[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 20545-20548]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         FAREWELL TO THE SENATE

  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, this is my final speech on the floor of 
the U.S. Senate. I have come to the floor many times, as we all have. 
We come to the floor to cast our votes on bills and amendments. We come 
here to discuss and debate the issues that are important to our States 
and to the country. We introduce and explain legislation. We talk about 
our States and what we learned on our latest visit to a community 
health center, a farm, or a small business. What we don't talk about 
all that often is the work of all the men and women on our staffs who 
make all of this possible.
  I have been fortunate to have had a dedicated, hard-working staff 
both in Washington and in Minnesota, and I have no doubt that they will 
go on to do great things and to serve our Nation well.
  I am also very lucky to have a wonderful family who has stood by me 
throughout the good times and the tough times of being a Senator. As 
Senators, we have packed schedules. There are late nights. There are 
difficult votes on divisive issues and a lot of time invested in better 
understanding the challenges our constituents face every day. All too 
often, that important work doesn't leave enough time for our families. 
I am grateful for my wife, my children, and their spouses, who stood by 
me and who have helped me to do my work effectively.
  Finally, as I leave the Senate, I take great comfort in knowing that 
my successor, Senator-designate Tina Smith, has a well-earned 
reputation for being a smart, diligent, hard-working public servant, 
and I have no doubt that Senator Smith will serve Minnesotans and all 
Americans exceptionally well.
  When most people think about politics, they think about arguments--
the arguments they have around the dinner table, the arguments they 
have online, and most of all, the arguments we have here in Washington. 
That is a big part of the reason why a lot of people just don't like 
politics.
  Often, the debate here in Washington can sometimes seem arcane and 
tough to understand. Other times--especially in recent years--it can be 
so bitter that it doesn't even feel like we are trying to resolve 
anything, just venting our spleens at each other. I get that. I get why 
people want us to stop arguing and start doing stuff.
  But since I am leaving the Senate, I thought I would take a big risk 
and say a few words in favor of arguments. After all, there is no 
single magic solution that can bring all 100 of us together because 
there is no one set of values that brought all of us here in the first 
place. I think many of my colleagues have heard me talk about what 
brought me to politics and what makes me a Democrat, and it is my wife 
Fran.
  When she was 17 months old, her father, a decorated World War II 
veteran, died in a car accident, leaving her mom widowed at age 29 with 
five kids. There was one sibling younger than Franni, Bootsie, who was 
3 months old. Franni's family made it--barely, but they made it--thanks 
to Social Security survivor benefits. Sometimes they had to turn the 
heat off in the winter. This was in Portland, ME. Sometimes--often--
they were hungry because there wasn't enough food. But they made it.
  Franni and her three sisters all went to college on combinations of 
scholarships and Pell grants. At the time, a full Pell grant paid for 
about 80 percent of a public college education, but today it only pays 
about 35 percent.
  When Bootsie went to high school, my mother-in-law got a GI loan for 
$300 and went to college. She got three more loans, graduated from 
college, and became an elementary school teacher. And because she 
taught title I kids--poor kids--all her loans were forgiven.
  My brother-in-law went into the Coast Guard and became an electrical 
engineer.
  Every member of Franni's family became a productive member of society 
and a member of the middle class.
  They tell you in this country to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, 
but first you have to have the boots. The Federal Government, through 
Social Security survivor benefits and Pell grants and the GI bill and 
title I, gave my wife's family the boots. That is why I am a Democrat. 
That is why I am a Democrat.
  Over the years, I have heard Democrats and Republicans talk about 
their own values, the things they believe brought them to politics, the 
things that make them care about what happens here. I have learned so 
much from listening to the arguments we have in this country and the 
arguments we have here in this Chamber. I have learned from 
Republicans. I have learned to respect but not always agree with their 
opinions, and I have learned how their backgrounds can lead them to 
reach, in good faith, a conclusion that I never could have imagined. 
And, of course, I have learned so much from my fellow Democrats.
