Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, last night, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that there would be an additional public hearing to address the allegations of misconduct that had been made against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who has been nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. So far, all we have is an accusation--one that, frankly, has a lot of holes in it as far as the time and circumstances under which this alleged event occurred. Nonetheless, it is a very serious allegation about misconduct that one claims happened about 36 years ago when she, Judge Kavanaugh, and others were involved as teenagers.

Judge Kavanaugh and the other individual allegedly involved have said that this incident did not happen. They unequivocally deny the claim, and, thus far, no other individuals have corroborated the accuser's statement.

The reason we find ourselves in this very unusual situation, where we have actually had the confirmation hearing of the nominee and we find it necessary to have a supplemental or additional hearing is that our Democratic colleagues failed to raise this accusation so that it could be handled in a bipartisan, regular manner in which the Judiciary Committee handles background investigations, understanding that when somebody goes through a background investigation, sometimes information comes up that is particularly sensitive, sometimes embarrassing; maybe it is about financial matters or other personal matters. So the practice of the Judiciary Committee is to have those background investigations handled with great care by specially cleared individuals. Then, following the hearing, the open hearing, that information will be shared with members of the committee, and they can then ask any questions they may want to ask in a closed session.

We did not have that opportunity because the ranking member did not even alert members of her own party about the existence of this accusation that she had had for some 6 weeks. So we weren't able to do the sort of due diligence that has come to be the practice of the Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan basis. The ranking member, who was forwarded the allegation, did not even attend the closed session where we considered the background investigation that had been done on Judge Kavanaugh, and, as I said, she didn't do anything with the allegation for almost 2 months.

What is clear is that this allegation has been handled--or I should say egregiously mishandled--up until now. But that is no excuse for us to continue to do the same. We need to return this process to its ordinary rules and procedures. We will take these accusations with the seriousness they deserve, and that is in a way that is fair to both the alleged victim and the judge himself.

Because of our friends on the other side's fondness for gotcha moments and political theater throughout the confirmation process, so far that fairness has mostly been lost. It has been denied the victim, who said that she wanted privacy, and it has been denied Judge Kavanaugh, who has flatly disavowed the claims. He had no opportunity during his confirmation hearing, either in open or in closed session, to answer questions about these allegations. This has really been a driveby attack on the character of this judge.

Again, it is a serious accusation that we will take--and have taken-- seriously, but, unfortunately, this process has gotten away from being about getting to the truth and has been more about gamesmanship and delay. The timing and the way in which this allegation was sprung attest to that. That is why, initially, I was somewhat skeptical about rewarding this bad behavior by calling for another public hearing. I had confidence in the committee's usual process for dealing with situations like this, which would ensure that both sides would be heard and that sensitive matters would be handled with the sensitivity they deserve.

When I spoke to him yesterday, Judge Kavanaugh's commitment to transparency and eagerness to address these false allegations head-on was clear.

When members of the committee met yesterday to discuss a possible path forward, we agreed that a supplemental hearing was in order. I went along with that consensus point of view.

I want to commend Chairman Grassley for his leadership, and I certainly support his decision to hold an additional hearing next Monday. As he said yesterday, anyone who comes forward under circumstances like this deserves to be heard in an ``appropriate, precedented and respectful manner.'' How our colleagues across the aisle conduct themselves will prove whether they are actually interested in getting to the truth of these allegations or whether this is just an exercise in character assassination.

Mr. President, on another matter, last night we voted on a very important piece of legislation called the Opioid Crisis Response Act, which came to us from the HELP Committee; that is, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

Thanks to Chairman Alexander, the chairman of the HELP Committee, and as a result of his hard work and the contributions of 70 Senators and 5 standing committees, we were able to come up with a package that had overwhelming support. I believe it was 99 to 1, if I am not mistaken.

The House has already passed its version of this legislation, so it was important that we do the same and get the bill to the President soon. I am happy to report that we have now done that.

Included in this Opioid Crisis Response Act was something called the STOP Act, which is a bipartisan piece of legislation that imposes new requirements on the U.S. Postal Service and Customs and Border Protection. It will close loopholes that are currently being exploited by drug traffickers to evade detection when shipping synthetic opioids, like fentanyl, because so few of those postal packages are actually inspected to find out whether they include drugs like fentanyl.

