Floor Statements

Mr. President, Congress must address the challenges facing Social Security. Unfortunately, the Social Security Fairness Act fails on all counts and doesn't even come close to living up to its name.

Let's start with the flawed benefit calculation this legislation seeks to return to. The government pension offset, or GPO, and the windfall elimination provision, or WEP, were enacted to fix serious problems in how Social Security benefits were calculated. Before the WEP existed, individuals with mixed careers in public and private sectors often received more in Social Security benefits than they were entitled to receive.

Imagine two people, each earning $85,000 annually in their respective primary jobs. One worked in the private sector and paid into Social Security, but the other person worked in the public sector, contributing to a State pension fund instead of Social Security. Both earned an additional $10,000 a year from the side job that did pay into Social Security. Without WEP, the public sector workers would receive Social Security benefits as though they were a low-income earner, based solely on their $10,000 in side income. This miscalculation would grant them overly generous Social Security benefits on top of their public pension and act contrary to and against the interests of other Social Security beneficiaries.

The GPO addresses a similar issue with spousal benefits. It ensures that spousal benefits are adjusted to reflect income from public pensions, preventing unfair overpayments under Social Security.

The WEP and the GPO are far from perfect. They are very imperfect. They were enacted at a time when Congress lacked access to the full data needed to make precise adjustments, but they were designed to fix real problems, and they do exactly that. If Congress repeals these provisions without replacing them with a better system, we will revert to a broken model that unfairly rewards some at the expense of others-- and that is not ideal.

But let's talk about what this bill would mean for the solvency of Social Security.

Social Security is already on a dangerously unsustainable path. The trust fund, which has been raided time and time again by Congress, is projected to run out of money in the next decade, which would lead to across-the-board benefit cuts. This bill would not fix that. In fact, this bill would accelerate that crisis.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing the GPO and WEP would cost $196 billion over the next 10 years. It would push Social Security's insolvency up by 6 to 8 months, making an already dire situation worse. Congress must focus on solutions that strengthen Social Security's financial health, not hasten its collapse.

Look, there is just no reason--certainly no legitimate reason--to force a vote on this issue right now before we have an administration that will prioritize meaningful, fiscally responsible reform. Republicans should focus on advancing solutions that align with our principles. We have an incoming Republican Senate majority and an incoming Republican President. We should stick to the principles that have gotten us elected and reelected.

This bill is fundamentally unfair. It is unfair to the vast majority of Americans who have paid into Social Security their entire working lives. About 96 percent of the workforce contributes to Social Security. They rely on it as an important part of their retirement security. This bill would force those workers--96 percent of them in America--to subsidize overly generous benefits for the 4 percent of the workforce--those who do not participate in Social Security--and, instead, contribute to noncovered pensions. Most State employees already pay into Social Security and would be harmed, not helped, by this legislation. The Social Security Fairness Act would reward a small minority at the expense of the vast majority of American taxpayers. That is not fair.

When we look at the overwhelming majority--96 percent--those who would be harmed by this--it is not fair to take something away from them to move up by 6 to 8 months the insolvency of the Social Security trust fund just to address the other 4 percent. Now, that is not to say that those 4 percent don't need to be addressed in some way, but the way that this bill does it isn't fair, and it is unsafe.

Look, the challenges of Social Security require solutions that prevent further mismanagement. The Social Security Fairness Act--a somewhat Orwellian name as I think about it--would take us back to a broken system, push the trust fund even closer to insolvency than it is already, and unfairly shift costs onto hard-working Americans.

I have been in this Chamber before when this body has voted to raid the Social Security trust fund. I have raised the alarm, and it has happened anyway. It is unpleasant; it is not an experience I care to revisit. But never have I seen us raid that fund to this degree--to the tune of almost $200 billion. This is reckless, but it is worse than that; it is cruel.

We need real solutions that address the root causes of these challenges. Repealing the GPO and the WEP without fixing the underlying issues would be a step backward--a huge, painful step backward--and profoundly unfair. Congress has a responsibility to address Social Security's flaws with clarity and with courage. I urge my colleagues to reject this flawed legislation and commit to reforms that serve all Americans, not just a select few.

To reiterate, there is no reason why we have to rush this. This particular problem was many decades in the making. We can fix it. We can fix it responsibly. We don't have to rush it.

I implore my colleagues: You don't have to do this. We can fix this next year and fix it the right way. I ask my colleagues to oppose the motion to proceed.

Vote on Motion to Proceed

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 3324 and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills, en bloc: Calendar No. 277, S. 1097; Calendar No. 528, H.R. 2468; Calendar No. 530, H.R. 4094; Calendar No. 640, S. 5005; Calendar No. 660, H.R. 7332; and H.R. 3324.

I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendment, where applicable, be agreed to; that the bills, as amended, if amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Madam President, yesterday marked a somber milestone: 1,000 days since Russia invaded Ukraine. Over a million lives have been lost or wounded--a staggering human toll. Yet, instead of seeking a path to peace, the Biden administration is choosing escalation. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled into this conflict with little or no oversight and no end in sight. It is as if writing blank checks has become our primary foreign policy strategy. This has extracted a huge human cost.

Just days ago, President Biden authorized Ukraine to use American- provided long-range weapons to strike inside Russia. Let me repeat that. We are now enabling attacks using U.S. weaponry inside Russian territory. When I first saw the headline, I didn't believe it. I hoped it was maybe a joke or fake news. It was neither. It was real.

Now, this is not a step toward deescalation. Nothing could be further from that. In fact, this is a dangerous provocation, one that brings the United States perilously, unacceptably close to a direct conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary. In response, Russia has updated its nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

This is not a game. The rounds are live and flying--and, I would add, deadly. The specter of nuclear war is now looming larger than it has in decades. Yet the administration seems undeterred, even willing, as if eager to risk U.S. security for the sake of scoring one last cheap political point against the incoming Trump administration and the American people.

Now in the twilight of its tenure, the Biden administration is quietly attempting to forgive half of Ukraine's economic aid package from the last supplemental appropriations bill--a whopping $4.7 billion given away for free if President Biden has his way.

