Mr. President, it might surprise some people here that while what we are dealing with here is important, we are not the center of the universe. All across this country, as I was reminded this morning…
Mr. President, it might surprise some people here that while what we are dealing with here is important, we are not the center of the universe. All across this country, as I was reminded this morning when calling home and speaking with friends and family and my wife and my children, life goes on.
Most Americans, I think, are aware that there is an issue going on here in Washington, DC, with regard to funding the government. But I doubt very few of them are sitting in front of the CNN countdown clock, where I guess now we are on the ticker because we are into the shutdown, living it--some sort of reality drama. It doesn't mean it is not important, but it is a reality that life goes on. People aren't following this every single day and aren't checking their phones on a 15-minute basis to find out how this thing is going to be fixed.
I think a lot of people are a little bit confused about what is happening here. If you are just listening to it off the top, in between things or maybe on the radio, maybe some people have the perception that this is all about a disagreement regarding the budget and/or a disagreement solely about an issue that is of critical importance, and we need to deal with it right away. That is just not accurate. I will get to that in a moment. But it is still hard for people to understand how this happens.
When I explain to people where we are and how we got here, it doesn't make sense to a lot of people. I want to begin by saying, the Bible says that there is nothing new under the Sun. It is one of the things that came into my mind early this morning.
I had occasion a few weeks ago, around the New Year, to spend some time with my family at the wonderful national park facilities, which I hope are open today, in Philadelphia and in the halls where our Constitution, the very document that designed our system of government, that each of us appeals to, that each of us has sworn allegiance to, was debated. That debate was a contentious one. It began on the 23rd of May and ended on the 17th of September of the year 1787. It was actually contentious from the start. In fact, the New York delegation stayed only a few days, and the delegation from Rhode Island straight- out boycotted it.
What is ironic, by the way, is one of the most contentious issues in that Constitutional Convention was the creation of the Senate. The creation of this body was a heated discussion. We don't know a lot about the details of that discussion because they had closed the windows, even though it was hot. They didn't go around talking about it. There weren't 24-hour news cycles and Twitter, but we know it was contentious. We know that in the end, this Constitution that we all swear allegiance to and that for over two centuries has helped create an exceptional system of government was approved by 39 of the 55 delegates.
There were people who voted against the Constitution. The one thing that was clear is that none of them got everything they wanted. At that time, by the end of that convention--in fact, Monday, September 17, 1787, was the last day of that convention, and one of the delegates was someone named Benjamin Franklin. We all know who that is. He was internationally well known. He wanted to give a short speech to that convention before signing it. He was actually too weak to do the speech himself, so he had someone else deliver the speech. Based on the notes that Madison took, here is what we know, generally, he said. It begins with a line that says:
I confess that there are several parts of this constitution
which I do not at present approve.
He goes on to say:
I agree to this Constitution with all of its faults.
He says:
I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may
be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble
a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom,
you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices,
their passions, their errors of opinion, their local
interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can
a perfect production be expected?
So right from the very beginning in the history of this Nation, we have acknowledged that in order to make progress, it is virtually impossible for everybody in that process to get everything they want. Our job is to move things forward--and I don't want to read the whole thing--but suffice it to
say, Franklin's point is maybe he was wrong. He is not perfect. Even though many of us tend to believe we are the only people who are right on this issue, at that stage in his life, he had learned enough to understand he was not the holder of all wisdom; that he had changed his mind on issues when he came upon new information. He also understood that when you bring a group of people together and ask them to come to agreement on something, unless they are clones of one another or unless they all come from the same thought process, you are going to have disagreement, but in order to reach a conclusion, everyone is going to have to get something they need even though no one is going to get everything they want. That was from the very beginning from our very Founders, and it was hard then.
Imagine now, in the 21st century, with 50 States and several territories, extraordinary diversity in terms of ideology, opinion, geography, background, and all of it covered by 24-hour news, which basically covers American politics like entertainment, and Twitter feeds on both sides that are constantly driving narratives. Imagine if they had Twitter and 24-hour news during the Constitutional Convention? A, we would know a lot more about what they were saying to and about each other and, B, we may never have had a Constitution, simply because of exacerbating those tensions.
