Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am here to stand in support of my friend and colleague from Alabama, Senator Tuberville, as he stands in opposition and raises his legitimate objections, which I share, to the Department of Defense's plan to use Federal funds to facilitate the performance of abortions.

Look, there has long been among the American people a pretty widespread supermajority of Americans--Republicans and Democrats making up that supermajority--who say, regardless of how they as individuals feel about abortions, they don't want U.S. taxpayer dollars going to fund or facilitate abortions. That overwhelming supermajority preference for that is reflected in legislation that Congress has enacted, codified in 10 U.S.C., section 1093.

So what has happened here is the Department of Defense has very cleverly disguised and very cleverly meandered around that so to technically comply with that statute. Instead of funding abortions and performing them on Federal facilities with Federal resources, they are facilitating, paying for the travel expenses--air, land travel, ground travel, meals--giving 3 weeks of leave in order to perform these. So they are still using Federal dollars to facilitate abortion, just in a way that is carefully gerrymandered around the text of 10 U.S.C., section 1093.

Now, I want to echo what Senator Tuberville said a moment ago about Senator Jack Reed. I have profound respect for him. I admire him as a Senate friend and colleague, as the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, as himself, somebody who has given enormously to his country with his service through the military and otherwise.

I do want to respond to a couple of points that he made because I don't think they lead where Senator Reed intended them to lead. He repeatedly described this as a civilian policy decision. Yes, this does embody a civilian policy decision, and it is a policy decision that is fundamentally legislative in nature.

Now, if he wanted this made, he could have easily come to Congress. The Congress, including the U.S. Senate, has long been deferential to the Department of Defense when they come to us and say: We need this or that. This will help us perform our mission to keep our Nation safe and protected from threats to our national security. We are a pretty generous bunch, especially when it comes to the DOD.

So why didn't they do that?

Well, I think they didn't do that--I know they didn't do that--for one simple reason: They knew that the answer would be no.

So, yes, the civilian policy decision--the last I checked, the organ, the branch, of the Federal Government that makes civilian policy decisions that affect the country--that bind the country with law--is this branch. We are the ones who get to set that. Now, sure. They are authorized to make a number of their own internal operating decisions; but whereas here, a policy is so blatantly at odds with the fundamental spirit of the Federal statute enacted into law, they have gone around us. They have carefully written it so as to gerrymander this policy around 10 USC 1093. They wanted nothing to do with us. What Senator Tuberville is doing here is standing up for our prerogative as lawmakers.

Article I, section 1, clause 1 says:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a

Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a

Senate and a House of Representatives.

They want to go around that. I get that. But when they want to go around that and start doing our job, our prerogative is to tell them: It is going to take you a little longer to get some people confirmed.

While, yes, it would be very inconvenient if they had to go through the additional hoops--it is not impossible; they could do it; they could start; they could get a number of people confirmed--they are asking Senator Tuberville to make it easy for them. They want to have their cake and eat it too. So if they want his cooperation, they need to respect the legislative prerogatives of the Senate for which he is standing today. I admire him for doing that and stand with him in this.

As far as not injecting politics--political decision making--into the Department of Defense itself, he has got that exactly backward. He is making a political decision overriding our prerogative to do that and then blaming us for the issue.

Finally, with regard to Senator Reed's suggestion that we could deal with this in the National Defense Authorization Act that is coming before the Senate in the coming months, I get the point. If he is serious about that, I would like to suggest something to Senator Tuberville, and we can talk about this offline, perhaps after we vote. I suspect that if the Department of Defense wanted to really stand behind that, they could offer to suspend this regulation that they have issued--this policy memorandum they issued on February 16--until such time as we can debate it, discuss it, and work on it in the NDAA.

Look, let this be a message to Secretary Austin: If you want to make the laws, run for Congress; but you can't legislate from the E-Ring at the Pentagon. You cannot do that. Until then, stand down and leave the lawmaking to lawmakers.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have 30 seconds. I would love to respond to that point.

To the Senator from Hawaii, I would be happy--I would be thrilled--to accept that request, and I will accept it right now. I can't speak for Senator Tuberville, but I can speak for myself. I will absolutely accept that right now. Let's get them all done. Get the Pentagon to lift this policy--to suspend it--until we can get it ironed out in the NDAA. I will agree to that right now. If this is as bad, as dire, as apocalyptic, dogs and cats living together in the streets, Book of Revelation stuff, as you describe it, then we should do that. But lift the policy. You can't legislate from the E-ring of the Pentagon. We will stand up for our rights. And we must.

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

Mr. President, we are abdicating our constitutional duty. Sometimes we do this when we delegate law-making power to the executive branch. Sometimes we do this when we shirk in our responsibility to declare war.

Today, I want to focus on the latter. By passing my amendment, we have the opportunity to ensure that all Americans have a voice in matters of war and peace.

For decades, Presidents of both parties have used authorizations for use of military force to conduct military operations without meaningful oversight or accountability to Congress.

The Founders jealously guarded war powers and the power to authorize military force. They understood what it meant to be subjected to an executive with unfettered military authority. And, indeed, this is one of the essential distinguishing characteristics between our system of government and that of England.

Prior to the American Revolution, our Founders became very familiar with the British system, under which one person, the Monarch, could take the entire country to war. It was up to Parliament, at that point, to fund it and up to the people to fight it. But one person could take the country to war.

The Founders understood this, and they understood that unchecked and unaccountable wielding of military force is, in fact, the stuff of Monarchs, of dictators and tyrants, which is exactly why the Founders entrusted this authority only to the people's representatives, in the branch of the Federal Government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals.

Throughout history, when Kings waged war, it was the people who fought and died. One of the many things that makes our system of government unique is this principle our Founders enshrined into our Constitution, which gave every American a voice when they were faced with the prospect of sending their sons and daughters to war. Unfortunately, we have strayed from our founding principles.

My amendment, which can pass today, is a recognition that we, as elected representatives, have a duty and an obligation to reclaim the authority to declare war that rightfully belongs to the American people. My amendment does precisely that. It implements a 2-year sunset for all future authorizations for use of military force, absent renewal by Congress.

In no way would my amendment hinder military planning or weaken our national security posture. To the contrary, it would induce a proactive approach rooted in the present day and time. It would reaffirm our resolve and strengthen our military planning. It would show that we, as representatives of the American people, are committed to conducting military operations with oversight and accountability.

It accomplishes this by requiring a joint resolution of extension to renew future AUMFs each Congress. Under this process, Congress may choose to let an AUMF expire or renew it under a joint resolution of extension with expedited procedures. This is a fast-track process, requiring only a simple majority in the Senate, designed to make AUMF renewals as easy and seamless as possible, so as not to hinder military planning.

My amendment gives Congress the ability to review and reevaluate our involvement in the wars and adjust them, if necessary, to better meet the specific objectives of the conflict or engagement. This flexibility and agility is nearly impossible under the current system, which has opened the door for overly broad applications and interpretations of existing AUMFs, sometimes past decades before the moment of a particular conflict or engagement, which in turn leads to endless wars. It would be a way for Congress to rein in this abuse without hindering our ability to adequately respond to present-day national security threats.

