Floor Statements

Madam President, last week, a member of the Biden administration was confused--very confused--why FOX News is talking all the time about crime. That person is the Press Secretary to President Biden, Ms. Psaki. She said Americans care more about what is happening in their daily lives than what the news says about crime.

How much more out of touch could the Biden administration be? Crime is happening in Americans' daily lives all across America. Thousands more people a year are being murdered.

Violent crime has increased for 2 years, and there is no sign of it slowing down.

The administration's plan to fix the violent crime spike is merely another partisan gun control plan. That is what they think about, doing something about crime: control the guns of people who abide by the law.

They won't seriously reduce violent crime. If you do that, it focuses on issues that make up a tiny fraction of violent crimes or maybe it doesn't contribute to the problem at all.

For example, the administration wants to crack down on ghost guns, but ghost guns are involved in only a fraction of 1 percent of the crimes--particularly of the murders.

The Biden administration also wants to focus on the so-called ``Iron Pipeline,'' and that is blaming red States for guns in crime-ridden blue States. But on that issue, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, their data shows that guns used in blue-city crimes usually come from that very same blue State.

Finally, the Biden administration wants to focus on lawful gun sellers, but we have a Department of Justice study finding most crimes are committed with stolen guns from the black market.

So I worry about the Department of Justice could use efforts to reduce violent crime as a pretext to harass lawful gun dealers and owners. Gun sales have increased nationwide because Americans don't feel safe anymore. They feel the police are not proactively policing, so they get a gun to protect themselves.

Honest people who don't break the law want to feel safe, and that makes them feel safe. I don't blame them for taking protection of their life and property into their hands.

I related recently about the increases in crime that have nothing to do with guns, and yet all we hear from this administration is about controlling guns. But what does that have to do--gun control is not going to stop criminals from pushing people in front of subway trains. Gun control won't stop flash mobs from stealing goods from stores. It isn't going to stop the thieves from looting train yards, and you see evidence of this all the time on television--almost daily--people going into stores with bags, filling it up, and just think in San Francisco some prosecutor said if you steal less than $950, you won't be prosecuted.

So you wonder why people commit crime. If you aren't going to pay a penalty for it, why not do it? So the Biden administration is wasting precious resources and taxpayer dollars on partisan pet projects of gun control.

The Biden administration has ordered the Department of Justice to look like it is doing something without really doing anything at all.

You know what Americans actually need to reduce violent crime? They need police forces empowered to do their jobs with the right resources and protections.

Now, we hear the Biden administration just last week in New York saying it supports police. The President himself was up there. But a leaked Executive order shows it wants to take away their nonlethal, lifesaving tools, and make it more difficult for police to get grants for funding.

Americans also need responsible bail policies--these policies that, if they were responsible, wouldn't let dangerous criminals back out onto the streets to kill people.

They need prosecutors who will actually do their job to keep violent criminals away from the vulnerable. The Biden administration has a chance to make a real difference in reducing violent crime. It is a shame that they are wasting their time and resources on a misleading message.

When you see the prosecutors in Los Angeles and San Francisco listing a whole bunch of crimes that they are not going to prosecute, it just invites lawbreaking. We need to stop this ``defund the police'' crusade. We need to step up prosecution. We need to eliminate progressive prosecutors. We need to make sure that people don't get bail if they are repeat criminals or a threat to society.

In the final analysis, taxpayers are paying for public safety, but in some places in the United States, they aren't getting their money's worth for public safety they pay for. Government is set up to maintain public safety, and that is what we are all about with this War on Crime, protecting the taxpayers, protecting every citizen taxpayer or not.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to take a moment to recognize the life and memory of Dr. Donald Gurnett. Dr. Gurnett recently passed away following a lifetime of scientific curiosity and achievements. Dr. Gurnett studied, taught, and researched at the University of Iowa for more than 60 years.

His career was rooted in his childhood interest in flight, where he built rockets and model planes, which led to studying electrical engineering at the University of Iowa. During his studies, he had the opportunity to work and learn with Dr. James Van Allen, who helped launch the first U.S. satellite into space and established the field of magnetospheric space research. Dr.

Gurnett's success led to working on more than 30 spacecraft projects, including Voyager 1 and 2 flights to the outer planets, the Galileo mission to Jupiter, and the Cassini mission to Saturn.

His legacy remains with the students he mentored by pushing them to take on important projects and work towards their own success. In 2019, I wrote about the importance of STEM education and the accomplishments by Drs. Van Allen and Gurnett. I think my words then still encompass the curiosity and passion that Dr. Gurnett carried with him throughout his life.

For the students across Iowa heading to class in the new

school year, remember to dream big. Don't forget that a

couple of farm boys from Mount Pleasant and Fairfax reached

for the stars and wrote new chapters of space innovation and

exploration. Their odyssey took them all over the world and

their scientific quest took their research beyond the solar

system to interstellar space.

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

Madam President, on November 18 of last year, I came here to speak about the Office of Net Assessment. That is an office within the Pentagon. That office's purpose, under law, is to produce an annual net assessment, which is supposed to be a long-term look at our military's capability and those of our greatest adversaries. I don't think it lives up to its mission.

In 2018, according to the Director of the Office of Net Assessment, that office had not produced a net assessment since 2007. Not doing its job for those 11 years and--who knows--possibly longer calls into question whether this office should even exist. Yet a recent inspector general report states that the office ``produces . . . highly classified net assessments.'' I question the IG's conclusion based upon available evidence that I know about, and I will give some of that evidence.

In last year's speech here in the Senate and others that I have given over the years on this subject, I discussed my oversight of this office dating back to 2019. I also discussed my amendment to the national defense bill. That amendment would have done one very simple thing: required the Government Accountability Office to determine how much taxpayer money the Office of Net Assessment actually uses for net assessment--its purpose for existing. I want to know how much we can cut from their budget to save the taxpayers money.

