Floor Statements

Mr. President, I want to commend Senator Brown for leading the fight to oppose rollbacks for Wall Street banks. He has been tireless in the fight on behalf of Ohio families and on behalf of families all across this country, and I thank him very much for his work.

This is a tough fight. This week, nearly 10 years to the day after we first discovered that big banks crashed our economy, Washington is about to take many of those same giant banks off the government watch list. I doubt that this makes any sense to any of the millions of Americans who experienced firsthand the economic horrors of the financial collapse. Oh, but it makes perfect sense in Washington, where swarms of lobbyists seem to have the power to erase politicians' memories.

The Senate is debating a bill that would roll back the rules designed to protect consumers and prevent another economic meltdown. Yesterday I talked about how this bill scraps a lot of important consumer protections for American families buying homes. In addition to squeezing consumers, this bill also loosens our hold on some of the very same giant banks that wrecked our economy.

Ten years ago, a bunch of enormous banks got giant bailouts, while American consumers got a punch in the gut. The excuse in Washington was, well, these banks were so interconnected with one another and with the overall economy that the failure of one could bring down the rest of the system too. Too bad, they said, we have to bail them out. Individual families, however, could be crushed underfoot; they weren't big enough to be worth saving by Congress.

Congress passed a huge bailout, but to keep this from ever happening again, Congress decided to put the small number of American banks that control more than $50 billion in assets--this is about 40 of the largest banks in the country--on a watch list. Those banks would be subject to tougher Federal oversight and would be subject to some stronger rules to stop them from bringing down the economy again. A small bank in Adams, MA, would be regulated one way, and a giant bank, with offices around the country and around the globe, would get a much closer look. That makes real sense.

If this bill passes, Washington will scrap those rules for 25 of those enormous banks. Under this bill, a bank that controls up to a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets and has offices around the country and around the globe will follow the same rules and regulations and have the same oversight as a tiny little bank in Adams, MA. That is great if you are a quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar bank but not so great for anyone else.

This bill isn't about restrictions on asset measures and investments. It is not about appropriate leverage ratios and proprietary trading. It is about keeping hard-working American families from getting crushed by another financial crisis. It is about a Congress that isn't here to do the bidding of quarter-trillion-dollar banks. It is about a Congress that is supposed to be working for the American people.

Right after the financial crisis, before I ever thought about running for the Senate, Congress put me in charge of an independent panel that was supposed to police the bailout money. We held hearings around the country to talk to people who had been punched in the gut by the financial crisis.

I will never forget one witness I met at a hearing in Las Vegas. His name was Mr. Estrada. He was a father of two little girls, and he wore a jacket over his T-shirt. He had on a red U.S. Marine Corps baseball cap. He and his wife both worked. They stretched their budget to buy a home that would get their girls into a good school, and the house was right across the street from their school. He was very proud of his house. When payments on their mortgage jumped, Mr. and Mrs. Estrada fell behind. He tried to negotiate with the bank, thought that the bank had arranged a settlement, and then, poof, the house was sold at auction.

``So at the end,'' he said, the bankers ``tell me that I have fourteen days to get my children out of the house.''

Mr. Estrada explained what happened next:

My six-year-old came home the other day with a full sheet

of paper with all of her friends' names on it. And she told

me that these were the people that were going to miss her

because we were going to have to be moving. And I told my

daughter, I says, ``I don't care if I have to live in a van.

You're still going to be able to go to this school.'' I'm

trusting in God that we're going to be able to be back into

this home again.

Several times while he testified, Mr. Estrada paused to try to get control of himself, and his pain and desperation seemed to push all the air out of the room.

I am here today to ask who in the U.S. Senate will fight for Mr. Estrada? Who will fight for the millions of other Americans who paid the price because big banks gambled with the economy and lost? I am here to fight for everyone who in 2008 had to tell their children: Pack up your toys because we have to move. I am here to fight for every American who worked a lifetime, did everything right, saved for retirement, only to watch their savings go up in smoke. I am here to fight for every small business owner who had to shut their doors after years of long hours and sweat and hope and tell their employees not to come back the next day. I am here to fight for those hard-working employees who lost their jobs. I am here to fight for all those Americans who kept fighting through the crisis, no matter how hard it was, who kept pushing, and who, years after corporate profits rebounded and the banks were riding high on Wall Street again, finally got their families back on their feet. They are who I am fighting for.

On the other side, there is an army of bank lobbyists who are fighting for some of the biggest banks in this country. Now, that is not what they are telling you. They will tell you: Oh, this isn't about big banks at all. The lobbyists swear up and down that they are fighting for small banks--banks that aren't risky and didn't cause the financial crisis--and they will make up all

sorts of false claims about how the banks are struggling under these new rules, never mind that banks of all sizes are literally making recordbreaking profits. Give me a break.

This bill is about goosing the bottom line and executive bonuses at the banks that make up the top one-half of 1 percent of banks in this country by size--the very tippy, tippy top. Your local community bank doesn't have a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets. Your local community bank doesn't own the naming rights to a stadium or a ballpark. This bill is designed to help a handful of giant banks that together control more money than the nominal GDP of more than 100 independent nations on planet Earth. These are not small banks, and the idea that these wealthy and powerful banks need Congress to step in and protect them from having to follow some commonsense rules would be downright laughable if it weren't so dangerous.

How big and important are these banks to the financial system? Just look at what happened in 2008. During the financial crisis, some of the very same big banks that will be deregulated by this bill sucked down nearly $50 billion in taxpayer bailout money. That is taxpayer money-- money that could have gone to building roads or building bridges or building schools or medical research, but that money instead went to propping up big, failing banks. Now the Senate wants to turn loose those big banks again.

It is not just the bailouts. Banks with less than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets helped cause the financial crisis in the first place. Remember Countrywide? In its 2006 annual report, right in the heart of the housing boom, Countrywide reported that it had $199 billion in assets, which would put it right smack in the middle of the pack of banks that would be taken off the watch list.

Countrywide made billions of dollars by scamming consumers. At its peak, it was the biggest mortgage lender in the country. It was also a subprime specialist--an expert on trapping people into tricky loans that they didn't understand and couldn't afford. Countrywide was obsessed with making as many loans as possible and squeezing out the competition. They gobbled up fees and downpayments and then sold those risky loans before they blew up. Wall Street gobbled up those loans, packaged them, and sold them on down the line just as quickly as Countrywide could make them.

How could this happen? How could it happen? One reason is the Feds had been really easy on Countrywide. In fact, Countrywide was allowed to pick its own regulator--the Office of Thrift Supervision, which cuddled up so close to these banks that it was supposed to be policing that after the financial crisis, Congress actually abolished the regulator.

Eventually, Bank of America bought the bank at a bargain price, and its owners lost money on the Countrywide deal. Poor Bank of America. Of course, that was nothing--nothing--compared to what people with retirement accounts lost when their investments tanked. It was certainly nothing like what Mr. Estrada and his little girls suffered because banks like Countrywide pushed off mortgages with hidden fees or exploding payments on their little family.

Countrywide's scam mortgages were one of the main causes of this financial crisis. If Countrywide were still around today, this bill would make it easier for them to escape government oversight, and that is just plain reckless.

We know banks of this size can help bring down the financial system. We know banks of this size demand billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts when things go wrong. That should be the end of the conversation, but it isn't, not here in Washington.

Consider this: The banks that are being deregulated under this bill have done nothing--nothing--to earn our trust and deference since the financial crisis. Instead, these banks have engaged in breaking the law left and right. Let's talk about a few of them.

Take SunTrust. SunTrust has $208 billion in assets and so would be deregulated under this bill. They would be cut loose. In 2014, SunTrust agreed to pay $320 million to settle claims that it misused bailout money that was supposed to help distressed homeowners. The law enforcement agency that led this investigation said that the bank literally took homeowners' applications to modify their mortgages, tossed them in a room, and ignored them. There were so many applications that the floor in that room buckled under the weight of the documents. Think about that. They got almost $5 billion in taxpayer bailout money, they promised to help homeowners, and then they just tossed application forms for that help onto a pile that was so big that it made the floor buckle. And now this Congress is offering to help loosen the oversight on that bank.

How about Santander Bank. Santander has $132 billion in assets. They could be cut loose by this bill. Less than a year ago, Santander was nabbed by the attorneys general of Massachusetts and Delaware for funding auto loans it knew its customers couldn't repay, using paperwork they knew was doctored--pretty brazen fraud. Now this Congress is offering to help loosen oversight on Santander as well.

Then there are the financial institutions that have been caught discriminating against customers.

Ally Financial has $164 billion in assets. They would be cut loose by this bill. In 2013, Ally Financial paid $98 million to settle charges that it discriminated against minority borrowers in providing auto loans. The scam was actually pretty straightforward: Charge African Americans and Latinos more than White people. The scale was huge-- 235,000 non-White borrowers on average paid 200 to 300 bucks more than White borrowers with similar credit profiles. Now this Congress is offering to help loosen oversight of this bank as well.

Then there are the banks that cheated investors. Barclays U.S. has $175 billion in assets. They could be cut loose by this bill. In 2015, Barclays was among the handful of banks that were charged record fines by the Federal Reserve for manipulating foreign exchange markets. Barclays traders colluded with traders from other banks to share intel and to push the market up or down in whatever direction profited them, and now this Congress is offering to help loosen oversight on Barclays.

Last year, the Fed caught BNP Paribas USA in the same game. BNP Paribas has $146 billion in assets, and they could be cut loose by this bill. Now Congress is offering to help loosen oversight on BNP Paribas.

