Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, this morning, I am going to announce my decision on Judge Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court. I will oppose her, and I will vote no.

My decision is based upon her record of judicial activism, flawed sentencing methodology regarding child pornography cases, and a belief Judge Jackson will not be deterred by the plain meaning of the law when it comes to liberal causes.

I find Judge Jackson to be a person of exceptionally good character, respected by her peers, and someone who has worked hard to achieve her current position. However, her record is overwhelming in its lack of a steady judicial philosophy and a tendency to achieve outcomes in spite of what the law requires or commonsense would dictate.

After a thorough review of Judge Jackson's record and information gained at the hearing from an evasive witness, I now know why Judge Jackson was the favorite of the radical left, and I will vote no.

In the area of child pornography, there has been an explosion in this country of child pornography on the internet. In 2021, groups that follow sexual abuse of children on the internet reported 29.3 million reports of individuals accessing information regarding child pornography on the internet. It has gone from 100,000 in 2003 to 29.3 million in 2021.

It is estimated that there is 85 million images and videos and other files involving sexually exploited children on the internet.

Now, why is this important?

This is the venue of choice for the child pornographer. It is not the mail. As you can see, the internet is where these people go. In a matter of minutes, they can download hundreds, if not thousands, of images and videos of the most disgusting abuse of children; and my goal is to deter that, not discount it.

Judge Jackson's sentencing methodology, in my view, misses the mark. I don't doubt that, personally, she is offended by the behavior that we are all

talking about, but as a judge, she has an opportunity to deter the behavior of going on the internet and downloading images of exploited children. Every time she has that opportunity, she refuses to exercise it.

Now, why is Judge Jackson's sentencing so different?

In possession cases, she gives 29.2 months, and the average nationally is 68 months. In the distribution of child pornography, her sentence is 71.9 months, and the minimum is 60 months. That is what you have to give. The average nationally, they tell me, is 135 months. The length of sentence for the possession of child pornography imposed by Judge Jackson is 57 percent less than the national average. In the area of distribution, it is 40 percent less than the national average.

Why?

Under the sentencing guidelines, judges, if they choose, can enhance the sentence based on the fact that the perpetrator used the internet.

Now, why do we want that as a sentencing enhancement?

We want to deter the use of the internet when it comes to child pornography because there are already 85 million images and videos of children being abused, and that is the venue of choice. So, instead of deterring that behavior, Judge Jackson routinely says that she will not hold that against a perpetrator.

I think that is a mistake. She basically said: It is so easy, in a matter of minutes, to push a button and download a bunch of files. That seems, to me, to be an unfair way to sentence somebody.

She also takes off the table a sentence enhancement for the number or the volume of child pornography being possessed or distributed.

I think that is absolutely backward. I think what we should be doing is that every time you mash the button and download an image of a child being exploited, your time in jail should go up. That should be held against you. Accessing the internet should be deterred, not ignored.

What I have to say is that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released a report on the 2020 data. There has been a 35-percent increase in child sex abuse material in a single year, 29.3 million reports last year of people accessing child pornography on the internet, and at least 85 million images and files on the internet.

When it comes time to sentence these people, Judge Jackson will not impose additional punishment on the fact of the volume involved and the fact they are using the internet, the venue of choice.

The more you download, the more you go to jail, is my view. I am going to work with Senator Hawley to correct these practices. I think she is making a terrible mistake by not enhancing sentences based on the volume because every click of the computer is destroying a life. We should be deterring the use of the internet when it comes to child pornography. Judge Jackson chooses not to. When it comes to the volume, that should be held against you. The more you abuse children, the more in your possession, the more you distribute, the longer you go to jail.

The reason her numbers are so low is due to that sentencing methodology. I think, if we don't fix this, we are making the problem worse. I think her approach to this issue is absolutely wrong; it loses all deterrence. I will be watching like a hawk future nominees who are in the sentencing business to see if they follow this model.

The model Judge Jackson has created is one wherein the more you do, it doesn't matter. The fact that you use the internet where all the child pornography lies is not held against you, and I believe it should be. Every click, every download means you go to jail longer in the world that I want to create.

The other area of concern is Guantanamo Bay. Remember this? This is 9/11.

Guantanamo Bay has been a place to house enemy combatants captured in the war on terror. Judge Jackson was a public defender, I think, for four or five GTMO detainees, and that is a noble thing. I have no problem with somebody--a public defender anywhere in the country-- defending very unpopular people, and people at GTMO deserve representation.

What I found during this representation is that her amicus briefs in the defense of GTMO detainees accused President Bush and his team of being war criminals. That is not defending somebody charged or held as an enemy combatant as being part of the enemy force. That is an accusation against your own government that, I think, buys into the language of the left.

You can vigorously defend anyone captured as an enemy combatant or who is potentially charged with a crime against terrorism. That is a noble thing. Yet, when you use the language that was in her brief--and she said: ``Well, I really don't remember that''--I have a hard time believing that you put your name on a brief that calls the President of the United States and his team war criminals. That is not about defending somebody; that is an activist approach to the war on terror.

It goes further. In her legal briefs, she wanted to deny the United States the ability to hold GTMO detainees under the law of war indefinitely. There are about 37 or 38 GTMO detainees still being held who have never been charged. We know, through the intel and the evidence, that they are hardened killers committed to the jihadist cause. Under the law of war, once their habeas petition has been reviewed by the Federal courts--where the courts agree with the government that the person is, in fact, an enemy combatant--under the law of war, there is no requirement to release him, but Judge Jackson took the position as an advocate that we could not hold them indefinitely, creating a dilemma whereby you have to charge them with a crime or let them go.

I don't consider these people criminals as much as warriors in the cause to destroy our way of life. If you choose to charge them with a crime, fine; but you don't have to make that choice. The reason that there are 30-plus still in detention is we have chosen--Republicans and Democrats--to hold these people off the battlefield. If we had accepted Judge Jackson's legal reasoning, that tool would not have been available to us as a nation, and it would have compromised our ability to defend ourselves.

I think that approach was the most extreme view of representation in this area, and I think it shows a lack of understanding of the war in which we are in. We are not fighting criminals. These are not wayward goat herders. These are people committed to the jihadist cause and would kill us all if they could.

Before I leave GTMO, 31 percent of the people who have been detained since the beginning of the war have gone back to the fight--I will introduce that at the hearing next week--and some of the senior leadership of the current Taliban government were GTMO detainees who have now not only gone back to the fight but have actually gone back to serve in the Taliban government that is reining oppression on the Taliban people.

So, to those who think this is a crime we are fighting, you are wrong. It is a war for the survival of good against evil.

Immigration--in case you haven't noticed, this country is being invaded by illegal immigrants. Right after taking office, President Biden rolled back virtually every policy of President Trump's regarding asylum and deportation. He basically destroyed the regime created by President Trump that gave us the lowest number of illegal crossings in this country in 30 or 40 years at the end of 2020. Now, every week, we are setting new records.

Why?

The policies that existed during the Trump administration worked. They are being reversed by President Biden, and we are being overwhelmed, and the worst is yet to come. If the Biden administration--the CDC--does away with the ability to deport illegal immigrants under title 42 of the public health law, presenting a threat to COVID, then you will see the numbers go up even further. There will be thousands--18,000 to 20,000 people a day--coming across our border from countries with low vaccination rates. So, when it comes to illegal immigration, policy matters.

When Judge Jackson was a district court judge, there was a case brought by Make the Road New York, et al., v. McAleenan, who was the Acting DHS

Secretary under President Trump. The group Make the Road New York was an Arabella activist group. This is kind of a holding company, for lack of a better word--an umbrella group--funded by George Soros and a bunch of other liberal billionaires. This group in that chain, in receiving money from these folks, filed a lawsuit, arguing against the Trump decision to deport, under expedited immigration authority, people who have been here 2 years or less. In changing the Obama policy and actually fully implementing the authority given to the DHS Secretary, they decided to go the full 2 years. Anybody here 2 years and under in the category in question could be deported with expedited procedure-- meaning, it was a quick turnaround.

This was the authority given by the Congress to the DHS Director. Obama didn't use that authority fully. Trump decided to do it. Make the Road New York, et al.--a bunch of liberal groups--sued the Trump policy change. Judge Jackson was the judge, and she overruled the Trump decision. The statute in question says that the Secretary has the ``sole and unreviewable discretion'' to use expedited deportation for people here 2 years or less. The statute could not have been written any clearer.

