Reversionary Interest Conveyance Act

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the people who oversee the post office now want to run college sports. What could go wrong?

The U.S. Congress has been called upon during one of the more important times in our history to make difficult decisions about the future of our country. We have navigated wars, economic downturns, and natural disasters. These are the kinds of nationwide issues the Federal Government should address.

The Founders never intended for the Federal Government, though, to usurp the authority of your local school board or your homeowners association. I don't think it ever occurred to them that Congress would one day be in charge of dictating the rules for college sports. Yet, with gas at over $4 a gallon, a persistent war with Iran, $40 trillion in debt, the Senate has decided that the most urgent thing now is to dictate how college sports are run from Washington.

It came to this decision, of course, after acknowledging that government caused the very problems this bill purports to fix. This is the exact scenario the great Harry Brown described when he said: Government--you know, they know how to break your legs and then hand you a crutch and say, see, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk.

I come to the floor today to offer an amendment that would avoid the Federal takeover of college sports. Unlike the underlying bill, my amendment rejects the idea that politicians should run college sports. My amendment would put the trust in the schools, the students, the coaches, and the conferences to run their own sports.

You see, the whole problem originated because the government, through the courts, took the power away from the NCAA.

My amendment accomplishes this goal simply by granting an antitrust exemption so that the NCAA, the conferences, the college students, and the schools can make their own deals without unelected judges or politicians micromanaging every detail of compensation and eligibility.

Jason Russell, a journalist with Reason magazine, perhaps summed up this bill's Federal takeover of college sports best when he wrote:

The backers of the bill believe politicians, not the NCAA,

should decide how many transfers are allowed. They think

politicians, not conferences, should set a compensation cap

on how much schools can pay athletes. They think politicians,

not athletes and businesses, should get to decide [what a

legitimate private contract does]. They think politicians,

not the colleges, should decide how many schools are in the

Big Ten and SEC. They think politicians, not coaches, should

decide when a coach is allowed to leave a job.

This is not the job of the Federal Government. These decisions should be made privately by an association. The NCAA always did this until the courts interfered with them, calling them a monopoly and taking away their just power to govern themselves.

Jason Russell goes on to write:

[This bill presumes that] politicians, not athletes or

agents, should get to decide what agent fees are. They think

politicians should empower medical personnel, not athletes or

coaches, to have ``autonomous, unchallengeable'' power to

decide if an athlete plays or sits. They even think

politicians, not the NFL or broadcasters, should get to

decide when professional football games are on TV. They think

politicians should have a say in the length of the college

football season.

This bill is the culmination of a slow march toward Federal control of college sports that began almost 140 years ago in the courts. In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It is a piece of antitrust legislation, but quite quickly, antitrust became a weapon against businesses of all sizes.

A brief review of the antitrust cases shows you the ridiculous nature of antitrust law. One of the most ridiculous examples of antitrust as a weapon of government came in 1967. In Utah Pie Company v. Continental Baking Company, the Court determined that a bakery violated antitrust laws by selling its pies too cheaply.

Now, you would be forgiven for being confused if you thought monopolies were where someone controlled the market and raised your price. The government sued Utah Pie Company for selling its pies too cheaply.

Not long after that, in 1969, the government sued IBM for dominating the computer market by innovating too quickly.

Now, I thought monopolies were going to prevent competition. There would be no innovation. They would block new innovation because they didn't want someone to get into their territory. Instead, they accused IBM of innovating too frequently.

So antitrust law is full of the government going after people for charging too little and innovating too much. The world is upside down, and antitrust law is a perfect example of the illogic of the government.

The logic of antitrust became so contorted that the FTC accused cereal makers of maintaining a shared monopoly on the theory that the brands blocked competition by being so popular, they flooded the store shelves

with their product. After 10 years of litigation, the FTC dismissed the case, ruling the staff failed to prove the shared monopoly charges.

They were being accused of being too competitive. They were putting too many products on the store shelves. So you had like six or eight cereal makers making so many cereals that they said: You are blocking competition by introducing too many products.