The package we voted on also includes a bill I sponsored with the senior Senator from California called the Substance Abuse Prevention Act, believing that we need to do something, not only about the supply side of the problem but the demand side as well. This piece of legislation is important because it will reauthorize the Office of National Drug Control Policy. We need a strategy, and we need an Office of National Drug Control Policy, not only to articulate but also to help execute that strategy.

This bill will also seek to reduce demand for illegal drugs in a variety of ways: education for medical providers, expanding drug awareness campaigns, and funding drug courts and nonprofits that provide interventions to people struggling with addiction.

I have seen drug courts in action, and they actually work. People who commit offenses involving illegal drugs can actually be monitored and given wraparound care and support not only to help them deal with their addiction but also to help them reenter a productive society.

Unfortunately, Texas is no stranger when it comes to illegal drugs. In fact, one in three Texans responded to a recent poll saying that they knew somebody addicted to painkillers. One in three said they knew somebody addicted to painkillers. Last year, close to 3,000 Texans died from drug overdoses. That is nearly triple the number in 2000. That is simply unacceptable. Eighteen years have passed, and the number is three times higher.

Experts have said it is estimated to rise again by 6 percent this year. Those numbers are about real human beings and are a tragedy. Clearly, something is not working.

That suspicion is confirmed by the researchers who are saying that overdoses are now the leading cause of maternal deaths in my State. In Texas, emergency room personnel have said that they are seeing younger and younger children gaining access to these addictive opioids, and patients

are making violent threats when they are not given the prescriptions they need to address their addiction.

I wish I could say that this was just some bad movie or an episode of ``Breaking Bad'' and that we could turn it off or change the channel, but we simply can't.

This spike in drug use has occurred across the entire Nation, and it has multiple causes. There are enterprising drug entrepreneurs, some of them in China with new equipment and labs and marketing schemes and sales platforms.

Then there is the role of the drug cartels, primarily south of the border. These drug cartels' operations are increasingly sophisticated, and their income streams have become diversified, including fuel theft. In the words of one person with knowledge of this matter, they are commodity agnostics. These cartels will ship drugs; they will ship people; and they will traffic children for sex. They will do anything to make money, and they care nothing about their victims.

Then we know there is also the social isolation and breakdown in American communities that help contribute to this crisis. There are those men and women who, for their own reasons, turn to drugs for relief, either unaware of the dangers they pose or naively thinking that perhaps they are strong enough to avoid the attraction of addiction.

In many places, illegal drugs are now resulting in more deaths than criminal homicides, car crashes, or HIV. We know we have a jaw- dropping, society-wide problem on our hands. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 72,000 Americans died last year as a result of drug overdoses--72,000. It is incumbent on us to do everything we can, including passing this opioid legislation and working in tandem with State and local governments, as well as nonprofit groups and religious ministries.

In the Texas capital of Austin, where I live, one of these groups is called Bridge of Angels. Every Sunday, it meets under an overpass right where Interstate Highway 35 cuts through the heart of Austin. Drug users and others struggling go there, and they find people who will listen and people who will help. But if you stay on Interstate Highway 35 and, instead of exiting, head south for 3\1/2\ hours, eventually you will hit Mexico. I-35 proceeds all the way to Laredo and, of course, Nuevo Laredo, all the way on the other side of the border. Unfortunately, that interstate and others are some of the conduits used to transport drugs from Mexico right to America's doorstep.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, led by leaders like my friend, Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Manny Padilla, and the new, very impressive Border Patrol Chief, Carla Provost, whom I met with last week, do everything in their power to detect these poisons before they can make it over to the U.S. side. Many times, they are successful, but the smugglers are cunning, and they are driven by a ruthless profit motive. They hide drugs inside of food and drink containers, luggage, metal panels and equipment, and their cars and trucks. They are quite clever about when and how they cross the border, so sometimes these drugs get through, and then they spread.

As Chief Provost testified recently, one of the ways drugs make their way across the border is that the cartels, who are moving people from Central America, both unaccompanied minors and family units--because they know that it is such a labor-intensive job to process these children and these family units at the border because they require special procedures, many times the drug cartels will use that as a diversionary tactic to move drugs through another part of the border. So we are more vulnerable than I think perhaps most of our people recognize.

Of course, we know these drugs are hawked to children, to teenagers, and they are sold and distributed all across the country. What starts south of the border doesn't stay south of the border; it ends up in our neighborhoods, our schools, our hospitals, and, unfortunately, in our funeral parlors.

