Elissa Slotkin

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the MERIT Act, the Minimum Experience Requirements for Intelligence Transition Act--a lot of words, but the bill is simple. It requires anyone serving as the Director of National Intelligence--even in a temporary capacity--to have extensive national security experience.

It is common sense. You don't hand the keys to America's intelligence community to someone who has no experience, regardless of party or political loyalty.

The Director of National Intelligence is a powerful job, and I know because I was there at the creation. I was one of the first people at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, when it was stood up. I was seconded there as a CIA officer. I helped stand it up after Congress created it so that we never again miss a terrorist attack, like we did on 9/11.

The Office uses powerful tools to gather secrets from our foreign adversaries, like China and Russia, from terrorist networks, and from threats to our homeland. But it is that power in the wrong hands that I want to talk about today.

America's national intelligence community can be used to gather information not just from our foreign adversaries but, if turned against us, against the American people, it can be used to monitor Americans, to target political opponents, to dig through records, to punish critics, to help any President relitigate an election.

Right now, that is where we are.

Mr. President, I rise today to address the events that took place exactly 4 years ago today when the Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning Roe v. Wade, stripping away reproductive rights for women that we have relied upon for generations.

That decision sent shock waves through the country. Something that many of us, women of my age, relied upon for our entire lives were certainly and suddenly not available to our kids and our grandkids. And as States like Michigan were looking into the reality of a full abortion ban, we had to get to work.

In Michigan, we had a 1931 abortion ban which banned abortions even in the cases of rape and incest. It criminalized nurses and doctors who provided such care, and it was slated to become law again in the wake of the Dobbs decision.

In the face of that, Michiganders went to work; that is what we do. We rally together. We got over 700,000 signatures in the better part of 10 weeks. We organized getting on to our ballot a vote on reproductive freedom including abortion care for our State; and we did this so that women and girls that come after us were in control of their reproductive lives, not politicians and certainly not anyone in this body.

Now, the examples of who this affected are legion, but let me just focus on one woman Sarah from Byron Center, MI. Sarah had already had four miscarriages but was filled with so much hope for her fifth pregnancy. Unfortunately, after 19 weeks she received a devastating call from her doctor that she had a baby dying inside of her. Thankfully, Sarah was able to get the abortion care she needed from her doctor so she wouldn't be exposed to life-threatening bacteria and infections which could have killed her.

Right now in States across the country when other women face this same reality, they are told to wait. They are told to hope they don't get an infection, and they hope they are not left to die.

Even worse, mothers are dying of preventable deaths, leaving their children without a parent, all because of politics and reversing Roe v. Wade 4 years ago today. Now just because the story is 4 years old doesn't mean it is over. Women continue to face a two-front war to get access to abortion care, even in a State like Michigan. Access to care and the cost of care is still inhibiting who has access to reproductive care.

More than a dozen States across the country have a total ban on abortion, and the people in this Chamber and around this town continue to chip away at women's access everywhere they turn. Women are struggling to get access to healthcare via telehealth. Families are struggling to access contraception and plan for their futures. Doctors are being criminalized for doing their jobs. Cuts to healthcare, cuts to Planned Parenthood have forced organizations to shut their doors, and politicians who can't outlaw abortion nationwide are trying to outlaw abortion medication, which is how a full half of women get their abortions.

All of this comes with a cost, expensive bills, traveling long distances, and adds risk to people's health. The Dobbs decision was a cautionary tale. Even though the Supreme Court allowed abortion over 50 years ago, this body decided not to act. We never legislated a woman's right to choose.

Our grandparents should have taken action on this issue, and we would have reproductive freedom now across the country if we had done so. I think it is an important tale for what this body can and cannot do, what it should and should not do.

It certainly has incredible consequences. So I just wanted to recognize on the 4-year anniversary of the reversal of Roe v. Wade where we are and that the fight continues.

Mr. President, I want to turn to one of my favorite things, honoring people back home in the State of Michigan. Michiganders deliver and show up for each other. We grow food for our families. We make the cars that power and drive America. We create products that brighten people's days. We achieve milestones that inspire our youngest minds. And when we see a problem or a neighbor in need, we step in to help.

So I want to focus today on a couple of stories from the State of Michigan that recognize the important contribution of some of our organizations and some of our companies.

Here on the Senate floor it is my honor to enter into the record these stories into the people's history of the United States. Today is officially our first ``Michigan History Makers'' in a series honoring Michiganders' contributions to our Nation. And by entering their names into the Congressional Record, their stories will be memorialized for good so that their great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren can see the contribution these organizations have made.

Today, I want to pay a tribute to Shenandoah Country Club. This is a country club owned and operated by the Chaldean community or Iraqi Christian community of Michigan. On March 12, it was a sunny, late winter day in Michigan at Temple Israel, a synagogue in West Bloomfield, MI. Young children were playing together and learning in a classroom painted orange and blue. A teacher had just placed babies as young as 15 months down for a nap and suddenly a gunman rammed his car through the temple.

His goal was to do massive harm on one of the largest synagogues in the country to target the youngest, most vulnerable of the Jewish community, innocent children. There were gunshots, crying babies, teachers running with children in their arms, and people fleeing for their lives.

The people of Temple Israel felt like they had nowhere to turn, but the Shenandoah Country Club is directly across the street, and that is where they went.

The staff and leadership at the country club did not hesitate to step up as a safe haven and open their doors as refuge for over 100 children and other Jewish community members.

It immediately became the reunification site where worried parents could hug their children again, and it became a place where everyone could sigh a breath of relief that no children or teachers were harmed.

The club provided shelter, blankets, and food for the families and then the next day transformed their ballroom to host a Shabbat gathering of over 1,000 Jewish worshippers, which I participated in.

What struck me most was the positivity in what was otherwise a very dark moment. The Chaldean community didn't ask whether the families arriving at their doors looked like them, prayed like them, or came from the same background; they saw their neighbors in need, and they answered the call. Their kindness and hospitality were the silver lining in an otherwise terrible attack.

With profound gratitude for their extraordinary contributions to the people of Michigan, it is my honor to recognize the Shenandoah Country Club and the Chaldean community here in the Senate of the United States.