Finally, there are the banks that got caught violating sanctions. The Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi has $155 billion in assets. They could be cut loose by this bill. In 2013, the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi settled with the New York Department of Financial Services for $250 million over charges that it cleared tens of thousands of transactions. DSF estimated that the bank wired more than $100 billion to countries that were under U.S. sanctions, including Iran, Sudan, and Burma. The bank specifically tried to evade sanctions by telling employees to leave destination information out of the wire instructions of money going to those countries so they could fool the regulators. Now this Congress is offering to help loosen oversight on the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi.

Let's pause on this one. Washington thinks this bank needs less oversight. A year after it got caught funneling money to dangerous regimes and then trying to cheat rather than fix the problem, a State banking regulator was so alarmed by this that they actually put an independent monitor inside the bank to keep an eye on them. Now Republicans and Democrats have decided this is a bank we can trust.

This is nuts. These are banks that taxpayers bailed out 10 years ago. They have cheated customers, cheated communities, cheated markets, and endangered our national security, and still Republicans and Democrats are joining together to loosen oversight over these banks.

So what is this all about? What is it really all about? You will not hear this coming from the supporters of this bill, but it is the truth. It is about letting these banks snap up smaller banks. It is about more consolidation in the banking industry. It is about goosing banking profits and expanding executive bonuses.

It sure as heck is not about increased lending. These banks are sitting on

mountains of cash that they could lend at any time. Just look at their profits. BB&T made more than $2.25 billion. SunTrust pocketed a cool $2.3 billion. M&T clocked in at $1.3 billion. I could go on and on.

In fact, instead of lending more money, these banks have been plowing their massive earnings into stock buybacks. Just last month, M&T Bank announced it was spending an additional $745 million to repurchase stock. A few weeks later, Fifth Third authorized buying back $3 billion in stock. Every single one of those dollars could have been put to new small business loans or it could have been put to home mortgages. Instead, they went to goosing the banks' stock price and putting bigger bonuses in executives' pockets. Does anyone really think that if the banks have even more money to burn they will completely change course and pour that money into lending? To ask the question is to answer the question.

These banks aren't exactly acting like they are starving for cash, at least not when they send their executives' paychecks. In 2016, the head of Regions made $14 million all in. The CEO of Huntington, almost $9 million, not including almost another quarter of a million dollars that the company spent to cover the CEO's personal use of its jet. The CEO of Keycorp made $7.1 million. The CEO of CIT Group made the same--up from $3.2 million the previous year.

That is not all. The good times are rolling at these banks. Zions Bank held a swanky party to kick off the Sundance Film Festival this year with a cute little hot chocolate bar. American Express just opened a shiny new regional headquarters building which cost $200 million.

If this law passes and if these bankers, sitting around a shiny new table in their gorgeous new headquarters, decide to gamble just a little bit more, just like they did in the lead-up to the financial crisis, regulators may not even know it. If lying back in their plush seats of their corporate jets they cook up some kind of risky, complicated investment that nobody understands until after it goes bad, regulators probably will not catch it in time. If their bets fail, these more dangerous banks are more likely to crumble and more likely to bring the rest of the economy with them.

This is madness. This is greed run wild. These rules have kept us safe for almost a decade, even as the same banks have chomped at every regulation and tried to evade every rule. Now Washington is about to make it easier for the banks to run up risk, make it easier to put our constituents at risk, and make it easier to put American families in danger, just so the CEOs of these banks can get a new corporate jet and add another new floor to their shiny corporate headquarters.

Despite everything they have already done to cheat their customers and endanger the financial system, those big banks will always have their advocates here in Washington. What about Mr. Estrada, and what about the millions of working Americans like him who want Washington to think about them for a change? Mr. Estrada can't afford to hire a lobbyist and he can't cut a $1,000 campaign check and he can't host a fundraiser at a DC steakhouse. The result, it seems, is that every Republican in this Chamber--and far too many Democrats--will lie down with the banks and ignore Mr. Estrada and his two little girls.

We should be working for people like Mr. Estrada and not for the big banks. Mr. Estrada earned it; the big banks did not.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this week we are considering a bill to roll back the rules on some of the biggest banks in the country. Over the course of this week, I am going to be spending a lot of time on the Senate floor talking about the problems with this bill and how it threatens working families and American taxpayers, but I want to start by looking back to 2008 and the reason we have these rules in the first place.

Ten years ago next week, Americans started holding our breaths. For years, financial institutions had been riding high, selling dangerous products to consumers, and making risky bets. All the while, Washington looked the other way, cozying up to big banks, loosening rules left and right, and shrugging off rules they couldn't get rid of. And no wonder--the revolving door was spinning like crazy. Bank officials became regulators and then went back to the banks, getting richer and richer. Bank profits were sky high and getting higher.

But business built on scams and hype can't grow forever. Ten years ago this month, Bear Stearns, an 85-year-old institution on Wall Street, went belly up because of $46 billion in scam mortgages and other questionable investments on its books. The failure gave the rest of the world a glimpse of Wall Street's addiction to risky bets. The disease spread. It turned out that a lot of other banks had invested heavily in scam mortgages too. Investors panicked, sending the markets into a nosedive.

When the American economy fell off a cliff in 2008, American families got crushed. Almost 9 million people lost their jobs. Workers lost $2.6 trillion from their retirement accounts--about 25 percent of their savings for someone who had been working for 20 years. In 2008 alone, foreclosures spiked 81 percent, and 3.1 million notices went out to homeowners across the country telling them they would lose their homes. In a single year, 1 out of 54 homes in the United States was in foreclosure.

Behind those enormous numbers were real people and real families whose lives were shaken up and turned upside down, little kids who worried about where they were going to live, and bigger kids who worried about whether they would lose their chance to go to college.

I know that feeling. I lived in Oklahoma City, and my folks had picked out our house because it was right inside the boundary line of what my mother believed was the best school district in the county. Our lives seemed to be on track right up until the day my daddy had a heart attack, and then it all started sliding sideways. He was out of work for a very long time.

My mother usually picked me up from school in our bronze, two-toned station wagon, and one day she showed up driving the old, off-white Studebaker that daddy had been driving back and forth to work. As I climbed into the car, I asked where our station wagon was.

It is gone.

Gone where?

Gone.

I just kept pushing. My mother was staring straight ahead, fingers tight on the steering wheel, and after one more ``Where?'' from me, she answered in a low voice: We couldn't pay. They took it.

The house was next in line. My family was right on the brink of foreclosure when my mom put on her best dress, walked into the Sears, and landed a minimum-wage job. But that feeling--the feeling of being on the brink, the feeling of no security, nothing under your feet--is a feeling no family in this country should have, especially not have it because Congress decided it was OK to let the big banks gamble with the economy again. Yet here we are, on the verge of making the same mistake Congress has made so many times before.

The banks don't want you to know what is in this bill because if you did know, you would fight back. It was written by Senators in back rooms and jammed through the Banking Committee, where its authors voted down every single amendment, every single idea to make the bill even one smidgen better or protect consumers just one tiny bit more. They voted against every amendment, even if they agreed with it, because Republicans and Democrats had locked arms to do the bidding of the big banks.

There is a lot of dangerous stuff in this bill. Today I want to focus on the harm it will do to America's consumers, but I will start with what is not in the bill because what is not in the bill should make Congress ashamed. Strong consumer protections--that is what is not in this bill. Banks get their wish list, but consumers get next to nothing. This bill is called the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, but in all 148 pages, there are only a few watered-down provisions to help consumers.

Equifax loses data for nearly half of all adults in America, lies about it, and this Congress, these Senators, still can't manage to pass a bill with some teeth in it to hold the company accountable. That says it all.

This bill was written by big banks to help big banks. It is not a bill to help American families who are still getting cheated by the companies that make huge profits off them.

What is actually in this bill? Start with the first part of the bill, section 101, ``Improving Consumer Access to Mortgage Credit.'' When you get a mortgage, usually your lender spends some time combing through your financial records to make sure you can repay the loan. That is good. American families don't want to take out loans they can't afford, and banks don't want to make loans that can't be repaid.

Before the financial crisis, that whole process went haywire. Lenders were making crazy loans with balloon payments and exotic features that consumers didn't understand. Lenders didn't care if their customers could repay. Why? Because they got their fees up front and then sold the loans to distant investors, and the original lender was long gone before the homeowner got in trouble. But the families were stuck. Eventually, the payments skyrocketed, and homeowners who couldn't keep up defaulted and lost their homes.

After the crisis, Congress changed the rules. They told lenders that they had to start underwriting their loans again to protect consumers and the economy. But that takes time and money, so Congress told the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to write a rule that says that there is no need to investigate if the lender knows that it is issuing a super-safe, boring, plain-vanilla loan. OK. That sounds reasonable. But section 101 of this bill is not reasonable. It takes the CFPB rule and stretches it in all directions, tearing open big, dangerous loopholes. This bill that is on the floor says: Banks, have some fun out there. It says: Bring back the greatest hits of the financial crisis housing scams. Scoop up profits on the front end, and leave families holding the bag on the back end.

I understand breaks for banks that make straightforward loans, but these loans in this bill are too risky and they come at a bad time. Rising interest rates mean that exotic products like adjustable rate mortgages are starting to make a comeback. Bank lobbyists are dragging us back to the bad old days when banks had free reign to scam their customers.

Here is another section. Section 104 makes it harder to enforce anti- discrimination laws by telling loads of institutions that they don't have to comply with a law called the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, or HMDA. HMDA requires most financial institutions to tell the public and the CFPB who they are lending to and at what rates and what terms. Regulators and law enforcement then use that data to make sure that American families don't have a harder time getting one of those loans because of who they are or where they come from.

This bill takes a sledgehammer to HMDA by exempting 85 percent of banks from reporting HMDA data. If this bill passes, there will be entire communities in America where there will be no data whatsoever, which means there will be no ability to monitor whether people are getting cheated because of their race or their gender.