Apparently, this type of pro-taxpayer legislation was too much to ask for. Accordingly, it appears that the Office of Net Assessment in the Department of Defense gets to keep operating like a Pentagon slush fund for irrelevant and political research projects.

On February 5, 2020, the Director of the Office of Net Assessment told me:

We review all deliverables to ensure they're consistent

with the statement of work. We evaluate each deliverable to

assess whether we should seek additional information or

require a resubmission of commissioned work.

Now, I am going to return to that statement in a little bit, but I want to give you some evidence of why what he said doesn't work out in reality.

In December 2020, I asked the inspector general to take a deeper dive into the Office of Net Assessment's contracting practices. That means connecting all the dots in the contract transactions to ensure that everything matches up. The inspector general reviewed 20 contracts. On January 25 of this year, the inspector general issued its results and found these three or four points:

Office of Net Assessment acquisition personnel inappropriately performed contracting officer representative duties for 20 contracts.

Next point. Office of Net Assessment acquisition personnel and an office providing contract support did not maintain complete contract files, including preawards and contract administration documentation. That also included the failure to maintain signed contracts and modifications. Since 2019, I have repeatedly asked for a full accounting of Stefan Halper's contracts. Either they never had one or they have decided to obstruct Congress.

Next point. Office of Net Assessment acquisition personnel and an office providing contract support inappropriately approved invoices for payments totaling $9.8 million dollars due to the lack of oversight. And that is just for the 20 contracts the inspector general sampled. So without required supporting documentation for payment, the door is, obviously, wide open to fraud, theft, and improper payments.

Next point. Without established and documented surveillance measures for Office of Net Assessment service contracts, the Office of Net Assessment may not have received all services outlined in a contractor's statement of work.

Next point--and last point. At this point, the next finding ought to be no surprise from the inspector general. The Office of Net Assessment did not administer contracts in accordance with the Federal Defense Department and Washington Headquarters Services internal regulations and policies.

Further, the audit states the ``[Office of Net Assessment] acquisition personnel cannot verify whether they received services, valued at $4.1 million, in accordance with the statement of work.''

Now, let's return back to that first quote I gave you from the Director of Net Assessment.

We review all deliverables to ensure [that] they're

consistent with the statement of work. We evaluate each

deliverable to assess whether we should seek additional

information or require a resubmission of commissioned work.

Based upon all of the available evidence from these 20 contracts that were inspected by the inspector general--and that is not all the contracts that the office negotiated--this Director's statement is absolutely false.

So here is the bottom line: The Office of Net Assessment has no clue what they are paying for and whether they even received a complete work product. And whatever they are actually doing, it is not in compliance with Federal regulations, policy, and law.

This is a complete embarrassment and a slap in the face of American taxpayers. While the Office of Net Assessment wasted millions of dollars in taxpayer money every year, the communist Chinese Government developed hypersonic missiles that can travel the globe.

If this unit isn't doing the job that they are supposed to, to assess our national security capabilities and the capabilities of our enemies, why are we still funding it? It would be better to take the $20 million budget and give it to our servicemembers. At least we know that those servicemembers have earned it.

A government slush fund will always be a government slush fund unless Congress, with our power of oversight and appropriations, steps up and fixes the problem. So I encourage my colleagues, especially those on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to take a stand against this blatant waste, fraud, abuse, and gross mismanagement.

Madam President, on another subject, I have come to this floor several times in recent months--maybe over the course of a couple of years--on my concerns about free speech on campus. There has been a lot said in opposition to reports of crackdown on speech on campuses, but today I come to the floor to give one shining example of a university upholding expressions of free speech and making it still happen.

This all started with former University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer. The institution, starting with him and continuing, has consistently pushed back on the trends of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and the cancellation of invited speakers.

Instead, in a letter to all incoming freshmen, the University of Chicago lays out its philosophy in plain English. In the letter to the 2020 freshman class, it said that one of the university's ``defining characteristics is our commitment to freedom of inquiry and expression.''

Now, this is more than just words; the university has consistently followed through on this policy. Even today, the university is still open to dissenting points of view. It even goes so far as to tell freshmen ``at times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort.''

They are absolutely right. The point of college is not to be coddled. The point of college or university is to learn. How can students do that if they don't step out of their comfort zone?

I often say that my definition of a university is a place where controversy should run rampant. At the University of Chicago, that means noting that ``diversity of opinion and background is a fundamental strength of our community.''

Both opinion and background are very important, and it defeats the point to just have the one. Our universities cannot just have just a veneer of diversity; the whole point of bringing in students of different backgrounds is to get different points of view. That aim is meaningless if all students who go to the college believe the same things.

I have introduced several bills to provide transparency for prospective students. My bills focus on transparency of cost, but in many ways openness about a university's values are just as important.

So I congratulate former President Zimmer, who is doing just that and putting his university's values on his sleeve. If some schools keep cracking down on free speech and invited speakers, then the free market will send their students elsewhere. That is because I don't think all kids want to go to a school where they will never be challenged and where their ideals will always be reaffirmed.

I am happy to see projects like the University of Austin, a newly founded college dedicated to free speech principles.

So, in conclusion, it takes time to start new institutions. Instead, we need people to stand up in the colleges that we already have. And I hope others will join me in doing just that.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I pay tribute to a very dear friend who was welcomed home to the Lord last month in Davenport, IA, surrounded by his loving family.

Mike Duffy was a pillar in his community, church, and profession. A born leader, Mike never met a stranger. He leaves the world a better place, and he will be greatly missed by his family and friends, including this U.S. Senator. He graced his community and congregation with a larger than life presence. Mike wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth; he was born with a heart of gold.