Now, some have argued that we don't enter into wars to withdraw; when we must fight, we must win. But this argument has it exactly backward. What could be stronger than a resolution reaffirming our commitment to a given conflict?

And given that every Member of the House of Representatives is up for reelection every 2 years and one-third of the Members of this body in the Senate are up for election every 2 years, we resolve some of the uncertainty that our partners and our adversaries might see, might fear, might wonder about if, in fact, we are not regularly renewing each AUMF in each Congress.

This is about accountability to the public. It is about the republican form of government as a whole. It is about restoring Congress's article I authority to declare war and authorize the use of military force.

Let us do what we were elected to do: ensure that all Americans have a voice in matters of great importance, especially when it comes to matters of war and peace, and that no President has

the power historically reserved for Monarchs, despots, and tyrants.

I implore my colleagues to pass this amendment and thus restore the balance of powers mandated by the U.S. Constitution.

Amendment No. 22

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 22 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, the song ``Free Bird'' by Lynyrd Skynyrd became an anthem for those consumed by wanderlust. The music speaks to freedom, the right to explore and experience the world, and a simple truth that we are all connected.

However, on October 25, 2021, the right to explore and experience the

world was put on hold for many when the White House issued a proclamation suspending and limiting air travel by unvaccinated foreign travelers.

This mandate levies a particularly heavy cost on State and local economies and American relationships. Continuing this mandate at a time when President Biden himself declared that the pandemic is over is unjustified, and it ignores the new risk calculus that is affording Americans a renewed sense of normalcy. You see, Americans are ready to move on. In fact, in many instances, they are moving on. Yet many are kept from doing so because of this policy and others like it.

Right now, foreign travelers, including family members, friends, business relationships, and even international sports stars, are being kept off U.S. soil due to this draconian vaccine mandate.

Mr. President, there are too many places we have got to see, but if we stay here with this vaccine mandate, things just couldn't be the same.

So in the spirit of freedom, in the spirit of self-determination and sanity, I am here today to try to pass this--to try to seek to pass by unanimous consent the FREEBIRD Act, which will restore the right to explore and experience the world by allowing nonimmigrant, noncitizen travelers to be vaccinated only if they choose to do so, because this policy has separated loved ones for too long.

It is time to end the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for foreign visitors, prohibit using Federal funds to carry out this requirement, and prevent the CDC from ordering future COVID-19 vaccine mandates for foreign travelers. This is just costing too much.

In 2021 alone, Utah visitors spent nearly $11 billion visiting our great State, generating over 130,000 jobs and almost $2 billion in State and local tax revenue alone. A significant portion of that involves foreign travel. But international visitation rates are still lagging. By lifting this vaccine mandate, Utah and the United States stand to benefit from increased international travel.

Our travel and tourism industry in the State of Utah dipped substantially after the pandemic hit us and hit us hard. Fortunately, it has recovered very nicely, but it has never recovered in the international travel sector to where it should be now, due in significant part to this particular mandate. It is not right. And it is not just costing us tourism; it is costing us meaningful connections that enrich and promote our shared humanity.

Right now, 22-time Grand Slam champion and top tennis competitor Novak Djokovic is missing the ongoing Miami Open due to the foreign traveler vaccine mandate still in effect, regrettably, in the United States. He recently missed the Masters tournament in Indian Wells, CA, for the same reason.

The U.S. Tennis Association, which does not impose COVID-19 restrictions of its own, expressed its hope that the policy will end.

This is an excellent example of how the United States and Americans in general miss out on relationships, business, and recreational opportunities. The United States is missing the action while Djokovic continues to play in countries that have ended their vaccine mandates, including in Monaco, Bosnia, and France. It is affecting his standing in world tennis competition. Just as importantly, it is affecting America's standing with the rest of the world.

Perhaps some think that the joke is on Djokovic. The joke is not on Djokovic; the joke is on us, the United States of America, if we leave this senseless, meaningless policy in place that does no good. It accomplishes nothing, but it inflicts great harm at the same time.

Right now, we have the opportunity--a great opportunity, a prime opportunity--to reverse course. Today, we can join the rest of the world, restore our personal and business relationships, boost our tourism, and reengage in the competitive spirit that brings nations together.

It is time to end this mandate. It is time to be free as a bird. So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 14, H.R. 185; further, that the Lee substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to, that the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I appreciate the thoughtful words from my friend and colleague, the Senator from Vermont. I have enjoyed working with him on the Judiciary Committee, and I always appreciate his insights and the thoughtful, respectful manner in which he communicates his message. I do think it is significant to point out a couple things in response to those arguments.

I think it is unfortunate. We had an opportunity to end this today, and by ending it, we could open up travel and tourism in a way that we haven't been. We could join the ranks of civilized nations of the world that have seen what a barbaric piece of nonsense this sort of restriction is, and we can do it right now.

Now, my friend and colleague from Vermont points out that it is important to remember that the public health emergency associated with the COVID-19 pandemic is set to come to an end. I assume he is referring to the May 11 deadline on which we are expecting for it to come to an end. I welcome that, and I look forward to that coming to an end. It is right for it to come to an end. One must ask, however, why must we wait until then to bring it to an end? President Biden has now long acknowledged that the emergent nature of the pandemic is itself over, is itself passed.

I understand and respect concerns about not wanting to do things too abruptly that might affect, for example, telehealth. That is very important. That is why it is very important for me to point out here that there is absolutely nothing in this bill that would

affect in any way the practice of telehealth--not directly, not indirectly, nothing, nada. There is zero language in this amendment that would in any way affect telehealth. Is there anything in here that would affect the other programs--any of them--that he mentioned? Not one thing. This is laser-focused on a single point-of-entry restriction on foreign visitors to the United States. That is it. Nothing else is affected by it.

So if what we are saying is that we can't end any of this before we end all of the public health emergency, that makes no sense. It also makes no sense because, as far as we can tell, there is absolutely nothing about the international traveler restriction attached to this particular mandate that is tied to the public health emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic--nothing. They are not tied together. So there is no reason at all for us to not pass this today, right now, at this moment.

Look, this has passed the House of Representatives. We could make this law. We could make this the law of the land by the end of the day today. The American people would be much better off for it.

Who will be better off as a result of keeping it? It is a legitimate question to ask. Who benefits from this? I struggle to imagine who really benefits from it. Now, maybe one or two Federal bureaucrats save face over it because they put it in place. Perhaps they have some pride of authorship with it; they don't want it to end. Well, I hate to break it to them: They are not lawmakers. They don't have the job of making law. We do.

So if this stays on the book, again, the joke is on us. The joke is not on Djokovic; it is on us.

So I really am trying to understand why we would want to wait until May 11 or any other date on which the Federal pandemic emergency would come to an end. It makes no sense.