  But the person I learned the most from is someone who isn't here. For 
12 years, the seat I currently occupy was held by Paul Wellstone. As I 
have said before, Paul was a tireless, passionate champion for working 
families--for working families in Minnesota and across the Nation. He 
fought for veterans, for farmers, and for those who simply needed a 
voice.
  Paul was my friend. Paul had a saying that I think perfectly 
represents the values and the principles for which he fought. He used 
to say: ``We all do better when we all do better.'' That was Paul's 
creed. What Paul meant by that is that the whole country--the working 
poor, the middle class, and the well off--the whole country does better 
when each and every one of us is able to contribute to and participate 
fairly in our economy and in our democracy.
  I think Paul was right, but not everybody does. Some people's values 
are different. Some people believe that

[[Page 20546]]

those at the top are there for a reason and that they shouldn't have to 
concern themselves with what is going on in the lives of people who 
haven't been so lucky or even so accomplished. Some people believe 
honestly--honestly, legitimately, believe--that not everyone deserves 
to have the same standing in this country. They believe that your 
standing as a citizen should depend, in part, on where you were born or 
what you believe or whom you love or what you do for a living. Some 
people believe that at some fundamental level, we are all in this on 
our own. I don't agree with any of those values, but I respect that 
some people hold them, and that is why arguments matter.
  When we argue, whether it is across the fence with your neighbor or 
on a cable news show or here on the floor of the Senate, it can help us 
sharpen our ability to articulate what we want and challenge us to 
examine our own views with a more critical eye and help highlight the 
choice for the American people, because, after all, in a democracy, the 
people get to choose.
  As I prepare to leave the Senate, I have been thinking a lot about my 
values and Paul's values--the values we share with many of my 
colleagues here in the Senate and many of the progressive activists I 
have met and worked alongside of in Minnesota and around the country. 
That is because, regrettably, the policies pursued by the Trump 
administration and congressional Republicans today could not stand in a 
starker contrast to the principles Paul championed and the values I 
have fought for during my time here in the Senate.
  The values being advanced by the President and his allies in Congress 
simply don't represent my belief that our economy, our democracy, and 
our country work best when they work for everyone. Indeed, the values 
propelling the Republican agenda today are about consolidating 
political and economic power in the hands of corporations and the very 
wealthy.
  Just take the tax bill Congress passed this week. At virtually each 
and every step of the process, Republicans drafting this bill chose to 
embrace the failed trickle-down policies of the past, crafting an 
enormous--an enormous--giveaway that benefits their corporate campaign 
backers and wealthy donors. For instance, according to the nonpartisan 
Tax Policy Center, by 2027, 83 percent of the benefits in the 
Republican tax bill will accrue to the top 1 percent of income earners; 
that is, people who make more than $912,000 a year. Eighty-three 
percent of the benefits go to the top 1 percent. Do we really need any 
other data point? Well, here is one: At the same time, the Republican 
tax bill would increase taxes on 35 million low- and middle-income 
families.
  During his inaugural address, President Trump vowed that ``the 
forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.'' 
But the Republican tax bill represents a slap in the face to those 
forgotten men and women. I guess the President forgot about them.
  Make no mistake, the Senate-passed version of the Republican tax bill 
was deeply flawed, but when Republicans later attempted to reconcile 
differences between the House and Senate bills--a process that took 
place behind closed doors--even more favors were doled out to 
Republican donors and to special interests. New rules were created to 
give real estate developers like President Trump and his son-in-law the 
ability to pay less tax on passthrough income. The top individual rate, 
which applies to millionaires and billionaires, was cut to 37 percent--
a rate lower than either the House or Senate versions of the bill. And 
provisions in the original bills that were designed to stop foreign 
corporations from avoiding taxes by shifting their profits overseas--a 
practice known as earnings stripping--were dropped altogether.