I am not here to say we should not have Twitter and 24-hour news, but I am telling you these were factors that were always difficult. Self- government was always hard. Imagine today, with these additional factors of diversity and the way politics is covered, practiced, and discussed. I say that because there is a growing temptation from American politics that largely comes from the base of both parties but often is fed through media narratives, but the goal is to achieve total victory.
Total victory is what you want to achieve in a sporting event. You want to win and beat your opponent by as many points as possible, but in a constitutional republic, total victory is nearly impossible, especially in a country like America. It is impossible--impossible--for a President, for any party, or for a faction on any issue to get 100 percent of what they want all the time.
Instinctively, despite the fact that they don't work here every day, despite the fact that they don't sit glued in front of the television all day watching politics, most Americans understand this. They know this because it is a reality of life, and they know it instinctively because that is the way our system was designed. That is the way self- government was supposed to function. It is hard. Self-government has never been easy, and it has only gotten harder.
So when you talk to someone and you explain what has happened, here are the facts. We had a government funding deadline, meaning that if by midnight this morning we had not passed a bill to authorize more spending, we had a sort of mini-shutdown or partial shutdown of the government. There is a provision that was put in law by President Obama that gave status to young people who were brought into this country illegally by their parents, through no fault of their own, and that provision expires on the 5th of March, about 43 days away.
We have a bill before the Senate that funds the government, that keeps it open for 4 weeks--initially. I think now we are down to--with this proposal before the Senate, I think it is going to end on the 9th, so about 3 weeks. There is nothing in that bill that the Democrats are against, but they voted against that bill last night. They are not letting us vote on the other bill today--right now--and intend to vote against it, apparently, when we do vote on it Monday morning, because they want to see their demands met on something that doesn't expire for 43 days.
So this is not about whether you are for or against doing something about DACA. It is not because it is not like the government funding expired last night and DACA expired last night and so you have to do both. This is the government funding expired last night and DACA expires in 43 days. When you explain that to people--why would--how does that work? Why does that make sense? Why would they do this?
In fairness, I listened to the argument of my Democratic colleagues, and one of the arguments they make is they don't trust the Republican Party on the issue of DACA, but more particularly they don't trust the President to deal with it. So they need to force action now. They need to do something, and they need to use government funding as the leverage to force something to happen. Let me say at the outset that it is a legitimate tool in the toolbox of the legislator on a matter of deep principle to not vote on an important bill in order to get leverage for what you want. If there is something you are deeply principled about and you believe we need to do, it is a legitimate tool to say: I know you really need to do this, and I really need to do that, so I am not going to let you do what you need to do unless you let me do what I need to do. I think that is the argument they are making now.
As I pointed out to you earlier, this is not kind of the same because this is a spending bill. In fact, the bill they voted against would expire even before the March 5 deadline. In essence, we would have to have another government funding vote even before we got to March 5, so it is really not a leverage argument.
Even if it were, I would say that in order for self-government to work as I have described already, we have to be judicious and careful about how we use these tools. You can't be using them all the time. You have to reserve them for key moments for a lot of reasons.
The first, frankly, is international implications. We can talk a lot about Russian interference that occurred. The goal of Russian interference above all else is to sow discord and to create conflict and controversy in American politics so Putin can go around the world saying America likes to lecture everyone about democracy, but their democracy is not a real democracy and their leaders are corrupt and their elections are rigged and all kinds of stuff. That is what he wanted to drive.
There are nations like China which under our nose are rapidly working to change the world in our time. While we spend all these days arguing with each other about whatever the outrage of the day is--and every day it is something else--China is working underneath us and all around us to rebuild the world in their image and to their advantage and to our detriment. One of the things they tell other countries is, Americans have a country in decline. These people are in total decline. They are abandoning the world and, more importantly, they can't even govern themselves. So we are doing their job for them when we create these sorts of controversies.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't have heated debates on tough issues, and that shouldn't mean that from time to time people reserve the right--and I reserve the right--to use leverage to achieve our goals. I have done it before, and I imagine I will do it again, but we have to be careful about it because it does impact the way the world views us. People watch us all over the world. They don't understand, as some of us do, that this stuff happens, and it all works out. They think, literally, some places believe we are crumbling, being ripped apart at the seams, and it encourages people to do things and nations to do things sometimes through miscalculation. That is the first reason you want to be careful.