To the degree that this involves an argument that I have heard time and time again when addressing COVID issues from several of our colleagues that we have to defer to the experts, defer to the science used by the experts in our Federal executive branch Agencies, I would ask this: Do you mean the same experts who told us that this virus came from bats? I am told that anyone who doubted the idea that it came from bats, that they were horrible people aimed at genocide or something.

Do you mean the same experts who told the American people they couldn't let their little kids go to school?

Do you mean the same experts who told America they had to mask their 2-year-olds, apparently unaware of the fact that 2-year-olds don't respond fairly well to that? It makes me wonder whether any of those people have ever raised or even been around an actual 2-year-old.

Do you mean the same experts who told us that masks would make all the difference and that if you were masked, you would live, and if you were unmasked, you would die?

Do you mean the same experts who told us that if we got the vaccine, we would not get or be able to spread COVID-19? I can speak from personal experience. Having had COVID, then got vaccinated, then got it again, it didn't have that effect. And I know there are millions and millions of people like me who are in the same boat.

Do you mean the same experts who continue to this day to insist that everyone else follow the restrictions imposed by those experts who were not elected by the American people and are not accountable to anyone who is elected by the American people?

We have reached an epidemic in this country, an epidemic in which we have government being run by experts. Experts are great. I am glad we have access to them. They are not lawmakers. My copy of the Constitution, in the very first operative provision--the first article, the first section, the first clause of the Constitution says: ``All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives,'' making clear that if you want to make a Federal law, you must go through Congress, not through an expert in some executive branch Agency.

Article 1, section 7 makes clear how that happens. You can make a Federal law only if you pass something through the House and the same language through the Senate and then present it to the President for signature, veto or acquiescence. If you don't follow that formula, you don't have a Federal law.

Tragically, since the mid-1930s, we have been on a bad trajectory, a bad course, a bad idea conceived in hell by the Devil himself in which we started delegating our lawmaking power. We hereby declare that we shall have good law in area X, and we hereby commit and delegate to commission Y the power to make and interpret and enforce and adjudicate laws, rules carrying the force of generally applicable Federal law. Make it so.

The power to make laws, to be a lawmaker, is distinct from the power to make lawmakers. We are given by the Constitution and the people who elected us the power to do the former, not the latter. We make laws, not lawmakers.

The only way these things were put in force to begin with was because we have excessively delegated our lawmaking power. Shame on us for doing that. It has remained in effect because the Federal court system, in my view, while occasionally stepping in, has been a little too lax, a little too reluctant to push back when we delegate our lawmaking power, which is itself a nondelegable duty. Shame on them for doing that, but shame on us again for the fact that when we act, we delegate to somebody. Somebody puts in place a ridiculous, indefensible set of policies--policies that would never pass this body, never become law here or in the House of Representatives. Why? Because they are stupid. They are silly. They are ridiculous. They are counterproductive. A policy that we would never enact, and if we were stupid enough to enact it, we would promptly repeal it.

When it gets put in place by an unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat using a stretched, distorted version of statutory text delegating them some other power, we have to sit here and take it. The American people, whom we serve, who hired us to make laws, have to sit there and take it. And we pretend: Sorry, there is nothing we can do. We have to wait until the experts end this problem that they themselves created.

This has to stop. I am not going away. This issue isn't going away. I don't want to wait until May 11. I don't want to wait until those bureaucrats pull their heads out of wherever their heads happen to be at the moment.

This is not going away, and I will be back.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, there is a sales tactic known as throwing spaghetti at the wall, where the salesperson suggests an outrageously high price to see if it sticks. More often than not, the price is dead on arrival. It is intended to be; that is part of the trick.

See, the element of shock allows the salesperson to create an illusion of a spectacular discount by slashing the initially artificially high price. The customer then leaves feeling like they stumbled onto an incredible deal, too good to pass up, even though they left with a product they either didn't want or couldn't afford or, at a minimum, a product for which they paid too high a price.

When I read President Biden's budget request, it felt more like I was trapped at a kiosk in the middle of the mall or being sold a used car by a predatory, unscrupulous salesman, not reading a serious budget proposal from the President of the United States. So I would suggest the President try again because the spaghetti didn't stick. We are not buying what the President is selling, and his budget is dead on arrival.

When the President reached the end of his sales pitch, he told us the price: a whopping $6.9 trillion. It would create a $1.8 trillion deficit in the first year alone. Then by 2027, we would break the record for the most debt held by the public as a percentage of U.S. GDP since World War II.

Utahns are already pinching pennies as a result of this approach to budget.

In August, I stood where I stand now, as this body was on the cusp of passing the $1.7 trillion omnibus package, and read letters I received from Utah constituents. They explained how difficult life has become under Biden's recordbreaking inflation. They described the daily choices they were forced to make because of how expensive life had become under this administration.

Jennie from Salt Lake City wrote:

My annual income is about $30,000 a year. I'm panicking.

The price of groceries and other goods has increased so much,

I'm struggling financially. I understand my utility bills

could double or even triple. I don't know how I can afford to

live.

Since Democrats started their reckless spending 2 years ago, prices have risen more than 15 percent. Groceries are up nearly 20 percent.

Kevin from Murray, UT, wrote:

This morning, I filled up my work . . . truck. It cost

$149. I'm a small business [owner], and the price of fuel is

a major challenge for our company of 5 vehicles traveling to

our various projects.

President Biden's energy policies caused gas prices to reach $5 and energy costs to skyrocket. Gas is up 45 percent, and Biden's budget will crush American energy with $31 billion in new taxes.

I said during that speech that if the definition of ``insanity'' is doing the same thing and expecting different results, then spending more money and increasing taxes to reduce inflation certainly meets that definition.

This approach is insane, and the President is doubling and then tripling down. Rather than address the spending driving inflation, the Biden administration continues to blame inflation on everything from the pandemic to Putin. We know why. The President won't address inflation because he wants to spend even more. He wants to create the biggest government we have ever had and make it more and more expensive.

We have to get this monkey off our back, but that can't be done in darkness. That has to be done while acknowledging the problem that we have and addressing it head-on, not obscuring it.

I want to be clear that the Constitution tasks Congress with determining annual spending and revenue levels, not the President's annual budget proposal, and clearly this is for good reason. We have a constitutional duty here to protect our constituents from the snake oil salesman hell-bent on taking the American people for all they are worth, who will leave the American people with junk they don't need and a payment they can't afford.

Mr. President, today we celebrate the 100th birthday of a true hero of the U.S. Senate, former Senator James Buckley.

Born in 1923, James L. Buckley was raised in rural Connecticut. He went to college at Yale and graduated from Yale with a degree in English.

After enlisting in the Navy, he served in World War II, where he fought in battles of Leyte, Lingayen Gulf, and Okinawa. Senator Buckley was discharged in 1946 with the rank of lieutenant and received his law degree from Yale in 1949.

After working for a number of years in the private sector, James was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1970 as the candidate of New York's Conservative Party, becoming the only candidate in the history of that State to win a major party election, running against both a Republican and a Democrat. In fact, Senator Buckley was the first and only third- party candidate to be elected to the U.S. Senate in the 20th century.