  The problem in this country is not that the wealthy aren't doing well 
enough. After all, the top 1 percent of the country's population 
controls nearly 40 percent of its wealth. The problem is that too many 
working families have been left out of the economic growth that the top 
1 percent has enjoyed in recent years. But rather than use the tax 
reform bill as an opportunity to help those working families, 
Republicans have instead decided to shower corporations and wealthy 
donors with tax breaks and special favors.
  The tax bill didn't just come out of the blue--quite the contrary. 
This tax bill comes on the heels of countless Republican attempts to 
shred policies that offer protection to working families and the 
environment. But corporations and wealthy donors who support my 
Republican colleagues believe that these policies stand in the way of 
their profits.
  Take healthcare, for example. Despite President Trump's campaign 
promise that ``We're going to have insurance for everybody,'' when his 
administration attempted to deliver on that promise, House Republicans 
devised and passed a bill that would have resulted in 23 million fewer 
people having health insurance, including 14 million people who rely on 
Medicaid. Facing unprecedented public outcry, Republican Senators 
eventually proposed a narrower bill--one that didn't repeal and replace 
the Affordable Care Act outright but instead undermined some of its 
foundational provisions. But this narrower Senate bill still would have 
left 16 million more Americans uninsured, all while spiking premiums by 
20 percent, according to CBO.
  The American people continued to fight, demanding that the Senate 
kill the bill. Thanks to the incredibly hard work of organizers and 
activists, including the American Medical Association and everyday 
Americans, that is exactly what happened. Republican attempts to repeal 
the ACA failed, but it seems my Republican colleagues have not learned 
their lesson.
  Finding themselves unable to sustain an open assault on the 
Affordable Care Act, they instead included a measure in the tax bill 
that will repeal an essential component of that law--the individual 
mandate. As a result, 13 million fewer Americans will have health 
insurance in the years to come. But that doesn't matter to President 
Trump and his allies, who claim they need to repeal this central pillar 
of ObamaCare in order to pay for the massive tax cuts that their 
wealthy donors demand.
  Those same wealthy donors also demand that Republicans turn a blind 
eye to climate change--an existential threat to humanity. Climate 
change is not just an environmental problem. Climate change stands to 
affect virtually every aspect of our lives, posing a great threat to 
public health, national security, our country's infrastructure, and our 
economy. Circumstances require that we take immediate action in order 
to protect the welfare of future generations.
  Almost every Republican in Congress refuses to take the issue of 
climate change seriously. They continue to deny the underlying evidence 
and science behind it, even as Americans suffer the devastating 
consequences of their denial. This year alone, hurricanes ravaged 
Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and wildfires 
raged across the West, most recently in Los Angeles.
  We know that climate change makes these extreme weather events worse, 
and this is just the beginning. What we are witnessing is the beginning 
of a new normal--a new normal that this country simply cannot endure.
  It doesn't have to be this way. It is possible to address climate 
change while at the same time growing our economy and creating jobs. 
During the Obama administration, the Federal Government increased 
research and development investments in clean energy technology, both 
through tax credits designed to incentivize investment and through the 
energy title that I was proud to help write in the farm bill, which 
allowed people in rural America to participate in the clean energy 
revolution. Those investments paid off. Since 2009, the cost of wind 
power has decreased by 66 percent, and the cost of solar power has 
dropped by 85 percent. But we need to do more.
  I championed an energy efficiency standard that would require 
utilities to become more efficient. I led legislation to encourage 
energy storage, a game changer that allows wind and solar to be used 
when the wind isn't blowing

[[Page 20547]]

and the sun isn't shining. I pushed to deploy distributed energy that 
makes our grid more resilient and reliable.
  Rather than join me and my Democratic colleagues in confronting the 
challenge of climate change by driving innovation, Republicans ordered 
a retreat. At the behest of the fossil fuel industry and other 
corporate interests, Republicans have put forward nominees for key 
environmental posts who cut their teeth defending corporate polluters, 
not enforcing the laws that keep our air and water clean, and they have 
pushed an agenda that guts funding for science and innovation. The 
Republican strategy of denial and obfuscation isn't just an affront to 
the government; it is an affront to common sense.