The point I want to make is the point I tried to emphasize last week, which is that our War on Drugs is Mexico's War on Drugs too.

I was in Mexico City about 3 weeks ago. Many of our outstanding professionals at the American Embassy say that many of the people in Mexico regard the drug and the immigration problem as our problem, not their problem. Well, it is their problem when more people have died of violence in Mexico--drug-related cartel violence--from 2007 to today than have died in Afghanistan and Iraq combined, and it is getting worse. To me, that is not just an American problem; that is a Mexican and American problem.

In 2006, Felipe Calderon, the President of Mexico, initiated an armed response to the cartels that were wreaking havoc in his country and, based on some estimates, now control more than a third of the country's geographical territory. Let me pause and reemphasize that. Now, according to some estimates, the drug cartels control a third or more of Mexico itself--a country of 125 million people, with a 1,200-mile common border with the United States of America, and that is just the Texas portion. Because of their success in displacing traditional authorities and usurping the role of law enforcement and government in many parts of the country, these cartels have sometimes created what has been referred to as a ``parallel state'' in Mexico--ungoverned by anyone except for the drug cartels. As a matter of fact, law enforcement can't even get into these areas for fear of being wiped out.

The Mexican legal system tries to keep up, and certainly the country has developed laws and institutions that certainly I in no way want to denigrate, but because of corruption and these powerful criminal organizations, a genuine rule of law is missing in many large swaths of the country and has been for generations.

Again, our Mexican friends say: Well, if it weren't for the demand for these drugs in the United States, it wouldn't fuel these cartels and the violence that goes along with it. They have a very important point. But this is not just an American problem; this is, as I said, a Mexican and an American problem.

I hope that I have been able to sketch how difficult these deep- seated drug-related problems are for us to resolve, but we can't--we don't have the luxury of ignoring them or pretending they don't exist. They are real, and they are taking the lives of Americans on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis, and they affect all segments of our society.

Thankfully, the United States has partnered with Mexico in recent years through programs like the Merida Initiative and directed funds toward strengthening communities and empowering the Mexican criminal justice system and judicial system so that a culture of impunity no longer exists. What I mean by that is if criminals feel that they can commit crimes, including murder, and that they will never be charged and convicted and imprisoned, then there is no deterrence, and so the killings continue. We have also collaborated on intelligence matters and have cooperated in a variety of ways on providing security.

But we have to do even more, I believe, together, on our side of the border--the drug demand--and on the Mexican side. At least based on the criminal violence last year rising to perhaps its highest levels ever before seen, our investments aren't paying off, and we need to double down, working with our Mexican partners in the commitment not only to provide the rule of law and eliminate impunity but to slow down and hopefully ultimately stop the flow of these illegal drugs that are killing so many Americans.

The consumption of these drugs in Mexico, at least, is not as high as it is in our country, but it is growing. Their people are suffering severe harm in that country--harm due to cartel violence and criminals targeting politicians, the clergy, journalists, and innocent civilians, in addition to the addictions. In the United States, as I mentioned, overdose levels have skyrocketed.

My point is that the opioids package we have now passed is one way we show our commitment to address these developments. It is how we say enough is enough. Again, I wish I could be confident that our efforts will stop and fix this problem once and for all, but they do represent a significant step in the right direction.

With this legislation, we will reduce the use and supply of illicit drugs and encourage recovery of those suffering

from addiction. We will support caregivers, and we will drive innovation and long-term solutions. It is a powerful first step as we continue, with our friends in Mexico, to work together hand in hand to fight this terrible scourge.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, late this week or early next week, we will vote on a bill called the Opioid Crisis Response Act.

This is a powerful piece of legislation for which our colleague Chairman Lamar Alexander deserves great credit for shepherding through the process, but he was, by no means, alone in doing so. This bill, as he will tell you, represents the contribution of more than 70 different Senators and 5 different standing committees of the U.S. Senate. That takes a lot of careful work and a lot of determination. The bill is bipartisan, as one would expect, and that, of course, would not have happened without there having been intense collaboration. For those who like to say that bipartisanship is dead in the U.S. Senate, this bill and other bipartisan work we have done and will do is evidence that that is simply false.