These are the absurdities of antitrust laws. This is the antitrust law that ended up destroying college sports. When you see the mess that is college sports, don't think it just happened and now government has to come in and fix it. Government created the problem. Government took antitrust law, used it against NCAA, neutered them, and said: You can no longer make your rules.

So when it is the government's fault, maybe we should get rid of the government problem, not add more government to try to solve the problems.

Antitrust laws granted the courts the ability to intrude on private contracts and dictate how people should run their businesses or their associations, like the NCAA, and courts have grown increasingly comfortable using that power, increasing the scope of antitrust law with each case.

For over 100 years, this country has left regulation of sports where it belongs: with the institutions and individuals and voluntary associations that have always run college sports. Until 1984, college athletics were excluded from antitrust law because antitrust law didn't deal with noncommercial amateur pursuits. But in 1984, the Court decided that the NCAA couldn't impose television broadcasting restrictions on college football games. Well, why not? It is a volunteer association. If you don't want to be in the NCAA, don't be in it. Form your own association. Have your own rules. But there is an advantage to being in it because people watch the NCAA, watch the Final Four, and they watch the March Madness. So it is that tradeoff. You get something, but in order to get it, you accepted, voluntarily, the rules--that is, until the Court came in, messed everything up, and neutered the NCAA.

Rather than recognizing that there may have been an underlying reason for the restrictions, the Court threw out the restrictions and began the slippery slope we are on today.

That case in 1984 established college athletics as a commercial enterprise, but it wasn't until 2015 that the courts really sank their fangs into college athletics.

In 2015, the court decided that the NCAA could not require students to maintain their amateur status by refusing payments for the use of their name, image, and likeness. The court decided that eligibility rules for a private association are best decided by the government, not the members of the association.

This is a real tragedy, and the reason I bring it up today is not because college sports is so messed up by the government. When you let antitrust law pervade private associations, you get rid of all of the rules that people voluntarily accept. It is no different than your homeowners association. It has all these rules. You voluntarily accept them if you want to be part of that particular neighborhood. It is the same way with the NCAA. But they can't make the rules anymore because the courts said: You are a monopoly. You are no longer allowed to.

All of the problems in college sports can be laid at the foot of antitrust law. You can say it is the courts, but it is really Congress. Congress passed these ridiculous laws, and for 150 years, they have been used in a ridiculous way. In fact, to this day, antitrust laws protect Big Business against Small Business.

If five doctors get together and they say ``Well, we want to get our annual fee or our exam fee to be $100'' and they are in separate practices that come together, the government will sue them for antitrust even though they are trying to use their leverage to negotiate a higher price with a billion-dollar company.

The insurance companies are protected from doctors organizing or nurses organizing or hospitals organizing even though they are the big player. The big bully is the insurance company, but they are protected by antitrust and the small business people are punished. This is the history of antitrust law.

In 2015, the court finally decided that the NCAA could not require students to maintain their amateur status. This NIL--name, image, and likeness--you can't have rules against it. You are a monopoly. No more rules.

So it is the Wild West, and it is chaos now. Nobody says it is not chaos. But the chaos was created by the antitrust laws. The chaos was created by the government. The court decided that eligibility rules for a private association would be decided by the government, not the members of the association.

Since 2015, a flurry of cases has decided issues as parochial as how much individual athletes are paid out of broadcast revenues and how long student-athletes are eligible to play, when they can transfer, who they can play for, how old they are, what injuries they can play with. It is really not the government's business to be involved.

Government has shirked its real duties--which are paramount, which are of great national importance--to focus on something it knows nothing about. And mark my words, this won't be the end of it. Sports has commissioners--a commissioner of baseball. Who is going to be the commissioner of college sports? Will we be back here in another year with people lobbying us to tweak the eligibility rules, tweak the transfer rules?

As important as college sports are to students and institutions, they aren't something Congress should micromanage. Athletes and institutions should be free to make choices about who they work for, who they play for, and what rules they should be subject to.