Once again, this couldn't come at a worse time. Lending discrimination is real. A new, comprehensive report that

looked at housing markets all across the country just came out from the Center for Investigative Reporting and Reveal, and its findings should make us all sick to our stomachs.

In 2015 and 2016, nearly two-thirds of mortgage lenders denied loans to people of color at higher rates than for White people. According to Reveal, in the Washington metro area, ``in 2016, Native American applicants were 2.3 times as likely to be denied a conventional home mortgage as white applicants. For black applicants, it was 2.2 times as likely. For Latino applicants, it was 1.9 times as likely. For Asian applicants, it was 1.6 times as likely.

The Reveal report showed that this problem happens in giant banks and also in small banks.

Here is the thing: None of that analysis--none of it--would have been possible without HMDA data from big institutions and small ones. Without the data, we would all be sitting in the dark, wondering if maybe some mortgage lenders discriminated against African Americans or women or Native Americans, but we wouldn't have any way to know. That means we wouldn't have any way to change it if it was happening. Gutting HMDA allows us--actually forces us--to look the other way when discrimination happens, and that is disgraceful.

There is one more section in this bill that really hurts consumers; that is, section 107, ``Protecting Access to Manufactured Homes.'' Eighteen million Americans live in manufactured homes. Many are low- income, elderly, or disabled. It is a good option for many Americans, especially in rural areas, but it is very important to make sure buyers don't get scammed.

Under today's law, mortgage lenders cannot steer a borrower toward a higher cost loan so the lender can get a kickback. That is the law today but not if this bill passes. Instead, the rules for mobile home lenders will be weaker rules, and that means it will be much easier to cheat buyers of mobile homes.

Congress imposed strict requirements on loan originators because Congress knew most of us don't buy a lot of homes in our lifetime, and we rely on the people helping us through the process to tell it straight. Owners of mobile homes deserve the same protection as people who buy brick-and-mortar homes. They need that protection.

Abusive lending practices are rampant in the manufactured housing industry. In 2015, the Seattle Times wrote about Kirk and Patricia Ackley in Ephrata, WA. Kirk worked construction, and Patricia worked at Walmart. They had already bought the foundation for their new mobile home when they sat down to close on their mortgage. What happened at closing? Surprise. The interest rate was higher than they had been told, and the payments were larger than they could afford. The mortgage broker then convinced them to go ahead and sign up anyway, promising that they could refinance that loan later on.

You can probably guess the end of the story. The Ackleys signed, the lender wouldn't refinance, they lost all the money they had put in up front, and they lost their home. It turns out that the homebuilder, the dealer, and the mortgage lender--all three of them--were owned by one company, Clayton Homes. All the incentives were to push the Ackleys into a loan they couldn't afford because Clayton got the purchase price, the commissions, and the fees, and they got the mobile home back again. No one was looking out for the Ackleys.

The backers of this bill say that this provision will help small lenders, but the truth is that manufactured home lending is mostly done by giant lenders like Clayton. In fact, in 2013, Clayton alone--one company--provided 39 percent of mobile home loans. Savings from rolling back these consumer protections would go right out of the pockets of working families like the Ackleys and right into the pockets of dealers like Clayton.

The Ackleys' story is not unique. I wish it were. These same problems happen all over the country, and they are exacerbated by the special characteristics of mobile homes. The lifespan of a manufactured home is shorter than a traditional home. That means the purchaser may not be able to take out equity by reselling it.

A woman from Oklahoma told the CFPB:

I was given a loan for a single width mobile home through

[a mortgage company]. They switched it to Green Tree and next

to Ditech. The home started deteriorating in 10 years and is

now unsafe to live in, as I have had electrical problems and

many of the pipes are broken where the bathtub and faucets in

the master bathroom are not functioning. The floor under the

shower has completely caved in, windows are crooked and allow

flies to get into the house in warm weather. Most of the

floors have buckled under the legs of furniture, and the rain

has caused the areas around the windows to buckle. Walls are

little more than cardboard. I believe the flooring is

waferboard and unfit for floor foundation.

When I tried to trade this [model], the dealer [] told me

he couldn't because the house is worth much less than what I

owe and that this sounded like a Predatory Mortgage Loan. He

said that mobile homes do not have 30 year mortgages because

they don't last that long. He said my loan should have been a

15 year loan at the most. Also, right before Ditech took the

predatory loan over, they added about {$100.00} to my monthly

payments, which went from {$360.00} to {$460.00} a month.

Ditech claims the {$100.00} is for insurance; however, as of

yet they have repaired nothing, although I have made several

claims.

I was also told I should complain because when they put the

mobile home on my property, they did not put it on a cement

foundation and instead put it on the ground, which has caused

the home to sink.

This bill is designed to make it easier for the lender/dealer to squeeze people like this woman from Oklahoma.

This bill is a punch in the gut to American consumers. If it passes, it will be harder to police banks that sell abusive mortgages, harder to police lenders who discriminate against their customers, and harder to police giant monopolies that build, sell, and offer financing to mobile home buyers. Only a bunch of bank lobbyists and their friends in Washington would call this a consumer protection bill.

American families weren't in the back room when this bill was written. They don't have millions of dollars in campaign cash to get Senators' attention. They don't keep an army of lobbyists on their payroll. No. American families are busy going to work, helping the kids with homework, and trying to catch up on a thousand things. They are trying to pay off student loans or maybe save a little for their own kids to go to college. Some are trying to put aside a few bucks for a mortgage so they can buy a home. They trust us to stand up for them and make sure they have a fair shot at home ownership, at the American dream. They trust us to make sure we are not turning over the keys to our economy to the same people who crashed it 10 years ago and ran over a bunch of American families on the way.

I know we are outnumbered, but this fight isn't over. Make no mistake--I am going to do whatever I can to convince enough other Senators that this is a bad deal for American families and a dangerous one. I will push and I will tug and I will talk to anyone who will listen about how this bill will hurt the people we were sent here to represent. And maybe, just maybe, for once, the Senate will start listening to voters instead of donors.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to call on President Trump to nominate a Director for the Indian Health Service.

There are many critical issues facing Indian Country--economic development, infrastructure, protection of Native lands, respect for Tribal governments--and after years and years of broken promises, discrimination, and neglect, Washington owes Tribes a fighting chance to build stronger communities and a brighter future.

The Federal Indian trust responsibility means that Washington has a basic legal obligation to the Tribes. Washington also has a fundamental moral obligation, and that starts with basic healthcare.

American Indians have treaty rights to healthcare from the Federal Government, but the U.S. Government cannot fulfill our treaty obligations if key posts, such as the Director of IHS, lay vacant for years.

The IHS is a big deal. It is the primary Federal healthcare provider for American Indians and Alaska Natives. It serves 2.2 million people spread across 36 States. It has a budget of nearly $5 billion annually. The IHS provides care through more than 660 clinics, hospitals, and health stations on or near reservations, many of them in remote and rural locations located hours away from other health facilities. It serves more than 13 million outpatient visitors a year.

The doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers at IHS hospitals and clinics do everything from delivering babies, to providing dental services, to fighting the opioid crisis.

Right now, more than a year into President Trump's term, there is still no permanent leader at the Indian Health Service. Two weeks ago, the nomination for IHS Director was withdrawn, and there hasn't been a Senate-confirmed Director for years. This leadership vacuum creates a serious problem. The IHS cannot engage in long-term planning without a permanent Director at the helm. It cannot officially fix problems at hospitals that failed inspections and where Medicare and Medicaid funding is in jeopardy. It cannot move as decisively to ensure that IHS facilities stay open. It cannot implement agency-wide standards for quality of care, as the Government Accountability Office has recommended. The IHS cannot prioritize competing issues, solve serious and longstanding problems, or work through how to meet multiple goals more effectively.

Its relationship with other Federal agencies is weakened without a stable leader--critical relationships with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Office of Management and Budget, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the rest of the Department of Health and Human Services. It cannot ensure that programs like the Special Diabetes Program for Indians, which has created real, positive outcomes, is implemented as well as possible. The IHS cannot work out a direction for the Service and hold a single stable leader accountable for doing a good job.

The IHS faces serious challenges that require the attention of a permanent, dedicated Director. The agency is underfunded and has been underfunded for a long time. As a result, its facilities often lack medical equipment that many Americans take for granted when they visit a clinic or a hospital, like an MRI machine or a functioning operating room. A 2016 report by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that IHS hospital administrators have had difficulty recruiting and retaining critical staff. Aging hospital buildings and outdated equipment also raise concerns about patient safety. The inspector general cites concerns about corroded pipes leaking sewage into the OR and not being able to find replacement parts to fix old equipment the hospitals are relying on. Doctors and nurses should be able to focus on helping their patients get well, not on whether the building is habitable and basic facilities are available.

There are also serious staffing shortages. At its Great Plains facilities, for example, IHS vacancy rates have reached 37 percent. Compare that to my home State of Massachusetts, where only 6 percent of nursing jobs were vacant in 2015.

Tribal leaders are understandably concerned about the direction of an

agency that plays such a vital role in their communities. Here is what I heard from Chairwoman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head--the Aquinnah--in Massachusetts: ``This vacancy has created significant instability and negatively affects the already burdened IHS system.'' She added: ``Not only is it a failure on the part of the Federal Government to not adequately fund healthcare for Indians; the failure to appoint someone to lead this critical service area is considered by many Tribes as gross negligence.'' The chairwoman says that the United States is failing to keep its word and failing to fulfill its ``solemn responsibility'' to the Tribes. I agree with the chairwoman.

Healthcare is a basic human right, and everyone in this country deserves access to quality, affordable healthcare. But the stakes are particularly high for Native people.

An American Indian or Alaska Native baby born today has a life expectancy that is almost 4\1/2\ years shorter than the U.S. average. These little babies are also more likely to die before they ever reach their first birthday. Native infant mortality is about 25 percent higher than for the U.S. as a whole.

Chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease hit Native Americans harder too. For instance, American Indians and Alaska Natives die from diabetes at a rate that is three times higher than that of the entire American population.

Mental health and addiction issues are also a very big concern. The opioid epidemic has devastated communities all over our country, but it is a particularly virulent problem for Native Americans, who have the highest per capita rates of opioid overdoses in the country.

Similarly, the alcohol-related death rate for Native Americans is about 500 percent higher than for the rest of the population.

Suicide rates are about 70 percent higher.

Everyone struggling with addiction deserves access to high-quality treatment, no matter who they are or where they live. That is the only way we are going to make progress in tackling this crisis. But right now, in a place where the need is great, the Federal Government is failing to provide adequate care.

With so much need, investing in improving the IHS should be a top priority for Washington. I am glad that the Trump administration's latest budget for the IHS includes a funding increase. Still, this government needs to do more--much more. A Senate-confirmed Director can serve as the advocate the IHS needs in order to get the resources it deserves. In fact, Federal law explicitly says that advocating good Indian health policy is one of the Director's job responsibilities. We should be doing that job.

We need a good person in this job, which means the nominee must be thoroughly vetted. But that is not an excuse for more delay or for the White House to drag its feet. It needs to work with the Tribes to find the right person for the job and then submit the nomination quickly.

The person who heads up the IHS should be knowledgeable and should have a vision for how to deliver better healthcare to Native Americans. The person should have the determination and commitment to push Congress to meet its treaty obligations in providing healthcare to Native communities.

The Trump administration doesn't have a stellar record when it comes to nominating the right people for important jobs. I often strongly disagree with the President's picks. But leaving hundreds of critical posts across our government vacant, including the IHS Director, has a devastating effect all its own.

It wasn't until just 2 weeks ago that President Trump finally named a nominee to be Commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans.

Several offices in the Federal bureaucracy have an important role in running important programs for Tribes, and the President hasn't nominated heads for some of those offices--for instance, the Director of the Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women, which administers key grant programs for Tribal programs to combat domestic violence and sexual assault, and the Assistant Secretary of the Employment and Training Administration in the Department of Labor, which provides workforce innovation and opportunity grants to Tribes and Tribal organizations. These vacancies hit Native communities hard, and they represent one more broken promise to Native people.

There is no excuse for delay. I urge President Trump to move quickly to consult with Tribes and to submit a nomination for IHS Director. The Native community should not have to wait any longer.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, 1 year ago today, I came to the Senate floor to oppose the nomination of Jeff Sessions to lead the Department of Justice.

The Justice Department is charged with defending our laws and standing up for all people regardless of color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, or ability.

That night, I described Jeff Sessions' appalling record on nearly every major national issue handled by the Justice Department, including civil rights, immigration, and criminal justice reform.

That night, I also read a letter that Coretta Scott King sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986 that opposed Sessions' nomination to serve as a Federal judge. Mrs. King wrote a vivid account of how Jeff Sessions, as a U.S. attorney in the 1980s, had ``used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.'' That letter had been a part of the Senate Judiciary Committee's records for more than 30 years. It helped sink the nomination of Jeff Sessions for the Federal judgeship for which he had been nominated back in the 1980s.

I had hoped that by reminding the Senate of its bipartisan rejection of Sessions in the 1980s, that the letter might help us to once again come together in a bipartisan way to say that this kind of bigotry shouldn't be allowed in our criminal justice system. That was my plan. Yet, for reading

those words--the words of an icon of the civil rights movement--I was booted off of the Senate floor. Every one of my Republican colleagues who was present that night voted to shut me up for reading Mrs. King's words. Then, the next day, every single Republican voted to confirm Jeff Sessions--a man deemed to be too racist to hold a Federal court judgeship in 1986. Nope. They confirmed him to lead the agency charged with defending justice for all Americans.

Now it has been 1 year since the Republican-controlled Senate made Jeff Sessions Attorney General of the United States. I wish I could say that I had been proven wrong--I actually really do--but Coretta Scott King's warnings ring even louder today than they did in 1986. On issue after issue, Jeff Sessions' Justice Department has failed in its mission to promote justice for all Americans. Instead, Sessions has taken the Department in exactly the opposite direction. So let's make a list and start with voting.

In 1986, Mrs. King warned us that Sessions had used the awesome power of his office as an Alabama prosecutor to chill the free exercise of the vote by African Americans. As Attorney General, he has continued that crusade, targeting not only African Americans but Latinos, the elderly, veterans, and other marginalized groups.

Only weeks after Sessions took the reins, the Justice Department abandoned its legal challenge of a Texas voter ID law that intentionally discriminated against voters of color. Later, the Department argued that it should be easier for States to strike eligible voters from their voting rolls--a proven way of preventing eligible citizens from voting.

Sessions has eagerly embraced President Trump's make-believe, fact- free conspiracy theories about voter fraud--condoning the President's voter suppression commission and engaging in State-level inquiries into voter databases.

Next on the list: defending all Americans--equal protection under the law.

In her letter, Coretta Scott King warned that Jeff Sessions would undermine equality under the law. Sure enough, when Jeff Sessions took over at the Justice Department, he immediately got to work in reversing the agency's prior efforts to defend laws and policies that protect Americans from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Sessions' Justice Department has rescinded guidance that protects transgender students and workers from illegal discrimination. The same day that President Trump used Twitter to announce that he was banning transgender individuals from serving in the military, the Justice Department filed a legal brief that reflected Sessions' view that our great civil rights laws don't protect gay Americans from discrimination. This was despite the rulings by other Federal courts and guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reaching the opposite conclusion. Sessions' Justice Department has also gone out of its way to argue in the Supreme Court that business owners should be able to deny service to gay customers.

In 1986, Mrs. King wrote: ``I do not believe Jeff Sessions possesses the requisite judgment, competence, and sensitivity to the rights guaranteed by the federal civil rights laws to qualify for appointment to the federal district court.'' It is clear that Sessions has not acquired those skills in the 32 years since Mrs. King issued her warning.

Third, criminal justice.

Jeff Sessions is using the monumental power of his office to invert our criminal justice system. For too long in America, we have had a dual justice system--one sympathetic, soft-on-crime system for the rich and another ineffective, cruel system for everyone else. Coretta Scott King told us about Sessions' role in this broken system when she wrote that he ``exhibited an eagerness to bring to trial and convict'' Black civil rights leaders despite there being evidence that clearly demonstrated their innocence of any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, she said, he ``ignored allegations of similar behavior by whites.''

In recent years, we have made some progress away from that broken system by having implemented proven reforms that make our communities safer. Jeff Sessions has worked with laser-like focus to reverse those gains.

Just last week, Sessions effectively closed an office within the Justice Department that helped to make legal aid more accessible to people who don't have enough money to pay for a lawyer, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Under Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department killed off a reform initiative that allowed local police departments to voluntarily partner with the Federal Government to improve community policing.

The Justice Department has abandoned its longstanding efforts to hold local police forces accountable when they routinely and systematically violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.

Sessions ended the Justice Department's Smart on Crime Initiative, which allowed prosecutors to divert some low-level, nonviolent offenders into rehab programs. This was a program that saved money, allowed offenders to avoid incarceration, and improved safety in our communities. It improved the lives of these offenders and their families. Instead, Sessions instructed all prosecutors to bury even low-level, nonviolent drug offenders under the most serious charges possible that guaranteed the longest prison terms possible.

Sessions even rolled back efforts to take weapons of war off of our streets by lifting commonsense restrictions on the transfer of military-grade weapons to local police departments--weapons of war, such as grenade launchers and armored vehicles that belong on battlefields, not on the streets where our kids ride their bicycles and walk to school--weapons that even the Pentagon cannot justify handing over to local police.

Next, immigration.

As a Senator, Jeff Sessions was an anti-immigration extremist who led multiple successful campaigns to defeat bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform. As a Senator, he urged the deporting of Dreamers who were brought to the United States as kids.

Now, as the head of the Justice Department, he has continued his ugly anti-immigrant rampage. He has zealously defended every illegal and immoral version of President Trump's Muslim ban. He has used the Department to try to cut off aid to cities and States that prioritize keeping their communities safe over being part of his national deportation force. While it was Donald Trump who ordered it, Jeff Sessions himself announced the end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, or DACA, which has subjected 800,000 Dreamers to deportation.

So there it is. Coretta Scott King's words about Jeff Sessions were true in 1986, they were true in 2017, and they remain true today. On Jeff Sessions' watch, the Justice Department has promoted voter suppression. On his watch, the Justice Department has endorsed discrimination. On his watch, the Justice Department has reversed efforts to reform our broken criminal justice system. On his watch, the Justice Department has led an all-out, bigotry-fueled attack on immigrants and refugees.

All of this, all of it, was predictable. All of this, all of it, was foreseeable. All of this, all of it, could have been avoided if just a few Republican Senators had stood up for fair and impartial justice, but they didn't--not one. So here we are.

Here is the ultimate irony: President Trump turned on his Attorney General. Why? It was not over voting or equal rights or criminal justice or immigration--no. The President turned on Sessions because Sessions formally recused himself from a law enforcement investigation into the President's ties to Russia. Sessions has groveled, but Donald Trump will never forgive the sin of Sessions' failing to serve Donald Trump personally.

Jeff Sessions, President Trump, and this Republican Congress seem to think that they can stoke the fires of hatred and division without being consumed by them. Maybe they can for a time, but people are resisting and persisting. States and cities are stepping up to defend civil rights that are under assault by the Federal Government. The American people are showing up in the streets, in the airports, in the courtrooms, and even at the polls to hold this government accountable.

They will continue to show up and to fight day in and day out--to fight for fairness, to fight for equality, to fight for liberty and justice for all.