If you are looking for what an activist judge is all about, this is the case, exhibit A.

The law was written in the most clear terms, saying the decision of the Secretary's is unreviewable and solely in their hands when it comes to using expedited removal procedures for people here 2 years or less. She ruled against the Trump administration. She basically said this was arbitrary and capricious; it reeked of bad faith; and it ``[showed] contempt for the authority that the Constitution's Framers have vested in the judicial branch.''

That contempt she is talking about was a congressional act. The congressional act was designed to tell judges that the DHS Secretary has discretion in this area, solely and unreviewable. She found that concept offensive. Instead of following the plain letter of the law, she did legal gymnastics to find against the Trump administration.

When she says the statute ``[created] contempt for the authority that the Constitution's Framers have vested in the judicial branch,'' what she is saying is, I will be damned if I am going to be limited by a congressional act that tells me I can't do what I want to do.

The plaintiff in that case was from the radical left. She ruled for them in spite of the plain meaning of the statute, and she was overturned by the DC Circuit court.

The court said--and this is a fairly liberal court:

There could hardly be a more definitive expression of

Congressional intent to leave the decision about the scope of

expedited removal, within statutory bounds, to the

Secretary's independent judgment. The ``forceful phrase `sole

and unreviewable discretion' '' by its exceptional terms,

heralds Congress's judgment to commit the decision

exclusively to agency discretion.

She ignored the plain meaning of the statute, the language of the statute, to get a result she wanted, and the DC District Court of Appeals said that there could hardly be a more defended expression of congressional intent.

That is judicial activism on steroids, and it makes managing our immigration problem even worse when you have activist judges who ignore the law and take discretion away, given by Congress to the executive branch, because they don't like the outcome. That is, in fact, the premier definition of judicial activism. I find, in her judging a desire to get an outcome and no matter what she has to do to get that outcome, she will pursue it. This is a case where you couldn't have written a statute more clearly, and she did. She just went around it, got the results she wanted, and got slapped down on appeal.

Now, she is the first African-American female slated to go to the Supreme Court. She, however, is not the first African-American female who had potential to be on the Supreme Court.

Janice Rogers Brown was nominated by President Bush 43 to be on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals--one of the premier appellate courts--like Judge Jackson was nominated to. She is from Alabama. She was the daughter and granddaughter of sharecroppers, growing up in Alabama during the Jim Crow era. She moved to California as a teenager, and she wound up serving on the California Supreme Court. She was a single mother raising children.

In June 2005, she was confirmed to the DC court in a 56-to-43 vote. That was after the Gang of 14 broke a filibuster by my Democratic colleagues against her and others. She was nominated in 2003, and her nomination was stalled for 2 years.

Here is what Senator Schumer said:

Judge Brown was the least worthy pick this president has

made for the appellate court, and that's based on her record.

Senator Durbin in 2005:

One of the [President's] most ideological and extreme

judicial nominees.

In 2005:

If the President sends us a nominee who, like Janice Rogers

Brown, believes that the New Deal was the triumph of a

``socialist revolution,'' there will be a fight.

Here is what then-Senator Biden said about Janice Rogers Brown. Not only did he filibuster her, he said: ``I can assure you that would be a very, very difficult fight, and she probably would be filibustered'' if she were nominated to the Supreme Court.

So, to my Democratic colleagues, as you celebrate Judge Jackson's potential ascension to the Court, as those of us on the committee who asked penetrating, relevant questions of Judge Jackson's judicial philosophy, how she sentenced people and why--you know, the liberal media that is completely in the tank on issues like this sat on the sidelines and watched you, my Democratic colleagues, stop the ascension of an African-American conservative nominee by President Bush. When it came to her potential of being on the Supreme Court, you threatened to filibuster her. You considered her ideology unacceptable and too conservative.

So if you are a conservative nominee of color, a woman, it is OK to use your ideology against you. If you question the ideology and the judging ability of a liberal African-American nominee, you are a racist. Those days are over for me. So I have very little respect for what is going on in modern America when it comes to judging.

Miguel Estrada was nominated by President Bush 43--a highly qualified man, Hispanic--to be on the Court, and he fell victim to the wholesale filibuster of Bush nominees in the 2003 era. He didn't make it through the Gang of 8. Judge Janice Rogers Brown got on the Court--2 years delayed, and when she was being considered to go on the Court, Joe Biden, Senator Joe Biden, said she will be filibustered very, very likely.

So we live in a world where, if you are a person of color, a woman, and you are conservative, everything is fair game. If you are a person of color and liberal, how dare anybody question or use the same standard against you that was used against the other nominees? I don't accept that.

Finally, about the hearing itself, to the liberal media, comparing this hearing to Judge Kavanaugh's is an absolute offense. Nobody on the Republican side held information back, accusing Judge Brown of doing something that was either made up, not credible. Nobody questioned her high school annual. Nobody took a bunch of garbage and made it seem like the nominee had been Bill Cosby in his teenage years. Crazy stuff. Offensive stuff.

What we did ask Judge Jackson is, Why do you sentence the people the way you do? Explain the reasoning in the cases involving child pornography. We went after her judicial philosophy, and it had to be contentious because the judge seldom would answer a question. But to me, if you are going to be nominated to the Supreme Court for a lifetime appointment, you should expect to be asked hard questions. You should not expect to have your life destroyed. And if you don't see a difference between the two hearings, then you are blinded by your desire to get an outcome.

Here is where we are in 2022: The only person qualified to go to the Supreme Court as an African-American woman is a liberal. You can be equally qualified as a conservative, but you need not apply because your ideology disqualifies you. That is not exactly the advancement I was hoping we would have in America in 2022.

So, Judge Jackson, I will vote no.

I find her sentencing methodology to reinforce and take deterrence of the most heinous offenses off the table.

The statements she made during the sentencing hearings showed a tilted sense of compassion. I am sure she doesn't like the behavior and feels sorry for the kids, but every time she had a chance to increase punishment for the volume of material in the hands of the perpetrators, she chose not to do that, and I think she should. Going to the internet, to her, and downloading a bunch of files was too easy to enhance punishment? Well, it is just too easy to destroy lives.

So when it comes to immigration, it is the most egregious case I have ever seen, quite frankly, of a judge ignoring the plain meaning of the law to get a result they wanted. When it comes to the War on Terror, I think the position she wanted our country to take would make us less safe. The language of the left in her briefs of calling Bush a war criminal says more about the politics than it does the merit of the argument.

So now, I know why Judge Jackson was the preferred pick of the radical left. Now, I know why they went after Michelle Childs, somebody I could have supported--even though she had been liberal--a highly qualified, sensible, commonsense person. Now, I know. Now, I understand better. And that is why I am voting no.

To my Democratic colleagues, I will work with you when I can, but this is a bridge too far.

Thank you.

Well, thank you. All I can say is, Sheldon, thank you.

John is no longer with us, but I think he is here in spirit at this moment. If Senator McCain were here, there would be 27 MiGs they would want to transfer because he would probably be in one, headed for Ukraine.

The bottom line is, 20 days into this fight, we are all amazed at how bad the Russians are doing and how well the Ukrainians are doing. And I think what Senator Whitehouse is trying to remind us all of is that the outcome of Ukraine really does matter to the world at large.

Senator McCain was known for his support of the transatlantic alliance, a

rules-based society, a values-based world, and Putin has put that in jeopardy.

So let's look at it this way. If Putin wins, Sheldon, then the largest war criminal in the 21st century survives the dismemberment of a neighboring democracy, slaughter of the innocents on a mass scale. If he is still standing, I think China understands what to do with Taiwan more clearly; the Iranians are more bold when it comes to their nuclear ambitions; and the ripple effect in Asia and the Middle East will be felt if Putin wins.

Now, if Putin loses and Ukraine wins--victory for Ukraine--I think it would be the biggest change for the good since World War II. What would it mean? It would mean that a murderous war criminal who tried to use force of arms to impose his will on his neighbor lost. It would mean that the good guys won and the bad guys lost, and China would have to think twice about Taiwan.