This bill manages to interfere with college athletics at nearly every level. It limits the ability of certain employees to freely leave one school and accept a job at another. It decides how students may go about licensing their name, image, and likeness. It even decides when the transfer students are eligible to play.

The bill actually forbids a return to the historic model of amateur sports where athletes are not paid. I am old enough to remember when amateur sports was lauded. You remember when we beat the Russians. We beat them with amateurs. It was commendable. They put all their professionals out there, and we beat them with amateurs.

But people knew what it was to be amateurs. People who remember Bobby Jones remember and respect that Bobby Jones didn't take money. There was something admirable about someone so pure that they didn't. There was always something more admirable--not that money is bad, not that the NFL and NBA are bad. Look, our basketball players go after a year anyway. They are playing 1 year and going to the NBA. Some of them are going directly from high school, and that is their business.

There is always this avenue to make money, but now what we have done with this bill is we have micromanaged this, and in the bill, it actually forbids anybody from preventing amateurs from being paid. You will no longer--it was probably a lost dream anyway, but this bill prevents the NCAA from ever going back to having true amateur sports where they aren't paid.

The bill would also set up a Commission on the future of college athletics. A legislative Commission--this is where we will get to the commissioner of college sports--will recommend new rule changes to Congress in the future.

It seems that we already have an institution that does this; it is called the NCAA.

Congress should not mire itself in another endless cycle of solving problems it caused. We should address the root cause, which is the antitrust law, that got us here.

I have several bills to get rid of some of these old antitrust laws that I think actually favor Big Business over Small Business.

One of the antitrust laws says that if you buy more in bulk from someone--so if you are a hardware store and you buy 5 hammers or you are Walmart that buys 5,000 hammers, there is a law that says you are not allowed to give discounts to big suppliers. Well, that is ridiculous. It goes against all economics.

So what I am offering is an amendment that would actually solve the problem faced by college sports. My

amendment would not create all the new rules for it. It would simply reverse the previous antitrust interference and prevent future interference by exempting college sports from antitrust laws.

Now, the interesting thing is, in order to pass their bill, they actually do a little bit of exemption from antitrust laws. They do a little, though, and then in place of that, they replace it with congressionally dictated laws.

What I would do is just get rid of antitrust laws. NCAA would have their power back again, and they would be able to make these rules. It might be that NIL probably still continues, but it would be a negotiated settlement and NCAA would do it.

This would ensure conferences, colleges, and athletes are free to negotiate and enter into agreements that benefit everyone without the heavy hand of government dictating what parties could offer or accept.

It would also prevent Congress from imposing rules governing such minutiae as eligibility for transfer students as a threshold for reporting name, image, and likeness income. I love college sports as much as anyone, which is why I think the best way we could protect college sports is to stop sticking our nose in where it doesn't belong.

Now, we have the bill before us, and you would think, in a country like ours that prizes democracy in a republic, we would have debate, we would be able to present my amendment, and it would either pass or fail on its merits.

So what we will do is ask to bring my amendment down for a vote, and it is going to be rejected. And that is disappointing that we are going to do this whole thing where we take over college sports and any dissent will be muted and there will be no attempts to alter the bill.

The bill has been written in private, but there will be no ability for anyone to amend this bill. That is a disappointment.

So what I will be asking for is permission to have a vote on my amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment No. 6758.

Mr. President, I don't know about your family, but when mine gathers for Thanksgiving every year, regardless of political view, faith, politics, region, what brings us together is college sports. Somewhere between passing the turkey and catching up on each other's lives, we turn on the TV, and, usually, there are a couple of games going on.

This points to something that I think is relevant at this moment: College sports are uniquely American and help bring Americans together. More than 1,000 American colleges and universities have teams of all kinds, playing everything from soccer and rugby to rowing and badminton.