The American people are being deceived by the Biden administration. Americans were told Ukraine would repay that sum when this bill passed. In fact, that is part of how they got it passed. It was, you might say, a ``without which not'' of that bill's passage. Now they are being stuck with the tab.

Now, let's be clear: Forcing the American people to pick up this tab removes an essential point of leverage for the United States to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table. It prolongs a bloody war. It drains our own scarce precious resources and gives Ukraine a freebie we don't extend even to our closest allies, all without accountability or a strategy that prioritizes America's interest first.

But it is worse than that. It does so in a way that puts us in the firing line--the firing line of a nuclear-armed adversary. Moreover, a significant portion of this sum was allocated to fund the salaries of President Zelenskyy and Ukrainian bureaucrats.

What kind of message does that send?

At a time when American families are pinching pennies--pinching pennies--because we spent money we don't have, causing us to print more money, causing every dollar the American people earn to buy less, it is absolutely unconscionable that their hard-earned tax dollars are being used to underwrite the administrative costs of a foreign government and the salaries of foreign bureaucrats--all in a way that makes us less safe, all in a way that puts us in a precarious position we haven't faced since most of us were children.

Our constituents are tightening their belts and making tough decisions about healthcare, education, and basic necessities. Yet we are being asked to finance the operational expenses of another nation's government.

Madam President, we have a duty--a solemn duty, a sacred duty--to our constituents to ensure that their hard-earned money is spent wisely and ethically and, at a minimum, not in a way that makes them less safe, not in a way that paints a target on their back or an adversary with nuclear weapons. We certainly have a constitutional duty to prevent unnecessary escalation that could lead to catastrophic consequences. And we have a duty to uphold the will of the American people who very recently--just over 2 weeks ago--voted for a different President with a different foreign policy, one that works for the American people and not against them.

Instead, as a final parting gift--and, yes, I use that word very, very euphemistically--the Biden administration wants to saddle the American people with a tab that they don't want, that they never agreed to, that they expressly rejected at the ballot box, and that they cannot afford.

That is why I stand in full wholehearted support of Senator Rand Paul's joint resolution of disapproval to block this misguided, dangerous, reckless, wealth transfer to a corrupt foreign government. I call on all of my colleagues to do the same.

We need to halt this dangerous path and give the incoming administration every tool to pursue a strategy that prioritizes peace and America's interests. The American people have spoken and resoundingly, with good reason, rejected the policies of this administration that escalate conflict and prolong wars.

The American people deserve better. They should expect more. They strive and yearn for peace. Rand Paul's measure would help advance that. Doing nothing would impair it.

Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, directing the Office of Government Ethics is an important position due to the Office's role in aiding the President with the nominations process and assistance to the Senate in evaluating potential conflicts of interest for Presidential nominations.

This point was, of course, made clear in Mr. Huitema's HSGAC hearing, as he testified to the committee that nominee vetting would be not just a priority but priority one for the Office of Government Ethics and would dominate the next year, meaning the year that is about to arrive.

Given the fact that this position serves, once confirmed, for a 5- year term, it is also important for us to remember that we are now just a few weeks away from a Presidential election, a Presidential election that will determine who will serve as President of the United States for the next 4 years. So in light of that, we should wait to see who is elected before confirming this person to a 5-year term.

It is concerning to me that during his hearing before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Mr. Huitema left open the possibility of supporting a partisan policy, a partisan approach, from a nonpartisan position, one that can be used as a means of further weaponizing our government against officials who might be appointed, should President Trump win, in a Republican administration. Individuals responsible with directing the Office of Government Ethics must not engage, promote, or tolerate partisan lawfare.

Particularly in the midst of unprecedented lawfare and political weaponization of the U.S. Government against Donald Trump by the Biden- Harris administration, I have got grave

concerns that have led me to oppose their partisan nominees and policies considered in this Chamber, particularly between now and the election. The Biden-Harris administration forfeited that courtesy when they decided that they wanted to govern more like a banana republic than the United States of America.

Now, after these two assassination attempts that we have seen so far on Donald Trump, continued lawfare by Democrats at both State and national levels and unacceptable rhetoric from Vice President Harris, who has brought foreign leaders to campaign for her in a key battleground State, it is clear that they have changed their tune. And so I am not going to change my tune.

We have to remember that the President of the United States, at any given moment, for constitutional purposes, is the executive branch, is the living embodiment of the executive branch. This is an office that really ought to be filled at least with Members being allowed to take into account the outcome of a coming Presidential election. With that Presidential election just weeks away, there is no reason this has to be done today. In fact, there are very, very good reasons for us not to do it today.

Let's take this up after the Presidential election. That is the appropriate time to raise this. If Mr. Huitema is willing to further clarify his position and the next sitting President appoints him to fill the position, I am happy to revisit this question. Until then, I object.

Mr. President, the Democrats' talking points against the

I recognize the presence of my friend and colleague the senior Senator from Tennessee.

Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 439, H.R. 8281, the SAVE Act; further, 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.

Madam President, my distinguished friend and colleague the Senator from California makes an impassioned plea that we not pass this bill. I appreciate his thoughtfulness and care and consideration that he routinely gives to matters pending before the Senate. I wish I could say that always translates into accurate statements.

Today, it didn't. He made several statements that are just not accurate. First and foremost, he suggested--not just suggested, he said that this bill--the SAVE Act, which I am trying to pass right here, right now--failed to pass in the House of Representatives; that even in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives it couldn't get the votes to pass.

That is not true. It is 100 percent false. In fact, this has passed the House of Representatives. It passed the House of Representatives not only with the Republicans voting for it but they picked up five Democrats along the way. So they passed it. They passed it with a bipartisan vote.

Now, he may be referring to the fact that there was another vote-- another vote cast last week in which they attached the SAVE Act to a spending bill. It was the spending bill that caused the combined measure to fail. But, in fact, the SAVE Act has been passed by the House of Representatives.

It was passed with a bipartisan vote because even these Democrats, who joined with all the Republicans over in the House of Representatives, acknowledged that this is a problem. The problem has been created by a combination of Federal laws that have grown too loose, that have been further loosened by the Supreme Court of the United States in its interpretation of it, and that the need for it has, in fact, escalated.