Mike grew up across the street from Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport. A soldier of Christ, he lived the sacraments and his Catholic faith in word and deed, practicing the Corporal Works of Mercy with humility and purpose. He was steeped in Catholic education, graduating from Sacred Heart Grade School, Assumption High School, and St. Ambrose University.

When Mike was around age 11, I am guessing he went to confession to ask forgiveness for a little white lie. That is around the time Mike fibbed about his age to land a job as a paperboy for the Quad-City Times. From there, Mike's tireless work ethic grew from one year to the next. He soon joined the family business and never looked back.

His parents, John and Eleanor, moved to the Quad Cities to pursue the American Dream. Here, they started a security business from scratch. These risk-taking entrepreneurs were among my earliest supporters in Scott County. Thanks to their support, they helped me gain a foothold among local Republicans. Ever since, I have worked hard to earn and grow grassroots support for my Senate campaigns in Scott County. I am grateful that support continued through the branches of the family tree with their son Mike.

As I mentioned, Mike was a go-getter from the get-go. He worked his way up the ladder from the bottom rung, cleaning dog kennels. In high school and through college, he continued climbing the work ladder at the family business. He studied hard in school and learned as much from the School of Hard Knocks. He enjoyed people from all walks of life and treated everyone he encountered with respect and dignity.

Mike was frugal with his hard-earned money and generous with those who needed it most. He was devout in his Catholic faith and devoted to his bride Linda, with whom he enjoyed 48-\1/2\ years of marital bliss. Their marriage was blessed with seven children: Brendon, Bridget, Brianna, Bradley, Brian, Bethany, and son Ben, who passed away a year to the day prior to his father's death.

Through the decades, Mike and Linda grew the family business together. Mike wore many hats at the business, from dispatch supervisor, to alarm manager, vice president of operations, executive vice president, chief operating officer, president, and CEO. They grew the business into the largest family-owned, full-service security provider in the Midwest.

His professional life also included work as a licensed private detective, holding U.S. Government Secret clearance. And still, Mike had more to give beyond the workplace. An indefatigable civic leader, Mike served on a slew of boards and committees, including alumni president of St. Ambrose University, the Davenport Chamber of Commerce, the Handicapped Development Center, and more.

His civic engagement made room for politics, as well. Throughout his life, he supported conservative causes, championing pro-life and Catholic education.

Our paths crossed countless times through the years. Barbara and I very much enjoyed our decades-long friendship. Mike and Linda's hospitality was second to none. Some years ago, the Duffys opened up their home to me for an overnight visit. As it happens, I spend a lot of nights on the road over the years for my 99 county meetings. It is a treat to skip the hotel and be invited to stay in someone's home. It was an even bigger treat to spend time discussing current events and politics with Mike Duffy. On this particular visit, there was a bit of excitement underfoot at the bustling Duffy household. The family was making room for another addition, a duckling hatched the night of my sleepover. So, naturally, Mike and the kids named the duck ``Chuck.''

Suffice it to say, I am going to miss his sense of humor.

Barbara and I send our heartfelt condolences to the entire Duffy family, including 31 grandchildren. May his legacy of service and citizenship continue to live on his community and through the growing branches of the Duffy family tree. And may my brother in Christ rest in eternal Happiness, joyfully in the arms of our Lord in everlasting life.

Madam President, this week, news reports made public a May 2019 subpoena from the Justice Department. That subpoena requested financial records relating to Hunter Biden as part of the Department's criminal investigation into his activities.

Notably, that subpoena also requested records relating to James Biden, Devon Archer, and Eric Schwerin. That subpoena sought records relating to companies that Senator Johnson and I discussed in our Biden report.

If the reports are accurate, this subpoena is yet another stake in the heart of a totally unsubstantiated claim made by the liberal media and Democrats that the Grassley-Johnson report on Biden was Russia disinformation.

Today, I come here to speak about a matter directly related to the recent news--specifically, the Biden Justice Department's failure to answer fundamental questions related to Hunter's criminal investigation.

I have asked serious ethical questions of the Justice Department that the Department so far has refused to answer. In fact, the Department has actually publicly contradicted itself.

Just one example of contradiction: On May 31, 2021, Senator Johnson and I wrote to Attorney General Garland. Our letter noted that Hunter Biden had a close association with Patrick Ho, an individual who is associated with the

communist Chinese Government and its intelligence services. Patrick Ho was also charged and convicted of international bribery and money laundering offenses relating to his work for companies connected to that communist regime.

After his arrest, his first call was reportedly to James Biden, President Biden's brother. Hunter Biden reportedly represented Patrick Ho for $1 million.

In our letter, we noted that a Justice Department Federal court filing said DOJ had FISA information on Patrick Ho. Not only did they possess this information, the Department informed the court that they intended to use it to prosecute that person.

Senator Johnson and I asked the Justice Department for that FISA information as well as FISA information for other Chinese nationals linked to Hunter Biden. In response, I quote the Justice Department:

Unfortunately, under the circumstances described in your

letter, we aren't in a position to confirm the existence of

the information that is sought (if it exists in the

Department's possession).

Now, get that--``if it exists in the Department's possession.''

Simply put, that is not a true and accurate statement unless the Department's statement to the Federal court in the Patrick Ho matter wasn't true and accurate.

So, then, as we naturally followed up, on November 15, 2021, we asked Attorney General Garland to explain the discrepancy. No response to this very day.

Both statements can't be true. Either the Department possesses the information or it doesn't possess the information.

So we can legitimately ask Attorney General Garland again: What is your answer?

Now, this doesn't end there with that question. On February 3, 2021, and March 9, 2021, Senator Johnson and I asked Attorney General Garland if Nicholas McQuaid is recused from the Hunter Biden criminal case. Now, this McQuaid works in the Department's Criminal Division but worked with Hunter Biden's criminal attorneys before joining the Department. This poses a clear conflict of interest. Attorney General Garland has refused to answer to this very day.