Twenty years ago, a young quarterback named Joe Flacco played for the University of Delaware. He transferred there for the chance to become a starter and become part of a growing and winning team. He led the University of Delaware to the FCS championship. He set 20 school records, and then he went on to be the Super Bowl MVP with the Baltimore Ravens.

Today, that story would not happen. Today, transfers to and from colleges, particularly in football, are happening at an unbelievable pace.

My favorite team Notre Dame has played two other teams in the last 3 weeks wherein a majority of their players had just transferred in. We have heard from coaches and fans and players that this transfer portal being open endlessly without consequence, the cloud of agents hovering over and driving this behavior, the unreliability of coaches and their transferring in the middle of the season, and the lack of clear standards around eligibility--meaning, some as old as 27, 28, 29 go pro or play in Europe and then come back--has changed a lot of the core of the college sports experience.

One of the real positives is that college student-athletes, after years of litigation, have won the right to their fair share of the significant revenue generated by a few college sports, mostly football and basketball; but now that there are endless changes in transfer and eligibility and terms and conditions of play, college sports are in crisis.

It doesn't take a diehard sports fan to see that college sports are currently broken: the collapse, the evaporation, of the Pac-12--one of the major conferences; an arms race to raise money and pay for players, for coaches, for facilities. This year, 70 of the schools in the Power 4 conferences will together generate over $7 billion in revenue from ads, from merchandise, from supporters, but they are all running at a deficit.

In most universities, the model is this: If you have got a nationally prominent football team or basketball team that brings in a lot of revenue, that revenue pays for all of your other sports, the nonrevenue sports. Things like rugby or wrestling, rowing or track get supported in their facilities, in their coaches, in their training from the revenue of the big sports--football and basketball--that draw a lot of eyeballs and a lot of support.

Now it is not working. Schools like the University of Delaware and Delaware State University have reached out to me to say they are spending more than they can sustain to recruit and retain talent, to develop their team, to invest in their facilities, and with student- athletes transferring every year, it is really hard to build a culture and to coach a team.

So, to find the money to chase athletes, coaches, and facilities, universities have begun cutting sports, and they have begun with women's sports and Olympic sports. There are so many examples. Washington State cut most of their track and field program. Georgia Tech eliminated swimming. Cal Poly cut back on swimming. Grand Canyon, a nationally ranked men's volleyball program, has been eliminated. I have a dozen more in front of me.

When we lose these opportunities for college athletes, we lose something that is uniquely American. There are more than 500,000 college student-athletes, but in the rest of the world, this isn't a thing. In Europe and in Asia, the experience of going to college, to a university, doesn't include everybody coming into a huge stadium and cheering on their world-class basketball team or football team. That just doesn't happen.

And what are the advantages of playing college sports?

You learn about resilience, about toughness, about team play, about strategy. In the United States, a majority of the women who are C-suite executives played college sports. I went to a small liberal arts college where a majority of the student body played a varsity sport, and it changed the culture of campus. It engaged all sides of a person to be able to compete athletically and excel academically.

To stem the current crisis in college sports, to stabilize the field, and to give us an opportunity to move forward, Senators Maria Cantwell and Ted Cruz--the chair and the ranking of the Commerce Committee--have worked tirelessly together. One of my main points today is to congratulate them and their staff for their amazing work on this. I have been honored to join with them and with Senator Schmitt in putting together and advancing the Protect College Sports Act.

Last week, it got 77 votes in this Chamber, and you might have noticed it is rare for there to be anything genuinely bipartisan. In the State of Iowa--and I note my colleague has just joined me, and I will conclude in a few minutes here--when there is a game between the Cyclones and the Hawkeyes, that is a big weekend. In many of the States in our country, college football contests are bigger than elections, and in some ways, as I said at the beginning, that is a welcome diversion from the work we do here.

I wanted to briefly explain my focus in working on negotiating this bill and why I strongly support it and think it is a great outcome. I looked at it as if I had a child who was playing college sports. What would I want them to get in terms of protection? compensation? transparency? This bill enshrines the name, image, likeness--or NIL-- compensation in law. The court settlement that college athletes currently have, it makes it statutory, and it adds another fund--so, in total, $43 million--for the biggest programs to recruit and to retain.