Point No. 2 that he makes--this is the third time--sounding, I think, a little frustrated by the fact that we tried to do this multiple times. Well, forgive me, but the case for it has continued to build. It has continued to build steadily, even at the same time that the House of Representatives has now passed it.

This does matter. So he is mistaken here in that nothing has changed.

He says that there is no evidence of this. That is not true. That is news to me, given that the world learned yesterday of this evidence that just came out from the secretary of state's office in Oregon showing that complete review revealed 1,259 people in that State who didn't provide proof of U.S. citizenship, and they had been added to Oregon's voter registration rolls a number of--four times the previously reported figure.

That is also news to States like Texas and Virginia, just to state a couple. There are more that have been going through their voter registration rolls and discovered a lot of noncitizens. I mean, you add them all up, and we are talking about thousands of noncitizens registering to vote.

Then he pivots a little bit, and he says that there is no evidence of massive voter fraud. If thousands of illegally registered voters-- people who illegally register to vote in Federal elections--if that is not massive, I don't know what is.

Now, as to the next point that he makes: Ballots have already been mailed out. I don't dispute that. I am absolutely certain that that is the case. That is in no way, shape, or form an argument against the SAVE Act, nor is it an argument against passing this now.

In fact, there is no reason not to pass this now. There is good reason to pass it now, given that in fully 22 States in the United States of America--fully 22 States allow voter registration up to and including the day of the Presidential election. So in addition to the thousands of persons who are noncitizens and therefore may not lawfully register to vote or vote in a Federal election who have already registered to vote, many of whom have been shown in past elections to have voted illegally--we don't even know what the total number is. We don't even know what the total number of people is who might register to vote and then vote unlawfully between now and the 5th of November when the election is held. Yet in addition to the 22 States where you can register to vote, up to and including the day of the Presidential election, there are a whole lot of others who allow it, to varying degrees, at some point between now and election day.

Then he goes back to the fact that this is not a serious proposal. I don't know what that means, other than Democrats don't like it. And I understand that they don't like it. It is serious. I assure you, Madam President, and I assure my colleagues, this is a very serious matter when people register to vote and vote illegally. That disenfranchises actual U.S. citizens.

Finally, I do take exception to something. I take exception to the suggestion as to motive, suggesting that the reason I am here to do this is to disingenuously plow what he refers to as ``fear and uncertainty'' as to the legitimacy of our elections.

Not only is this kind of speech uncalled for and prohibited under rule XIX of the Senate rules where you are not supposed to characterize somebody's motive as something devious like this, if I were out here deliberately trying, just for kicks and giggles, to undermine the legitimacy in the outcome of the election, that would be inappropriate. That is not accurate. There is not a scintilla of proof for that. And there is a mountain of proof that we have darned good reason to bring this about.

I am deeply disappointed that we can't pass this. This is not a heavy lift. It is not too much to ask that we put something in place, putting teeth into existing law that has been on the books for decades that Americans overwhelmingly agree with and says you can't vote in a U.S. election unless you are a U.S. citizen.

The House passed it; we could pass it today. This could make a difference. We should pass it. It is inexcusable that we are not.

Madam President, the resurgence of American conservatism over the last three-quarters of a century had many fathers: James Burnham, Willmore Kendall, Frank Meyer, Richard Weaver, Milton Friedman, Russell Kirk, and, of course, William F. Buckley. They laid the intellectual foundation for the political transformation launched by Senator Barry Goldwater and brought to fruition by Ronald Reagan. All those are names of the past, but one individual remains with us who knew most of them, wrote about them, and popularized their thinking that transformed American society.

This is Dr. Lee Edwards. Now in his tenth decade, he has been an irreplaceable part of the conservative movement longer than most of us have been alive. He is a scholar and teacher with a doctorate from the Catholic University of America and further study at the Sorbonne. He is a philosopher, formerly the distinguished fellow in conservative thought at the Heritage Foundation. His books have been translated into as many languages as societies and their peoples have hungered for freedom.

His volumes still speak eloquently to young Americans who wonder where we go from here: ``The Collapse of Communism,'' ``The Power of Ideas,'' ``The Conservative Revolution: The Movement that Remade America,'' ``Reading the Right Books, a Guide for the Intellectual Conservative,'' and biographies of half a dozen major conservative leaders. He knew them all.

One might think he deserves some sort of monument.

Well, he has one, a monument that he more than anyone else created.

It stands a few blocks from this Capitol at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, New Jersey Avenue, and G Street. It is the Victims of Communism Memorial, dedicated to ``more than 100 million victims of Communism and to those who love liberty.''

Authorized by Act of Congress in 1993, it was first suggested to Lee by his wife Anne, who was also his partner in his writing.

If this memorial were a mandatory stop for all the high school tours that come to DC every spring, graduates would be better inoculated against the ignorance of radical leftism that infests too many of our universities.

Lee's work continues through his Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, here in Washington, where visitors are reminded that one- fifth of humanity still lives under communism in China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and North Korea, as well as other countries where oppressive Marxist-Leninist practices impoverish and subjugate millions.

Whatever honors have been bestowed upon him in the past, and whatever accolades await him in the future, Lee Edwards remains that rare person of enormous achievement for liberty, whose greatest reward will always be the joyous sound of breaking chains across the world, the shattering of tyranny, and the anthems of a free people.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, U.S. diplomats serve a singular purpose: to advocate for and protect U.S. interests all over the world.

The Constitution makes abundantly clear that the security of the American homeland and commerce with friendly nations are fundamental core interests of the United States of America. The promotion of woke cultural imperialism is never in the core interest of the United States.

The constant crusade of career diplomats to evangelize woke ideology on behalf of the United States often works decidedly against our interests and actively undermines the reputation and leverage of our Nation.

Like many Biden-Harris nominees, Mr. Kostelancik has proven unable to set aside his personal partisanship while representing U.S. interests abroad.

His past performance as Charge d'Affaires in Hungary should disqualify him from being trusted with a diplomatic mantle again. Mr. Kostelancik openly meddled in Hungarian politics. He attacked press freedom and engaged in blatant social activism, which the Hungarian Government viewed as undue interference in Hungary's internal politics.