During his tenure, he championed many conservative causes, but in particular, he was a pioneer in the early pro-life movement following the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Senator Buckley proposed and fought for a human life amendment, which would have recognized embryos as persons for purposes of that term's use in the 14th Amendment. Along with the late Senator Jesse Helms, Buckley was also a key player in passing the Hyde amendment, named after the late Henry Hyde, which prevents taxpayer dollars from funding elective abortions.

Challenging the orthodoxy of his day, Republican Senator Buckley, was also one of the Senate's first true environmental conservationists. ``Nixon established the EPA in 1970,'' he said, but he added, ``I actually proposed it during my '68 campaign.'' He is responsible for major revisions to the Clean Air Act, which passed in 1977.

James Buckley would later serve as an Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance in the Reagan administration in 1981, and then from 1982 to 1985, he served as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which was a contributing force in defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Buckley used radio to deliver raw, fact-based news and messages to millions stuck behind the Iron Curtain.

Then in 1985, President Reagan nominated Buckley to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Senate confirmed him. Once confirmed to this position, Buckley became the only American to have served in a major position in all three branches of the Federal Government--as a U.S. Senator, as Under Secretary of State, and then as a judge sitting on the DC Circuit. He retired in 2000.

My own interactions with James Buckley have helped me understand why he remains a hero to this day, not just in the Senate but really throughout the United States. I invited him to address the Senate Republican conference at our steering lunch just a few years ago, in which he provided observations that were timely, relevant, compelling, and delivered with incredible enthusiasm.

On each occasion when I have met Senator Buckley, he has always struck me as someone who is friendly, who is kind, who is thoughtful, considerate, and deeply loves his country and is willing to work hard to make it a better place.

Today, Mr. Buckley is the oldest living former U.S. Senator, and to this day, he remains an advocate for constitutional government, for federalism, separation of powers, and for conservatism at large.

In his 2015 book, ``Saving Congress from Itself: Emancipating the States & Empowering Their People,'' Mr. Buckley wrote:

Congress's current dysfunction is rooted in its assumption

over the years of more responsibilities than it can handle.

Its members now live a treadmill existence that no longer

allows them time to study, learn, and think things through.

Instead, they substitute political reflex for thought.

The Senate would serve America well by heeding Mr. Buckley's words.

James Buckley's commitment to service, whether on the battlefield, in these Halls of Congress, or in the courtroom, is a reminder of the power, joy, and honor of being an American.

On this his 100th birthday, the Senate recognizes and pays tribute to a former colleague, Senator James L. Buckley, and his important legacy.

Madam President, Washington, DC, is our Nation's Capital. There is perhaps no city in America more capable of demonstrating the idea of the United States as a melting pot than is the District of Columbia. Here, you find people from every walk of life. It is the seat of our national government, where people from across the country come to work, seek an education, engage with history, witness what goes on here, and take look at our Nation's monuments and historical venues that can be found here.

Washington, DC, in short, belongs to all Americans. Tragically, a visible increase in crime has plagued DC. It is backed by numbers, felt by residents, and seen by millions of visitors.

Since March of last year, crime in DC is up 25 percent. Homicides are up 30 percent, and motor vehicle theft is up 110 percent--110 percent.

Despite being in the midst of a crime wave, the DC City Council passed a bill that reduced criminal penalties for violent crimes, including homicide, robbery, and carjacking.

Now, what message does that send?

It is such poor logic that Mayor Bowser opposed the bill, admitting that ``this bill doesn't make us safer.'' She is absolutely right; it doesn't make us safer. Yet the DC City Council chose to override her veto and force this through to make it the law of the land, even though it doesn't make us safer. It makes things much, much worse, and it makes things worse in many of the same ways that DC residents are already suffering.

When the DC City Council is to the left of Mayor Bowser, we have a serious problem. When carjackings are up 110 percent, this shouldn't be a partisan issue. Even President Biden telegraphed in a recent tweet:

I don't support some of the changes D.C. Council put

forward over the Mayor's objections--such as lowering

penalties for carjackings.

If the Senate votes to overturn what DC Council did--I'll

sign it.

President Biden is right. Now is not the time to get soft on crime.

This is, by the way, a good time to demonstrate that this is not or should not be a partisan issue. How fitting is it that this bill, once it is passed by the Senate, is expected to be the first piece of legislation signed into law by President Biden during this Congress. It is also fitting that the House sponsor of this bill is none other than second-term Congressman Andrew Clyde, a Republican and a member of the House Freedom Caucus. So if this bill is able to unite the House Freedom Caucus and President Biden, it is doing something right.

Now, it is not often that I find myself in the company of President Biden and Mayor Bowser. We have already seen this play out with the campaign to ``defund the police.'' Cities with this disposition quickly discovered that lawlessness begets anarchy. Since the campaign began, crime has skyrocketed, and police resignations have soared. What started as a series of calls for justice culminated at a 25-year high in the national crime rate. Let us not make the same mistake twice--not here, not now. We can't afford to make such a mistake.

Voting for this resolution presents an opportunity for my Democratic colleagues to make a distinction. Will you join us in a bipartisan recognition that we cannot endanger the lives of DC residents by allowing this soft-on-crime bill to go into effect, or will you stand with the DC City Council and put politics above public safety?

I emphatically support Senator Hagerty's resolution of disapproval because the residents and visitors of this city have a reasonable expectation of safety. I encourage my friends across the aisle to support this commonsense resolution and send a message that the Democratic Party is not beholden to its fringes, particularly where, as here, its fringes would lead to increased crime rate and additional unnecessary suffering.

Mr. President, on February 2, I called on Japanese Prime Minister Kishida to transfer U.S. Navy Lt. Ridge Alkonis back to U.S. custody no later than midnight on February 28. I was explicit that a very public discussion about the U.S.-Japan relationship--and, in particular, the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement--would ensue if Lieutenant Alkonis were not back in U.S. custody by that date.

It is now March 1, 2023, and it is about 6:20 p.m. And Ridge Alkonis is not only not back in U.S. custody, he is not only not on U.S. soil, he is still languishing in a Japanese prison.

So let's have a frank discussion about our Status of Forces Agreement with Japan because we have waited long enough. Ridge Alkonis has waited long enough. And his wife Brittney Alkonis has waited long enough. Their children have waited long enough, all three of them. We are done waiting.

The Japanese Government has unjustly incarcerated Lieutenant Alkonis for too long. I traveled to Tokyo in August to meet with Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi, where he made an unequivocal commitment to expedite the Council of Europe prisoner transfer once the U.S. paperwork was completed. And it was understood at the time that that would be in a matter of days or weeks, not months or years.

Lieutenant Alkonis felt comfortable signing off on the transfer paperwork because of Foreign Minister Hayashi's commitment. With this understanding, the U.S. Department of Justice completed the necessary paperwork in less than 2 weeks. Japan has been sitting on that request ever since then, for months and months and months.