  The Trump administration and its allies in Congress have never let 
science or common sense stand in the way of ideology. Time and again, 
they have acted to roll back evidence-based, commonsense protections 
put in place to improve the lives of minority or marginalized 
communities, including women and LGBT people.
  For example, in October, the Trump administration announced a new 
rule that guts a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires 
health insurance plans to cover birth control free of charge--a policy 
that has benefited more than 62 million American women. The ability to 
access affordable reproductive healthcare has a powerful effect on the 
choices that women and families make every day--choices about whether 
to finish college, buy a home, or start a business. Ensuring that women 
have access to contraception is vital to the economic security of our 
families, and that is why I filed a brief in support of the ACA's 
contraceptive coverage requirement when it was challenged before the 
Supreme Court.
  Despite the millions of women who have benefited from the policy, and 
despite the science demonstrating that restricting access to 
contraception has negative health consequences, the Trump 
administration has eviscerated the policy.
  In February, the Trump administration rescinded Obama-era guidelines 
that instructed schools on how to protect transgender students under a 
Federal law called title IX. LGBT students deserve to learn in an 
environment free from discrimination, and they deserve to be treated 
with dignity and respect. But far too often, LGBT kids, particularly 
transgender kids, experience bullying and harassment. When that 
happens, those students are deprived of an equal education. That is why 
I led the Senate in calling on the Obama administration to issue those 
guidelines back in 2015. Nonetheless, the Trump administration decided 
to scrap that guidance--a callous and mean-spirited decision that sent 
a terrible message to LGBT children and their parents and took away a 
tool designed to protect our children. It is our responsibility, not 
just as Senators but as adults--as adults--to protect our children, not 
turn a blind eye when they face prejudice and cruelty.
  Nothing that Republicans have done is more galling, nothing poses a 
greater threat to the fabric of our democracy than their deliberate and 
sustained attack on the right to vote. Let's start with the Supreme 
Court's disastrous 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, a 5-to-4 
decision in which the Court's conservative Justices effectively gutted 
the Voting Rights Act and eliminated a check on States with a history 
of discrimination at the polls.
  After the Shelby County decision, States swiftly began to enact harsh 
restrictions on the right to vote, in many cases citing the myth of so-
called voter fraud as justification.
  Take North Carolina, for example. Just a few months after Shelby 
County, the State enacted one of the Nation's strictest voter ID laws. 
Without any evidence, the State described the new restrictions as 
necessary to prevent fraud. Without the protections of the Voting 
Rights Act, those changes went into effect, keeping poor and minority 
voters from casting a ballot.
  When North Carolina's restrictions were eventually challenged in 
court, the Fourth Circuit found that the primary purpose of the 
restrictions wasn't to fight fraud but to make it harder for Black 
people to vote. The court found that ``the new provisions target 
African Americans with almost surgical precision.''
  The fact that North Carolina's restrictions stand as a blatant 
example of race discrimination is undeniable, but the strategy behind 
adopting such harsh restrictions is even more insidious. The strategy 
here is designed to ensure that voters who don't agree with their 
candidates or their policies aren't able to vote against them.
  Paul Wellstone's words are more important today than ever before: 
``We all do better when we all do better.'' I believe that to my core. 
But the policies pursued by President Trump and his allies are not 
about lifting people out of poverty or about giving the politically 
powerless a louder voice in our democracy. These policies are intended 
to line the pockets of wealthy donors and to protect the power of those 
who already wield outsized influence in our democracy. That is a far 
cry from Paul's creed.
  When I think about what has gone wrong here, when I reflect on how 
this country has strayed so far from the values that I believe a 
majority of Americans share, I have to say that I think there is 
something wrong with the way we are arguing, and it started long before 
2016. Lurking behind each of those issues isn't just a difference of 
opinion or a difference of values. There is something far worse: a lie.