Mr. Kostelancik damaged our relationship with a reliable and important ally for the sake of partisan ideological advocacy abroad, all when he was essentially a placeholder until the Trump administration could nominate an ambassador.

Now the Biden-Harris administration wants to make him the permanent man in charge of the U.S. Government's interests in Albania. The Biden- Harris administration had every opportunity to submit a new nominee for this position when Mr. Kostelancik's nomination was returned to the President at the end of last year, but rather than submit a nominee with a more favorable reputation, a less controversial background, and a demonstrated track record of focus on core U.S. interests, President Biden is doubling down and promoting Mr. Kostelancik.

Cultural imperialism continues to dominate, to distract, and destroy the reputation and effectiveness of our diplomatic corps. I will not be complacent in such efforts, and on that basis, I object.

Madam President, I appreciate my friend and colleague, the Senator from Alabama, for leading this discussion today. This is an important one to have. And I am honored to be here to be part of it.

You know, the situation at the border, across our southern border, is, by any standard, a humanitarian crisis and nothing short of that. Vice President Kamala Harris, appointed by President Biden as his border czar, publicly declared that she would focus as border czar on addressing the root causes of immigration.

However, now that Kamala Harris is the Democrats' nominee for the Presidency, she and the legacy media want to pretend that was never the case. Axios even reported that Vice President Kamala Harris ``never actually had''--that is a direct quote--``never actually had'' the title of border czar.

That is funny because that is a claim that contradicts the reporting that we have seen from Axios itself on this. In fact, we can see that right here in this chart.

On April 14, 2021, Axios reported that ``Harris, [who had been] appointed by [President] Biden as border czar, said she would be looking for the `root causes' that drive migration.''

Moreover, a tweet from her official Twitter handle further emphasized her role:

@POTUS asked me to lead our diplomatic work with Mexico, El

Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. To address the situation

at the southern border, we have to address the root causes of

migration. It won't be easy work--but it's necessary.

I agree; it is necessary. She took on this role. She acknowledged the role, and she failed.

Since Biden and Harris's inauguration a little more than 3\1/2\ years ago, over 10 million undocumented immigrants have entered the United States and have done so illegally. This figure exceeds the population of 36 States. Meaning the overwhelming majority of our States, 36 out of 50 have populations smaller than the total number of persons entering the United States illegally on the watch of border czar Vice President Kamala Harris, thus creating a crisis that has been met with a troubling combination of silence and inaction from this administration--the executive branch of government responsible for enforcing our border laws and the border itself.

Now, if the Biden-Harris administration were serious about addressing the crisis at the border and addressing the issue and ensuring, in the process, that the real victims of government persecution in other countries would receive asylum here, then they would support reforming our broken asylum process. And, sadly, they are not. We are still encountering over 100,000 illegal immigrants at our southern border each month.

Now, since President Biden took office, there have been almost 10 million illegal immigrant encounters nationwide. Keep in mind, this doesn't reflect the sum total of those who have crossed into our country. These are just the documented immigrant encounters throughout the country. Though, there are more. That is a subset of the total flow of illegal immigration. Over 360 individuals on the Terrorist Watchlist have been stopped while trying to cross the southern border.

And, shockingly, 27,583 Communist Chinese nationals have been encountered at the southwest border in the last year alone. That is a lot of people. And China is not close to the United States.

By any metric, the Biden-Harris administration has shown no interest in securing our border. In fact, the data suggests this administration wants as many illegal immigrants to enter this country as possible.

My Democrat colleagues want to pretend that Republicans are somehow responsible for this crisis. Why? Well, it is obvious why. They don't want to own it given that their party owns the crisis, as their party is running the administration and it is responsible for making decisions that has allowed this in.

What argument did they use in order to blame Republicans who are not in control of the administration, do not occupy the White House, or control the majority in this Chamber? What is their argument as to why we as Republicans are to blame? Well, because we were unwilling to pass a bad immigration bill that would have normalized thousands of illegal entries across our southern border each month--and particularly in the hands of the Biden administration, it could have and inevitably would have made the situation much worse.

But today I am offering a smaller bill, a narrower bill, a more focused bill that would help alleviate the crisis by closing loopholes in the law. These would be helpful. They are not necessarily things that represent a complete loophole such that President Biden would be powerless to enforce the border without them, but they would make it harder for President Biden to justify the massive loopholes that he has manipulated.

This isn't the entire answer. This bill wouldn't necessarily solve the whole problem. But if my Democratic colleagues can't agree that these commonsense reforms need to be adopted, then how can we take their concern about the border crisis seriously?

My bill, the Stopping Border Surges Act, would address loopholes in our immigration laws, which have helped create some of the perverse incentives for illegal immigration. It made it easier for the Biden administration to facilitate this flow of 10 million illegal immigrants into our country over the last 3\1/2\ years.

The bill would clarify that an adult cannot bring a child into this country expecting that child to be his or her ticket to avoid detention. This would help eliminate the disturbing practice of what is sometimes referred to by the Border Patrol as the practice of recycling children and babies by coyotes and cartels.

People will bring in a child, and sometimes that same child will be brought in under similar circumstances over and over and over again as the ticket into the United States--the ticket thus making it less likely that they will be detained and ultimately deported.

It allows all unaccompanied children to be returned to their home countries, thus ending the incentive for the parents to send their young children here alone, leaving them vulnerable to abuse.

Sadly, we see what is happening to those children under the supervision of the Biden-Harris administration and Secretary Mayorkas. They are trafficked either into child slavery, sex slavery, or as drug dealers.

My bill would require that the Department of Health and Human Services provides DHS with biographical information about the persons to whom children are being released so that they know something about them, rather than just ``This is the person to whom you are going to release the child.''

It also requires asylum seekers to apply for and be denied asylum in at least one safe country on their route from their country of origin to the United States. It would combat the Biden-Harris administration's obliteration of the credible fear standard by heightening the burden of proof.

The correct application of this standard is pivotal to the operation of our asylum system and making sure that it is there for those who need it and not subject to rampant abuse by those not eligible for it.

It has been corrupted over the years. But this administration has destroyed it entirely--manipulating it to the point where it is now beyond recognition. We must fix it.

It is sad that we have to fix it, but we have to fix it in large part because it has been so distorted and abused by this administration, profiting international drug cartels to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year, leaving a huge--huge--wake of human suffering in its path.