However, the Japanese Government tried to renege on its promise by having a junior member of the Japanese Embassy staff in Washington reach out to a member of my staff to deny that Foreign Minister Hayashi had ever made such a commitment. Allow me, not a member of my staff, to correct the record. Foreign Minister Hayashi, you did make that commitment to me. I have not forgotten it, and I know you haven't either.

This isn't too much to ask of any country, let alone one on which we spend billions of dollars--billions of dollars--a year to defend. A Council of Europe transfer is not an extraordinary request. On the contrary, these kinds of requests are routine. Situations like this one are the very reason why we have a prisoner of transfer process in the first place. The stated purpose for the Council of Europe Treaty is to facilitate the rehabilitation of the transferred offenders and to relieve some of the administration and diplomatic issues that arise with the incarceration of foreign nationals.

Now, look, to be very clear, we are not even asking for Ridge to be released from custody, for him to just be told that his sentence is no longer intact. We are simply asking that he be transferred to U.S. custody to serve out the remainder of his sentence.

These transfers happen all the time. It makes little sense that we would allow those tasked with defending the Constitution and its enshrined principles to be treated so poorly by an allied nation, to be subjected to laws so draconian that they are unrecognizable to the principles of justice our servicemembers swear to defend.

When we swear to defend the Constitution of the United States, it represents an enduring commitment to individual liberty--a spirit that says no matter who we are or where we came from or what religion, if any, we practice, we enjoy liberty that is self-evident because it is God-given.

Our Armed Forces stand ready to protect not only the safety and sovereignty of the United States but the safety and sovereignty of our friends, like Japan, which enjoyed over $20 billion in U.S. military aid over the last 5 years. And yet, they can't keep their promise to facilitate a routine prisoner transfer? I cannot and will not accept that--not now, not ever.

I don't think the American people can accept that either. In fact, I know they can't, nor should they. I don't think they would be OK knowing that we spend billions of dollars to defend a country when our Status of Forces Agreement with that country is so unfavorable to our troops. I don't think they would be OK sending 55,000 of their sons and daughters to support an allied country where they won't have the most basic legal right.

I am certainly not. Japan isn't either.

To illustrate, under the terms of the Japan-Djibouti Status of Forces Agreement--Djibouti, by the way, is the only country in which Japan has a foreign base--Japanese servicemembers are immune from criminal prosecution. They are completely immune. Why should Japan be allowed to treat U.S. forces any less favorably than Japanese forces are treated by Djibouti?

Look, I want to be very clear here. Japan has a good thing going. It doesn't get much better than the deal they have got going. I don't know why they would want to jeopardize that.

But patience in Washington has grown thin. And the Japanese Government has vastly underestimated the intensity of bipartisan support for Lieutenant Alkonis in Congress at every level of government, including a commitment from President Biden--a recent commitment from President Biden himself--to Brittney Alkonis, saying: ``I promise you, we're not giving up, OK?''

President Biden is right. He said that with good reason. And he said that not only as President of the United States but also as a red- blooded American who cares about this country--himself a father of a decorated, respected U.S. military officer. We are not giving up. This isn't going away. We are not just going to keep quiet. And the longer Ridge remains in Japanese custody, the louder we will get.

If the Japanese Government can't respect our servicemembers, and we can't trust them to uphold their commitments, then we are long overdue for a renegotiation of the Status of Forces Agreement between our two nations. We must do so to protect our servicemembers, especially if they are stationed in a country with a justice system as draconian as Japan's.

In Japanese criminal justice, interrogation is the primary means police and prosecutors use to obtain confessions. These are no ordinary interrogations--not by our standards, not by a long shot. In a typical criminal case, the average Japanese interrogation lasts more than 20 hours. In bribery interrogations, they average 130 hours.

The night that Lieutenant Alkonis was involved in that tragic accident, rather than being taken to a hospital, he was placed in solitary confinement for 26 days. During that time, he was denied access to legal counsel, denied access to an adequate translator, denied proper medical care--despite the fact he had just been in a serious accident--and was subjected to intense interrogation tactics at all hours of the night. He was subjected to bright lights, causing sleep deprivation, and coerced into signing complex legal documents written in Japanese, with no interpreter available, just to have a chance at getting bail.

It was later discovered that Japanese authorities manipulated Lieutenant Alkonis's forced statement. It is not uncommon in Japan where 26 percent of prosecutors there have admitted in an anonymous survey to falsifying suspects' statements. He was told not to contest the falsified documents as the Japanese court would perceive this as a lack of remorse. Given the unfair treatment of one of our best and brightest, we as a Congress should take every precaution to ensure that our servicemembers are never ever treated this way again.

I am not exaggerating. The U.N. Human Rights Council and other legal

and human rights organizations have long criticized Japan's justice system for unnecessarily long pre-indictment detention periods, denial of lawyers during interrogations, and questionable interrogation tactics, to put it mildly. Often, these practices lead to false confessions and have resulted in Japan's legal system being known as ``hostage justice''--appropriately so.

Don't believe me? The criminal conviction rate in Japan is 99 percent.

We have status of forces agreements to establish frameworks under which U.S. military personnel operate in foreign countries and how domestic laws of foreign jurisdictions apply to U.S. military personnel in those countries. At a minimum, any agreement between the United States and a foreign country should provide adequate legal protections for American servicemembers. This means access to legal counsel, and it means access to a competent interpreter, and it means access to medical treatment throughout the legal process. These are basic rights afforded in modern and fair justice systems, but not in Japan.

It is not too much to ask for a renegotiation of our SOFA with Japan. Many similar concerns once existed in the Republic of Korea. However, we successfully implemented much needed improvements to the U.S.-Korea SOFA to include a U.S. Government representative to be present during any interview or interrogation; a lawyer to be present at any time at the request if a servicemember so requires it, or a dependent, including during the interviews and interrogations, as well as, of course, a competent interpreter. We need these same changes to be made in the U.S.-Japan SOFA.

Look, I am sure--in fact, I am certain--there are many who wish I weren't giving this speech. I have been told that it just isn't worth risking the relationship we have with the strategic partner over a single American. They are wrong. The Latin term ``Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno'' means ``one for all, all for one.'' The concept is depicted multiple times in the Bible. It can be found in the works of Shakespeare and was made popular by Alexander Dumas in his 1844 novel ``The Three Musketeers.''

Our military personnel and their families sacrifice their blood, sweat, and treasure so that all of us might enjoy the blessings of liberty that generations of Americans fought and died to protect. They truly embody ``all for one and one for all.'' But what does it say about us if we are collectively unwilling to stand up for the rights of the one? We cannot expect people to stand up for their country if their country does not stand up for them.

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

Mr. President, Winston Churchill said:

We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.

The men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces sign up for no small task. They join to serve their country; not for money, not for fame, not because it is glamorous in any way. They sign up because they understand that Winston Churchill was right--that the blessings of a free society are possible only if there are those willing to put the safety and well-being of their country ahead of their own safety and ahead of their own lives when necessary.

That solemn, sacred responsibility, the responsibility that every member of our Armed Forces has committed so nobly to upholding, deserves our utmost respect.