On June 29, 2021, Senator Johnson and I asked Attorney General Garland whether Susan Hennessey, a National Security Division employee, is recused from the Durham investigation. Before working for the Department, she made negative comments about the Durham investigation.

In Attorney General Garland's July 13, 2021, response letter, he failed to answer our questions. However, at the Senate Judiciary Committee's oversight hearing October 27, 2021, the Attorney General said she ``has nothing whatsoever to do with the Durham investigation.''

Although this statement doesn't fully answer our questions, such as whether she has been formally recused from the matter, it is more than what we were provided in the Department's letter response.

Likewise, the Justice Department said that Margaret Goodlander ``has no role in Mr. Durham's investigation.'' She is married to Biden's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan. Sullivan worked for the Clinton Presidential campaign. While there, he peddled the false Alfa- Bank story about the Trump Organization having a secret back channel to this Russian bank. Those false allegations were reviewed as part of Crossfire Hurricane.

Now, with all that said, let's take stock of where we are. On the one hand, Attorney General Garland has publicly said Susan Hennessey and Margaret Goodlander have no roles in the Durham investigation. On the other hand, Attorney General Garland refuses to say the same for McQuaid and the Hunter Biden criminal investigation.

So we can really ask, ``Why is it that way? Why won't the Attorney General say that McQuaid has no role in the criminal case involving the President's son?'' because this is a fundamental ethical question.

Our letters have provided Attorney General Garland the opportunity to hit the ball right out of the park. Instead, he doesn't even try to make a swing.

What is the Biden Justice Department hiding? This blatantly inconsistent treatment has cast a cloud over Hunter Biden's criminal case.

Just imagine if this fact pattern had evolved between President Trump and his sons. The media would have gone nuts over it. You wouldn't hear the end of it--also from my Democratic colleagues here in the Senate. Yet not a sound from them, not a peep.

The American people are rightly skeptical of how the Justice Department is handling the Hunter Biden criminal investigation. And the secrecy and the lack of public transparency will only increase the skepticism that the American people have.

So I and Senator Johnson won't stop doing good government oversight on this issue. The American people deserve answers, one way or another.

Madam President, everybody knows that violent crime is rising in America. Killings of police are at a 20-year high, the world's worst record since 9/11. Homicides, carjacking, and retail crime are all very high. Criminals are pushing people in front of the subways, looting entire trains filled with packages, and stealing so much from stores that the stores can't afford to stay open.

I have already come to this Senate floor many times to describe the horrors of increased attacks on police and the surge in murders. These tragedies cry out for action.

These are the results of campaigns to defund the police. Our streets are lawless because blue cities have pulled the

police back. The consequences of depolicing extend far beyond the violence that ``defund the police'' rhetoric inspires. It extends beyond criminals emboldened to commit crimes like murder and armed carjackings.

We have all seen the images of a California train yard littered with opened boxes as far as the eye can see. Train robberies are up by 160 percent in Los Angeles County, and that is just over the past year. The Governor of California compared the scenes to a Third World country. I have seen them, and I agree with the Governor of California.

Organized retail crime is out of control. Criminals rely on the lack of active policing to commit large-scale theft. According to the National Retail Federation, 69 percent of retailers say that they have had an increase in theft in the last year, and 78 percent say more law enforcement would help stop the crimes of retail theft.

Why would people not expect more law enforcement? Everybody knows that government is established for the public safety, among other reasons, but that is foremost.

It still isn't a secret what liberal cities need to do to keep crime out of their cities, out of their railways, out of their subways, out of their streets, and out of their stores. Send police where the crime happens. Tell the police to arrest criminals. Prosecute those criminals. Do not release dangerous criminals out on bail. It is a very simple and effective way to reduce the amount of crime.

Do you know what won't work? Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle think that the solution is gun control, but here is the issue: Gun control won't stop a criminal from pushing an innocent victim in front of a subway, let alone keep a criminal from obtaining an illegal gun.

The real problem is enforcement by the police. The crime spike began in June 2020 when blue cities nationwide pulled the police off their streets, progressive prosecutors at that time stopped prosecuting, and these blue cities started bail reform policies that released violent criminals into the street. No police on the streets but a lot of criminals on the streets--it is no surprise that crime has risen.

The problems are depolicing, political--progressive prosecution, and ineffective bail policies. Blue city mayors depoliced until some realized that was a bad, bad decision to make.

This liberal attitude toward criminality may now have a light at the end of the tunnel. It seems to be changing for the better.

Just two or three examples: New York City's new mayor, Eric Adams, announced that he would revive a plainclothes anticrime unit to combat the violence, and he is also suggesting better bail policies. A couple of months ago, we heard San Francisco Mayor London Breed declare a state of emergency over crime in her city. And then, maybe a month ago, we saw Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot ask for Federal resources to fight crime.

The Nation's crime spike is the result of less law enforcement. Criminals are feeling bold--very bold--because they know they will go uncaught and, if uncaught, unpunished.

Far-left mayors need to use a simple solution with a very proven record of success. They need to bring police back to our streets and keep the criminals off of our streets.

(Mr. MURPHY assumed the Chair.)

On another matter, Mr. President, I want to talk about high drug prices.

Three years ago, I began a bipartisan effort to lower prescription drug costs. And that isn't just a Chuck Grassley issue; that is a bipartisan issue.

Following, first, Finance Committee hearings that I chaired, bipartisan negotiations, and a bill markup, I introduced with the senior Senator from Oregon a bill that we call Grassley-Wyden--but I don't care if it is called Wyden-Grassley. The point is the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act will go a long way to stop the massive increase we have in drug prices. We passed this bill out of the Finance Committee on a bipartisan vote of 19 to 9. I have never stopped working to advance a bipartisan, negotiated, and balanced drug pricing bill.