Republicans tried to silence Coretta Scott King for speaking the truth about Jeff Sessions. They tried to silence me for reading Mrs. King's words on the Senate floor. They have tried to silence all of us from speaking out, but instead of shutting us up, they have made us louder.

Warn us. Give us explanations. Nevertheless, we will persist, and we will win.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to thank the senior Senator from Washington for her leadership on this important issue and for gathering women to come to the floor today to talk about the Republican bill that has been proposed and that we will be voting on soon.

When I was a girl growing up in Oklahoma, women got abortions. Make no mistake, abortions were illegal back then, but women got them. Desperate women turned to back-alley butchers, and some even tried the procedure on their own, using coat hangers or drinking turpentine. Some were lucky, but some weren't. Some women bled to death. Some died of infection. Some were poisoned. And they all went through hell.

In 1973, the Supreme Court stepped in. Forty-five years after Roe v. Wade, abortions are safer than getting your tonsils out. A lot of women are alive today because of Roe. Nearly 70 percent of Americans agree, Roe v. Wade is worth celebrating.

I wish I were here today to acknowledge the impact of Roe. Instead, I am here to defend it from attack.

Last week President Trump marked the anniversary of Roe v. Wade by calling for a ban on a rare category of abortions--ones that take place after 20 weeks of pregnancy. So today, the Senate is voting on a bill to do exactly that.

Let's be honest about why this vote is happening now. Today's vote is happening because politicians who have never been pregnant, who have never had an abortion, who have never had to make a wrenching decision after learning that the child they are carrying will not survive childbirth--those politicians want to score political points at the expense of women and their families.

We are having this vote today because President Trump asked for it. If it passes, this unconstitutional bill would put women's lives and women's health at risk. Government officials who seek to insert themselves between women and their doctors ought to listen to the women whose lives are on the line and the doctors who care for them. If they were listening right now, we wouldn't be holding this vote.

Only 1 percent of abortions take place at 21 weeks or later, and the reasons are heartbreaking. I have heard from people across Massachusetts who shared their devastating stories. The Senate should hear these stories.

One woman who wrote to me explained that she was ecstatic to have a second child but learned late in her pregnancy that her daughter's brain was severely malformed. She said:

Being a grown woman with a husband and daughter, I never

imagined that I would need to [get an abortion]. But when I

learned that the baby I was carrying suffered from a set of

severe brain malformations, I faced a binary choice for her:

peace or life. . . . I am deeply grateful that I was able to

give her the gift of peace.

She and her husband did what they thought was best for their baby girl. They got an abortion in the third trimester.

Another couple chose to get an abortion at 22 weeks, after learning that their son's heart would never fully develop. The husband wrote to me:

His pulmonary veins did not connect to his heart in the

right place. He had ventricular septal defect, an atrial

septal defect . . . and the left side of his heart was

smaller than his right. . . . We hoped to be eligible for in-

utero heart surgery, but our fetal cardiologists told us that

our son's heart could not be fixed. Our little boy--our

miracle--wasn't going to make it.

He described their choice as an act of mercy. He said:

My wife and I are both pro-life, and we would never

encourage an abortion. [But] there isn't a day that I regret

what we did because we both believe our child is watching

over us from a safer place. There also isn't a day I wonder

who else could possibly understand what we went through. No

law can save my child from his complex congenital heart

disease, or save my wife from her suffering.

But the bill we are voting on today says that the government should have been part of that decision--no, not just part of that decision. It would have allowed the government to make that decision, instead of leaving the choice to these brokenhearted parents.

The bill we are considering today would ban all abortions after 20 weeks, with only limited exceptions. It would force women to carry an unviable fetus to term. It would force women with severe health complications to stay pregnant until their lives were on the line. Whatever you believe about abortion generally, this legislation is dangerous and cruel.

Devastating fetal abnormalities aren't the only reason women get abortions after 20 weeks. Some women face so many delays when seeking an abortion, like finding a provider, raising money for the procedure, and paying for travel costs--so many delays that a procedure they wanted earlier in pregnancy gets pushed later and later. These logistical hurdles fall hardest on young people, on women of color, and on low-income communities.

What is behind some of these delays? State-level abortion restrictions pushed through by Republican legislatures that close down clinics and make it harder for women to get access to the care they need. You heard that right. Republican-sponsored abortion restrictions push women to have abortions later and later, and today, Republicans in the Senate push a bill to ban late abortions. It is all connected.

This bill is only one part of a broad and sustained assault by Republican politicians on women's rights to make decisions about their own bodies. Through repeated efforts to limit birth control access, to defund Planned Parenthood, and to restrict abortions, Republicans are chipping away at women's health, women's safety, and women's economic independence.

If Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan or Donald Trump actually wanted to reduce abortions, they could embrace policies that would lessen the economic pressures of pregnancy and of motherhood. They could act to help pregnant women and their babies access healthcare early and often. They could help young women avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

Instead, they have spent the last year doing exactly the opposite. They have held vote after vote to try to gut the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, when we should be expanding those programs. Affordable healthcare, accessible contraceptives, and other programs that support working women and families are all under attack. And today, Republican politicians want to distract from their hypocrisy with an unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban--one that will not pass, that ignores the actual experiences of women, and would cause enormous harm if it were signed into law.

Today's vote, which we all know will fail, isn't about policy; it is about political theater. But women don't get abortions to prove a political point. Reproductive rights are about health. They are about safety. And this particular vote about banning abortions at 20 weeks is about a bunch of politicians intruding on one of the most wrenching decisions that a woman will ever make.

It has been 45 years since Roe v. Wade; 45 years since women gained the constitutional right to a safe, legal abortion; 45 years since the days of illegal abortions. I have lived in that America. I have lived in the world of back-alley butchers and wrecked lives. And we are not going back--not now, not ever.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask to be recognized to speak in opposition to Governor Powell's nomination to serve as Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Mr. President, I am concerned that as Chair of the Fed, Governor Powell will roll back critical rules that help guard against another financial crisis, and that is simply a risk we cannot afford.

While big banks have bounced back from the 2008 financial crisis and are posting record profits, many American families are still trying to rebuild their lives 10 years later. Yet Governor Powell seems to think that the No. 1 problem with our current financial system is that we are too hard on the banks. In his confirmation hearing, he said that he would ``continue to consider appropriate ways to ease regulatory burdens.'' When I asked him if there were a single financial rule he thought should be stronger--just a single provision in one of the Fed's dozens of rules where there might be an unintended loophole or where an innovative product has introduced a new risk into the system--he couldn't name a single one. Not one.

In my questions for the record, I also asked Governor Powell about a report that the Treasury Department put out last June. This report was really just a cut-and-paste job of the banking lobbyists' wish lists for rule rollbacks. Governor Powell could not identify any recommendations in that report that he disagreed with. Again, not a single one.

That is not all. At Governor Powell's confirmation hearing, when my Republican colleague Senator Kennedy asked him about whether there are any institutions today that are too big to fail, Governor Powell said: ``I would say no to that.'' Governor Powell expanded on that statement in his answers to my written questions, saying that ``we have made enough progress that the failure of one of our most systemically important financial institutions, while undoubtedly posing a severe shock to the economy, could more likely than not be resolved without critically undermining the financial stability of the United States.''

First of all, that is an incredibly narrow definition of what too big to fail means. But second of all, and more importantly, Governor Powell's view is out of step with the mainstream of serious experts. Giant institutions still have the ability to blow up our economy, and that is the biggest problem facing the Fed and other regulators.

I am deeply concerned that as soon as Governor Powell unpacks his boxes in the Chairman's office, he will begin weakening the new rules that Congress and the Fed had put in place after the 2008 financial crisis, and he will have help. Right down the hall will be his close friend, Randal Quarles, the Fed's new Vice Chair for Supervision. Governor Powell told me when we met that he intended to rely a lot on Vice Chair Quarles on regulatory issues. That is a really dangerous prospect.

Before coming to the Fed, Vice Chair Quarles spent more than a decade in private equity, where he made his mark arguing for weaker rules on big banks--and he has gotten a running start now that he is in the Fed. In a speech a few weeks ago at his old private equity firm, Quarles announced that he was working on reducing capital standards for Wall Street banks, weakening the Volcker rule, and making stress tests easier for big banks to pass. In other words, he has already set up his to-do list to gut measures put in place after the financial crisis that are there to try to keep our economy safer.

So Governor Powell says that he will take his cues from a guy who wants to get rid of as many rules as he can and take the teeth out of the rules that he can't. No thank you. That will make American families less safe. It will make the American economy less safe.

To make matters worse, Powell's gifts to the giant banks will come at a time when banks of all sizes made gigantic profits last year and got giant tax giveaways in the bill that was passed in December. Good grief, when will enough be enough for these guys? But even with the banks rolling in money, the army of lobbyists and executives have come back, storming Capitol Hill and the halls of the Fed, spinning a story that financial rules are throttling them and need to be cut back.

We need a Fed Chair who can stand up to Wall Street and think about the needs of working families in this country. We need someone who believes in the toughest rules for banks, not in weaker rules for banks. That person is not Governor Powell.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote against the confirmation of Alex Azar to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS. When Congress confirms somebody to be HHS Secretary, they are putting that person in charge of some of the most important decisions made by the Federal Government-- decisions that touch the lives of every family in America. The safety of the food inside our refrigerators, the quality of our nursing homes where our grandmothers live, the price of our health insurance policy, the government's response to a flu outbreak--on these issues and many, many more, the HHS Secretary calls the shots.