Regrettably, on August 9 of 2021, the Secretary of Defense issued a message to the force indicating his intent to require COVID-19 vaccination for all servicemembers. This mandate went into effect on August 24, 2021.

There were a lot of promises made at the time--promises suggesting that individual needs would be taken into account; individual needs including good-faith, sincerely held religious beliefs that might make it impossible for a servicemember to be vaccinated without violating his or her sincerely held convictions.

Unfortunately, it hasn't really panned out that way, as I will explain in a moment.

But in a nutshell, since the implementation of this vaccine mandate over almost the last year and a half, the United States military has dismissed 8,200 servicemembers for declining to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

That is over 8,000--more than 8,200--individuals, and it is not just the individuals themselves. Many, if not most, of these individuals themselves are mothers or fathers. They have got mouths to feed, families to care for--all of whom are placed in a really unfair position as a result of this mandate. Serving our country shouldn't require you to surrender your fundamental right to make medical decisions that are right for you, no matter the reason, and yet that is precisely what the Department of Defense continues to do.

My office has received hundreds of accounts from brave members of our Armed Forces detailing the hardships and the retaliation they have experienced for declining to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. One first sergeant in the Air Force writes:

I was involuntarily separated and my enlistment was

curtailed. I was a First Sergeant with the U.S. Air Force

Reserves at the time the COVID mandate was put into place. I

did everything I could to be allowed to continue to serve my

country. I filed my Religious AR, and when it got denied, I

also filed an appeal, and that got denied.

She goes on:

All I wanted to do was to continue to take care of the

members of my squadron and continue to serve this great

country.

Likewise, a Marine officer writes:

My family was forced to move on very short notice back to

the U.S. from Okinawa, Japan due to the loss of a job and the

threat of travel restriction if we remained unvaccinated. . .

. Many are far worse off than me.

Another lieutenant colonel with the Marine Corps Reserve was placed on ``inactive status'' with ``no warning or notice that this would happen'' and in the process lost TRICARE health insurance that his family relies on to

provide expensive medical supplies for his special needs daughter, even though his appeal for a religious exemption was and is--remains still today--pending.

It seems in this and other circumstances, the Department of Defense has issued something of a pocket veto, not acting on these requests for an exemption but instead refusing to act and therefore leaving the servicemember with few options.

This person writes:

My entire family was--was without notice or warning--

dropped from TriCare left scrambling to find health

insurance.

These brave men and women represent just a tiny fraction of the servicemembers who have reached out to my office. Many are in desperation. They are pleading for someone to recognize the injustice they are experiencing. They deserve better, and we owe them more than this.

So, as we consider this year's National Defense Authorization Act, the blueprint for the defense budget that directs policy for our military, we should adopt this simple amendment that would: No. 1, immediately repeal the COVID vaccine mandate; No. 2, prohibit DOD from replacing the current COVID-19 vaccine mandate with a similar mandate absent express congressional approval; No. 3, provide remedies for any servicemember negatively impacted by the mandate, including the right to reinstatement, if desired, and to petition for a change in status if they received a negative discharge based on whether or not they were vaccinated, correcting for any loss of rank, pay or retirement benefits; and, No. 4, require the DOD to make every effort to retain unvaccinated servicemembers.

We, of course, can't take back the hardship that the military vaccine mandate has inflicted on countless servicemembers. We can't do that. That is in the past. But there are some things we can do. By adopting this amendment, we can recognize an injustice and take steps to restore the affected brave men and women who deserve our best.

We owe them that, and we owe them so much more. So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and stand with those who themselves ``stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.''

It is the right thing to do.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to

the votes in relation to H.R. 1437: Senator Lee for 5 minutes and Senator Scott for 1 minute.

Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 1437, with amendment numbered 6541, as modified, with the changes at the desk.

Mr. President, we find ourselves back in the same place. It is like deja vu all over again. We have been through this process year after year. I have been here 12 years, and it seems more often than not, we are in a very similar circumstance.

We are just a few days away from Christmas, and we are being asked to

move the deadline for the expiration of government funding, potentially leading to a shutdown even closer to Christmas. Today, we are being asked to move it to the day before Christmas Eve.

Obviously, we need to keep the government funded. We don't want a shutdown. No one wants a shutdown. A shutdown would be particularly bad at this time of year. It would be horrible for our constituents, people who rely on the government for a paycheck or for this or that program. It would all be bad, and we all feel the weight of that.

We also feel the weight, as we approach Christmas, of wanting to be able to make good on our promises to our families to spend the holidays with them rather than here in Washington.

As a result of that, every year, knowing this, there seem to be people who want to make sure that all spending decisions are wrapped into one spending bill. Very often, those are wrapped together in one omnibus spending package and then held off until a day or two-- sometimes just hours--before the government is set to shut down.

That is when the magic happens. But it is not good magic; it is really bad magic. That is when these twin threats of sacrificing Christmas on the one hand or running into a government shutdown on the other hand--they operate like paired scissor blades to cut through what would otherwise be an insurmountable task. And that task involves convincing Senators to vote for a bill 3,000-plus pages long--likely this year containing 7,500 or so earmarks--a bill that they have never seen; a bill that does not, as we speak right now, exist without ever having seen it.

We all know that this is wrong. We all know that this is a corrupt way to run a government. This is a corrupt process that brings about all kinds of special interest giveaways. And in the absence of the light of day, they pass with the threat--the extorted threat--of a government shutdown or canceling Christmas--Members end up voting for that which they know they have no business supporting.

That is why my amendment is simple. My amendment simply gives us the flexibility to make these decisions not under duress, to make these decisions with clarity of mind and not influenced by this dual threat of a shutdown and cancellation of Christmas.

Now, look, whether you are for this omnibus bill that has yet to come into existence, that has yet to make a public appearance to see the light of day--whether you are for it or against it, you should support my amendment, because if you support my amendment, you are just giving us more flexibility.

The American people deserve nothing less than to allow us to make decisions consciously, knowingly, under the light of day, with clarity of mind, and not under duress. That is what my amendment affords them, extending this out to March 10.

Mr. President, we will be voting in a moment on my amendment. Again, this amendment is something that everyone in this Chamber should be able to support, whether you like the omnibus or whether you hate the omnibus. The Senate should be in a position to be able to review the omnibus with a clear head without the pressure of an imminent threat at Christmastime of a shutdown. The American people deserve this, and so do we. This is the only way to make this right. I encourage all of you to vote for my amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jonathan McKernan, a detailee on the Banking Committee, be given floor privileges throughout the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. President, charter schools have seen explosive growth since they first came onto the scene in 1992 as a model for education. In 1993, there were just 23 charter schools in the United States, serving a little over 6,000 students. Today, there are over 7,000 charter schools and counting, serving more than 3 million American students. It is not difficult to understand their increasing popularity. They offer an affordable alternative to parents and students who want more options. More options increase competition, and more options improve the quality of the traditional public education system.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration's new rule threatens to stifle their progress by imposing stringent, onerous, burdensome new requirements on charter schools, specifically those that receive grants under the Federal Charter Schools Program, or CSP. This is a terrible idea.