  Take, for example, the Trump administration's efforts to suppress 
votes. Shortly after winning the Presidential election, then President-
Elect Trump was confronted with the unpleasant fact that he lost the 
popular vote. He tweeted: ``In addition to winning the Electoral 
College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the 
millions of people who voted illegally.''
  Let's be clear. President Trump lost the popular vote by more than 
2.8 million votes. What he claimed in that tweet was that nearly 3 
million fraudulent votes were cast. In fact, he later claimed that 
between 3 and 5 million illegal votes caused him to lose the popular 
vote, citing no evidence.
  There were 138 million votes cast in the 2016 Presidential election. 
State election and law enforcement officials found virtually no 
credible evidence of fraud, and no States--not one--recorded any 
indication of widespread fraud--none. But that didn't stop the Trump 
administration from quickly turning the President's tweets into policy. 
The White House created a new commission to investigate the President's 
wild and unsubstantiated claim--a commission led by Kansas Secretary of 
State Kris Kobach, a rightwing extremist who has made a career out of 
trafficking in the voter fraud myth and who was fined for repeatedly 
lying to a Federal court in voter ID litigation. When Kobach was asked 
whether he believed the President's claim that millions of people voted 
illegally, he said: We may never know the answer to that question. 
Really?
  This episode could almost be considered funny if the ramifications 
weren't so deadly serious. Kobach's voter fraud commission requested 
sensitive information about voters--including names, dates of birth, 
party registration, and voting history--from all 50 States. This is 
information that could lay the groundwork for disenfranchising scores 
of eligible voters, which is why more than 40 States refused to comply 
with that request. At the same time, the Trump-Sessions Justice 
Department quickly dropped legal challenges to discriminatory voting 
practices in States, further signaling that protecting the right to 
vote will no longer be a priority of the Justice Department. It is all 
based on a lie--and not a lie President Trump came up with. Rightwing 
conservatives have been raising a false alarm about so-called voter 
fraud for years despite the fact that no credible evidence has ever 
been produced to demonstrate that it is a real problem.
  Or take the Trump administration's attacks on LGBT rights. Again and 
again, lurking behind these polices are lies--the lie that advocates of 
LGBT rights want to trample on people's religious freedom, the lie that 
families led

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by a gay or a lesbian couple don't provide safe environments for 
children, the lie that allowing transgender people to use the 
appropriate bathroom opens the door to sexual assault. President Trump 
didn't invent these lies, but he and his administration proudly repeat 
them.
  Or take the attacks on science, especially climate science. We now 
have enough evidence to conclude that climate change is real, and it is 
manmade. It is a threat to our Nation's security and is an existential 
threat to the planet. Defense Secretary Mattis knows this; yet, for 
years, so-called scientists who have been funded by industry have been 
hard at work in casting doubt on the well-established scientific 
consensus. Heck, a recent Washington Post report revealed that Trump 
administration officials have prohibited the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention--our Nation's premier public health and research 
institute--from using the terms ``evidence-based'' and ``science-
based'' in budget planning documents. President Trump didn't launch the 
war on science, but now he is leading the charge.
  Or take healthcare. President Trump promised that everyone would have 
insurance, but an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget 
Office revealed that under the House Republican healthcare bill, 23 
million fewer people would have had health insurance than are currently 
covered today--23 million people. To add insult to injury, the House 
bill would have hit the most vulnerable among us, and it would have hit 
them the hardest.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, 14 million of the 23 
million people who would have lost coverage under the House 
Republicans' plan would have been Medicaid beneficiaries.
  That is right. Despite candidate Trump's assurances that 
``everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken 
care of now,'' the Republican bill would have cut funding to Medicaid--
a vital safety net program that ensures that our seniors, people with 
disabilities, pregnant women, and families with children have access to 
the healthcare they need. On top of that, the Republican plan would 
have driven up the costs of premiums, with older and sicker people 
having experienced the deepest increases.
  Indeed, the healthcare debate has long been predicated on lies--lies 
that ``well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does'' is 
provide abortion services, the lie that women rely on birth control 
only because they are sexually promiscuous, the lie that the Affordable 
Care Act is collapsing under its own weight when, in fact, the Trump 
administration and the Republicans here in Congress have been doing 
everything they can do to sabotage it.