It would close loopholes and restrict asylum to aliens who present themselves at an official point of entry. We must eliminate these loopholes and not allow the Biden-Harris administration to make more of them.

Congress needs to take back the authority to establish law. We can start today by passing the Stopping Border Surges Act.

Ending the ambiguities in our current asylum law will help to mitigate the situation at the border and prevent unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats from acting with utter impunity to enforce their own policy preferences, culminating inevitably in open borders

with more than 10 million people coming into this country in a space of only 3\1/2\ years. So I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

To that end, Madam President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 685 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, 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.

Madam President, I appreciate the thoughtful remarks from my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Illinois. He and I have worked together on many issues. We don't agree on everything, but when we do agree, it is a lot of fun. We are able to do a lot of great things together. I appreciate his leadership on the Judiciary Committee and the fact that he has always been friendly toward me.

I also appreciate his reference to our sort of civics aspect of what we do. The notion of how a bill becomes a law is always, always instructive. It is always helpful to bring that up. You know, we have lost some of that in our system, and people get confused as to how laws are made.

Of course, the very first operative provision of the Constitution-- article I, section 1--has only one clause, so it is clause 1. The very first language after the preamble says that 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.

Remember, legislative powers are lawmaking powers, meaning all power to make law--to make Federal law--is vested in this body and the body with which we share the legislative power just down the hall, the House of Representatives.

Article I, section 7 elaborates on this function and makes clear yet again that you cannot make a Federal law without following this formula. The formula prescribed by article I, section 7 is bicameral passage followed by presentment to the President of the United States. You have to pass the same legislative text down the hall and also pass it here. It doesn't matter in what order unless it is a revenue bill, but that is not relevant here, but it does have to be the same text passed by both bodies. Then and only then can you present it to the President for signature, veto, or acquiescence. That is how you make a law. That is what the Constitution requires.

Now, on top of that, we have a number of other procedures that we have added by Senate rule, precedent, procedure, common practice. Those are not required by the Constitution, but those rules and practices are acknowledged as legitimate by the Constitution. Yes, most of the time, we pass those, but it is ultimately up to us to decide when, whether, to what extent, and in what ways to follow all of our procedures.

And I agree with the Senator from Illinois--it does make sense whenever we can do it--that we always should follow our own procedures. It generally works out best if we can move something through committee, if we can have a full committee hearing and we can have what is called a markup, where we introduce and entertain amendments to proposed legislation, pass it out of committee, and then bring it to the floor ultimately.

I think we generally have much better legislation when we do it that way, and I would love to follow that procedure with this particular bill. If what the Senator from Illinois and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee is offering is for us to have a full committee hearing and a markup on this bill, I would love that, and I would gladly entertain that.

Tragically, in the Senate, we have seen a deviation from that same practice--that same practice to which he attributes great significance, understandably, today. In fact, fully 94 percent of all legislative matters passed by this body are passed by this same procedure that I am attempting to utilize here today--by unanimous consent.

The way it works is, essentially somebody makes a request, and they ultimately come down to the floor like I have done today and say: Let's call up and pass this bill.

Why would we do that? Well, in many instances, committee chairmen have become somewhat stingy with what bills on which they are going to hold hearings and markups. We have been unable to get a hearing or a markup set on this bill, and so this bill, like so many others--in fact, like 94 percent of all legislation passed by this body--comes to the Senate floor today without the benefit of having had either a hearing or a markup.

Well, that doesn't stop the 94 percent of the legislation from moving forward. In fact, in addition to that 94 percent of the legislative proposals that are passed by unanimous consent, an additional number of them--I am not sure what the number is; it probably varies a little bit from year to year--but an additional number of them are brought to the floor and passed not unanimously but by rollcall vote without having had the benefit of either a full committee hearing or a markup. This, too, is unfortunate. Sometimes it is necessary and unavoidable, and other times, it is not.

The point is this: Neither the Constitution nor the Senate rules prohibit passing legislation this way. Sometimes it becomes necessary when the other path has been made unavailable to us by the majority party and the committee chairman.

In this circumstance, there is an additional reason why we need to bring this forward. We talked a minute ago about the legislative process required by the U.S. Constitution to pass a law to make or change any statute that is Federal in nature. You have to go through that article I, section 7 formula: bicameral passage in Congress, followed by presentment to the President for signature, veto, or acquiescence.

What the Constitution does not countenance and certainly prohibits is the making of new law or the modification of existing law by the executive branch of government or by anyone or anything outside the framework of article I, section 7. That is what we have seen with our immigration laws, including and especially with this administration with regard to laws that are relevant here--laws, for example, involving asylum standards.

The asylum standards have morphed over the years, over many decades, and the practice of applying our asylum laws has become so different under this administration than what the law actually says, although this is comparable in many respects to another great frustration of mine that is closely related to this where we outsource de facto lawmaking authority to unelected, unaccountable bodies in the executive branch, allowing them to just make new law. We call them regulations to get around the obvious awkwardness that would otherwise be created by this thing called the Constitution to which we have all sworn an oath, but we allow, in effect, the executive branch to make laws that way under the form of rules and regulations.

But either way, whether it is by the stroke of the Executive pen or whether it is through an administrative Agency, we have seen laws being made and changed entirely outside the constitutionally authorized process recognized by article I, sections 1 and 7.

So it is one of the reasons we are here today because we have had the executive branch making and changing law not authorized by the Constitution, and we have had a lack of access to committee hearings and committee markups. So that is why we come here today and do this.

While it is not ideal, it is how 94 percent of the legislation passed by this body is, in fact, passed. So that kind of matters. That provides some helpful context.

We talked a little bit about asylum and how the asylum laws have been abused and modified. The idea behind asylum is that if you are subject to certain kinds of persecution in your home country, we want to provide people with a place to go.

The problem we had in this administration--the way it is supposed to work is if you show up without documents at the U.S. border and you make the case that you are entitled to stay here as an asylee, well, you are supposed to be detained until such time as they can decide the issue. You don't have a statutory or a constitutional right to be granted asylum. It is a discretionary grant of authority given to the Secretary of Homeland Security. No one has a guaranteed right to it. So you are supposed to be detained while they consider your application, whether or not they are going to grant it.