Drug prices are rising, and more Americans are having a harder time paying these high costs for prescription drugs. AARP says brand-name drugs that seniors use are going up at more than twice the rate of inflation. New data from another source, the National Health Interview Survey, estimates that 3.5 million seniors had difficulty affording their medication.

I hear stories about rising drug costs all the time at my 99 county meetings. We have a Q&A at every one of those meetings so people can bring up any subject they want to bring up. They set the agenda, and always prescription drug pricing is on that agenda. The people probably asking the question, ``What are we going to do about prescription drug pricing?'' are probably the very same ones who are being hit by these high prices, and they notice the big increase in prices from year to year.

As an example, Iowans tell me about the rising cost of their insulin or how they worry about paying for out-of-pocket costs in the doughnut hole. No matter how you look at it, drug costs are going up, and Americans are paying more.

For 12 months, President Biden and the Democratic majority has focused on a partisan reckless tax-and-spending spree, and they have not made any progress in passing drug pricing reform as part of their partisan proposal. I compliment them for trying to do something about drug pricing, but it hasn't happened yet, and the way you get things done in the U.S. Senate is by doing it in a bipartisan way.

By every public account, the talks in the other party on their agenda have stalled. In fact, as best evidence of this, just this very day, the senior Senator from West Virginia said that the Democrat bill is-- this is his word--``dead.''

So instead of spending more time on bills that do not have votes, we could pass bipartisan legislation to lower drug costs this very day. It would have a meaningful impact on lowering prescription drug costs. Let's not waste another minute.

So the Grassley-Wyden bill or the Wyden-Grassley bill remains our best chance to lower prescription drug costs in a bipartisan manner, and I urge my colleagues to work with me to pass this bill.

I will give you just some examples--probably only a half dozen out of 27 major pieces it has in it.

No. 1, it caps out-of-pocket costs at $3,100. And I will have to give it to the Democrat proposal; they have reduced that down to $2,000. I am willing to negotiate 3,100 or 2,000.

Secondly, it eliminates the doughnut hole.

Third, it caps rising drug prices in Medicare at the inflation price index.

Four, the bill ends uncapped taxpayer-funded subsidies for Big Pharma.

Five, it brings more sunshine, more competition, and more oversight to how Big Pharma prices drugs in the first place.

Lastly, out of 2,700 sections in this bill, I want to say it saves $72 billion for seniors and $95 billion for taxpayers.

In addition to this bill, I have four prescription drug bills that have passed the Judiciary Committee with unanimous support. So, obviously, all four of those are bipartisan bills.

These four bills bring more competition, let more affordable drugs come to the market, and end anticompetitive behavior by Big Pharma.

I urge my colleagues to work with me to pass bipartisan drug pricing reform today.

I will end by saying that, maybe early in the new administration, I had a telephone conversation with President Biden on the subject of drugs. He sent his legislative staff up here to meet with me on the subject. And I pointed out what they were trying to do, as I just pointed out to my colleagues today. They wanted to do it a different way; it doesn't seem to be getting traction. So I said to the President's staff--and I said to the President himself: You might want to take a look at this bipartisan bill, probably move it.

Mr. President, to hear the other side talk--by ``the other side,'' I mean the Democrats--they would never dream of questioning our democratic process. So I want to take you back in history just a little ways to just before the 2020 election.

Let's not forget the outlandish conspiracy theory promoted by leading Democrats in the runup to the 2020 election that somehow the Postal Service might not deliver absentee ballots.

Postmaster General DeJoy was slandered and slandered disgracefully based on no evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing. The Postmaster is hired by the Board of Governors of the Postal Service. He was neither appointed by President Trump, nor did he answer to President Trump. The fact that DeJoy had supported President Trump's election was just enough for the other side to concoct a highly implausible election- tampering plot.

Now, after the election of President Biden, we heard no more about the problems of the Postal Service maybe not delivering mail. The necessary business transformation initiated by Postmaster General DeJoy to make sure that the ballots did arrive to be counted on time--that business transformation resumed after an election pause to allay irrational fears stirred up by partisans. We have heard precious little about this alleged threat to democracy since the election. Now, had the election gone differently, I suspect that we would have heard a lot more.

However, the effect of that scare tactic still lingers to this very day. Along that line, I hear from Iowans who dropped off their absentee ballots for the first time, scared that their vote would not have been counted if mailed because of that conspiracy theory against DeJoy that somehow the Postal Service was going to make sure a Democrat ballot didn't get delivered.

My State of Iowa is one of the few States that use the Postal Service's Intelligent bar code on ballot envelopes. That helps the Postal Service expedite the ballots and allows Iowans to track their ballot until it is delivered to the county auditors. Iowans continue to be able to vote absentee with great confidence that their vote will count.

So it makes me very sad that some were convinced otherwise as part of a political con game prior to the 2020 election. This denigrating of our election process for short-term political gain is disgraceful.

Now, I see the current false claims about State laws suppressing votes in the same light. Whether Democrats believe their own talking points or whether it is a cynical attempt to paint Republicans as anti- voting, these false claims undermine faith in the democracy.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, Democrats have shamelessly alleged that a massive Federal takeover of elections is needed because of questions some Republicans raised after the 2020 election, so I come to the floor today to show that this whole argument predates the 2020 election.

(Mr. BOOKER assumed the Chair.)

This Democrat reasoning is despite the fact that their proposal predates the 2020 election. The bill that they want us to pass is a product of concerns that the Democrats had about the 2016 election being stolen from Hillary Clinton--also because of the 2018 elections. And, in fact, the Democrat proposal was designed specifically to double down on false claims that Democrats lost certain elections in 2018 only because of rigged elections.