The second reason you want to be judicious about using these sorts of tools is because, quite frankly, it poisons the process. I would state that the abuse and overuse of these prerogatives of Senators over the last decade has done tremendous damage to the Senate, and it really has impacted our ability to tackle and to solve real problems. I say that as someone who acknowledges the Republicans have done this. Republicans did this kind of stuff. I would argue it was different, but it doesn't matter. Republicans used leverage in situations that people thought we shouldn't have used. Democratic activists now insist that Democrats use the same tool. They did it when they were in the minority, and you need to do it now when you are in the minority.
I would also say we have to be careful because, the truth is, we all have matters of deep principle. I have matters of deep principle that haven't been addressed yet.
I have a matter of deep principle, and as much as I believe we need to do something about DACA, I have a matter of deep principle that I believe is
more urgent and requires attention right away. The people of Florida and the people of Puerto Rico and the people of Texas have a desperate need for disaster relief. Forty percent of the island of Puerto Rico has no electricity. This is a U.S. territory. American citizens are living in third-world conditions.
In the State of Florida, our citrus growers are in critical condition. We may not have a U.S. citrus industry based in Florida if this goes on much longer. We still have people living in hotels and motel rooms in Florida because their homes were destroyed. That is a real need that doesn't have any deadline. They needed it yesterday, and we still haven't addressed it. I suppose if I wanted to use this tool-- and some maybe encouraged me to do that--I could come and say: I am not voting on any funding for the government, and I will shut down the government until we deal with disaster relief. The problem is, all 99 other Senators have a principled position as well. So basically all we do is take hostages all day on every principled issue we have at every opportunity we get. Well, you get the picture, and this is happening more and more.
By the way, I say all this to you, understanding that if we passed a long-term funding bill--let's say the bill before us funded government through October, and I voted for that and disaster relief hasn't happened yet, there is no guarantee we would get disaster relief. What leverage would I have? So we have to be very judicious about how we use it. I ultimately decided not to do it because I believe the government shutdown ends up hurting the people I am trying to help with disaster relief. There are Federal employees in Puerto Rico who got hit by a hurricane a few months ago and now can't go to work on Monday. If they go to work, they are not getting paid, and it is already difficult over there.
There are Federal services in Florida. People are going to call our offices around the country and in Florida on Monday, and even if I have essential staff there to answer the call, there may not be an employee at the Federal agency, where we can pick up the phone and intervene on their behalf. It happens all the time. One of the very common things we face in calls we get is someone has a loved one or relative who was visiting somewhere around the world, maybe in the Western Hemisphere, they were killed in an accident, and they want to bring their body home to be buried. We have to deal with all the paperwork with the Embassy or the consulate and the host country to bring them home. We are not going to be there on Monday to do it because the people we have to call might not even be there to answer the call. In the end, my view of it is, you don't cut off your nose to spite your face, and at this point, you don't shut down the government only to hurt them somewhere else.
At the end of the day, this really is not about leverage. It is not. I say this with the highest respect. We disagree on a lot of issues, but the Democratic leader is someone I know understands legislation and understands politics. I personally do not believe this is about leverage. He has to know this because this is really no different than in December. We passed a short-term spending bill in December. Democratic Members voted for that, and the DACA issue was unresolved at the time.
By the way, we had a chance to deal with disaster relief in December too. They sent a disaster relief bill over from the House to the Senate, and the Republican leader chose not to take it up--I believe because he wanted to hold it over for this debate. The more things that are pending, the more leverage you have to pose to them. I mean we were going to put additional things on the House bill and send it back. We knew what those things were, but suffice it to say, everything is unresolved, but I don't think this is purely about leverage.
Here is what I actually think this is about, and I am here to cite some examples why. In December, as I said, before we got ready to leave for the end of the year, there were a lot of activists involved in the DACA issue that were really pounding on the Democrats to shut down the government unless DACA was handled. To their credit, a number of Democratic Senators didn't do so. They voted not to shut down the government, and the end result was they unleashed a fury of assaults, in terms of pressure and protests and sleep-ins and all kinds of things. This really started in October.