In 2017, President Trump declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency. Since then, we have seen 116 Americans die from opioid-related overdoses daily, and in places like New Hampshire, that death rate has been double the national average. In some places, coroners have asked local funeral homes to help because there has just not been enough room to store the bodies at the morgues. Let that sink in for just a minute. Coroners are asking funeral homes to help store the bodies because there is not enough room at the morgues because of the 116 Americans who lose their lives to opioid addiction each day.

People of all races and ethnicities--regardless of gender--are dying. Drugs, of course, do not discriminate. Even when people survive overdoses, they often come back only to return to the prisons of their addictions. Sometimes they rob, steal, or sell themselves in order to get their fixes for oxycodone, hydrocodone, heroin, or fentanyl--all opioids. Meanwhile, for the rest of their lives, their relationships, their families crumble. Maybe they are looking for escape. Maybe they are looking for some sort of meaning. Maybe they are veterans who are self-medicating or they have mental diagnoses that simply go undiscovered, and, thus, they try to medicate by resorting to alcohol or, in this case, to opioids. Yet the result is always the same. Their bodies can't handle the poison, and their minds' cravings can never be wholly satisfied. That is how the breakdown begins.

Drug addiction and the carnage associated with it is, of course, nothing new in our country. What is new are the types of drugs that are being created by those who tinker with chemical formulas in order to evade our current laws. What is also new is the extent of the tragedy. Overdoses are going up in many places--so high, in fact, that the average life expectancy for adult males in the United States has fallen. As Christopher Caldwell wrote in ``First Things'' last year,

``The death toll far eclipses those of all previous drug crises.''

The bill we will be voting on is our honest attempt to look this crisis in the eye, not to shy away from the ugly reality. The legislation tries, in several mutually reinforcing ways, to end what Caldwell calls the ``artificial hell'' of those who are addicted. It will supply States with critical funding. It will ensure that research is expedited and that patients will have access to substance abuse treatment. It will also improve detection and interdiction measures to reduce the supplies of illicit drugs that are being funneled across our southern border. I will return to the border in a moment and our neighbor Mexico's role in this.

Part of the opioids package involves legislation I introduced with the senior Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, called the Substance Abuse Prevention Act. It is one of the critical pieces of this broader bill we will be voting on. In addition to reauthorizing lifesaving programs, it is aimed at reducing demand. Of course, supply increases to meet the increasing demand, and we have to do something about the demand side in order to deal with this problem.

It does this first by reauthorizing the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which oversees the executive branch's efforts on narcotics control by developing a national drug control strategy and coordinating efforts with the States.

Second, it reauthorizes one of our Nation's most important programs for preventing youth substance abuse and keeping drugs out of our neighborhoods, the Drug-Free Communities Program.

Third, the legislation expands opioid and heroin awareness. Of course, heroin is just one type of opioid. It also improves substance abuse treatment and will hopefully result in prescribers of controlled substances being better trained and educated on the potential harmful effects of the drugs they are prescribing.

Finally, under our legislation, Senator Feinstein's and mine, the Attorney General can also make grants available that focus on substance use disorders. Some of these grants will be used to determine the effectiveness of programs that pair social workers with families who struggle with substance use disorders. We need to invest in programs that actually work, that make a quantifiable, measurable difference. So these grants will help.

Like the rest of the country, my State is no stranger when it comes to opioid addiction. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Texas deaths from heroin and fentanyl--its wicked cousin--have been steadily increasing since 2010. These are real people we have lost, who have real families and real lives. Cash Owen, from Austin, TX, was only 22 years old. When he went to Westlake High School in Austin, where my daughters attended, he liked to cook for a hobby. He later overdosed on heroin. His is just one example of another life lost to this terrible scourge.

Obviously, I come from a border State and realize, when it comes to stemming addiction, it is a two-way street. We need to do our part to try to deal with the demand side and to also prevent illicit substances from crossing our borders.

ICE--Immigration and Customs Enforcement--deserves a lot of credit when it comes to fighting the opioid crisis in America. Despite some politicians' bizarre and irresponsible calls to abolish the agency, it continues to make great strides in protecting public health and public safety. For example, ICE initiated 3,900 cases for human smuggling just last year. It has arrested more than 4,700 members of transnational gangs who moved people and drugs across our border into the United States. It has seized more than 980,000 pounds of narcotics, including drugs such as fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. As I said, it is a two-way street.

Actually, fentanyl is worth dwelling on because it shows just how implicated Mexico is in all of this.

