents and teachers and local 
school districts, and ceded more of that authority from here in 
Washington, DC, back to them.
  I could continue with this list of legislative accomplishments by 
noting that the Chamber has also passed legislation that replaced the 
flawed Medicare payment system for physicians. This is the notorious 
doc fix. This is another example where for years and years we passed 
temporary patches and never solved the underlying problem. But Congress 
did, and I think that is another thing we can be proud of, along with 
the first budget passed since 2009, and there is more I could add to 
the list. But my point is there is a difference in the new 114th 
Congress, and elections do make a difference. We have worked together 
on a bipartisan basis where we can to make progress to solve problems 
for the American people during this first year of the 114th Congress. A 
lot of this is due to the steady leadership of the majority leader, the 
Senator from Kentucky, and all the hard work our colleagues have put in 
to make this such a productive year.
  So we are on track to continue with this momentum into the new year, 
and with just another week or so of work to do before we break for the 
holidays, I think we can take some pride in these accomplishments but 
yet know that there is a lot more we have to do, not only for the 
remainder of this year but into next year as well.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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