But instead, what this administration has been doing is just saying: OK. Come in. You claim asylum. And they let you go. And because there are so

many people coming in--about 10 million of them; many of them are claiming asylum--they decide that the best thing to do is not deport them because they can't handle all those asylum applications. They can't adjudicate them. They say: Well, let's just let them go--let them go and tell them that at some point you may hear about a hearing that will be scheduled before an immigration judge. We hope you will come to your immigration hearing. At the current rate, many of these people are being told that their immigration hearing may not happen until the mid- 2030s.

This doesn't make any sense. This amounts to a de facto change in law.

It definitely amounts to a de facto change in law when we have got things like what is called immigration parole. Immigration parole is supposed to exist as a discretionary grant of authority, allowing the U.S. Government to let somebody come into the United States either for a specific humanitarian purpose or a public purpose. But it has to be individualized, not generalized by country, not broad categories, and an individual person. The law specifies that.

An example of a humanitarian purpose is somebody is in a foreign country. Maybe their mother lives here. She is about to die, and that person needs to come in and be there for the funeral with the understanding that he or she will probably leave thereafter.

The public use, the public benefit example, would be someone who maybe speaks an obscure language. We don't have adequate interpretation services in that language here. We need somebody to come in and translate for that language. We allow them to come in, be a translator for that trial, with the understanding that they will leave.

Well, this President has granted contrary to what the law allows. He has effectively rewritten the law so as to just grant huge categorical blocks of immigration parole. We are talking to the tune of hundreds of thousands of people who have been admitted in a single year on these things.

That is lawless. That is outside what the law requires. So, yes, that is a change of law, and that is why we need to tighten this law here.

Now, I do want to get to this point about the so-called border bill, the border bill that my friend and colleague from Illinois claims-- mistakenly but very wrongly--was killed only by one man, Donald J. Trump. It is just not what happened, not what happened at all. And I don't agree with his description of the bill either.

The Senator from Illinois and I share a common friendship with and great affection for the senior Senator from Oklahoma. The senior Senator from Oklahoma did a fantastic job. He had done a great job on so many things that he decided that he would try to negotiate this. I think it was done at the request of the minority leader, the Republican leader in the Senate, to try to negotiate something.

The Senate Republican conference wanted legislation that would, in one way or another, tie President Biden's hands so he couldn't continue to abuse and negotiate that system of laws, and so he went in there. He did his best to negotiate that. At the end, most Members of our conference didn't feel comfortable with what he negotiated because it wouldn't adequately tie President Biden's hands.

It is not his fault, and it is not Donald Trump's fault. But the fact is that most of the Members of our conference didn't feel that it did enough to tie President Biden's hands.

Perhaps under the jurisdiction of a different President, that legislation might have worked but not with this President. It certainly didn't tie President Biden's hands.

So it wasn't Donald Trump who killed the bill. It was the fact that we didn't have the votes here.

So, look, this is a big deal. It matters. I reject, fundamentally, the premise that we can't reform any of our immigration laws without so-called comprehensive reform, which is usually code for something else, including allowing large numbers of persons entering illegally to be deemed legal.

So let's make sure we have the facts right, both on the way laws are made and based on what happened with this legislation and why it is necessary to pass the Stopping Border Surges Act.

Madam President, one citizen, one vote--today, this foundational principle is under attack. It is under attack because President Biden refuses to enforce the law. Now we face a direct threat to our entire electoral system.

Consider this: Since President Biden's inauguration on January 20, 2021, over 10 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States. This figure exceeds the populations of 36 States, creating a crisis that has been met with troubling silence and inaction from far too many on the other side of the aisle.

With millions of unauthorized people now on U.S. soil, living here in the United States, the potential for election fraud through ineligible voting is not just a hypothetical risk--no; it is a looming reality.

With the influx of noncitizens under this administration, even if just a fraction--let's just say something like 1 in 100--were to vote, this could translate to hundreds of thousands of votes, enough to sway our tightly contested elections and potentially alter their outcomes.

This is deeply concerning considering that a recent study showed that noncitizens have ample openings to vote illegally. It found that anywhere from 10 to 27 percent of noncitizens are registered to vote and 5 to 13 percent of noncitizens do actually vote in Presidential elections, no less.

Across the Nation, instances abound where States have inadvertently facilitated this very crisis. From unsolicited voter registration forms being mailed out to noncitizens to driver's licenses issued without adequate checks, practices relying merely on the honesty of illegal aliens have opened up the floodgates to voter fraud.

While it is true that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal elections, there are no effective systems in place to verify the citizenship of voters. A mere check on a box is all it takes, with little risk of being caught. In short, you are on the honor system with those forms.

Federal law even prohibits States from requiring proof of citizenship when registering voters via Federal forms. So it is not just that the States aren't doing an adequate job of verifying citizenship as a condition precedent to registering to vote in a Federal election; they are prohibited by law from doing so.

An increasing number of localities permit noncitizens to votes in local elections, and this makes it even worse. It further blurs the distinctions that are there that have historically been meant to protect the integrity of our elections.

Prominent Democrats have openly discussed these tactics, in many instances as beneficial to their agenda, as likely to help their political ambitions. Only months ago, every Senate Democrat voted to count illegal aliens in the census to help them shore up more seats in Congress and consequently more votes in the electoral college.

This cannot continue. It is our responsibility, our imperative, to close these gates. My bill, the SAVE Act, would ensure that this stops. It would be a vital step in securing the electoral process, ensuring that every vote cast is legitimate and every voter is duly recognized and registered and properly brought into the system so that they can vote.

The SAVE Act amends the National Voter Registration Act--the same act that was interpreted a few years ago by the Supreme Court as prohibiting the States from requesting any positive proof of citizenship--so that States can

ensure that only U.S. citizens may participate in Federal elections. It fixes the NVRA. If the NVRA was interpreted that way, this would close that loophole.

The SAVE Act requires States to obtain concrete documentary proof of citizenship at the time of voter registration. It specifies acceptable documentation and requires States to establish alternative verification processes for those rare instances in which standard documents might be unavailable. Furthermore, the SAVE Act compels States to proactively remove noncitizens from voter rolls and introduces severe Federal penalties for those who intentionally register noncitizens.