I have said it before, and I want to say it again: Evidence-free claims of voter suppression are as bad as election-free claims of voter fraud. Both voter fraud and discrimination in voting is illegal. Any claim of voter fraud or violation of voting rights should be resolved in our independent court system with evidence that can stand up in the courts.

And as I have mentioned before, the claims by some Trump supporters that a certain brand of voting machine-switched votes was lifted entirely from the Democrats' 2004 playbook. And you may remember that Democrat House Members challenged the electoral vote count of whether George W. Bush was officially and honestly reelected. And President Trump's questioning of his loss in Georgia was simply following in the footsteps of the losing Democrat candidate for Governor of that State just 2 years before who lost by a much bigger margin and never admitted that defeat.

That makes me wonder if Democrats' professed outrage comes from a sincere concern for Democratic reforms or if they are just upset that President Trump stole their playbook.

If Democrats really want to preserve Democratic norms, they would not be proposing the Federal Government overturning the current electoral process in all 50 States, on a purely partisan basis, with no attempt to even hear out Republicans' legitimate concerns.

The bills that we are talking about this week are being called democracy reform. Does democracy need reform? I support the American democratic system. It does not need a fundamental rewrite. The 240-year history of our great country under this Constitution ought to support that. It works, and it deserves our support. We should not denigrate American democracy for short-term political gain.

President Trump's candidacy in 2016 brought many Americans to the polls who had not voted recently, and there was a record turnout. In 2020, turnout broke the record yet again, both for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, and President Biden won that election.

In the 2021 election, there were unusually high turnouts for off-year elections to the benefit of Republicans and conservatives. You saw that, particularly in the State of Virginia, where the Republican candidates statewide were victorious, and you saw some surprising turnouts of opposition to Democrats who were reelected in the State of New Jersey.

Democrats accuse Republicans of wanting to keep people from voting. Why would we want to keep people from voting when we have been very successful in many large turnout elections very recently?

Plus, have you seen the polls today that show dissatisfaction with Democrats--a Republican deficit of five or seven points last year, with positive Republican versus Democrat polls this year.

So we ought to stop casting doubt about American elections, stop casting aspersions on commonsense election security measures like ID, supported by overwhelming numbers of Americans of all backgrounds. And by ``all backgrounds,'' I mean even people whom we classify as minorities.

Let's work together to boost the confidence of all Americans in our elections. Let's start rejecting claims that the only way the other party can win is by rigging elections. Let's retire the short-term strategy of falsely claiming that one of the two parties is a threat to democracy. That, in and of itself, is a very undemocratic position to take. This kind of rhetoric damages civil society and erodes faith in our democracy. For the sake of our country, please stop it.

Mr. President, when Democrats last had the majority and proposed blowing up the Senate rules and the historic way that the Senate has worked, I gave a series of speeches explaining how the father of the Constitution, James Madison, intended for the Senate to be a deliberative body; in other words, a break on the hot passions that occur in the House of Representatives. I repeated my deeply held opposition to gutting the Senate process, even when my party took control of all three branches--and it would have been politically expedient in the short term.

I don't know how many times President Trump brought up doing away with what we call the filibuster or the 60-vote requirement. It was even followed by a lot of our Republican Party grassroots wanting to overcome Democrats' use of the cloture rule to block the Republican agenda during those 4 years. But I spoke out strongly against it.

In 2017, over half of the current Democrat Senators signed a letter calling for preservation of the current rules requiring the 60 votes to stop debate for considering the legislation, despite the use of the nuclear option for nominees.

I agree with President Biden's position in 2005. Reflecting on the same understanding that I have of the Constitution and the role of the Senate as envisioned by James Madison, then-Senator Biden said this:

That is the . . . reason . . . we have the . . . rule. So

when one party . . . controls all levers of Government, one

man or one woman can stand on the floor of the Senate and

resist . . . the passions of the moment.

Even Senator Schumer, the majority leader, said, at that time, gutting the cloture rule would be a ``doomsday for democracy''-- doomsday for democracy. Now it seems like Senator Schumer invites that doomsday.

Senator Durbin hit the nail on the head as recently as 2018, saying it ``would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our Founding Fathers.'' I agreed then, and I agree now.

Now the shoe is on the other foot, and Democrats have changed their position, many not for the first time.

Senator Durbin has now joined the crusade of his Democratic predecessor, Stephen Douglas, of Illinois--famous for debating Abraham Lincoln on the issues of slavery. But that Douglas from Illinois also proposed a Senate rule change allowing a narrow majority to force a final vote on bills.

Hypocrisy is not rare in politics on both sides of the aisle, but the fact that Democrats switched principles on such a consequential matter whenever Senate control changes from one party to the other is particularly glaring.

The party of Jim Crow, which made liberal use of so-called filibuster just over a year ago to block Republicans' agenda, are now saying, falsely, it is a relic of Jim Crow.

I do not see how they can look the voters in the eyes with no sign of embarrassment. I do not understand why the policemen of our governmental system--the media--isn't roasting them for this hypocritical power grab.

I would now like to address a misconception on the cloture motion, the 60-vote requirement. The cloture motion requires 60 votes to bring consideration of legislation to finality. Just because it can be used to block legislation, does not mean that the term ``cloture'' always equals a filibuster.

Cloture cuts off not just debate but the offering of amendments. Voting for cloture, also, is saying that the Senate has voted on enough amendments. Senators who have amendments important to their State that they want to offer should be voting against cloture to preserve their right to offer amendments, as their constituents might desire. Debate and amendments are the hallmark of this democracy, not an obstacle to be swept aside in pursuit of a short-term partisan agenda.

When Democrats last controlled the Senate with 60 votes and thereafter, amendment votes became very rare. Even rank-and-file Democrats lost opportunities to represent their States with amendments important to that State.