How do we make sure victory for Ukraine is maximized? Only God knows how this ends, but here is what I think we can do in working together, with three lines of effort:

Economic and military aid. We have had a very robust package leave the Congress. The President announced $800 million more in military aid today. We have a difference about the MiGs, but otherwise we are pretty much on the same sheet of music.

Sanctions against Russia. The war is not against the Russian people. They are in many ways victims of Putin as much as anybody. Unfortunately, the only way we can bring this to a conclusion and have victory for Ukraine is to crush the Russian economy, so secondary sanctions need to be on the table. Then, if China comes to Putin's aid, they need to understand the consequences of that decision.

So we are all in on sanctions, and secondary sanctions are now in play. The Ukrainian Ambassador asked me yesterday to broaden the sanctions to Russian officials in different regions that are part of Putin's war machine. President Zelenskyy asked for that today, too.

My good friend Sheldon Whitehouse has been speaking about victory when nobody else hardly will, and I am here to say that victory for Ukraine is victory for America; it is victory for the rule of law; and it is victory for the post-World War II order that has led to historic prosperity.

Three lines of effort: military assistance, including MiGs; economic aid--fuel, food, humanitarian airlift if that is feasible; crushing sanctions; labeling Putin the war criminal that he is; and letting every Russian military commander know that, if you pick his side and you carry out these war crimes against the Ukrainian people, we are coming after you.

Senator Whitehouse and myself met with the British Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to create a joint effort, an intel cell, to collect information about Russian units engaged in war crimes in Ukraine and start putting the commander's name out for the world to understand so they will know that we are watching them.

How does this end? The Russian people end the reign of terror in Putin. It is in their hands. I encourage them to do it.

Finally, if there has been one voice on kleptocracy, it is Sheldon's. He has got it on climate change. He is determined to see that issue through to the end, but Senator Whitehouse was talking about kleptocracy long before the invasion. So we are introducing together the Asset Seizure for Ukraine Reconstruction Act, which is an effort by our government, joining with international partners, to get every yacht we can get, raid every bank account we can find, take the money away from the thieves, and give it back to the Ukrainian people and eventually to the Russian people.

What Senator Whitehouse and I are trying to do in a bipartisan fashion is to make the war real to the oligarchs. Without the oligarchs, there is no Putin. It is time for them to enjoy the experience of having their assets that they stole taken away from them. ``Enjoy'' is maybe not the right word. It is time for us to enjoy the sight of Russian oligarchs having their property taken that they achieved through thievery. It is time for us to start putting people in jail who engaged in the mass theft of the Russian people.

Victory for Ukraine is possible, I think, if we are all in on sanctions, if we are all in on labeling, naming, and shaming people around Putin as war criminals in order to break their will, and if we begin to pour it on when it comes to regaining control of the skies.

I am not for a NATO no-fly zone because I think that would put us in a situation with NATO and Russia that I am not comfortable with right now, but I am for Ukraine controlling their skies, a no-fly zone enforced by the Ukrainian military. That is why I want more anti- aircraft systems and the MiGs.

The bottom line here is that victory for Ukraine is possible because I think the Russian people and the Russian military are really not into this. I think the world is coalescing around the idea that if Putin wins, it is bad for us all. Now is the time. This is the most historically significant moment since the end of World War II for the continent of Europe and for freedom itself and for the rule of law.

If we can pull this off, then those who come after us will be very pleased with our efforts. If we fail, future generations will wonder ``What the hell were you doing?'' just like we all wonder how Hitler could have gotten so strong and nobody stopped him when they could have.

Let it be said in this moment of history that Senator Whitehouse, Senator Graham, and many others, particularly the Ukrainian people, believe not only is victory for Ukraine possible, it is absolutely necessary.

With that, I turn it back over to my colleague.

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, I agree with everything you said. You said it well. So what is the goal here?

Senator Gillibrand and I and many others have been working to stop the practice of someone signing an employment contract, having a sexual harassment or assault problem in the workplace, and being forced into arbitration that is skewed for the employer against the employee for these things to be hidden.

We do not intend to take unrelated claims out of the contract. What we are preventing here is sexual assault and sexual harassment claims being forced into arbitration, which perpetuates the problem. The light of day in a courtroom is what we are hoping for. The plaintiff still has to prove their case. The defendant has robust due process.

But Senator Ernst's concerns, I share. If lawyers try to game the system, they are acting in bad faith. They could be subject to disciplinary proceedings by courts. What we are not going to do is take unrelated claims out of the arbitration contract. So if you have got an hour-and-wage dispute with the employer, you make a sexual harassment, sexual assault claim, the hour-and-wage dispute stays under arbitration unless it is related. That is the goal.

I hope people won't game the system. I hope it will bring about the reform we are all hoping for: to make it harder to hide these problems in the workplace and easier to get justice without gaming the system.

I will be real quick.

Senator Schumer, thank you for making this happen. You made sure it would come up today, we would get a voice vote.

Senator Ernst has been great.

Kirsten, it has been a hell of a ride. We talked to Microsoft about 3 or 4 years ago about this. They jumped onboard and started changing it internally.

I have heard from the Chamber. I am open-minded about making sure we don't hurt business. It does not hurt business to make sure that people who are harassed in the workplace get treated fairly. It is better for business.

I just want to say, this shows that we can function up here, that we are listening to the world as it is. So the days of taking sexual harassment and sexual assault claims and burying them in the basement of arbitration are over.

Arbitration has its place between business. It can be a good thing. But when you sign a document--multiple pages--just to get a job, you really don't know what you are signing. We are saying, you are not going to sign away your life in terms of having your day in court if somebody treats you poorly. You still have got to prove your case. The defendant has robust due process rights, which they should, but the abuse of arbitration that perpetuates sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace is soon to be done away with.

Thank you, Senator Schumer.

Thank you, Senator Gillibrand.

And to all of my colleagues on the Republican side, thank you.

This is not bad for business. This is good for America.

Vote on H.R. 4445

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, on Friday I was made aware that due to an administrative error, Senator Warren was mistakenly added as a cosponsor to S. 2972, my bill to repeal section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934. The error was made through no fault of Senator Warren or her staff. I am working with the cloakroom to ensure her name is removed from the bill as soon as possible.

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

Mr. President, I will speak today on two topics--No. 1, the substance of the bill, which is, I guess, yet to be known, regarding voting rights, which I consider to be a Federal takeover of State elections, and the constant threat of changing the rules of the Senate to do away with the legislative filibuster as we know it.

I would say to my Democratic colleagues, this has been going on for quite a while, the constant threat by Senator Schumer to change the rules to pass whatever legislation you-all can come up with.

All I can say is, things were different when we were in charge. We had the House, the Senate, and the White House. President Trump constantly urged Senator McConnell and all of us on the Republican side to change the rules of the Senate so he could pass his agenda unimpeded; that anything that came out of the House, which was under Republican control, could sail right through the Senate with Republican votes only.

It was pretty clear to my Democratic colleagues that was not a good outcome, I thought for the country, but I guess for them.

We signed a letter on April 7, 2017--61 signatures: 28 Republicans, 32 Democrats, and 1 Independent. The letter was sent to Senator McConnell, who was the majority leader, and the minority leader was Senator Schumer at the time, urging both leaders that, no matter what differences we have had regarding Executive nominations and judges, we should preserve the minority's rights under the so-called legislative filibuster.

Apparently, it made perfect sense to my Democratic colleagues that the Senate not change to accommodate Donald Trump and his wishes. I was assuming that the statement by my Democratic colleagues was about the institution, not just about the Trump Presidency and the times in which we lived in 2017.

Apparently, I was wrong--except for a handful. And to Senators Sinema and Manchin, you have led from the front, not from the rear. You have taken your fair share of criticism as you have opposed changing the Senate rules to accommodate the voting rights bill, and it has been-- the argument goes that this is so fundamental to democracy, voting, that the Senate has to give way in this instance.

All I can say is that when many of us were in your shoes, we didn't make an exception for a piece of legislation that we thought was critical to the future of the country. And it would be easy to find an exception here and there and everywhere, to the point that the rule bends with the exception. Now, I appreciate your steadfastness in that regard, and, apparently, as you read the news, a few more Democrats are becoming publicly unnerved by the thought of changing the legislative filibuster--just a handful. And we are supposed to be in over the weekend, I think, maybe even into Monday, to have the change--rules change--but that may be in flux now because it appears a handful of Democrats are showing some distaste for changing the rules. I don't know why they are coming out now. I appreciate it.