The CSP was established to provide grants to eligible charter schools to help ensure that all children have access to quality education regardless of their ZIP Code. The administration's new rules would stifle this proven, emerging, and burgeoning model, one that serves millions of the most vulnerable students in our traditional public school system. It would require CSP grantees to hold hearings--to hold hearings--specifically to prove that the presence of the school in question does not or would not contribute to increased racial segregation. This would impose a deliberately costly and inherently unfairly accusatory burden on charter schools and would disincentivize new schools from opening. This, I fear, is precisely the point. That is a feature, not a bug, in this program.

Look, everyone can agree that we want our children to have access to quality education. The President's rule is antithetical to that very mission. The rule treats charter schools as if they have done something wrong, as if they are guilty somehow of racial segregation until they prove themselves innocent. The accusation of racial segregation is particularly egregious here because CSP schools are required to admit students through a lottery system if there are more interested students than there are available slots at the school. Clearly, this isn't an observation of reality but an injection of woke politics into an issue as fundamental as the education of America's schoolchildren.

Most charter schools are doing their best to provide quality education to all students, regardless of race or ethnicity. Punishing them for behavior that they don't engage in simply isn't fair. It is not right.

These regulations would also require the Secretary to examine whether a charter school is ``needed.'' Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I tend to think that parents--and certainly not the U.S. Secretary of Education-- should be the ones deciding the necessity of such schools.

You know, we have seen this in other areas, other sectors of our economy. There are special interests that tend to stifle competition by pushing for regulations requiring new market entrants to demonstrate that they meet a need, to demonstrate that their facility of one sort or another, a hospital or otherwise, is ``needed.''

I fear this requirement would do the same, and I fear this requirement has as its object the same thing as those other requirements in other industries: stifling competition, erecting barriers to entry, squelching competition. This is not OK. I don't think it is OK in any industry. It is certainly not OK where the victims are innocent schoolchildren who just need to learn, who need to be taught, need to go to school somewhere, and ought to be able to go to school with some options that their parents can have a role in choosing.

Proponents of these rules argue that the regulations are necessary because charter schools are more likely to close than traditional public schools. They rightly argue that such closures can be disruptive to students' education. In reply, I first note that CSP schools are less likely to experience closure than other charter schools, but I would also note here that school closures also show why charter schools are so valuable.

Unlike traditional public schools, where students in failing schools can go for 13 consecutive years without any other option, charter schools are subject to greater accountability. That is the power of choice.

Mr. President, we shouldn't subject new charter schools to onerous requirements. We should not set up rules purely to protect the interests of teachers unions--the very same teachers unions that also pushed to close schools, that resisted reopening those schools and repeatedly placed their interests above those of parents and students.

The President's rule would only lead to fewer educational opportunities for America's schoolchildren.

While accountability for any government-funded enterprise is undoubtedly important, these rules go far beyond mere accountability. In fact, they are not about accountability; they are about something else, something far less credible, far less defensible than accountability. This is about squelching competition and protecting teachers unions from competition, and that is wrong.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided rule, this misguided effort, and to protect parent choice, ensuring that all children have access to quality education regardless of their ZIP Code.

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

Mr. President, this Friday at midnight, the government will run out of funding. That leaves us with just a few options.

One, we could pass the massive, yet-to-be-drafted, Pelosi-Schumer omnibus spending package, leaving the outgoing Democratic House majority in charge of drafting the bill to fund the Federal Government for the balance of fiscal year 2023, despite the fact that voters sent a clear message this November disapproving of the fiscal direction of our Federal Government.

Two, we could, yet again, pass another short-term stopgap measure that just kicks the can down the road for one more week to allow more backroom negotiations to take place, in secret. To be clear, this accomplishes nothing. It is simply a way to whip up support for another inflated spending package.

So when I say it accomplishes nothing, that is not really true. It is very effective at doing some things.

It marshals very effectively the angst of hundreds of millions of Americans who don't want a government shutdown. A lot of these people depend on the Federal Government remaining open to process--whether it is the paychecks for soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, or others who have contract with the government or receive payments from the government of one sort or another or otherwise impacted by the Federal Government's inability to operate during a shutdown. They all have something to worry about. They all have reasons to fear a shutdown. And those anxieties end up being transferred onto their elected representatives in the House of Representatives and in the Senate who in turn fear a shutdown for the same reasons and feel the collective weight of those concerns bearing down on them.

But there is a dual threat that takes place here. You see, those who may be coming to the Senate floor in the next day or two to propose exactly this, option 2--that is, to just kick the can down the road for another week, for another 1-week spending measure--will be coming down here, predictably, foreseeably, in the name of avoiding a shutdown.

But make no mistake, when saying that they want to delay spending, they want to delay any shutdown by another week, they are not really saying we don't want the threat of a shutdown. They are saying we want to move the threat of a shutdown, the possibility of a shutdown, closer to Christmas.

Why Christmas? Well, that is when the anxiety of the American people and

their elected representatives in Congress are at their maximum. That is where we all feel it the most. We all feel the pressure to get something done the most. And that is also where Members of Congress, being human, understandably, want to be able to get home in time for Christmas, to spend the Christmas holidays with their families.

And it is this dual threat that very often, year after year, is used to persuade Members of Congress to vote for a spending bill that spends too much money and that does so through a mechanism that they have had no part in; that they have been excluded from; that they would never vote for in the absence of this dual threat of a shutdown at Christmastime.

No, this isn't right. When we do that to the American people, what you are really doing is cutting them out of the process. When you cut the people's elected representatives in Congress who have been elected by the American people to take care of these things for them so that they don't have to worry about it and then you tell them we are not going to give those you elect any opportunity to have meaningful input into a spending bill which we are going to present to them at Christmastime in order to force a nonexistent consensus behind something they know they shouldn't vote for, that is wrong. It has gone on over and over again, and it has to stop. It must stop now. So that is option 2--suboptimal, to say the least.

Option 3. We could do the right thing, and we could pass a continuing resolution that keeps the government funded, maintaining current spending levels until after we have sworn in the new Congress, including the Republican House majority, early next year.

It is only this latter option--only the third option--that makes any sense at all. And it is only this third option that is fair to voters. You see, for the last 2 years, we have seen unprecedented inflation driven by reckless government spending, and we have seen that moving forward in a way that has crushed American families. Our national debt has grown during those 2 years by about $4 trillion, reaching an astronomical $31 trillion--a figure that we just reached within the last few days.

In Utah, inflation costs the average household a thousand dollars a month every single month, relative to the day that Joe Biden took office. They are not, for the most part, people who just have an extra thousand dollars to burn, nor is the extra thousand dollars a month going toward luxury items. No, it is just groceries, housing, gasoline, healthcare--the basic things that the American people need in order to live.

Simply put, the American people can't afford the policies of the last few years. They certainly can't afford the kinds of spending bills that get passed when we use this dual threat of the shutdown threatened at Christmastime under an artificially imposed deadline.