When Congress debated Tom Price's nomination to be Secretary of Health and Human Services 1 year ago, I said that we should not hand over the keys to this agency unless we were absolutely sure that he would put the American people first every minute of every day. And let's be honest: Tom Price did not clear that bar; he didn't even come close. No. When he was nominated, Tom Price already had a track record of using his position in government to help exactly one person: Tom Price. But Senate Republicans were so excited to get started gutting the Affordable Care Act and ripping up Medicaid that they jammed his nomination through without a single Democratic vote.

It turns out we are looking at someone whose record is a pretty good way to judge how they are going to fight for the American people. Tom Price didn't spend his time as HHS Secretary working for American families; he spent it burning taxpayer dollars as he flew around on private jets and military aircraft. During the 8 months Tom Price was on the job, he put his own interests before those of the American people--again and again.

Now President Trump has nominated Alex Azar to be Tom Price's replacement as Secretary of HHS. Republicans have been trying to spin Mr. Azar as a breath of fresh air--someone who can be trusted to stay off private jets while he helps them carry out their plans to gut the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid without attracting quite so much unwanted attention.

The American people aren't fooled by the spin because in the ways that matter most, Alex Azar is like Tom Price. Mr. Azar's resume reads like a how-to manual for profiting off government service. About a decade ago, he worked in government, helping regulate the Nation's most profitable drug companies. When he left, he shot straight through the revolving door and became an executive at Eli Lilly drug company. Last year, they paid him more than $3.5 million. Not bad. Now he wants to swing right back through the revolving door again and once again regulate those same drug companies--regulate them at least until he decides to spin through the revolving door again and make more money from drug companies.

I don't think private sector experience should disqualify anyone from serving. I am rooting as hard as anyone for an HHS Secretary who actually cares about the job. But the American people deserve to know that the person running HHS is looking out for them and not for his own bank accounts or for the profits of his former employer or what makes him more marketable to his next employer.

That is why Mr. Azar faced some very tough questions in his confirmation hearing before the HELP Committee about whether he would be willing to hold giant drug companies accountable when they break the law. After all, he worked for Eli Lilly while they were cleaning up the mess after being forced to pay the largest criminal fine of its kind in U.S. history--a punishment for lying about one of its drugs and peddling that drug to nursing homes as a treatment for dementia and Alzheimer's with no proof that it worked. The word for that, by the way, is ``fraud.'' Eli Lilly's scheme cost the government, and taxpayers, billions of dollars.

Mr. Azar started out by saying the right thing about this. He said:

Oh, that sort of behavior is unacceptable. Of course,

anyone who breaks the law should be held accountable.

Sounds great. But then I scratched the surface just a little. When I pressed just a little bit harder and asked him to give the American people something more than a polished talking point, he started dancing around in his chair, bobbing, weaving, doing everything he could to avoid answering the question. Mr. Azar said he believed lawbreakers should be held accountable. I asked him five separate times during his confirmation hearing whether he thought Eli Lilly's settlement represented adequate accountability for the company's illegal behavior--five times in a row. He dodged, he danced, and he refused to give a straight answer. I asked him twice whether CEOs should be held personally accountable when drug companies like Eli Lilly break the law. Both times, he squirmed away from the question like it was some kind of snake that would bite him.

The American people deserve better than an HHS Secretary who struggles to answer the question of whether giant drug companies and their CEOs should face the music when they cheat taxpayers and lie about drugs.

On the topic of the Affordable Care Act, it is the same story all over again. Mr. Azar spent his whole confirmation hearing before the HELP Committee pretending that the Trump administration hasn't been trying to rip up healthcare coverage for tens of millions of Americans. He sat before the committee, like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, saying things like ``Oh, I don't think the Administration wanted fewer people to enroll in health insurance coverage. I'm sure they just cut the enrollment period in half because they thought it would improve access to insurance.'' He actually said that.

When I heard that, I wondered if he thought we were stupid. His answer was so ridiculous that I even asked him a followup question in writing to make sure I had it right, and he responded--think about this--that when the Trump administration cut the period of time that people could enroll for health insurance, he said, ``I do not agree with the characterization that the Administration or the Department has made an effort to undercut open enrollment.'' You can't make this stuff up.

Republicans want to pretend that Alex Azar is totally different from Tom Price because Tom Price was a terrible HHS Secretary who didn't put the American people first. I don't see the difference. I see someone who doesn't want to say it out loud but who intends to behave exactly like Tom Price when he sits down behind Tom Price's old desk. He will support efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, gut efforts to enroll people in health insurance, and take Medicaid away from people who need it the most.

No one here should be fooled. This week is the 1-year anniversary of Tom Price's confirmation hearing before the Senate, and we know how that ended.

The American people deserve better. They deserve an HHS Secretary who will put them first. I will be voting against Alex Azar because I don't believe he meets that standard.

Mr. President, I yield.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Trump administration's recent proposal to expand offshore drilling to more than 90 percent of U.S. waters. This handout to Big Oil executives puts short-term corporate profits ahead of the long-term health and livelihood of America's coastal families, and it ignores the growing threat posed by climate change.

This administration is too weak-kneed to stand up for American families, too weak-kneed to say ``enough is enough'' when Big Oil executives demand more, and Big Oil executives keep demanding more because they don't like being told that any area is off limits.

Big Oil didn't like being told that the extraordinary natural, cultural, and historical value of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase- Escalante made them off limits for fossil fuel development. So President Trump opened up much of the previously protected land for future drilling and mining.

Big Oil didn't like being told that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of America's last untouched expanses of wilderness, was off limits. So President Trump and this Republican Congress included a provision in the Republican tax bill to allow drilling for the first time in this pristine reserve.

Big oil didn't like being told that our coasts, which provide the homes and livelihoods for millions of Americans, are off limits. So the Trump administration, faithful as ever to whatever Big Oil wants, issued a proposed offshore drilling plan that would allow drilling in more than 90 percent of America's coastal waters. In doing so, the Trump administration is threatening the Atlantic coast with unwanted oil drilling for the first time in more than 30 years, threatening to introduce new drilling rigs to the Pacific coast for the first time in 30 years, threatening the eastern Gulf of Mexico with drilling for the first time in more than 10 years, and threatening to illegally reopen portions of the Arctic for drilling in areas that were permanently protected in 2016.

Our coasts are working waterfronts supporting hard-working families. This unprecedented expansion of offshore drilling endangers hundreds of thousands of jobs that depend on the health of our oceans. In Massachusetts, there is shipping in and out of Boston, fishing from Gloucester to New Bedford, and tourism and small businesses on the Cape and the Islands. The ocean is our lifeline, as it is for so many coastal States and towns around the country.

The multibillion-dollar coastal economy has been a key part of the American economy since our Nation's founding. Our coastal communities are united in opposition to an expansion of offshore drilling. They understand the risks that Big Oil imposes on them.

Our coastal communities remember when the BP-Deepwater Horizon oilspill occurred in 2010. One offshore oil well blew and caused the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to explode, and what was the consequence? It killed 11 workers, injured 17 more, and unleashed one of the worst environmental disasters in human history. Nearly 5 million barrels of oil gushed into the ocean, contaminating more than 1,300 miles of coastline and nearly 70,000 square miles of surface water. Millions of birds and marine animals died from exposure to the oil and other toxic chemicals. The gulf fishing industry lost thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and the spill devastated the gulf's coastal tourism economy. The environmental and economic devastation hit working families and small businesses across the entire region.

A commission formed to investigate the BP oilspill concluded that there were ``such systematic failures in risk

management that they place in doubt the safety culture of the entire [offshore drilling] industry.'' The Federal Government vowed to crack down on the offshore oil industry that had been cutting corners at the expense of worker safety and environmental safety. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement studied ways to improve oil rig inspections and issued new rules of the road to try to prioritize safety.

But President Trump has abandoned that safety-first approach. He ignores the lessons of the BP oilspill. Instead, he listens to his Big Oil friends. Last month, the administration began rescinding key safety regulations designed to protect our coastlines from another BP spill disaster. I just want to give one example.

In 2016 the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement implemented new rules to require independent, third-party certification of safety devices on oil rigs. It is not a bad idea to get someone independent to take a look at oil rigs before people put their lives at risk and hundreds of thousands of people could lose their livelihoods if an accident occurred--not a bad idea. But the Trump administration has said that this commonsense approach is an ``unnecessary . . . burden'' on industry. Just to be clear, this so-called burden would amount to less than a penny on the dollar for an industry that already enjoys tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies. That is less than a penny on the dollar to protect the livelihoods and maybe the lives of people living on our coasts.

The Trump administration's insistence on padding the pockets of Big Oil while small coastal towns are left carrying all the risk is a perversion of how government is supposed to work, but this is what happens when the Republican Senate allows leadership positions at the Department of the Interior to be filled with industry insiders who reward their past--and, in many cases, their future--employers, rather than serving the American people.

American families deserve forward-looking leadership that builds for the future and ensures that America will lead in the necessary fight against climate change, but President Trump thinks leadership is handing over management of our public resources to the Big Oil executives who are looking to stuff their pockets while they can, and he chooses to ignore the writing on the wall.

Our planet is getting hotter, and 16 of the last 17 years were the hottest on record. Our seas are rising at an alarming rate. Our coasts are threatened by furious storms that can sweep away homes and devastate even our largest cities. Many communities are just one bad storm away from complete devastation. Our naval bases are under attack, not by enemy ships but by rising seas. Our food supplies and our forests are threatened by an endless barrage of droughts and wildfires.

The effects of man-made climate change are all around us, and things will only continue to get worse at an accelerating pace if we don't do something about it. Will addressing climate change be tough? You bet it will. We will need to retool, to install offshore wind turbines instead of President Trump's offshore drilling rigs. But there is no country and no workforce in the world that is more willing and more able to tackle the challenges of climate change head-on than the United States of America. Yes, it is hard, but it is what we do. It is who we are.