I don't think it would be very popular in certain States to change the rules of the Senate that would pave the way for the most radical agenda in my lifetime. I don't know if that has got something to do with it or if there is a newfound religion here by a handful.

To the rest, I won't forget this. I was 1 of the 28 Republicans who signed the letter to the leaders of the Senate asking that the institution maintain the legislative filibuster, and not because it benefited me personally but because I thought it benefited the American people.

The day you make the Senate the House, we are going to have wild policy changes. When we are in charge, we will go down one road; when Democrats are in charge, they will go down another road, and there will be a just unnerving aspect of this, in my view, and I think for well over a century, the Senate has prevented these wild changes. And that means you don't get what you would like as conservatives. The same people who are applauding my resistance to changing the filibuster today were all over me when we were in charge wanting me to change the filibuster. I understand that.

Ideological people want their way, and they don't particularly care how they get it. Most Americans have a more balanced approach about how the legislative process should work, and I think, over time, the requirement to get a handful of people from the other party to pass legislation, particularly major legislation, has served the country well.

There are things that we would do completely different than our Democratic friends because we have different views, and some of these ideas just never make it through the Senate. And every now and then we will come up with solutions to hard problems that are bipartisan because we have to, as long as the legislative filibuster is around.

So the idea of changing the legislative filibuster would pave the way, if Democrats have all branches of government here, to make DC and Puerto Rico a State. I think they would. It paves the way for increasing the number of Justices on the Supreme Court because liberals don't like the current makeup. I think there would be a move to abolish the electoral college, which would be devastating for South Carolina.

And to all the people in this body, adding two more States may serve your interests, but it certainly dilutes the power you have as an individual State.

So the legislative filibuster is a stop sign to the most radical agenda I have seen since I have been up here, and it was a stop sign to the Trump agenda, and you just fill in the blanks.

This effort by Senator Schumer to abolish the legislative filibuster under the guise of a single exception is cynical and I think a sign of desperation.

I like Senator Schumer. I have been able to work with him-- immigration and other hot-button issues--but the truth of the matter is, this all started back when President Bush's judicial nominees were filibustered en mass that led to the Gang of 14, spearheaded by Senator Byrd, sort of one of the icons of the Senate, to make sure that filibustering judges would be done only in extraordinary circumstances. We broke the logjam. We lost a couple of good conservative judges as part of the compromise, and that held until it no longer held.

In 2013, I got a call from Senator Schumer--I never will forget it-- that we are going to push for a rules change when it comes to court of appeals and district court judges--I think in 2013.

I remember the reaction I had and Senator McCain's, and they were able to do that. And when President Trump became President and had a couple of Democratic--excuse me--a couple Supreme Court vacancies to fill, they were all filibustered, starting with Gorsuch, to the point that we changed the rules so that he could get some people on the Court who I think were highly qualified. So the bottom line is, when it comes to judges, the ship has sailed. Executive appointments, maybe that should have been changed. The effect on the judiciary, I think, is going to be detrimental over time.

The most ideological elements of each conference will have a large say about what kind of judges we put on the court, and you will see a change over time from the right and the left because you no longer have to reach across the aisle to put a judge on the court.

Apply that to legislation and, again, it would be devastating to the country and this body to not require some form of consensus when it comes to legislation and deny the minority the ability to require that consensus.

As to voting rights itself, I think this is the most hyped, manufactured issue in a long time. This is a problem in search of--it is not a problem in search of a solution; it is a manufactured problem.

States under our Constitution are supposed to run elections. In my State, I think we do a pretty good job. There are some efforts to change election laws throughout the country. As more and more people vote by mail, I think it is incumbent that you have the same voter identification requirements by voting by mail as you do in person. It would be so easy to manipulate that system.

The bottom line here is this is an effort by the Democratic leader to basically say that Republicans, at our heart, are a bunch of racists when it comes to voting; that the reason they are having to do this is that States are changing laws to disenfranchise people of color and minorities.

I find that, like, incredibly offensive--I mean, just beyond offensive. In my State, which is 30 percent-plus African American, we have robust opportunity to vote. All these laws that are being changed to implement voter integrity, I think, are necessary in the times in which we live.

But the bill coming before the body, whatever it is, is a federalization of the election process. It is not about enfranchising the voters; it is about enfranchising the ability of the left to take over the electoral process to skew it to their favor, and I think almost all of us see it that way over here.

So, you know, as a Republican, particularly from the South, you sort of get used to being called a racist. It is never pleasant, but you sort of get used to it. It is the cheapest form of politics. It is very unsavory to the people in my State.

I went through that process in 2020, and I hope I have lived a life to convince reasonable people that, whatever flaws I have, being a racist is not one of them.

And to clothe this exercise here as some kind of moral imperative that if we don't do this bill, then people throughout the country will lose their right to vote because Republicans, at the end of the day, don't want people of color to vote is beyond offensive, and I hope it fails and that we can get back to some sense of regular order around here.

But I will end with this: When the shoe was on the other foot, most of us didn't do this. Your country needs you

right now to speak up. If you support changing the legislative filibuster one time for the voting rights bill, you support the end of it because there will be no end to the exceptions.

And most of you over there have been hiding in the corner, letting other people take the arrows. It is time for you to speak up. I actually hope we have a vote because I want to know where people are, whom I can count on and whom I can't, to understand what is transactional and what is about the body. Time will tell.

I yield the floor to Senator Cornyn.

Mr. President, I want to--before Senator Blumenthal departs--thank him so much for bringing this to my attention. And it came from his constituent--the idea--Sid Goodfriend, who has truly been a good friend to this cause.

And Senator Blumenthal I find to be always willing to work with you where he can. And the fact that he has a son who served as a Marine infantry officer and a son who is a Navy SEAL speaks volumes to his family. And to those two young men, who served at the highest level in the military, thank you very much.

Mr. Goodfriend came to us with the idea of what can we do to not let America forget. Afghanistan is hell on Earth right now. Twenty-three million people are virtually starving to death. ISIS is at war with the Taliban. Al-Qaida is growing in influence. And people inside of Afghanistan are living a miserable life. Those who helped us are being hunted down. Special operations commandos are now having to choose between joining ISIS or dying.

And the point here is not to focus on how we got here. I have got my views; Senator Blumenthal has his. We have agreed, when it comes to going forward, we have to be together. And there is plenty of blame to go around, so we don't need to beat on one group versus the other right now. What we need to focus on is what is next.

And Senator Blumenthal's legislation that I joined with to create a plan, an evacuation czar, is the bare minimum we need to be doing. Out of

sight, out of mind does not work in this environment.

``Honor our commitment'' is a phrase we use to describe what we are trying to achieve. You can't fight these wars by yourself. If America has to go it alone in the war on terror, it is going to be a very dark period for the United States.

The goal is to get people in the faith, in the region, to fight back against the radical Islamic movement that would take the whole world into darkness. And the good news is, for 20-something years, people fought. The Afghans died in large numbers in the last 5 years. I don't think we lost a soldier in 18 months. God bless the fallen and God bless the injured, but to say that the Afghans weren't fighting is just a dishonor to those who fell.

And now we are out, and we have left behind people who had a choice between standing up to the Taliban and ISIS and al-Qaida and siding with us. They chose us, and now we are gone. We cannot forget them.

I promise you, how we handle the next year or two in Afghanistan will determine what kind of a national security future America has. People are testing us all over the world right now.

I would like to work with Senator Blumenthal and others when it comes to Ukraine. I want to introduce sanctions with a national security waiver that would allow President Biden to sanction the hell out of Russia based on the military buildup that threatens Ukraine, not the actual invasion; to give him tools where he can go to Putin and say: This is what Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, thinks about what you are doing. You go forward at your own peril.

I would like to create legislation that would make sure this administration and other administrations have the direction and the tools they need to end this Afghan engagement with a sense of honor.

Honorourcommitment.org--you can go to that site and get information about the status of people in Afghanistan. We have gotten some out, but we have got a lot left behind. And this green ribbon is an effort to remind ourselves and the Nation writ large what is at stake if we abandon those who fought along our side.