Unsurprisingly, American voters cast their votes and in so doing signaled that they want the government to go in a new direction. After listening to an exhaustive list of excuses from the Biden administration, blaming inflation on everything from the pandemic to Putin, the American people saw through the smoke and mirrors. They voted for accountability and made it clear that they expect their elected representatives to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.

Unfortunately, if this body just goes right ahead and passes another omnibus spending bill, a bill that we know is coming, a bill that we know is going to be thousands of pages long, a bill that we know that we will receive, at the most, maybe a day or two before we are expected to vote on it, with no intervening committee debate or discussion or opportunity for amendment--this body, if it chooses to enact such legislation, will be ignoring those legitimate desires on the part of the voters.

We are witnessing a conspicuous recurring trend, whereby leaders use the threat of a government shutdown to pressure Members into voting for inflated spending provisions without even time to read the bill, much less without giving them any time to consult with those they represent about how they feel about that spending and those policies.

So does this tactic remind you of anything? Well, it should. How about Speaker Pelosi's now infamous statement about ObamaCare when she said: You know, we have to pass the bill in order to find out what is in it. We all know how that turned out--not well.

Like ObamaCare, the resulting omnibus legislation that results from that kind of attitude, that kind of dismissive approach--dismissive not just to individual Members but of those whom they represent--always contains ideologically driven provisions, utterly unrelated to the budget, many of which could never pass if they had to withstand the light of day if they had to be voted on of their own merit.

We cannot, we must not, we should never use the threat of a government shutdown to force through policy changes that could never survive a vote on their own merit.

I believe we should pass--we must pass--a clean continuing resolution, one that will take us into the next Congress. Failure to do so will lock the remainder of this fiscal year into a pattern in which liberal policies and an inflationary spending agenda, crammed through by unaccountable Members of Congress, many of whom have just lost reelection or didn't seek it--all those things will descend upon the American people in a most unfavorable and unwelcomed way. We can't let that happen. I don't want to be any part of that. I don't think most of our colleagues on either side of the aisle do.

Not only would it be poor form and unwise and inconsiderate and really unkind for Congress to pass a massive spending bill, but it would also be without precedent in modern U.S. history.

You know, since 1954, the party in control of the House of Representatives has shifted from one party to another a total of just five times since 1954. In exactly zero of those instances did Congress go back after that election and during a lameduck session enact sweeping, comprehensive spending legislation. Not one instance since 1954 has that happened. Not once has there been an instance where Congress did that before a newly elected House majority could be sworn in.

We can pass a continuing resolution that doesn't include any of the new partisan agenda items that either side has proposed. It would keep the government running until the new Congress can develop a full-year discretionary budget--one that is agreeable to both sides or at least has been adequately vetted on both sides and with our constituents, with input from Members of both political parties and both Chambers of Congress.

I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this short-term continuing resolution that maintains current spending levels until the new Congress takes office. Doing so will ensure that we listen to the people's voices and that the incoming House majority has the opportunity to make the spending decisions that are in the best interests of the American people. We owe them nothing less.

Mr. President, to that end, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 5244, which is at the desk; I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. President, in closing this discussion, I just want to respond to a couple of points made by my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Vermont.

Senator Leahy is someone I have really enjoyed working with throughout my 12 years in the Senate, and I will miss him when he is gone.

I respectfully but very strongly disagree with his decision to object to this commonsense approach toward avoiding a government shutdown, and I want to make clear just a few things.

No. 1, this continuing resolution is not preclusive of anything else he may want to do. It doesn't preclude anyone from still working to pass an omnibus. It, rather, provides a safety net so that Congress doesn't produce a government shutdown and, just as importantly, so that Members don't feel coerced into this dual threat of having to navigate between the Scylla of a threatened shutdown and the Charybdis of people having to cancel their holiday plans with their families. That is what we are trying to avoid. So it is a false choice to say that this doesn't allow for anything else. That is just not true.

Now, I disagree with him about his desire to pass an omnibus because that omnibus doesn't yet exist. There still isn't an agreement on it. The bill has yet to exist and has yet to see the light of day, not only to the public but to all but four Members of the United States Congress. That is what I object to.

But make no mistake: What we are proposing today, what we are reasonably suggesting today, would not preclude a subsequent omnibus; it would just take away the shutdown threat--which is exactly my point, which is exactly my concern. When we do this sort of thing--without speaking to anyone's subjective motives; I can't read other people's minds, but I do know that this pattern has been used before. It is a tried-and-true process by which people convince their colleagues to vote for things they would never otherwise vote for because, typically, we don't like to vote on things that we haven't seen and spend trillions of dollars.

My colleague from Vermont also refers to the fact that he has had lengthy conversations with a number of colleagues coming to him with their concerns. That is great. I appreciate that. That is a very appropriate thing for any Senator to do, particularly the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. As great as that is, that isn't legislating. That doesn't substitute for actual floor debate, and it sure as heck doesn't substitute for transparency and accountability, allowing the American people to see what they are going to be spending their money on.

We are going to get, in a matter of days, probably in about a week-- usually, they don't give us more time than that--a bill. It will be 2,000 or 3,000 pages long, and it will spend probably 1.6 or $1.7 trillion.

And the American people understand that 2,000 or 3,000 pages of appropriations legislative text does not read like a fast-paced novel. Nobody is going to have a chance to review this, and that is the problem. So the fact that he is meeting with individual Members, hearing their concerns, and talking about possible tradeoffs--that is great, but it doesn't provide what the American people need.

Next, he appeals to the sense of the good things that will be in the bill, talking about the need to fund efforts to combat opioid abuse and addiction and the need to fund law enforcement--great things, great things--but we haven't seen the legislative text, and the fact that there may be good things in the bill funding good causes that would benefit good, deserving beneficiaries doesn't mean that the bill as a whole makes any sense.

He also says, with some defiance and indignation, that he is not going to settle for another short-term CR, that short-term CRs are a bad way of doing things, and he is not OK with a short-term CR.

It is a good point. I am not either. I don't like them. It is a default.

But we have been on a short-term CR since September 30. That is 2\1/ 2\ months. So I don't comprehend exactly where he would draw the line between a short-term CR that is acceptable and one that isn't. So 2\1/ 2\ months is just fine but a few more weeks isn't?

I suspect it is going to be fine when somebody comes to the floor and asks for a 1-week, short-term CR--a 1-week, short-term spending bill.

That is wrong. Why? Because it moves the threat of a shutdown that much closer to Christmas when Members most want to get out of town and when the American people and those they elect to represent them here are most concerned about a shutdown.

That is coercive. That isn't trying to avoid a shutdown. No. That is playing with fire. That is presenting as a feature, not a bug, the risk of a shutdown. It is wrong, and it has to stop.

Look, the objective today--I hope he will reconsider. This isn't right. We know it isn't right. Those who elected us, whether we are Republicans or Democrats deserve better. They don't deserve this.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I, Senator Klobuchar, Senator Cotton, and Senator Paul be permitted to complete their remarks prior to the scheduled rollcall vote.