There is a dedicated $5 million fund for Olympic and women's sports. This is not public money from the U.S. Congress. This is money that has been raised and administered by State universities and by major colleges.

It protects student-athletes from predatory agents. It requires that they be registered and certified, that there be an accessible database of NIL agreements, and that they charge no more

than a 5-percent fee. Right now, with the gold rush of NIL, there are folks claiming their agents are showing up at the doors of standout high school athletes in rural parts of our country and selling them a bill of goods. This would protect college athletes.

It guarantees the scholarships. How many times have you heard the story of someone who accepted an offer to play at a leading school because they were going to get to go to college for free? After playing half a season, they get injured, and they lose their scholarship or they decide to leave the sport or they decide to pick a different class or major than the coach wants. This guarantees, for 10 years, the opportunity to learn and study based on the scholarship offer made by a university.

If you are hurt on the field, the decision about return to play has to be made by medical personnel whose professional responsibility is to the player and can't be overruled by coaches.

Lastly--and I thought this was incredible--is wraparound healthcare coverage while in school; 5 years of postgraduate coverage for any sports-related injuries and a lifetime medical trust for any serious injury that develops later in life, like brain trauma or brain injury. These protections are available for all NCAA student-athletes--all, a half a million, not just the few in the highest visibility, highest revenue programs. So there are a few things that aren't in this bill. It keeps the door open for future collective bargaining. It does provide a new private right of action--the opportunity to sue, to protect yourself and enforce your rights that are created under this statute. And there is a new student-athlete ombudsman to make sure that athletes understand their rights and how to pursue their remedies.

This bill will bring stability to a collapsing college sports system. No more conference chaos. No more coaches transferring midseason. And it will make for stronger teams where athletes know each other, and the coaches and the fans know who they are coaching and who they are cheering for.

Look, most of the more than half a million NCAA athletes will never go pro, but they need to get and use their college degree. They will potentially suffer lasting physical consequences of their play, and this protects them and protects their future.

By putting boundaries around transfers and eligibility, this bill stabilizes college sports.

In conclusion, it is rare to find an issue that brings together tens of millions of Americans and that brings together Democrats and Republicans in this body. This isn't about political party or even what team you cheer for. It is about the future of young Americans who will engage and entertain and motivate all of us as we watch them throughout the year compete, but it will also protect. So my hope is that we will pass this bill before we adjourn because it will strengthen the path to college through sports.

When our families gather at Thanksgiving this year, I hope the conversation is about the bright future of American college sports, which have been protected by a strong bipartisan compromise.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, when it comes to foreign policy, the Republican Party's philosophy will always be ``peace through strength.'' Yesterday, at the United Nations, President Trump made that very clear. He made it clear that America continues to lead with peace through strength.

The President of communist China, Xi Jinping, will hear the same message later this week, when he comes to Washington, DC.

Now, I just heard the minority leader of the U.S. Senate come to the floor and say something about the fact that he thought that President Trump was going to sell out our country to China.

Let me set the record straight. President Xi last visited the White House 11 years ago. Today, he is going to arrive to a very different America and a very different President.

A decade ago, Barack Obama was in the White House. The Obama policy with regard to China was appeasement. It was accommodation, and it was apologies. Obama's weakness gave China free rein--free rein to undermine our economy and our national security.

China spied on American businesses. They stole American technology. And China strengthened its grip on global supply chains.

As Democrat climate alarmists forced the closure of our coal-fired powerplants, China built new ones. They continue to build them today in the race for power and the competition over artificial intelligence.

From new technology to global supply chains, China's goal is to be the military, the economic, and the technological superpower of the world. China wants to push America aside. Their vision is not cooperation. It is not even competition. It is complete control.

The American people want safety, prosperity, and freedom. That is what we want at home in America. America can't be free if we are dependent upon China for our medicine, for our materials, and for our minerals. We need to do more. America can't continue to lead the free world if we allow China to steal our best ideas and our newest technologies. We must stand firm.