I did my Reserve duty in Afghanistan on several occasions. My commitment was small in comparison to most, but I got to know the translators. I got to know the people who worked with the judges and the law enforcement officials to bring a rule of law to being in Afghanistan.

I am sure all those who served relied upon their translators for their very life--not only ``What did the guy say?'' but ``Are we safe?'' And the bravery of Afghans to side with us should be respected and honored.

And I am going to join with Senator Blumenthal and Ernst and others to introduce freestanding legislation. We will try to do it before the holidays.

And the one thing I like about Senator Blumenthal: He is the most tenacious guy I have ever met without being mean about it. He has a determination for his causes that is unparalleled.

I can understand why your sons went in the Marine Corps and the Navy. I think they probably get those qualities from you and your wife.

So we are going to take that quiet determination. We are not going to let this go. We are going to insist that this body vote to create a system to make sure that those who were with us get treated fairly.

To the American people: You abandon those who helped us in Afghanistan at our own peril.

This is a time of reckoning for the American people. It is a time of choosing. And I choose honor over abandonment. I choose to be a good ally, someone you can count on when the going gets tough. And I think that spirit really does describe our country.

So the green ribbon campaign--I would like more of our colleagues to wear the ribbon during the holiday season to get people who are looking to America for hope see a demonstration of our will.

If you travel abroad, you are shocked at how people view our country. We sort of fight with each other all the time that sometimes we lose sight of how important we are. When you travel throughout the world--I know the Presiding Officer does this--the people care what we think, and they watch what we do.

We still, in spite of all our differences, represent the best hope of mankind. I really believe that. I think our military represents the best spirit of mankind.

I think the men and women who fought on our behalf in Afghanistan wearing the American flag feel a sense of obligation to those who stood by them. That is why we wear the green ribbon.

Go to honorourcommitment.org.

To Mr. Goodfriend, thank you. The private sector is going to get involved. We are going to get major corporations advancing this cause.

And what can we do beyond wear the ribbon and say a prayer?

We can pass legislation that will make honoring our commitment real, not just a talking point.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Reserving the right to object, to my colleague from New York, I want to compliment you for the effort you brought to the table on trying to reform the military justice system, tackling areas of sexual assault. I think we are making some real progress here.

The one thing I don't like is basically taking the commander out of the loop when it comes to military justice in a fashion that basically says we can't trust our commanders to discipline their forces. A lot of the crimes that are being proposed here to be taken out of the military justice system have nothing to do with sexual assault.

The theory is that our commanders are discriminatory, that there is racial bias in the system, and that we have a biased military justice system based on the color of your skin. Quite frankly, I don't believe that, and I am never going to say that. That would be taking us down that road.

What Senators Inhofe and Reed have done, I think, makes a lot of sense. We have added to the list of crimes that would get special scrutiny--I think it is murder, kidnapping, and one other beyond the sexual assault crimes.

When there is an allegation of sexual assault, there will be a new process that goes into whether or not the case goes to trial. One of the issues is, who should pick the jury? Well, the prosecutor can't pick the jury, the special prosecutor. You can't have the prosecutor picking the jury. The convening authority, the commander in charge of the units in question, will still be picking the jury, but the lawyers can strike members of the jury for cause and preemptory challenges. At the end of the day, I think we made a lot of progress.

Senator Gillibrand's bill goes well beyond the stated purpose of what got us talking about this. I think it would destroy the military justice system as we know it and destroy the role of the commander. And, again, our commanders are the ones who decide who takes the most risks. Our commanders, again, have a lot of responsibility. They need to have the tools to make sure that unit is fit to fight. They will be under scrutiny, as they should be. But we want a military justice system that makes the military the most effective fighting force in the world, and you can't have a strong military without a strong command structure.

I object.

Madam President, I have a different approach that will get the same result.

But to my colleagues here, we are playing the Medicare card in a very dangerous fashion. Senator Hawley said it pretty well. Medicare is something people depend upon, and all of us understand the need to keep Medicare solvent. We need to reform it to save it.

But this idea puts all of us in a box, and I don't appreciate it and I won't forget it.

Now, this is a problem on our side. You don't even have to listen, Senator Wyden. For 4 months, we have been saying, as a party, our Democratic colleagues are spending all this money by themselves through reconciliation; they should choose that path to raise the debt ceiling.

Because what are we talking about? A $1.9 trillion spending bill without one Republican vote through reconciliation.

We have pending next week another reconciliation proposal that scores at 1.7 trillion, if you assume every program goes away in a year. I will be in the NBA before that assumption. I don't like my chances.

Ronald Reagan said the closest thing to immortality on Earth is a government program.

So they have written the bill for the 17 big spending items to expire within 1, 2 or 3 years, and not one of them want them to expire.

So the whole bill is a fraud. And the Congressional Budget Office is going to give to me Friday what the bill would cost if the sunset clauses actually went away--did go away; what would it cost if the programs survive, which it will.

And I anticipate, Senator Kennedy, it will be at least twice what we are talking about.

The effect on the debt is 367 billion only because they limited the programs to last for a year or two rather than the 10 years they are actually going to last.

So the deficit is going to go from 367 billion to probably close to 2 trillion. We are going to expose that Friday. They are playing a game. They are creating gimmicks.

And Senator Manchin, to his credit, said: ``I believe Build Back Better is full of gimmicks.''

We will know Friday exactly what the bill would look like without gimmicks.

This is the ultimate gimmick. If you had asked me 4 months ago, ``How does this movie end?'' I will be reading in the paper about a rules change to the Senate made by the House, where I have got to pick between Medicare and abandoning what I said I would do for 4 months.

This is a deal that led to Donald Trump. If you wonder why there is a Donald Trump, it is moments like this, where everybody starts down a road that makes perfect sense, you panic, and you throw everybody over.

They would raise the debt ceiling through reconciliation because they should, and we want to do it that way to deter spending in the future. We want to make it harder to use reconciliation to spend more money than World War II cost.

If you look at the cost of World War II in present dollars, it was 4.7 trillion. When you look at all the money we spent and going to spend, it is going to be 5.4 trillion. Literally, we have spent more money in the last year and a half than we did to win World War II.

I think they should raise the debt ceiling, Senator Kennedy, through the

process they used to spend the money. That made perfect sense to me as a Republican. That is why I said it for 4 months.

Now, all of us on our side have a moment of reckoning here. I don't want to default, and we won't. But I do want to make sure that when Republicans tell their other Republicans and the public at large, you can somewhat count on who we are and what we say. We put that at risk for no good reason.

To the leadership of both sides, I like you. Senator McConnell has been a great Republican leader--minority leader, majority leader. But this is a moment where I want to be on the Record to say, I don't like this.

What we have done is allow the House of Representatives to change a Senate rule. No matter what the subject matter, that is not a good idea. We have set in place a process that allows our Democratic colleagues to raise the debt ceiling without using reconciliation, the budget process, where they would have to amend the budget resolution. The very resolution they used to spend all this money, we are simply asking amend it to pay for it.

We have taken that off the table, and people on our side are not going to accept this very well. So all I can say is--I want to make it clear--when it comes to Medicare, count me in to avoid the cuts. When it comes to raising the debt ceiling, I want it done through a process that will make it harder to spend all this money in the future. And I want to be part of a Republican Party that you can take what we say to the bank on big stuff--stuff that matters.

So I have a proposal that when the bill comes over from the House, which it is here, that would allow us to vote to prevent Medicare from being cut, would strip out the way you are going to raise the debt ceiling, reject the idea that the House can amend a Senate rule to limit minority rights--and that is what we have done here.

This is not a good idea, to take Medicare and marry it up with anything important, as Senator Hawley said, because there is no end to that game. And it is not a good idea, in my view, even with some Members of my own party agreeing, to let the House change the Senate rules. I don't like that. We have set in motion some really dangerous stuff here, so I have the following proposal:

As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of House message to accompany S. 610, it be in order for me to offer amendment No. 4877, which strikes section 8 relating to the debt limit. I further ask that the Senate vote on adoption of the amendment prior to the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the amendment to S. 610.

In English, I am asking for a vote so that we can show the country that we will protect Medicare, but many of us are not going to have our fingerprints on a Washington deal that I think stinks up the place.