  Then there is the tax debate. Over the last year, Republicans have 
repeatedly claimed that they would advance policies that are designed 
to benefit middle-class families, not the wealthy. President Trump 
pledged not to forget the ``forgotten men and women of our country.'' 
Steve Mnuchin, the Secretary of the Treasury, promised that the 
Republican tax plan would help the middle class. He vowed that any tax 
cuts for upper income earners would be offset by getting rid of 
deductions that benefit the wealthy. That is what he said, that ``there 
will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class.'' Again, 83 percent of 
the benefits in the Republican tax bill go to the richest 1 percent. 
What he said is not true.
  Just the other day, the White House Press Secretary claimed that 
President Trump, himself, will pay more because of this bill. We don't 
know exactly what the effect will be on his personal finances because 
the White House has refused to release his tax returns. They have 
claimed in another lie that he cannot release them because they are 
under audit. You can release tax returns while you are under audit. 
What we do know is that tax breaks in the Republican bill for real 
estate developers like President Trump and his family will save him 
millions upon millions of dollars.
  I could go on and on.
  Before I came to the Senate, I was known as something of an obsessive 
on the subject of honesty in public discourse, but as I leave the 
Senate, I have to admit that it feels as though we are losing the war 
on truth. Maybe it is already lost. If that is the case, if that is 
what happens, then we have lost the ability to have the kinds of 
arguments that have helped to build consensus--I see Lamar Alexander 
here; we have done that on the HELP Committee; I thank the chairman for 
when we have done that--or at least to have helped the American people 
make informed choices about the issues that affect their lives.
  So what is to be done? Who will stand up and fight for a more honest 
debate--to insist that even though we have a different set of opinions, 
we cannot honorably advance our competing agendas unless we use the 
same set of facts? I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
will stand up for truth. The thing is, I have spent enough time with my 
Republican friends over the last 8\1/2\ years to know that they are 
motivated by values just like Democrats. I just hope that they will 
fight for those values forthrightly.
  At the end of the day, it is going to be up to the American people 
just as it has always been. We will always have the democracy we 
deserve, if not the government we want. It is going to take ordinary 
Americans deciding to become more informed consumers of political news 
and opinion and deciding that they are willing to be a part of the 
argument themselves instead of, simply, tuning out all of the noise. If 
they do, I know that we will get this country back on track.
  In October, 15 years after we lost Paul, I took to the Senate floor 
to remember him and to celebrate his life. Paul understood better than 
anyone I know the meaning and the power of politics, and I think he 
would have a lot to say about where we find ourselves today.
  Paul said:

       Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. 
     Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. 
     Politics is about the improvement of people's lives.

  Even in the face of everything that is happening today, I still 
believe in Paul's words: ``Politics is about the improvement of 
people's lives.'' I know those words to be true because I know that the 
American people still believe in justice and equality and opportunity, 
and I see evidence of that every day.
  I saw it in January when more than 4 million people across the United 
States joined in the Women's March. They stood in solidarity with their 
mothers and sisters and daughters and wives.
  I saw it later that same month after President Trump issued an 
Executive order that sought to ban travelers from Muslim-majority 
countries from entering our country. Hundreds of lawyers responded to 
the call to help. They rushed to airports and offered their services in 
support of affected families.
  I saw it in May when a transgender boy in Wisconsin who was 
discriminated against by his school had the courage to take them to 
court, and he won.
  I saw it in September when tens of thousands of Americans mobilized 
in opposition to attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and 
succeeded in killing the bill.
  I also saw it at the ballot box when voters in Virginia and Alabama 
resisted the temptation to give in to anger and cynicism and, instead, 
exercised their right to vote.
  ``Politics is about the improvement of people's lives.'' The American 
people know that to be true, and they fill me with hope for our 
country.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask for 3 minutes to talk about my 
colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.

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