Fentanyl was first developed as a synthetic painkiller and anesthetic. It is 100 times more potent than morphine and up to 50 times stronger than heroin. What is happening is that enterprising drug traffickers and designers are taking pure fentanyl and cutting it with other substances--sometimes heroin, sometimes cocaine, and sometimes methamphetamine. But sometimes amateurs use cheaper fillers and less professional equipment, which makes the doses even more dangerous and the people who take it more likely to overdose.

There remains a debate on just how much fentanyl comes to the United States via Mexico. We know that some comes directly from places like China through our national Postal Service, but a sizable percentage is certainly snuck across our border, along with other illegal drugs, from Mexico.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Customs and Border Patrol seized 355 kilograms of fentanyl at the San Diego ports of entry alone in 2017. By the way, a kilogram is 2.2 pounds. They seized 355 kilograms of fentanyl at the San Diego ports of entry alone in 2017.

There are fentanyl routes that run through Mexican cartel strongholds and head north across the border into the United States. They funnel an estimated 80 percent of the drug across the border.

All this is to say that we here in the United States are not alone because the Mexican Government has its hands full as well. Fentanyl seizures inside Mexico have risen sharply, with just under a kilogram seized in 2013 to more than 100 kilograms seized inside of Mexico last year. According to government data obtained by InSight Crime, in the first 6 months of this year, 2018, Mexican authorities seized 114 kilograms.

Of course, it is not just problems with fentanyl that we share; our heroin problem in the United States is also tied directly to Mexico. U.S. officials estimate that 90 percent of the heroin used in the United States is produced and trafficked from Mexico.

From all the news regarding the opioid crisis, we know what the results are in our country, but what about Mexico? Is this a problem just for the United States, or is this a problem for Mexico as well?

In Juarez, right across the El Paso border, a rehab center treats nearly 300 patients a day, including many heroin addicts. In Tijuana, where drug use reportedly starts as early as middle school, we know they also have a big problem. We know that all across Mexico, adolescent consumption is on the rise, particularly with regard to drugs like marijuana. But it is not just marijuana, it is methamphetamine, fentanyl, heroin--you name it. In fact, according to a recent survey, the percentage of Mexican men and women between the ages of 12 and 65 who admit to using illegal drugs has roughly doubled since 2011.

Here is my point: American and Mexican carnage is related. It is actually interrelated. That is why in recent years, through programs like the Merida Initiative, we have worked together with the Mexican Government to combat this multiheaded monster. But our two governments will have to work even closer in the months and days ahead because gangs, cartels, and drug runners are all adapting, diversifying, and evolving based on new circumstances, and we need to make sure we keep up with their innovations.

In Mexico, since 2007, roughly 200,000 people have died as a result of drug-related violence. That is more than all the deaths in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. In Mexico, 200,000 people have died as a result of drug-related violence in the last 10 years.

Now the cartels have diversified. As someone put it, they are commodity agnostic--they will do anything for money. They will ship people from Central America across the border--adults with children, or so-called family units, or unaccompanied children. They will move drugs. Now they are involved in the fuel theft business as well. Black market gasoline is now a $1 billion industry in Mexico. They are also involved in mining, port operations, and other industries. They have multiple income streams. As I said, they are diversifying.

Meanwhile, the bloodshed continues unabated. The most violent year in Mexico's recorded history was 2017. The armed conflict between the cartels and Mexico's military, which started 12 years ago under President Felipe Calderon, now ranks as perhaps the deadliest war in the world apart from Syria. Mexico is second only to Syria as the deadliest war zone on the planet.

As that war continues--and by the way, we support Mexico's waging it--we may think that the United States has been mostly spared, but that really depends on your perspective. Fortunately, we have been spared the most gruesome acts of public violence by and large, although there are certainly notable exceptions.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 72,000 Americans died from a drug overdose last year. I wonder why we don't read about this in the newspapers or hear about it on TV. We have somehow become numb or anesthetized to the fact that tens of thousands of Americans have taken their own lives accidentally through a drug overdose. Of those 72,000 people who died as a result of a drug overdose last year, 49,000 were associated with opioids, which include substances such as fentanyl and heroin.

The annual numbers continue to rise, with the death toll for 2017 nearly 10 percent higher than a year earlier. This problem is getting worse, not better. Experts believe the rise is attributable to opioids becoming more readily available and more potent than recent versions of the drug.