So why does this matter? It matters a lot about how the Senate works. Every Member of this body has the ability to come down to the floor and object to a piece of legislation. That makes the Senate different than the House.

What we have done here is allowed the House to change the Senate rules in a fashion where, if you can get 10 Republicans, all of us are dealt out. So that is not a good idea 1 time, 10 times, or 100 times by either party because what it does, it changes the rules of the Senate in a fashion that I feel very uncomfortable with simply because the House has been able to change the rules of the Senate so that all of us have been basically marginalized.

There will be some Republicans who are my friends, and do what you need to do. I understand. I don't want to default on the debt either. But this is a bad idea. It is not what we promised we would do. It sets in motion playing the Medicare card in a dangerous fashion, and it sure as hell sets in motion playing with the rules of the Senate in a fashion that I never even thought of until 24 hours ago.

So I want to make this hard, not easy, because I think what we are doing is going to really change the structure of the Senate and certainly going to do a lot of damage to the Republican Party.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, later this afternoon, I will be introducing with Senator Scott--my colleague from South Carolina, Tim Scott--a statement for the record honoring the life of Senator Hugh K. Leatherman, Sr.

We just lost one of the most distinguished members of the State Senate in the history of South Carolina. Senator Leatherman was a 40- year member of the South Carolina State Senate. He was the finance chairman, and his leadership is legendary. With his help and assistance, the Port of Charleston is on track to become one of the premier ports on the east coast. He was indispensable in recruiting Boeing, Honda, and Volvo to South Carolina.

He was a dear friend of both myself and Senator Scott. I have never known a more effective voice for South Carolina. He loved the Pee Dee, the Florence area he represented, but when it came to helping South Carolina, Senator Leatherman was always there. You could count on him to lead from the front. Trying to solve problems was his life's work rather than creating problems.

I want to let the people of South Carolina know we have lost a giant. There will be a big vacuum, and all of us in our State are going to have to up our game to replace the vacuum created by Senator Leatherman.

His legacy is just extraordinary. He touched so many lives. He led the effort to put $300 million up front to deepen the Port of Charleston at a critical time. I could go on and on and on about how he helped every corner of the State, from the mountains to the sea. He was a giant of the South Carolina Senate. His voice will be missed. He has a record of accomplishment that is just, again, legendary.

To his family and legions of friends, we mourn Senator Leatherman's loss, but you have a lot to be proud of. Now is the time to celebrate this great statesman's life. Senator Leatherman was truly a statesman. He could work across the aisle. He knew how to get things done. He used the power given to him by his constituents and his fellow colleagues in the South Carolina Senate for the greater good. There is no better legacy or no better statement about a politician than to say that he used his power for the greater good.

The statement will be forthcoming from myself and Senator Scott.

To his family and friends, we stand with you. You will not go through this journey alone.

To my many friends in South Carolina from the Pee Dee, you lost a great champion, and I will do everything I can to help fill that vacuum and void.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, along with my fellow Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Scott, I rise today to honor the life of South Carolina State Senator Hugh K. Leatherman, Sr., who passed away, surrounded by his loving family, on November 12, 2021, at the age of 90.

Senator Leatherman was born on April 14, 1931, in Lincoln County, NC. He was raised on a farm and attended North Carolina State University, earning a degree in civil engineering in 1953. In 1955, he moved to South Carolina to start a concrete company, before starting his political career. His expansive political career began in 1967 after being elected to serve on the Quinby Town Council. During his term on the town council, he served as mayor pro tempore for the town of Quinby from 1971 to 1976. In 1980, Senator Leatherman ran for South Carolina State Senate and served the people of District 31, which includes Darlington and Florence Counties. On June 18, 2014, Senator Leatherman was elected president pro tempore. He also served as the chairman of the powerful senate finance committee, as well as a member of the ethics, interstate cooperation, rules, transportation and the labor, commerce and industry committees.

As a State senator, a position he held for more than 40 years, Senator Leatherman's dedication to the State could not be questioned. When it came to the needs of South Carolina, he was always at the forefront of getting things done. His statewide perspective led him to championing the Port of Charleston Harbor Deepening Project, as well as recruiting companies like Boeing, Honda, and Volvo to come to the State he loved so intensely. He will be remembered as having one of the most effective voices for his region and the State and was always looking towards what the State of South Carolina could become.

Senator Leatherman's devotion to his State and his constituency should be a model from which all public servants look to follow. We grieve his loss

but celebrate the accomplishments of this great, honorable man. Mr. President, we ask that you and our colleagues join us in applauding Senator Leatherman's many contributions made to the State of South Carolina. A true champion of South Carolina, Senator Leatherman will be sorely missed.

Mr. President, I missed most of what Senator Cruz said, but I think I have a general idea of what he was going to say.

So what is this all about tonight? Why are we here?

So the bottom line is we have a debt ceiling increase that is coming due under our law. The debt ceiling has been dealt with numerous times since I have been here.

What is this all about?

My Democratic colleagues--we worked together to pass a $1.2 trillion bill for roads, bridges, ports, and electrical vehicles. I was 1 of 19 Republicans. Made sense to me.

The reason we have got a debt ceiling problem beyond the normal course of business is that my Democratic colleagues, through reconciliation, are going to keep on spending from $3\1/2\ to $5 trillion that has got zero to do, in my view, with infrastructure as we know it. It is more about expanding the size and scope of government.

They have every right to pursue this, and we, as Republicans, have every right to make it hard.

So Senator McConnell has been saying for 2 months now that if you are going to spend the money through reconciliation, you need to raise the debt limit through reconciliation. And there has been a change of heart here at the last minute, but we will be doing this again in December.

So here is my point: I think you should do that. I think the reconciliation process is available to you. I think you should be required to use it, and I don't intend to help you spend any more of this money.

Now, what does reconciliation mean?

It means that you can do it by yourself through a process that allows 50 votes, not 60.

As Budget ranking member, I am willing to waive the 3 days. I am willing to try to make the process less painful. But the point is that you need to own this, and that was our position until recently.

We will be doing this again in December, and this idea that the rules of the Senate may change because of this issue or any other issue--I want to get something off my chest.

When President Trump was President, we had the House and the Senate, and there was enormous pressure on Republicans to change the rules to get everything we wanted, and a lot of Democratic colleagues standing up for the constitutional filibuster--legislative filibuster. We sent a letter with over 60-something names on it basically saying to the leaders of the Senate: Let's don't make the Senate the House.

All of a sudden, you are now in charge of 50-50, and there is a constant stream of threats, coming from the President this time, to change the rules of the Senate to raise the debt limit because you don't want to use reconciliation.

If you have no more respect for the Senate than that, go ahead and change the rules.

I am not going to live the rest of my political life under threat. I am asking no more of you than I ask of myself.

So if the reason the Republican Party has changed its position is because we think somehow what we were

doing would put the Senate in peril, well, then, the Senate was in peril a lot more than we thought it was.

It never entered my mind to go to Democratic colleagues and say: If you don't do a few things that I need to have to get people off my ass at home, then I may have to do carve-outs of this and that.

I didn't do it because I don't think it is the right thing to do. I am not going to tolerate it now.

Now, I will work with you when it makes sense, but what you are doing makes no sense to me, and you need to pay a political price for it under the rules.

I am not doing anything illegal. The Republican Party wasn't doing anything backdoor. We said there is a way forward on the debt ceiling. It is reconciliation. And that is the process you should use because of what you are doing in terms of spending all this money, and we are just not going to be part of making it easy for you to spend all this money.

And here we are. Ten Republicans are going to be voting here pretty soon. I will not be one of them.

And to my Republican colleagues: I understand where you are coming from. I don't fault you for your vote. You know, I was 1 of 19 Republicans that voted for an infrastructure package. A lot of you didn't agree. Some of you were vocal about it. I can take criticism from within my party and without. I try to be respectful.

I will be respectful tonight, but here is our problem as Republicans: We said for 2 months we are going to do one thing, and at the end we have done another.

What does it really matter?

I don't know. I think it matters to the people who listen to us and have some faith in us.

So to my Democratic colleagues: If we get through the night, we will be doing this again. And I promise you, come December, I will be doing everything I can to give you a reasonable reconciliation process to make it as painless as possible in terms of process, but this is what you should be doing because this is what you are doing to the country.