I have a number of articles I want to cite. Let's go to October 2, 2017. This is an article that talks about--I will quote from it. I underlined the key provisions. ``Democrats seeking an immigration deal . . . are facing resistance from immigrant activists who are rejecting any compromise that would tighten border security and demanding more extensive legislation to protect . . . immigrants from deportation.''
It goes on to say: ``Despite Democratic leaders' declared commitment to help so-called Dreamers . . . they are catching sustained flak from immigration activists.''
It goes on to say the minority leader in the House, Congresswoman Pelosi, ``faced a vociferous protest from Dreamers a few weeks ago, when activists shouted down her speech and called her a `liar' who helped create a `deportation machine.'''
If you haven't seen the video, she did a press conference in, I believe, San Francisco. As she was there doing this press conference for Dreamers, these other Dream activist people showed up and started screaming at her.
For those of us on my side of the aisle, we view her as one of the more liberal Members in Congress and certainly someone I have identified as a supporter of the Dream Act. Then you have people saying the Dream Act isn't enough, you have to cover other people. So they are under a lot of pressure.
Here is a quote from an immigrant rights activist and a DACA recipient. He said: ``I think Senator Schumer crumbles under pressure just so he can deliver on something.''
These are harsh words from these activists, and this started in October of last year.
Now, let's go to this article of December 19. This article begins by saying:
Dozens of immigration advocates rallied outside Sen. Chuck
Schumer's Manhattan office Tuesday.
In both Spanish and English, speakers at the rally demanded
that the Senate minority leader ask his fellow Democrats to
refrain from supporting any legislation until a clean Dream
Act is passed.
A clean Dream Act means just vote for the Dream Act, nothing else--no border security or, by the way, any legislation; don't vote for anything until that happens. That is the pressure they were under.
The article goes on to say:
As Congress negotiates the budget, protesters called for
Schumer to help shut down the government if a Dream Act isn't
passed by the end of the year, chanting, ``If we don't get
it, shut it down.''
Those are the quotes. This was in December. So this article was December 19; this must have been December 18, and the chant outside his office in Manhattan was ``If we don't get it, shut it down.'' So the calls for a shutdown began as far back as December, not 43 days before the deadline but 60 or 70 days before the deadline.
Finally, the spokeswoman for the minority leader put out a statement for, I believe, the protesters, and, I guess, the press was assembled. She said:
We want to make sure nothing passes until we have the Dream
Act in there.
They were already telegraphing this in December, so this is not something that has happened in the last 2 days or 3 days. This was ongoing and sustained pressure.
There is more. On December 21, there was an article in the Washington Post. The headline is ``In private meeting, Schumer angrily confronted by Hispanic Caucus members as prospects for DACA deal slip again.'' It begins:
Disagreements among Democrats over how to keep fighting to
enact legal protections for immigrant ``dreamers'' boiled
over in the office of Senate Minority Leader Charles E.
Schumer on Thursday as he met with members of the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus in what several participants
described as a tense and heated exchange.
With just a few minutes' notice, they showed up in the
lobby of Schumer's suite across from the Senate floor in
hopes of pressing him to persuade more Senators to vote
against the GOP spending plan that was set to be approved in
the coming hours.
The latest short-term spending plan was set for approval as
Democrats this week backed off a pledge to force a vote this
month over the fate of thousands of undocumented immigrants
brought to this country as children. The decision angered
immigration activists.
Later in the article:
Several people who attended the meeting, granted anonymity
to describe what was expected to be a private exchange, said
the meeting with Schumer began with cordial remarks.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez . . . unloaded on Schumer, accusing him
and Democratic senators of not caring about the fate of
dreamers and ``throwing them under the bus.''
In response, Schumer raised his voice, telling Gutierrez
not to insult fellow Democrats.
Gutierrez shot back, telling Schumer, ``Don't raise your
voice.''
[A] few other caucus members made pointed comments toward
Schumer.
Later in the day, Gutierrez tweeted after all that: ``The fight continues in January . . . I think [we] are [all] on the same page.''