America needs to stand strong. We must say to China: Never again.

We also must say it to ourselves: Never again will we allow ourselves to be in this position.

President Trump is very clear-eyed. He sees the stakes. He knows the threats. He also understands that American strength is more important today than ever before.

That is why the President is acting decisively to protect American interests. Fair trade, historic tax cuts, aggressive deregulation--they have all made us stronger and more prosperous.

Innovative American companies still give us a great strategic edge. Republican tax cuts are putting more money into people's pockets. A secure border means less fentanyl coming through China, through Mexico and the southern border into the United States.

Investment is coming to American manufacturing in record amounts, trillions of dollars. America is producing more energy than ever before. We are also mining more critical minerals. These minerals are critical for our homes, our factories, and our national defense.

Under President Trump, America is hitting China's ambitions north, south, east, and west. What he has done is hold China accountable. That wasn't done in the previous administration, and President Trump is doing it without apology.

Just yesterday--just yesterday--President Trump signed a historic agreement, and it is regarding Greenland. The agreement prevents our adversaries--including communist China--from building military bases in Greenland or making critical investments there. This was a historic agreement.

The Trump administration has also hindered China by blocking their access to cheap oil. No longer can China buy oil at steep discounts from dictatorships in Venezuela or Iran.

Additionally, we voted, here in the Senate, on our late colleague Lindsey Graham's efforts on China and oil. The President has now signed into legislation the Lindsey Graham bill, putting new penalties on China for importing oil and energy from Russia or from Iran.

The penalties are stiff. The penalties are severe. As the largest buyer of Russian energy, China now faces these tough new penalties.

The United States is systematically blocking the vast ambitions of the so-called axis of aggression--China, Russia, and Iran.

This is the definition of peace through strength. Weakness invites attacks; strength deters them. And Republicans are going to continue to show unmatched strength in defense of our American economy and our Americans' safety.

President Trump is going to do the same this week, when he meets with President Xi.

And so I say to my colleague from New York, the minority leader: That is the straight record. That is setting the record straight about what things were like in the Democrat administration, and what things are like with President Trump in the White House.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

College sports are one of the last great institutions in America that still bring people together.

Today, all across our country, fans see the institution falling apart. Rosters are being rebuilt every year through an unrestricted transfer market. Schools are locked in an arms race of ever-increasing NIL spending. Coaches spend as much time recruiting their own players as they are preparing for opponents. Eligibility rules are no longer determined by clear standards but by lawsuits, by court orders, and by last-minute injunctions. It is why the Senate has now overwhelmingly voted three times to advance the bill called the Protect College Sports Act.

We will finish that bill this week and send it to the House and then, hopefully, on to the President for his signature.

Senator Paul has identified one of the critical problems. The antitrust laws applied to the collegiate sports system are currently the reason why sports are governed by court order rather than by fair, enforceable rules for all.

The Protect College Sports Act provides the NCAA with the ability to govern, but any antitrust protection is narrow, and it comes with guardrails.

My understanding is that Senator Cruz and Senator Cantwell are discussing a package of possible amendment votes, and this is one of them. Let's give them the opportunity to work through the process and see if we can get votes on Senator Paul's amendment as well as other amendments. And as they work on it, let's give them a little bit more time for that reason.

And for that reason, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, there is no doubt that the Democrat Party has moved sharply left in recent years, but this election cycle has seen the Democrat Party take a big step further toward full-blown socialism.

New York City's new Democrat mayor, a self-proclaimed Democrat socialist, might be the most notable example, but he is far from alone. Around the country, socialists have been winning Democrat primaries, and it is no exaggeration to say that socialism is rapidly gaining a prominent new role in the Democrat Party.