And to my Republican colleagues: We will have another bite at this apple, and we need to decide who we are and what we believe. And if we are not going to pursue this strategy anymore, let's just tell the people of the country up front it was a bad idea, we shouldn't have done it. I think it wasn't a bad idea, but let's not mislead people here. Let's not say one thing and do another.

So I am hoping that we can find a way to do some things together before now and 2022. There are some things on Section 230. The colleague, the Presiding Officer, is one of the best people in the world to do things with if you are looking for bipartisanship on immigration. We have got a broken border, we have got DACA at risk. Maybe we can do a small deal on immigration.

But the point for me is this was a self-inflicted wound, and we need not do this again.

I yield the floor.

It is good to be back. Thank you for the inquiries about my well-being.

To all my colleagues, I appreciate the good wishes and the phone calls and the food.

I made it. I think the worst is behind me.

I want to reinforce a simple message: If you haven't been vaccinated regarding the COVID problem, get vaccinated. I have been vaccinated, and I got COVID anyway; a couple of really bad days, but I am doing better and I feel on the mend. And I am confident that, if I hadn't had the vaccine, it would have been a lot worse.

So in my State, about 50 percent of the people are still unvaccinated. Just for your own good and the good of our State, I would urge you to consider getting vaccinated. I think the vaccine is safe, and it works. I am glad I had it. And the sooner we can get to herd immunity through vaccinations and other means, the better off we will be.

To all my colleagues and people back home, thank you for the kind words and inquiries.

We are back at work, and I am glad I was able to make this debate. I think this debate is worth having. We just passed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill. The Presiding Officer, Senator Sinema, from Arizona, was one of the architects of the bill.

Congratulations.

I voted for it because it made sense to me. We have been talking about infrastructure here for 5 or 10 years. In this $1 trillion package, 550 of new spending, which I believe will be paid for, goes into ports, roads, and bridges, and rural broadband; and 19 Republicans voted for it.

I am hoping we can make it reality and get it to President Biden's desk because I think infrastructure is much-needed, and we were finding bipartisanship in that space.

Now we are moving on to something completely different--I dare say radical. Right after the majority was seized by the Democratic Party, they pushed through a $1.9 trillion package that had a lot of talk about COVID--but most of it wasn't related to COVID as we know it-- after we had worked together on $4 trillion of spending.

Now, this budget resolution is proposing $3\1/2\ trillion of additional spending, and we will talk about how that affects you, the public, here in a minute. But the first thing I want you to know is it is not $3\1/2\ trillion. That is not accurate.

When you look at the increase in public debt and the authorization of new discretionary spending, it is at least $4.2 trillion. So it is not $3\1/2\ trillion; it is over $4 trillion. The first thing you have to do is be honest with the product you are selling. This will cost well over $4 trillion if fully implemented.

What else does this bill do that people in this body need to know about?

It changes the rule regarding emergency spending. Right now, we can spend, through an emergency, basically, unlimited money and not have to worry about offsets and all that good stuff because there is truly an emergency. But you need 60 votes to declare

something an emergency. This budget resolution will change that rule so that a simple majority of Senators can determine anything they would like to be an emergency and spend without any accountability.

I think that is a bad idea for the body because anything you can do, we can do, and it really is an assault on the idea of minority rights. I think it is the biggest blow to the institution yet. It is buried in this bill, but it eliminates the 60-vote requirement to declare items emergency spending, replace it with a simple majority, allowing a majority--a single party--to spend without restriction in the name of emergency.

So to my friends on the other side, you need to look at what is in this bill, and I hope you will find that to be an unacceptable change to the U.S. Senate because, when it comes to spending, it guts the idea that the minority matters because all you have to do, if this budget resolution is implemented the way they have written it, is to declare something an emergency, get 50 votes, and spend. Very bad idea. We are going to try to change that, and we are hoping we can find some bipartisan support.

Let me tell you about this bill. I am going to ask some questions. On the immigration side, Senator Sanders said that this bill creates millions of new green cards for people here illegally.

So here is a question: If we told the world that in the budget reconciliation we are going to increase millions of green cards for people here illegally, do you think that would entice more people to come here illegally?

Here is what I think. I think that is the dumbest idea I could think of. In the middle of an invasion of this country by illegal immigrants, the Democratic Party, through budget reconciliation, is going to authorize millions of new green cards for people here illegally. It is in your document. Senator Sanders admitted that.

Here is what is happening as I speak: These statements are being translated into Spanish and every other language, and human traffickers all over the world are going to let the word get out that, Hey, the Senate is about to increase the number of green cards available for illegal immigrants; why don't you go and get in line?

Nobody has asked the Border Patrol: How do you think this would affect our illegal immigration problem?

Have you spent 15 minutes talking to anybody at the border about what this policy change would do to a broken immigration system?

I guarantee you haven't, because if you talked to anybody with common sense on the border, they would tell you the last thing you need to do right now is incentivize more illegal immigration by allocating green cards to people who are here already illegally

What has happened in the last 6 months?

A 262-percent increase compared to last year.

Does any Democrat have any idea what is happening here? Have any of you come to the floor to explain to the American people what the hell is going on at the border?

You don't have a clue; you don't care.

The same people who are writing this budget resolution to spend $4 trillion on liberal wish lists are the same people in charge of the border. They haven't asked one Border Patrol professional the effect of this bill on a broken immigration system.

We have had 1.2 million people come to the country illegally already. Let's compare that to last year--a 262-percent increase.

Illegal crossings by unaccompanied minors have surged 186 percent compared to last year. Why? The Biden administration has kept the COVID deportation title 42 law in place, but it has made exception by unaccompanied minors. If you are a certain age, you can stay. Guess what. The human traffickers have found that out, and word is out all over the Northern Triangle countries--but, really, the world.

And we have had a 186-percent increase in unaccompanied minors because of policy changes made by the Biden administration. Twenty- seven percent of unaccompanied minors recently deported tested positive for COVID-19.

How many of the unaccompanied minors have been released into the country? Of the 1.2 million people who have come here illegally: How many of them have been released? How many have them been tested? How many are positive for COVID?

Nobody knows these numbers because nobody seems to have a clue of what to do about it.

So what are the trends?

Look at this chart. Look at 2020 compared to `18, `19, and `20--an explosion of illegal immigrants, 1.2 million, almost. Year to date, in 2020, we had 458,000. A 260-percent increase in illegal crossings at the border because the Biden administration did away with the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy.

So asylum claims went through the roof. We are allowing unaccompanied children to stay as an exception to title 42, along with families. And guess what. You have an explosion of illegal immigrant crossings in this country.

If you pass this budget resolution the way Senator Sanders described, you are going to throw jet fuel on this. This number will go through the friggin' roof.

Every human trafficker in the world is going to get the word out throughout the world that they are increasing the number of green cards made available to illegal immigrants to America: Come now, the time is right.

What a dangerous idea, but it is part of this grand, new vision for America. Let me tell you about this vision for America: open borders; dropping people by the thousands off into the interior of the United States, not adequately tested; enticing young people to take a very dangerous journey; destroying all of the gains we had; stopping a wall that was almost built. That is the vision being created by the budget resolution and then some.

The idea of increasing green cards for illegal immigrants already here will make these numbers explode beyond what they already exploded. Only God knows.

Has anyone told you the price at the pump? Has anybody mentioned to you on the other side what is the cost of this bill when we implement change reforms to you as a consumer?

Senator Markey, who is a very passionate believer in climate change, said the Green New Deal is part of the DNA of this bill.

Senator Sanders is an avowed socialist, one of the most honest people in this building. Senator Sanders' vision for the last 20 and 30 years is in this budget resolution. This budget resolution is a dream for those who want to socialize America; it is a nightmare for working people.

How much have gas prices gone up in the last 6 months?

A dollar.

Here is what I think: If you implement the provisions of this budget resolution regarding climate change, you are declaring war on the internal combustion engine; you are going to shut out coal-fired plants in rural America.

The question I have for my Democratic colleagues: How much will gas prices go up if this bill becomes reality? How much will your heating bill go up because you shut down supply? How has there been an increase of a dollar at the pump? Policy matters.