The American people deserve leadership that knows the strength of the American people; leadership that believes in the innovative resolve of American workers ready to build clean energy infrastructure of the world; leadership that will deliver a clear message to the Big Oil executives, hell-bent on protecting their own short-term profits and who don't like being told that a place is off limits; leadership that will not chain our economy to the fossil fuels of the past; leadership that does not ignore the realities of climate change; and leadership that does not put our coastal communities at further risk of another devastating oilspill. The American people deserve leadership that works for their interests, not for the interests of Big Oil.

I yield to my colleague.

Mr. President, just yesterday, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a massive tax giveaway that will shovel truckloads of money into pockets of giant corporations and the superrich, while it leaves working families behind. And that is just the latest in a laundry list of presents that have been doled out to folks at the top. For everyone else, it has been one broken promise after another.

One of those promises was to protect 800,000 Dreamers who were brought to the United States as kids. Trump broke this promise when he ended DACA, the program that allows Dreamers to live, work, and study in the United States without fear of being deported to countries they barely know. Because Trump broke his promise, it is up to Congress to stand up and protect Dreamers by passing a clean Dream Act--a bill that gives legal status and a path of citizenship to those young people.

I want to introduce you to one of those Dreamers--Elias Rosenfeld. Elias was 6 years old when his parents brought him and his sister to the United States. He doesn't have many memories of his life in Venezuela, but he did hear stories from his parents and his grandfather about the everyday risks that they faced. One day, while his mother was driving, she pulled up to a stop light, and a man pulled a gun on her. Another day, his grandfather withdrew money from an ATM and then was robbed at gunpoint.

So when Elias's mother, who was an executive at a multimedia company, had an opportunity to transfer to an office in Miami, FL, she jumped at it. Elias's family came to the United States legally. They applied for and they received a visa that allows executives and managers from other countries to work in the United States and eventually apply for permanent resident status. Under that visa, the entire family would become permanent residents and would never have to worry about losing their status in the United States. ``Permanent'' is the key word here. Well, at least that had been their plan, only things didn't go the way they had been planned.

When Elias was 11, his mother died of cancer. He didn't know it at the time, but the day his mother died, Elias and his family lost their path to permanent resident status and became undocumented.

After his mother died, Elias clung to the belief that an education was his ticket to a better life. He challenged himself academically, taking 13 advanced placement courses and earning A's in almost every class. He also juggled a number of extracurricular activities, including speech and debate, student government, volunteering with children and the homeless, and starting his school's first traveling Model United Nations. His excellence earned him a place on the dean's list, as well as a long list of awards, including the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust Change Maker Award.

Elias so impressed the school's staff that his high school activities director called Elias a hero and said: ``I've been teaching for 20 years and I have never seen a student like this young man.'' Scholarship committees also recognized Elias's accomplishments, and he won a coveted Myra Kraft Transitional Year Program scholarship, which provided him a full ride to Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. He is now a sophomore at Brandeis, where he continues to make his mark.

Before DACA came along, Elias lived in constant fear that ICE would break down his door and deport him and his sister. DACA changed his life. The fear subsided. He knew that ICE agents wouldn't break down his door or seize him on his way to school. Elias told me that DACA has been a source of optimism and a light of protection.

America is the only country Elias knows. It is the only country many Dreamers know. This is their home. Dreamers like Elias have had the courage to step forward. They have come out of the shadows to tell their stories. Now Congress could show some courage and protect Dreamers by passing a clean Dream Act. We have waited too long already. Every day that we delay, more than 100 Dreamers lose protected status. They must return to the shadows. They must think about ICE agents breaking down their doors or seizing them if they go to school or to work. The time for Congress to act is now, right now, today. We should not leave here so that we can celebrate the holidays with our families while nearly 800,000 Dreamers fear being ripped apart from their brothers, their sisters, their mothers, their fathers, and deported to countries they barely know.

If we held a vote today on the Dream Act, it would pass. So my question to Senator McConnell is this: What are you waiting for? Let us vote.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today is a terrible day. It is a terrible day for millions of working families in this country. They just want Congress to work for them. It is a terrible day for people who just want to get on with their lives and not have Congress cost them even more money.

It is a terrible day for millions of hard-working people, but it is a great day for giant multinational corporations and billionaires who fund Republican campaigns across this country. Today is their day. Every fundraiser, every fat check from a billionaire, and every champagne-and-caviar party has been about getting to this day--the day when the politicians whom they put in charge of Washington would pay them back with a $1.5 trillion giveaway.

Supporters of this bill call it tax reform. It is not tax reform. It is a heist--a heist that steals from millions

of middle-class families and hands that money over to the wealthy; a heist that will hurt Medicare and Social Security and reduce healthcare coverage by 13 million people in order to hand over money to giant corporations that are already rolling in profits; a heist that will hurt our economy and blow a hole in our national debt.

The American people have seen through this scam. They see through every lie that has been pushed forward. They know this bill doesn't provide middle-class tax relief. It ultimately raises taxes on more than 60 percent of working families in this country. They know this bill does not promote economic growth. Nonpartisan projections have shown that it will have a negligible impact. Even former Republican officials admit it. They know this bill will not raise wages for working people. Corporate CEOs have already said so. Those CEOs have told everyone who would listen that when they get their truckloads of money from the GOP tax bill, they will turn right around and funnel that money to their wealthy shareholders.

They know this bill isn't even to help Americans. A third of those shareholders who will get truckloads of money from the GOP bill don't even live in the United States.

Over the last month and a half, we have all watched as one Republican Senator after another has cast aside every single one of their supposed principles to get behind this monstrosity of a bill. Real relief for the middle class is gone. Concern about the national debt is gone. Concern about economic growth is gone.

There is only one principle left: Reward billionaire campaign donors. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is not a partisan attack. It is what Republicans in Congress are saying in public to reporters. As one of my Republican colleagues said in a moment of honesty, if they don't pass this tax giveaway bill, ``financial contributions will stop.'' And a Republican House Member said big donors told him to pass the tax bill or ``don't ever call'' them again.

Let's call this out for what it is. It is government for sale. That is how you end up with a $1.5 trillion tax giveaway to corporations at a time of record corporate profits. It is not supposed to be this way. Congress is elected by the people. It is supposed to represent their interests, not those of the people and companies rich enough to fund campaigns.

Boy, there is a lot of work for us to do. Over the last 30 years, corporate profits have skyrocketed while wages for working people have stayed flat. But even though corporations--not families--have been getting richer and richer, Congress has forced families to pick up more and more of the cost of our military, our roads and bridges, and our schools.

Corporations used to pay about 30 percent of the cost of running the government. Now, it is under 10 percent. But today, the politicians who run Congress will slash corporate taxes even more and shift even more of the burden onto working families. Working people will pay more so that giant corporations can pay less.

There is no better example of this than the bill's treatment of Wells Fargo. Last year, we found out that Wells Fargo had opened millions of fake accounts so that executives could goose their sales numbers, drive up stock prices, and rake in bigger bonuses. It turns out that Wells Fargo had also charged half a million customers for auto insurance they didn't need, which meant that a lot of people--including soldiers and sailors and marines--got their cars repossessed. That sounds pretty sleazy. But instead of holding them accountable for cheating their customers, this Congress is on the verge of passing a tax bill that will shower more free money on Wells Fargo than any bank in the country. That is right. When this bill passes, the punishment to Wells Fargo for cheating millions of Americans will be a big gift-wrapped present worth billions of dollars in tax giveaways.

This tax bill is shameful, and it is the result of a shameful process. There were no hearings on the bill that overhauls the Tax Code and shifts around trillions of dollars, no input from a single Democrat, and no time for vetting by actual tax experts.

Big-time donors are very happy with this outrageous tax heist, but the American people are angry, and they are right to be angry. Over and over, again and again, they watched this Congress ignore their pressing problems, ignore children's health insurance, ignore flat wages, ignore an opioid crisis, ignore hurricanes and wildfires, ignore working families who are ripped apart by greedy politicians and politics built right here in Washington. Over and over, again and again, they watch, instead, as Washington jumps to do more favors for billionaires, more favors for giant companies, and more favors for campaign donors.

Today is just one more terrible day for hard-working Americans, just one more terrible day in Washington where Washington works great for those at the top and will not lift a finger to help anyone else. People's anger is understandable. I share it. Sooner or later, a reckoning is coming, and I promise you this: When it does--when the politicians who lead this Congress and vote for this tax heist are held accountable for turning their backs on the American people who sent us here--then we will be the kind of country we want to be. Then we will be the kind of country we were meant to be--a democracy where everyone, even the richest and the most powerful, pay a fair share, and where we all work to build a better future for all of our kids.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, 2 days ago, the GOP-controlled Senate confirmed Leonard Steven Grasz to a Federal appeals court. This is a man who is so aggressively ideological that he earned a rating of ``not qualified'' from the American Bar Association.

The ABA reached that conclusion, in part, after speaking with many of Mr. Grasz's peers who expressed concerns ``that Mr. Grasz' strongly held social views and/or his deeply rooted political allegiances would make it impossible for him to have an unbiased and open mind on critical issues.''

Those individuals have ample reason to be concerned. Among his many appalling views, Mr. Grasz believes discrimination against LGBTQ individuals is A-OK. He supports the harmful and discredited practice of conversion therapy and he opposes reproductive rights and the Republicans just confirmed him to a lifetime appointment as a Federal judge who will make life-changing decisions for millions of Americans.

The other judicial nominee the GOP-controlled Senate confirmed this week, Donny Willett, doesn't fall very far from that tree either. Mr. Willett, a current justice on the Texas Supreme Court, isn't shy about his radical rightwing views. He has bragged about being the most conservative justice on the Texas Supreme Court, and he has a record to show for it.