So let's talk a little bit about socialism and the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America. When you look at the platform, right away, you see some predictable things; namely, government control of almost everything. Healthcare, business, housing, education, energy-- all of these sectors would come under government control in a democratic socialist state. And when I say ``government control,'' I don't just mean they would be hit with a lot of regulations; I mean government control. Government would become the ultimate decisionmaker for American families in most aspects of their life.

Take healthcare, for example. We often talk about the doctor-patient relationship in medicine. Well, under democratic socialism, that would be a lot more like the government-patient relationship. It is the government that would decide what healthcare Americans are eligible for, what medications they can take, and when and where they are able to access care.

Americans place a high value on choice and freedom, but freedom and choice do not last very long when government takes over, and under democratic socialism, government would be truly taking over. I could dedicate a whole speech to what happens when government takes control of the economy and the means of production and of healthcare and education and energy.

But there is more to the Democratic Socialist platform that I want to talk about. I guess I have to hand it to Democratic Socialists. Despite their plan for government takeover of most aspects of American life, they do have a couple of cuts on the table. But the nature of those cuts is a big problem. Democratic Socialists would like to defund the Pentagon; they would like to abolish immigration enforcement; and they would like to eliminate the police. That is right. The official platform--the official platform of the Democratic Socialists states that their goal is to ``demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system.''

Think about that: ``as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system''--the official platform of the Democratic Socialists of America.

I don't think I need to explain to anyone just how unhinged that is. If anyone thinks we can keep our communities safe while fully abolishing the police and prison system, I have some oceanfront property in South Dakota to sell them.

The problem is that Democratic Socialists do believe this. Swept up in their utopian fantasies, they believe that by implementing the right system--socialism--they can somehow do away with human evil and remove the need for police or prisons--or armies, for that matter. But, of course, no system is going to be able to fully eliminate evil. No matter how many social programs you put in place or how much education the government provides, there are always going to be men and women who choose to harm others for their own ends. And the idea that we would eliminate the men and women who protect society from these people-- well, again, I don't think I need to explain to anyone just how quickly the peace and safety that we take for granted would evaporate, on both the local and national scale.

And the Democratic Socialist platform doesn't end there. Everything I have discussed so far would remake our country on a massive scale to the point of its being unrecognizable as the free, secure, and prosperous Nation that we have known over the past 250 years. But Democratic Socialists would take it even further. Their platform calls for officially changing our system of government, for eliminating the Senate and replacing ``the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.''

Those aren't tweaks around the margin; that is a full abolishment of the American system. That is the elimination of the checks and balances that define our government and help prevent any one branch from exceeding its lawful authority, and it is the elimination of real protection for minority rights.

``[W]e know complete victory will require building a new society from the ground up'' the authors of the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America write. And that is exactly what they propose to do: eliminate the American system and build another in its place.

And this is the political organization that is currently finding a home in the Democrat Party. Democrats are giving a home to an organization that is not merely dedicated to the radical expansion of government but to the actual elimination of our system of government.

Why? Well, at its worst, socialism moves into full-blown communism-- the economic system that characterized the Soviet Union and oversaw not merely the exploitation of workers and ordinary people but the complete loss of freedom for millions and the death of millions more.

And just in case you think that has nothing to do with the Democratic Socialists of America, think again.

The Wall Street Journal reports that several members of the Democratic Socialists' National Political Committee are ``dedicated Marxists and communists.'' One of the organization's national cochairs, in fact, is a member of the Democratic Socialists' Red Star Caucus whose goal is not merely socialism but communism. Communism--the hallmark of some of the world's most repressive regimes.

So I ask again, why are Democratic Socialists finding a home in the Democrat Party?

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, for 25 years I have come to the Senate floor with a simple request--for Congress to protect children who know no other home than the United States of America.

I first made this request after I heard from a constituent, a young high school graduate in Chicago and a brilliant, brilliant piano prodigy. She was brought to the United States when she was 2 years old. She didn't know how to fill out her college applications because of her undocumented status.

I couldn't believe, when we looked up the law, that our Nation had no path to citizenship for a young person like her so I introduced a bill to change it.