Incredible pressure is being mounted the whole time.
There is one more thing I will cite here, and this is from the New Yorker on January 18.
[M]any Democratic activists are demanding that Schumer and
other elected Democrats vote against the G.O.P. spending bill
even at the risk of a government shutdown. . . . On
Wednesday, three protesters from the Dream Action Coalition .
. . were arrested while demonstrating outside Schumer's
office in New York City.
Some Democratic activists and strategists are arguing that
the Party should take its stand now while the stench of
Trump's [alleged you-know-what] comment is still hanging in
the air.
So this is all about political pressure. That is the leverage point, and that is why this is happening. It is untenable. The position they have established is untenable.
Most people in America just wouldn't agree with this. If you are being honest with yourself--I challenge anyone to go into any diner in your State or call 10 people who just kind of follow politics a little bit but are not activists or whatever and ask them: Do you think it is right to shut down the government over an issue that we have until March 5 to fix? Ask them that. Call people and ask them: Do you think it is a smart thing to do to close the Federal Government over an issue that we have another 43 days to address? You know what the answer is going to be; you do. That is why the position they have adopted is untenable, but that tells you the amount of political pressure they are under to do this. This is all motivated by that. This is all motivated by an incredible amount of pressure brought to bear on my Democratic colleagues--in particular, on the Democratic leader--by activists, and it brings us to this point.
By the way, I would also argue that the strategy, in addition to being driven by that, is counterproductive. Yesterday, there was supposed to be a meeting with the White House and congressional leaders from both parties to keep working on this issue of DACA. The Democrats didn't show up, probably because they were too busy dealing with the shutdown. So this isn't making arriving at a deal for DACA easier; it is making it harder.
On this argument that they don't trust--if we don't do this, we can't trust the President is going to do this, I don't think that is true. I think there is a balance of leverage here that exists that almost guarantees something can happen if we want something to happen. So let's begin with facts.
The President of the United States campaigned on a very specific promise, and we know what that promise was. He was going to build a wall and secure the border. The President knows that he needs 60 votes in the Senate. The President knows that he is not going to get a border wall and get increased security unless we do something about DACA. They are well aware of that at the White House, and I think they have said that openly.
What is important to remember, as well, is that there isn't going to be a deal on DACA unless we have a deal on the wall. That is the way our system works. I say that to you as someone who supports a wall and supports dealing with DACA. But as I have already talked about earlier, in this system of government, it is not a zero-sum game. It cannot be ``I get the wall and you get nothing,'' and it cannot be ``We get DACA and even more, and you don't get the wall.'' It is not going to work.
Right now, we have a lot of wasting of time going on, entertaining ridiculous fantasies about what could be achieved here. A bill that creates permanent status under DACA but would allow some future Congress to stop funding the wall isn't going to pass. The President is not going to sign that. Think about it. If you have a wall that takes 10 years to build and you have DACA that is permanent, the next year they don't fund it, DACA stays, and the wall is not there. They are not going to sign that.
A bill that creates a path to citizenship under DACA but then also allows the recipients of that citizenship to use it to bring in their parents who brought them into the country illegally--the President is not going to sign that. That is just reality, and I say this to you as someone who has tremendous sympathy for the young people who were brought here as minors, yes, in violation of the law but through no fault of their own. They didn't commit a crime, and now they find themselves with no legal immigration status.
It would be a mistake, in my opinion, to allow their status to expire without a replacement. There are practical reasons why it would be a mistake. We have spent years and taxpayer money educating them. We would be hurting their employers. These people are working somewhere now, and overnight they can't work there anymore. They might own a business, and you would be hurting the people who work for them. Maybe they are married to a U.S. citizen; you would be hurting a U.S. citizen who is their spouse. Maybe they have children who are U.S. citizens, and these children need those parents. You would be hurting them. These are the practical reasons we shouldn't let it expire.
There are more reasons we shouldn't let it expire. It is immoral to have laws that punish anyone for the mistakes their parents made. It is immoral to deport someone to a country they have never really lived in. You were 2 years old when you came from Honduras, you don't even speak Spanish, you don't know anybody there, and they are going to send you there--it just doesn't feel right.