This bill echoes the sentiments of the American people from coast to coast. It transcends political affiliations, with an overwhelming bipartisan supermajority of Americans supporting it, and it speaks directly to the core of what makes our country great: fair, free, and secure elections operating within our constitutional Republic.

This is about protecting our elections from foreign interference-- something my Democratic colleagues claim to care about and long have. If we truly want our elections to be free of foreign interference, then by all means pass the SAVE ACT. Let's pass it today. Let's pass it right now.

So for those of my colleagues who are opposed to this, why aren't they concerned about the ability of tens of millions of foreign nationals--noncitizens--in the United States to vote in America? Why should we allow tens of millions of foreign nationals who are not citizens of the United States to vote in U.S. elections?

Now, if the Biden administration insists on keeping America's border open as, to my great dismay, it has for the entirety of the 3\1/2\ years or so that Biden has been in office--if they are going to insist on keeping the borders open, by all means, they must at least, at a bare minimum, ensure that none of those noncitizens are interfering in our elections. Every single day that we delay, the foundation of our electoral process erodes a little more.

We cannot wait for this administration to enforce the law, to enforce the border, which they haven't done. They continue to refuse to do it. More people continue to enter, but in the meantime, they have let in 10 million illegal aliens. Add to that those who were already here, and an estimated 30 million noncitizens currently reside in the United States.

But this administration just keeps right on trucking, not doing anything about this problem. In fact, this administration strongly opposes this legislation. Now, let's run through the reasoning. The reasoning is really telling. There are several arguments raised by the White House in the statement they issued just earlier this week.

First, the White House protests:

It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal

elections--it is a Federal crime punishable by prison and

fines.

Now, to be clear, that is, on its face, a correct statement of the law. I won't disagree with the statement on its four corners, but the conclusion is really messed up. As I have already stated, there is absolutely no functioning mechanism for enforcing the law.

And it is worse than that. It is not just that current law doesn't create an adequate enforcement mechanism; it is that current law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, affirmatively prohibits the States from doing what they would need to do in order to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote and subsequently voting in Federal elections, contrary to Federal law. Meanwhile, DOJ investigations of illegal voting are all but nonexistent.

A law without enforcement cannot and will not stop illegal behavior; and there are many, many circumstances in which, notwithstanding the fact that the underlying conduct is criminally prohibited, you still need some sort of verification mechanism to make it enforceable.

By the White House's own logic, it would be unnecessary and, perhaps, even unwise to have laws requiring a photo ID to buy beer and cigarettes. You know, we have got these laws on the books, after all, that already make it a crime to sell beer and cigarettes to children. So according to the White House's logic, we shouldn't need an additional law requiring age verification with a photo ID. Now, nobody would be that crazy or that insane to make that argument there. We shouldn't be making it here. It is the same argument, the exact same argument.

Next, in second position, the administration makes the unsubstantiated claim that ``the justification for the SAVE Act is based on easily disproven falsehoods.'' But then, well, the administration utterly fails and defiantly refuses to offer anything to support that statement.

It is ironic because that justification for opposing it on grounds that the justification for the SAVE Act is based on disproven falsehoods is its own disproven falsehood. There is nothing there. There is no falsehood that has been disproven. They have not disproven the fact that noncitizens, whether legally or illegally in this country at the time, can easily obtain voter registration eligibility to vote in Federal elections--or the physical ability to do it, rather, so long as they are willing to check a box and sign their name.

They don't dispute the fact that, in all 50 States and DC, a noncitizen can apply for and receive a driver's license or that the National Voter Registration Act makes it easy, when applying for a driver's license, to check a box and sign your name and thereby register to vote in Federal elections. When you add to that the fact that States are affirmatively, legally prohibited, based on the Supreme Court's interpretation of the NVRA a few years ago which said that the States cannot, may not, must not ask for any kind of documentation to verify citizenship, we have a problem.

So for them to say that our justification for the SAVE Act is based on falsehoods, on easily disproven falsehoods, is itself easily disproven, and it is a falsehood.

Third, the administration asserts that ``making a false claim of citizenship or unlawfully voting in an election is punishable by removal from the United States and a permanent bar to admission.''

Well, this is an interesting argument. This one is rich coming from this administration.

Look, it is true that the naturalization form, as a self-reporting mechanism, asks the applicant if the applicant has ever voted illegally. Yes, that is true. As far as I can tell, even when they do self-report in those, I suspect, rare instances when they do, absolutely nothing has been done with that information under the Biden administration. Joe Biden isn't deporting anyone for illegally voting. Joe Biden has opened the floodgates and just lets people come in. So that is rich coming from this administration suggesting that there is going to be, suddenly, rigorous enforcement of laws governing our border security in this instance when, No. 1, they are not doing it, and No. 2, everywhere you look, they are doing the opposite of that.

Fourth, the administration asserts, ``[s]tates already have effective safeguards in place to verify voters' eligibility and maintain the accuracy of voter rolls.''

That assertion is simply flatout wrong. It is just false. It is false factually, and it is false legally, meaning it is not true, and it cannot be true by operation of law for the reasons I have just explained. States are legally prohibited from requiring proof of citizenship when registering voters for Federal elections. This, I fear, may well be a feature, not a bug, for the administration and a reason for the administration to oppose it, tragically. We will get back to that more in a moment.

But, look, this loophole that I am describing based on the Supreme Court's interpretation of the NVRA--telling the States they may not and must not ask for any kind of evidence of citizenship--is a gaping loophole that we must fix.

Lastly, the administration claims that, instead of safeguarding our elections, this bill, with its incredibly generous list of ways to demonstrate citizenship, would make it harder for Americans to vote.

Well, look, the reality is that there is an expansive list of ways to demonstrate citizenship even if you lack the documentation traditionally involved in proving it.

Keep in mind it is not unusual for Americans to be asked for proof of citizenship. Every single time an American citizen starts new employment, starts a new job, they fill out an I-9.

They have got to provide proof of citizenship. If you are not a citizen, you have to show evidence of your visa and your eligibility to work in the United States under that visa. If you can't do that, you can't start a job. This happens all the time.