Shortly afterward, I received a call from my colleague Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. He said that he was working on similar legislation. I asked him if we could join forces, and we did. Together, Senator Hatch and I introduced the DREAM Act.

Now, isn't that how Congress is supposed to work? Two senators of opposing parties, who didn't agree on much, came together to work on legislation to provide a pathway to legal status for these young people brought to the United States as children. These young people came to be known as Dreamers.

Since I first introduced the DREAM Act, I have come to the Senate floor over 150 times to share the stories of these Dreamers, who, today, are doctors, nurses, business owners, educators, parents, and so many other professions. I have pushed for this legislation to make them legal in the eyes of the law, to be included in bipartisan efforts like the 2013 Gang of 8 immigration bill which passed the Senate with 68 votes.

Over the years, the DREAM Act has passed the Senate and it has passed the House, but never at the same time so that we couldn't send it to the President's desk to have it signed into law.

As I near the end of my time in the Senate, Congress continues to fail these young people who are American in every sense of the word, not just to me but to the vast majority of the country.

The American people have heard about the DREAM Act for many years. Eighty-one percent of the American people support citizenship for Dreamers--81 percent--including 56 percent of Republicans.

Despite its overwhelming popularity, the DREAM Act is still stuck in Congress.

And so, instead of celebrating legislation, establishing a legal pathway for these Dreamers, I come to the floor today to highlight my 153rd Dreamer story.

This is Karen Montes Gaga, who arrived in Seattle from Mexico when she was 3 years old. She loves school, dreamed of becoming a teacher one day.

In high school, she was an honor student and a tutor to her peers, but she knew her options beyond high school were limited. Without legal status, she could never get the education she needed to become a teacher. Then DACA was announced by President Obama. Karen jumped at the chance to enroll in the program and go back to school.

So that you understand what DACA is, it says to young undocumented people like Karen that they have to--every 2 years--apply for a work permit and go through a criminal background check and pay what is now a $600 fee every 2 years. So there is no question about people harboring criminals under the DREAM Act or DACA today. There is a criminal background check required every 2 years.

She immediately enrolled in college classes after qualifying for DACA and obtained her bachelor's degree in education. But she didn't stop there. Karen went on to receive her master's in education curriculum and instruction.

Karen has now been a proud elementary school teacher for almost a decade. She serves on her school's leadership team. She has been nominated twice for the Teacher of the Year Award.

As a DACA recipient, Karen, of course, is responsible for renewing that work permit every 2 years. But there is a problem. This year, she filed in a timely manner and expected her most recent renewal to be like every other one for the last 14 years she has been qualified for DACA, but this renewal process was different. The Trump administration failed to process her DACA renewal in time, even though she had filed it months in advance. As a result, Karen's work permit expired, and she was forced to walk out and

leave behind her classroom, abandoning her students in the middle of an academic year for months at a time.

In a world of rising costs and inflation, losing a single paycheck could be the difference in keeping a roof over your head and food on the table. But you know what Karen is most worried about? Her 27 students that she had to leave behind.

Let me quote her:

It is so heartbreaking because, as any teacher will tell

you, it is more than a job. It is a responsibility. It is a

commitment that I make each school year to the children that

depend on me every single day and I was not there.

That is whom this administration and Republicans are failing: a teacher--a teacher--who is committed to instilling strong values and work ethic into her students and whose heart was broken when she could not.

To my Republican colleagues, I ask you, if you went out looking for the worst of the worst, would you choose Karen? If you wanted to remove from the United States rapists, murders, terrorists, child predators, would you identify Karen as one of those people? Of course not.

Karen put it best when she said:

Behind every pending application number there is a person,

a family, a story and this is mine.

There is still time to help Dreamers in the final months of the 119th Congress.

To all my Republican colleagues, please join me and Senator Murkowski in standing up for these young people who epitomize the meaning of the American dream. Stand up for Karen, stand up for her students, and stand up for what is right.

I may be leaving this Senate in a few months, but I am not leaving this fight.

I yield the floor.