Let's look at the cloture issue another way. Also, many people confuse debate over filibuster with talking nonstop to delay. That is a kind of ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' filibuster--the famous movie, you know. This has nothing to do with cloture. People who talk about returning to the so-called talking filibuster are confusing two different Senate rules, both called filibuster.

Senators have never had to talk until they dropped from exhaustion to preserve their right to amend bills. So the talking filibuster rhetoric is nonsense. Democrats have convinced themselves or at least their activist base--and done it falsely--that our democracy is in crisis. And so it is absurd to say only one party, unilateral governance, can save democracy. But once an exception is made--and they are talking about that exception just for this voting rights bill, but once an exception is made to the right of all Senators to debate and to amend legislation, there seems to be no going back.

Democrats learned that in 2013, when they accomplished the 60-vote requirement on district and circuit court judges, and they lived to regret it 4 years later when Republicans did the same thing when we had a Supreme Court Justice up. It is a slippery slope that you should not let come about.

I yield the floor.

I will.

Yes.

Remember what I said, and I just said this. So you obviously heard me. We warned, in 2013, when I think all Republicans voted against reducing the 60-vote threshold for district court and circuit court judges, so you could pack the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, that you would regret that, and you have regretted it because Republicans were saying in 2017: What is good for the goose is good for the gander. And we voted to reduce it then for a Supreme Court Justice.

Now, I am sure that, from your point of view, you have a Supreme Court that is not very favorable to what you think a Supreme Court ought to be doing, with the three people that Trump put on there. So that is where I am coming from.

Do you know who held the Senate during that period of time on the issue you brought up? It was Democratic Senators from the South. Remember when the Civil Rights Act, in 1965, was passed, that there was a higher share--a higher percentage--of Republicans than Democrats that voted for it. The one person that made a difference in getting the Civil Rights Act passed was Senator Dirksen, the Republican leader.

I am going to have to end this discussion with you, but I want to say one thing. Why would you want to expand this precedent that is set by Democrats into legislation and weaken bipartisanship? That is where you have to leave it. It is a slippery slope. You may intend to do it just for a voting rights act, but it is going to go further.

Madam President, for over 25 years in the Senate, I have been an advocate for adoption.

Adoption is a way for families to be created out of tragedy. It is a pathway to the joy of raising children and guaranteeing security of a place that now they can call home.

One family, Cate and Ben Bryan from Iowa, made the choice to open their hearts and their home to a child from China and were matched with a little girl named Rosie.

Hundreds of families across the country, including the Bryans and others in Iowa, have chosen adoption from China. They have been matched with specific children and made arrangements to welcome those children into their homes.

Many of these kids being adopted from China have disabilities or other special needs and require specialized health and care services.

These kids are in desperate need of families to take care of them but are being denied the opportunity to come

to their home in America with those parents all due to China's refusal to let Americans into the country to complete adoptions.

In February of 2020, China closed its border due to the spread of COVID. This meant that parents who had already been matched with a child in China could not proceed with their adoption. Of course, parents must physically be present in China to continue the adoption process and bring it to finality in order to get their child home.

What was said to be a temporary emergency precaution because of COVID has now stretched into years despite the availability of vaccines. Due to China's unwillingness to open its borders to these parents, adoptions have been stalled for now 2 years.

Some parents have been prohibited from even communicating with their children during this time. The Bryans from Iowa are unable to receive updated health information about their daughter and are unable to send letters or care packages. She might not even know that they have been trying for years to bring Rosie into their family.

Now, other countries that participate in international adoptions have found ways to continue the process, even in light of COVID. Even countries with travel restrictions on other groups have made exceptions for adoptive families. Parents want to cooperate. Parents are willing to quarantine. Parents are willing to be tested. Parents will take every precaution asked of them by China.

Now, what is so odd about all the parents who want to adopt not being allowed into China--we know that China has opened the country to athletes participating in the Olympics, those wishing to do business there, and to American journalists, but why not to adopting parents? Tourist visas are still not being issued, and adoptive parents are being classified as tourists despite specific reasons for their visit.

It is imperative that the Biden administration work to get adoptions from China moving again. These families have been waiting long enough. The kids whom they are working to adopt have been waiting even longer.

I get a chance to hear from kids in foster care in the United States through my role as chairman of the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth. I always hear the same message from these young people: They want a mom and dad. They want a loving place to call home. Kids in China are no different. They deserve a family and safety and the security of loving parents.

I pray that the hearts of Chinese leaders are softened enough to allow these families into the country and allow these kids to come home to America.

Now on another subject, the subject of this week in the U.S. Senate about whether the 60-vote requirement to move legislation ahead should be done away with--that is the purpose of coming to the Senate for these remarks.

Senate procedure is complex enough that talking about it often trips up even Senators who have been around here for several years. Reporters writing about the so-called filibuster often look to past reporting to get their bearings. In doing so, they perpetuate a conventional wisdom that is false or even misleading.

It is common around here to refer to the cloture motion as the Senate filibuster. Now, I want all my colleagues to know that I am guilty of doing this sort of shorthand all the time, and I tell myself I ought to not be making the same mistake.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service:

Filibustering includes any use of dilatory or obstructive

tactics to block a measure by preventing it from coming to a

vote.

The cloture motion is not the same thing as a filibuster, as the Congressional Research Service will also confirm. The cloture motion requires 60 votes to bring consideration of legislation to finality. That means not just debate but, crucially, the amendment process.

Of course, I want to repeat that. The effect of invoking cloture is to say that the Senate has considered the bill enough, meaning a sufficient number of amendments have been considered that the Senate has a chance to work its collective will.

The Senate was designed by the constitutional Framers to be a deliberative body. In the House, a narrow majority can pass hastily drafted, poorly conceived legislation.

As political parties have become more ideologically polarized, power to shape legislation has accrued to the House leadership. Individual Members of the House of Representatives have essentially no opportunity to get a vote on bills or amendments unless blessed by the Speaker of the House, Republican or Democrat.