It is my deepest belief that if DACA expires and 700,000 young adults who have spent the majority of their lives among us are forced to leave this country, I think it would be a dark stain on our history. I think future generations would look back at that and say that was a terrible thing those people did back then. I think we have more support for what I just said in the Republican Party than we have ever had in the 7 years that I have been here.
But I have to be fair and I want to be frank. It is also a mistake to overreach on the other side of this argument. It is fair to argue that we should deal with DACA because it is the moral and compassionate thing to do. It is fair to argue that dealing with DACA is in our national interest, but it is a big mistake to demand a right that does not exist. There is no right to illegally immigrate to any country on the planet. No one has a right to DACA, but dealing with DACA is the right thing to do.
I think it is also overreaching to insist that not only must DACA recipients be accommodated, but we also have to accommodate their parents. Maybe because I personally know so many people under these circumstances, I am personally open to figuring out something that allows their parents to stay, especially if the children are minors. I understand that is not a majority position in my party, and I have to be honest with you that I believe that if we take the position around here that we are not accepting any deal unless it takes care of both the DACA recipient and the parent--if that is the hard position we adopt and people aren't willing to move off of it, I think there may be no deal at all, and that means that neither the recipients of DACA nor the parents will have anything.
By the way, I also think it is overreach to oppose a border wall because you find it symbolically offensive. First, America has a right and, more importantly, a responsibility to protect its borders and enforce its laws. Second, there is not going to be a DACA deal of any kind without a wall, period. Donald Trump is not going to sign, cannot sign, and will not sign a bill that doesn't have real enforcement. That is a fact. That has to happen.
So what is the way forward? Right now, the government is shut down. You won't really notice until Monday, but on Monday people will start to notice. DACA expires 6 weeks from Monday.
So on Monday, if we haven't done anything, the government will be shut down, and we have 43 days to go until DACA. I think we need to fund the government on a short-term basis--maybe it is February 9--and then we spend the next 3 weeks working on an agreement on defense, an agreement on disaster relief, and an agreement on border security and DACA.
For Democrats who are worried they don't have leverage, you have plenty of leverage without shutting down the government. For example, there are two Republicans who oppose short-term spending in general. Then you have several Republican Members who oppose any longer term spending without defense spending increases. In essence, this worry that you have that they are going to fund the government for just 6 months and walk away from DACA--there are at least five Republicans who are going to vote no on that, several because of defense and two because of short-term spending. Then add to that, there are at least three other Republican Members--myself being one of them--who will have a lot of trouble voting for a long-term spending plan that doesn't include disaster relief. That alone gives you leverage to ensure that not only do those issues need to be dealt with, but all three of them would have to be dealt with in order for there to be any long-term deal that forecloses the leverage you want.
You have another piece of leverage: The President needs to fulfill his campaign promise, which Americans supported at the ballot box: Build a wall. He knows he can't do that without a DACA deal. So, really, both sides here have leverage. But as long as the government is shut down, we are wasting valuable time.
Monday could have been a day that people met and hashed out key details of DACA. Instead, Monday will probably be all about the shutdown--and maybe Tuesday and maybe Wednesday. We are wasting time we do not have.
Finally, as for DACA, what is the way forward on that? There are a lot of ideas going around. Here is what I would say to you: The baseline in the core of any agreement is one that basically codifies DACA, in essence, deals with the President's decision to suspend the Executive order on it and funds in a way that can guarantee continued funding the President's immigration enforcement plan. That is the core. You codify DACA, and you do something to ensure that the wall is going to be built and that they can't come back and cancel the funding. Then the Senate can go into an open amendment process and debate any additional matters you want put in there. For example, maybe there is a deal that, instead of codifying DACA alone, it actually creates a pathway to citizenship under DACA, but it eliminates not just DACA applicants but future applicants from being able to sponsor parents. I am not saying that it will pass, but that might be a debate that happens.
Even if you can't reach 60 votes on any of these amendments people are offering, even if all those amendments fail, in the end, you are at least left with a bill that secures our border and gives permanent certainty to close to 700,000 people who currently are registered under
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