So here in the United States, we are losing lives as well. That is why the vote later this week or earlier next week on this bill is so important--it is how we will attempt to make some progress in dealing with this crisis. That is also why our partnership with Mexico must consistently be strengthened and reinforced.

Our drug problem--and ultimately the associated violence and criminality--is Mexico's, and Mexico's is ours.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson) and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Further, if present and voting the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remaining votes in this series be 10 minutes in length.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr) and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr) and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Perdue).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Daines), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Perdue).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action with respect to the Johnson nomination. I further ask consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).

Mr. President, we have been hit with some hard news in recent days. The toughest of all, perhaps, was losing our friend and colleague John McCain this past weekend. He was a man who loved his country and was beloved in return.

One of the things I appreciate the most about our friend Senator McCain is he truly believed in all his heart, in all his being, in all his soul, in American exceptionalism and that America had to lead in the world because in the absence of American leadership, that void would be destabilizing and even dangerous.

We know that John cast a long shadow in Congress over the last four decades of American politics, and we will continue to honor and remember him this week and into the future. But tears and sentimentality are not what he would want from us. Today, instead, we should try to remain a little more grateful than we otherwise would be. We should be grateful for his example. We should be grateful for his daring skill as a pilot and lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. We should be grateful for his tenacity and resolve as a prisoner of war in Vietnam--a prisoner subject to unbelievable cruelty and torture but one who endured all of these unspeakable torments and one who was quick to remind us of what that was endured for; that is, our freedom. I think he was one of liberty's best ambassadors.

We should remain grateful for our friend John McCain's willingness and ability to serve his State of Arizona for so many years and to serve our great country, by running for public office, for radiating such a sense of purpose, such a sense of moral seriousness each time, even during tough, grueling political races. And they didn't always turn out the way he would have liked. We should learn from the dignity and honor that he displayed even in defeat after his Presidential campaigns did not work out in his favor.

Like all of us, he was an imperfect man. Let's just say he was a work in progress, as we all are. He won many political battles, and he lost a few along the way, but he always responded admirably. After slipping with some run-in with adversity, he got back up, dusted himself off, and tried harder the next time.

We should also be grateful for Senator McCain's dedication to our Nation's Armed Forces throughout his political career, including as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, where I served with him for a number of years. We should cherish his friendship. We should remember that at the end of the day, the Senator many called a maverick had a gruff, sometimes intimidating exterior, but he also was a compassionate man and one who displayed not only tremendous loyalty to friends but a tremendous love for his family, who are now grieving.

As our Nation mourns the loss of John McCain and as my colleagues and I are all too aware of his absence here today, we are all challenged to be stronger patriots and better citizens. That is what he would want from us.

As Senator McCain told cadets during a 1993 commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy, ``My time is slipping by. Yours is fast approaching. You will know where your duty lies.'' Our duty now lies in continuing the difficult, courageous work Senator McCain devoted his life to, and it is not a burden that we take lightly. We do so gladly, and we mourn for those for whom the last few days have been most difficult.

As we express our condolences to Senator McCain's mother, his seven children and five grandchildren, and, of course, his wife Cindy and the entire McCain family, we want them to know that we continue to think of them. We

continue to pray for them. We continue to celebrate with them the great, larger-than-life, and distinguished life of Senator John McCain.

It is hard to lose one of your best teammates, but I know the legacy John McCain leaves here in the Senate will long remain.

I want to echo a few comments made by the majority leader earlier today. John McCain was a lion in the Senate and in American politics. That is why I believe we should put together a bipartisan group who can bring together the best ideas on how we can memorialize his service to his country and his legacy here in the Senate. We should do this carefully and consider all options about what the best form that tribute should take. Doing this in a collaborative and a deliberate way I hope is how Senator McCain would have wanted it. I can't tell you how many times he always advocated for regular order. He didn't want ideas cooked up in some back room and then sprung on the Nation and the Senate; he wanted the committees to do their work because he knew that by doing so--by thinking about them, by testing ideas in a committee process--we improve the chances of a better product.

Despite our heavy loss, we can't lose sight of our other work, either. I think Senator McCain would want us to keep pushing the ball forward and achieving more on behalf of the American people.

We all remember him as a fighter until the very end, and staying in the fight and making progress for the American people is what he would expect of us as well.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).