The House Rules Committee, filled with partisans loyal to the Speaker, will draft a very special rule for considering a specific bill, and that is possible to detail the number of amendments, if any, allowed to be offered. Members of the majority party in the House are expected to vote for their party's rule, no matter what.

The Senate is supposed to be different. It is kind of like what we call the cooling saucer, making sure each provision in legislation is thought through and done as well as we can, particularly to overcome some in the House of Representatives who act so quickly. We also make sure that bills work for most States, not just the most populous States on the east or west coast that tend to dominate the House of Representatives.

So the Senate is different. Each and every Senator represents a whole State, and each Senator has equal right to participate in the legislative process on behalf of their State. Senators who would abdicate that right are doing a disservice to their State and the people they represent.

In the 2008 election, Democrats gained a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, with a Democrat House and President Obama. As such, the Senate, during those 2 years, tended to act kind of like the House does on process. The usual deliberative process, with bipartisan negotiations and careful refining and tweaking by committees, all went out the window. Major legislation was drafted in the Senate Democrat leader's office, often bypassing Senate committees. Democrats would then dutifully invoke cloture, often with no Senate floor amendment process at all. So, naturally, those of us who have served around the Senate a while were astounded at the time that Democrat Senators would routinely vote to cut off the amendment process before it had begun. Surely, they had amendments important to their States that they would have liked to have offered, but voting for cloture was expected of Democrats. They had 60 votes, after all. They could do almost anything they wanted to. And it turned out just like the rule that comes out of the Rules Committee, affecting how debate happens in the House of Representatives. Now, Democrats did this even if it meant giving up their right to offer amendments, thus abdicating their responsibility to represent their home States.

That situation became the norm, even when the Democrats lost their short-lived 60-vote supermajority.

Most Senators now serving only know the Senate since this break with Senate tradition. Despite some improvements in recent years, the culture of the Senate has not recovered. When people say the Senate is broken, the problem is not the one Senate rule keeping it from becoming just like the House of Representatives. In other words, it is not the 60-vote requirement that has broken the Senate. The problem is that people expect the Senate to act just like the House of Representatives when the Senate is actually intended to be a check on the House. Since the most significant effect of blowing up the 60-vote cloture rule would be denying the right of all Senators to offer amendments on the Senate floor, why do people still talk about some return to the mythical talking filibuster?

That comes out of confusion over the word ``filibuster'' that I mentioned at the start of my remarks today. The Senate rules state that in most cases during debate on a bill, a Senator may speak for as long as that Senator holds the floor. That is the rule Jimmy Stewart's character took advantage of to delay consideration of a corrupt bill in the classic movie ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'' That meets the definition of a filibuster, but it has nothing to do with the cloture rule. Those who would argue that Senators ought to have to speak nonstop on the Senate

floor until they collapse just to preserve their right to offer an amendment on behalf of their State are either confused or being dishonest.

During the Trump administration, reporters routinely sprinkled the word falsely in the descriptions of things that President Trump said as sort of a running fact-check. Reporters ought to revise the practice of using the word falsely when President Biden and other Democrats make demonstrably false statements. This issue, of course, would be a good place to start--and do it this week.

Any reference to some nonexistent, totally mythical age of the talking filibuster ought to have a disclaimer that no such requirement ever existed for a 60-vote cloture rule. As I mentioned, conventional wisdom about the filibuster has been distorted by confusion and perhaps intentional shell games.

For Senators or reporters to truly understand this issue, I urge you to consult the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service as your main source.

Mr. President, all the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Attorney General Garland two letters about the Justice Department's involvement in local school board matters.

The first one was in October. Then in December, we asked why the FBI's counterterrorism division was getting involved in parents' expressing their concerns at school board meetings.

Now, just to be crystal clear, there is no excuse for real threats or acts of violence at school board meetings, but if there is such threats, these should be handled at the local level, and the Attorney General should withdraw his memo that started this whole thing off.

Well, a couple days before Christmas, the Justice Department responded to us Republican members of the Judiciary Committee with a single-page letter. In that letter, the Department of Justice had nothing to say about why the FBI's counterterrorism division was involved in local school board matters. The Department of Justice just simply said ``We're not going to withdraw the memo.''

So the Feds may be keeping track of school board meetings, even if it creates a horrible chilling effect at those meetings and maybe even discourages people from coming to those meetings. And, of course, the FBI looking over your shoulder would then have a chilling effect.

Now, next week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on domestic terrorism, and I hope the committee will be focusing on the serious threats facing our country, and I hope no one thinks the focus is going to be on our Nation's parents.

School boards have to be accountable to the parents and the taxpayers that they serve. Some school boards across the country are still shutting down classes, even though vaccines have been available for a long time and dramatically reduce the chances of major illness to teachers.

Meanwhile, millions of kids across the country are struggling to catch up. They are under enormous stress from being separated, one kid from their friends in the classroom or in the school building. Schools are seeing far more behavioral problems than they ever have before.

Parents, then, are right to be concerned about these situations in their local schools, and it is their right to ask questions. They should be telling their school board districts that they want to see changes. But will they see changes or will they be afraid to speak up at school board meetings? Will the FBI's counterterrorism division be keeping track of them as parents ask for changes from their school boards?

The Department of Justice owes the American people a better answer than just a single-page letter that says nothing about why the FBI's counterterrorism division is involved in local school board matters.

Now, more than ever, parents should be their kids' strongest and their kids' best advocates. They have a God-given right to do so. And, of course, the Justice Department ought to be doing everything it can to protect that constitutional right, not scare these parents out of exercising their constitutional right.

Attorney General Garland should withdraw his memo, and he should take Congress' oversight and concerns for parental rights more seriously.