I dare say that, if this bill is ever implemented, you are going to double gas prices.

I hope you are listening out there, America. If they implement this radical transformation of our energy economy, you are going to have a dramatic increase of gas prices and heating prices.

This is the worst thought-out idea I have ever seen. They are just throwing every liberal idea and hope it sticks to the wall, and their whole reason for being on the left is in this bill.

There is a border-adjusted carbon tax proposal floating around out there. What does that mean to you? What the hell is a border-adjusted carbon tax?

The best I can understand is it is going to be a tax on products coming into the country because the way the product was made is not sufficiently green enough. So they are going to charge for that product, put a tax on it at the border. Guess what. That is going to increase the cost of whatever good we are talking about.

And where do you think that cost goes?

It goes to you.

This is the most inflationary idea I have ever seen. We have had 5.4- percent increase in inflation recently, wiping out all the gains in the economy.

How could that be?

You are spending money like drunken sailors. And if this bill ever becomes law, if it is ever implemented and there is a border-adjusted carbon tax, it is going to be passed onto the consumer.

If you are on a fixed income, this whole idea is a nightmare for you because your gas prices are going to go up, your heating bill is going to go up, and all of the things that they are going to make for free will create an inflationary effect.

The size of the government is going to increase dramatically. Interest rates will have to go up. So if you own a home, you drive a car, you breathe air, get ready for more taxes and more spending.

All I can say is that I believe in climate change, and I would like to have a rational approach to solving the problem. But this is not rational; this is partisan. And this $4.2 trillion bill--it is not three and a half--is going to lead a wave of illegal immigration, the likes of which you have never seen before; a 262-percent increase in the last 6 months. If this bill, this idea, ever becomes reality, you can double that. If this bill ever becomes reality, a dollar increase in gas prices is going to be the good old days.

If they shut down all the coal-fired plants without any way to replace them, other than a bunch of BS, good luck with the heating bill.

They are going to change your country. It is going to be more like Venezuela and less like America.

This idea that it is going to be paid for by taxing the rich is a bunch of BS. If you took the entire wealth of the 1 percent, including their cars and their dogs, it is less than half of what we need to deal with the entitlement problems we already have.

And you are growing exponentially the size of government--more government to pay for. Eventually interest rates are going to have to go up.

You are putting in motion, I think, the demise of America as we know it. You are putting in motion a government that nobody's grandchild could ever afford to pay. You are putting in motion the destruction of energy independence. You have declared war on the fossil fuel industry in this country, and you have not done a damn thing about China, India, Russia, or Iran.

The bottom line here is, if you believe in energy independence, then you need to vote against this budget resolution because we will lose it. If you believe that inflation is the death blow to the middle class, you need to vote against this budget resolution. If you don't know how much gas prices are going to be increased, they owe you an answer.

So I am going to ask this question for the next 15 hours: Do you have any idea, if all this becomes reality, how much increase at the pump will be affected by the average consumer the next year? How much will our heating bills go up? As to the border-adjusted carbon tax, will it be inflationary? Where does the money go from the tax? Who gets it? Little details like this.

All I can say is that everybody has a dream in America. There is the American dream and the American socialist dream for America. This budget resolution sets in motion an assault on free enterprise, the destruction of energy independence, incentivizing illegal immigration at a time we can afford it the least.

If you don't believe these things, then you haven't read what is in this blueprint. Have you ever asked yourself the question: What the hell has happened in the last 6 months; why are we up $1 a gallon at the pump? Because they declared a war on fossil fuels made in America.

Why do we have a 262-percent increase in illegal immigration? Because they changed all the policies that worked at the border.

Why is inflation rising? Because the fiscal policies of the Biden administration and our friends on the left are driving up prices.

The worst is yet to come. If this budget resolution becomes a reality, God help the American middle class. We will be less energy independent. Our money will go not nearly as far.

You are going to have to automatically raise taxes if you intend to pay for this monstrosity. And some Democrats say it has to be paid for. There is no way in hell to pay for this bill unless you fundamentally raise taxes across the board--at a time when we are struggling to get back on our feet.

This is why we have elections. In 2022, this idea will be on the ballot. My goal and my Republican colleagues' is to fight like hell to stop the increase at the pump, stop the increase of the heating bills, and to stop an invasion in our country by illegal immigrants all driven by bad policy choices.

But everything they have done in the last 6 months pales in comparison with what they are going to do to this country if this budget resolution ever becomes a reality.

Yes, sir, we are going to have one hell of a fight. I don't know how long we are going to be here, but as long as it takes. America is worth fighting for. And America, we know, is at risk with this budget resolution.

Thank you.

I yield the remaining Republican time on the resolution.

Mr. President, I want to say a quick thank you to my Budget Committee staff who have worked very hard over the past couple of weeks. They worked late nights, crunched the numbers, provided support to Republican offices on amendment drafting and more.

Starting with our support staff, who help both sides of the aisle on committee: chief clerk Katie Smith, staff assistants Ben Mason and Maeve Poulson, and computer systems administrator George Woodall.

Our senior staff, who manage an excellent team and keep everyone on track: staff director Nick Myers, who worked up until the buzzer, but couldn't be here for vote-arama as he and his wife, Christine, welcomed their first child.

Deputy staff director and chief counsel Joe Keeley, deputy staff director Matt Giroux, and budget policy director Becky Cole.

Executive assistant Katherine Rossi is an invaluable member of our team and helps to keep our team organized and operating at our best.

Our team of analysts who dig into the numbers of the budget resolution and interpret what it means for the country, they also do important work coordinating with other offices on amendments:

Professional Staff Members: Kevin Dawson, Chris Devine, Derek Gondek, Chad Miller, Alyssa Palisi, and John Stout; along with economist Eric Hartman, senior policy adviser Walker Truluck, and general counsel Krisann Pearce.

Our director of coalitions and outreach Blair Bjellos did an excellent job communicating with outside groups and stakeholders to keep them informed and involved throughout the process. She also makes sure Republican Senate offices are plugged in on amendment order and details during vote-arama.

My committee communications team, communications director Taylor Reidy and senior communications adviser Joe Brenckle help to translate

the sometimes not-so-exciting budget materials into content that is easier to digest and understand.

And finally, our intern Eleanor Clark was a great help to all our staff during this time as well.

I thank Senator Durbin.

Madam President, it has been a pleasure working with Senator Durbin on this to, hopefully, get it over the line this afternoon. I think most Americans, if they understood what we were trying to do, would be enthusiastically behind the effort.

As for the deferred prosecution and nonprosecution agreements, the revenues from those procedures--for lack of a better word--go into the General Treasury, not the Crime Victims Fund, and we are fixing that. We have had a reduction in funds available in South Carolina. We have lost $3.2 million for VOCA crime victims funding for the South Carolina Network of Children's Advocacy Centers' 27 members. Because of this quirk in the law, the Crime Victims Fund is at a historic low, and it is affecting operations in the field.

Attorney General Alan Wilson has been great to work with. With Senators Feinstein and Grassley, we have been a team on this on the Judiciary Committee.

Senator Durbin went through the ins and outs of what we are doing here. I just want to add this: This was not easy. There are a lot of stakeholders in this, and there are a lot of committees of jurisdiction.

I want to thank Senator Baldwin, who has been a driving force behind it. That is absolutely true. All of the committees could have easily said no, but this is one time we wanted to get to yes because the lack of funding is beginning to affect the operations of groups that are just indispensable when it comes to providing relief to crime victims.

I would urge a ``yes'' vote. This has been a bipartisan process from day one. It has been going on about a year. It is now time to correct the quirk in the law to get these funds over to the Crime Victims Fund from the General Treasury.

Senator Toomey's amendment, I will oppose. I appreciate Senator Toomey very much, but I think that most of the groups and all of the law enforcement groups are opposed to the Toomey amendment, and I will reluctantly do so.

I hope we can get a really big vote on final passage because we need to prove to the American people that we can do things together. There is nothing that should bring us together more than helping victims of crime and making sure this fund has the resources it deserves to provide the treatment needed. This rise in crime has made this more relevant, not less.

As for Senator Durbin, as always, I have enjoyed working with him, and we will continue to find common ground where we can. So I urge a ``yes'' vote on its final passage here in a couple of hours.

I yield the floor.

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