Mr. Willett believes judges should be able to easily overturn State and local laws that protect workers, including minimum wage laws and laws that allow workers to unionize. This view is so out of the mainstream that other conservative judges, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Robert Bork, have rejected him.

Mr. Willett's radical views don't stop there. He has ruled to limit the rights of same-sex couples. He has mocked transgender individuals. He has demonstrated hostility to issues that affect working women, including pay equity, discrimination, and sexual harassment. Mr. Willett has ruled against efforts to help remedy discrimination in Texas schools. On issue after issue, Mr. Willett's record shows a stunning disregard of the issues that impact millions of Americans.

The truth is, Mr. Grasz and Mr. Willett are not unique. They are just a few of the many nominees whose records show they cannot fairly and impartially dispense equal justice under the law.

Right now, the GOP-controlled Senate is executing a breathtaking plan to fill our courts with rightwing, radical nominees like Mr. Grasz and Mr. Willett. It is a plan that has been long in the making. For years, Republicans have worked hand in hand with billionaire-funded, rightwing groups to ensure that our courts advance the interests of the wealthy and the powerful over everyone else.

First, after President Obama was elected, Republicans abused the filibuster to stop reasonable mainstream judges from filling vacancies on Federal courts. They didn't stop those nominees because of their qualifications. They didn't stop them because of their records. The Republicans stopped those nominees because they didn't want judges who cared more about justice than about protecting the powerful.

Then, once the filibuster was gone and Republicans had gained the majority in the Senate, they slowed the judicial nominations process to a crawl. Vacancies stacked up, and the courts became overloaded with cases.

Finally, last year, Republicans took their assault on our judicial system to new heights, refusing to consider any nominee put forward by the President to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. They threw the Constitution and Senate precedent right out the window to advance their radical agenda. It was shocking, and it was shameful.

Now that there is a Republican President who is committed to tilting our courts further in favor of the rich and the powerful, Republicans are looking to fill our courts with judges who share that commitment, no matter how unqualified they may be.

This week, the Senate will vote on one more of those judicial nominees, James Ho, a man who, like Mr. Grasz and Mr. Willett, will work to hand our courts over to powerful, pro-corporate interests. When it comes to money and politics, Mr. Ho's view is the more the better. He has argued that there should be no limits on campaign contributions, none--democracy for sale. According to Mr. Ho, the reason government is so corrupt isn't because there is too much secret money slithering through our political system but because government makes it too hard for those big donors to succeed in the private sector.

Tell that to the working families, the students, the teachers, and the small businesses that will be paying higher taxes to give those fat cat donors giant tax cuts.

Mr. Ho has also defended discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. While he was solicitor general of Texas, Mr. Ho defended Texas's ban on same-sex marriage. More recently, he has heaped praise on a Federal district court nominee who, among other disgusting statements, said that transgender children are part of ``Satan's plan.''

Here is another troubling aspect of Mr. Ho's record: his view on whether torture is illegal. While Mr. Ho worked in the Justice Department, he authored a memo relating to the treatment of prisoners of war. That memo is cited in one of the torture memos that became the basis for the Bush administration's illegal and immoral practice of torturing terrorism suspects. That memo was not provided to the Judiciary Committee, and Mr. Ho has refused to fully answer questions regarding his involvement in what ultimately became the Bush administration's policy on torture--information that every Senator should demand to see before we vote on his nomination.

Grasz, Willett, and Ho--just about all of Trump's judicial nominees-- have a lot in common. They will put powerful interests before the rights of workers, before the rights of women, before the rights of LGBTQ individuals, people of color, religious minorities, and pretty much everyone else. Their radical, rightwing views mean that in their courts, it will be easier for giant corporations and wealthy individuals to get relief and harder for everyone else to find justice. That is the perverted, upside-down justice system that every Member of this Congress should be working to fix.

Now more than ever, we need judges who will stand up for equal justice for all, not just for the rich and the powerful. The records of the nominees before us this week show that they cannot meet that standard. That is why I voted no on the nominations of Mr. Grasz and Mr. Willett, and that is why I will be voting no on Mr. Ho. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I yield.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we are in the middle of a historically important debate here in Washington. Republicans have hatched a partisan proposal behind closed doors that would shovel a trillion dollars in tax giveaways to giant corporations and the wealthy while undermining the healthcare and raising taxes for millions of middle- class families. If it passes, it could affect the lives of every single American for an entire generation.

Now, last night, the people of Alabama elected a new Senator to represent them here in Washington. So now Republicans who control the Senate face a choice. Will they allow Senator-elect Doug Jones to take his seat among his colleagues before a final vote on their tax plan?

We actually know something about that kind of choice in my home State of Massachusetts. On January 19, 2010, Massachusetts elected a new Senator to represent them here in Washington. The result was just as shocking to Democrats as last night's result was to Republicans. It also came when we were in the middle of another historically important policy debate here in Washington--healthcare. A lot of people thought Democrats should ram through the final version of their bill in Congress before Brown could be seated.

Now, I could stand here and read you quote after quote after quote from Republicans, who now control the Senate, talking about how unfair that would be, how corrupt that would be, and how anti-democratic that would be. I could go on and on about how today's Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said this would be gamesmanship, but I am going to talk about what Democrats actually did.

Democrats rejected the idea of ramming through the bill before Brown could take his seat in the Senate. Almost immediately, Jim Webb, a Democratic Senator from Virginia, called for a suspension of any healthcare vote until after Brown arrived. The day after the Massachusetts election, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said publicly: ``We're going to wait until the new Senator arrives until we do anything more on health care.''

Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry held a joint press conference with Republican Scott Brown that same week, where he said:

Seating Scott Brown as expeditiously as possible is

important. We want to respect the election results. And

nobody wants to delay this process.

President Obama, whose entire healthcare agenda was on the line, said this:

Here's one thing I know and I just want to make sure that

this is off the table: The Senate certainly shouldn't try to

jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated. People in

Massachusetts spoke. He's got to be part of that process.

Now, this wasn't an easy decision. Waiting for Brown slowed down the adoption of healthcare for 2 additional months. More importantly, it meant Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority and, as a consequence, the final bill couldn't achieve nearly as much as Democrats had hoped for, but we did it anyway.

We did it because democracy matters, even when it means it might slow down a President's agenda. Democracy matters, even when a Senate seat held for decades by a liberal lion is taken over by a conservative. Democracy matters, especially when it is inconvenient.

If we are honest, we know that there hasn't been a lot of democracy around this tax bill. This is a bill that was written and rewritten in the dead of night, behind closed doors. It is filled with errors and unintended consequences. It is animated by a rotten

wealth transfer from millions of hard-working Americans to a handful of corporations and billionaires.

But up until now, we have at least respected the principle that each State gets to pick its Senators, and those Senators get to vote for or against the final product. This afternoon, we are being told that Republicans have a final tax deal. Nobody has seen it, but we could be voting on it in the next couple of days. There is no reason to ram through that kind of massive restructuring of our economic system before Alabama gets its new Senator unless Republicans are concerned that their deal won't withstand a couple of more weeks of public scrutiny.

The election of Doug Jones will not change which party controls the Senate. The election of Doug Jones will not give him or Democrats the power to block the tax bill or any other piece of legislation, but it will respect the people of Alabama and their choice. It should happen before any more tax votes take place in the Senate.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I have been sitting on the floor for a while, listening to other Senators tell amazing stories about young people who came to this country as children and how they have thrived, how they have become woven into a part of the American fabric. These are stories of courage, stories of hope, and it is inspiring to listen to these stories.

Tonight I want to add another piece to this story, and that is about why law matters--why it matters that we have a Dream Act. This photo portrays Reina Guevara. She is a Massachusetts resident. She is a student now at UMass Boston. When Reina was 11 years old, she fled from El Salvador and settled with her mother in Everett, MA.

Reina is a model student. After completing high school and graduating with high honors from Bunker Hill Community College, she won a scholarship and transferred to UMass Boston, where she currently has a double major in philosophy and in public policy.

Until DACA came along, Reina had to live in the shadows, and living in the shadows wasn't easy. She worked long hours in a restaurant where she was subjected to sexual harassment. Knowing that she didn't have legal status, Reina's boss frequently propositioned her to have a sexual relationship with him and threatened to report her to immigration authorities if she didn't go along with what he wanted. So instead of giving in to her boss's advances, Reina quit her job, even though her boss refused to pay her for the work that she had already completed.

DACA changed the world for Reina. It meant protection. It meant that she could go to work without the fear of being sent back to a country that she barely knew. It meant that she had access to more jobs, where she wouldn't have to face exploitation, humiliation, and sexual harassment. It meant that Reina could pay instate tuition and become the first person in her family to complete college, opening up even more doors of opportunity.

Right now we are in the middle of a long overdue discussion about sexual harassment and sexual assault. Women are bravely coming forward to tell their stories about powerful men who have abused their power to hurt others. Sexual assault isn't just happening in Silicon Valley or in Hollywood or in legislative chambers. It happens all across America at hotels, fast food restaurants, and convenience stores. If you are a woman without official status, you have yet another barrier to speaking out.

When the DACA Program started, we made a promise to young people like Reina. We promised them that if they came out of the shadows, they would have an opportunity to live and to work and to go to school without the fear of deportation. We promised to protect them. Donald Trump broke that promise when he ended DACA.

But there is something that Congress can do to help Reina and people like her, young kids who have spent their lives reaching for their dreams. We can pass a clean Dream Act, a bipartisan bill that would give young people like Reina status and a path to citizenship, a bill that protects those young people without subjecting their parents or their siblings to deportation. We could do that, but time is running out.

Soon DACA recipients will begin losing their status and will be subjected to deportation. We can stop that from happening, but we have to act soon. I am ready to vote and many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are ready to vote. So I have one question for Mitch McConnell: What is stopping you?

We are ready to pass this bill. Just get it done.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.