It is not as if the ability to prove citizenship and a requirement that one do so is foreign to us nor is it the case under this bill that would be exceptionally difficult, because even if you are one of those rare individuals who, for whatever reason, doesn't have or have access to a birth certificate or something else that can prove it, we have got a long list of other ways you can do it even if you lack the traditionally utilized documentation.

This bill allows all American citizens to vote. More importantly, if enacted, it would mean that no American vote could be canceled out by a vote cast illegally by a noncitizen. This bill would make it harder to cheat in elections and ensure the integrity of every ballot lawfully cast.

There is no valid argument against the SAVE Act--none. The only reason to oppose this bill would exist if you needed illegal votes to win elections--full stop. That is it.

By passing the SAVE Act, we would send a clear message that in the United States of America, voting is not just a privilege of citizenship but a cherished and protected right. As debates about election integrity rage, the SAVE Act stands out by guaranteeing that only American citizens can have a say in our elections. American elections must be decided by American voters--full stop.

So, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 8281, which is at the desk; further, 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 appreciate how the Presiding Officer always speaks loud enough so that everyone can hear. The Presiding Officer also manages the floor with great assertiveness, which I also appreciate.

I am grateful to my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from California, and his thoughtful approach to legislation.

There are some things that he said that I feel that I need to address. One of them is a reference to a belief that there is no credible evidence of noncitizens voting, at least no credible evidence of noncitizens voting in any significant numbers.

Well, there are studies that go in exactly the opposite direction, studies like the one that I cited just moments ago showing that it is a nontrivial sum, such that if even something at the low end of the percentages cited in that study were correct, that could easily be enough to sway the outcome of some elections.

But, regardless, what my friend is referring to has to be taken with a grain of salt, considering how things have changed on the ground. The enumerator and the denominator of that fraction have changed over the last few years, where we have now got about 30 million noncitizens living in the United States, with about 10 million who have come in who are illegally in the United States now, who entered this country unlawfully and are now living in the United States. That is not a nontrivial sum when that many people entered the United States that quickly. And when you have now got all 50 States and DC that issue driver's licenses to noncitizens; that, coupled with the National Voter Registration Act--and the way the National Voter Registration Act was interpreted a few years ago by the Supreme Court of the United States saying that the State officials who processed those Federal forms submitted under the NVRA so that people can register to vote in Federal elections while applying for their driver's license, that creates a toxic soup in which there is an environment just rife with opportunities for foreign interference in U.S. elections.

You cannot add this many noncitizens, legal or illegal noncitizens, to the United States in this short of a period of time and couple it with that kind of voter registration framework and not anticipate that there will be significant numbers of people who will end up registering to vote--some perhaps somewhat innocently, perhaps others less innocently. I don't know. But it would be supremely naive and, worse than that, willfully--willfully--blind to what we all know is going to happen unless we pass this.

Now, the House of Representatives passed this bill yesterday, which gets to another point made by my colleague saying that we have been down here over and over and over again doing this bill. I am not sure what he is referring to. The bill hasn't even been around that long, but something material changed yesterday.

Yesterday, the House version of the SAVE Act, which is the version that I am coming to the floor today to propose, the one that I just tried to pass by unanimous consent moments ago before it was met with the objection of the Senator from California, that bill was passed yesterday, less than 24 hours ago, by the House of Representatives, with bipartisan support, I would add--not just Republicans over there, some Democrats who are concerned, with very good reason, joined with Republicans in order to get this thing passed.

So to say that this is an area in which there is no credible evidence of any need to act is science fiction fantasy. It is contrary to fact. It is contrary to logic. It is contrary to our human understanding of nature, contrary to our understanding of the National Voter Registration Act and how it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States and how elections work.

As to my colleague's suggestion that this is feigned outrage--feigned outrage--that is animating this, nothing could be further from the truth. Look, I wish this could be feigned. I wish I had the luxury of this being something that was feigned. This is serious business.

We lose something as Americans, certainly, anytime we allow our elections to be vulnerable to interference from forces outside the United States, including foreign nationals, non-U.S. citizens inside this country.

When that happens, when the public starts to perceive that others are voting in this, diluting their votes, that has deleterious effects on the effective operation of our republican form of government that are very difficult to recapture once they are lost. We can't treat this casually.

Look, I will be back. It is unfortunate that we weren't able to pass this today.

Let me restate the point I made earlier: There is not a legitimate reason to oppose this bill. We make it incredibly easy under this bill for any American. If you are an American citizen, you can easily prove your citizenship and you can do it in the way this bill requires and you can still vote. It is not hard. It is not expensive. It need not require anyone to spend a dime, a nickel, or even a penny. It just requires you to be an American.

There is not a legitimate reason to oppose this bill. There is not a logical reason to oppose this bill, unless, of course, your objective is different, unless, of course, you are just fine with and in fact excited about or reliant upon noncitizens voting. That is alarming.

Madam President, European capitals have grown far too accustomed to U.S.-subsidized security for way too long. It is an imbalance that has allowed Europe to enjoy constant protection without bearing the risks or the costs.

Today, as Washington hosts the annual NATO summit, we find ourselves at a crossroads. NATO, now turning 75, is an alliance with major issues. Despite the rhetoric from President Biden and his handlers, the simple truth is that we cannot afford to consider admitting Ukraine, nor should the United States be making overtures about future membership.

As NATO gathers on our soil, the United States needs to be forthright with our allies that the United States cannot sustain the massive levels of support for Ukraine, and any discussion of Ukraine's membership cannot be on the table.

We have challenges right on our front door that need our immediate attention: the crisis at our southern border and the credible military threat from China in our hemisphere and the Pacific. Those two things combined are things we have to address, urgently so.

The situation at hand demands that we prioritize our own borders and our own deterrence efforts in higher priority theaters. We simply do not have the luxury of infinite military resources, capabilities, or personnel, and we do no favors to our European allies by minimizing the painful reality that the United States must prioritize our own security needs. We need to be honest with our allies about the truth.

The European security environment has drastically changed since the 2-percent defense spending pledge was made a decade ago at the 2014 Wales NATO summit. Our alliance's refusal to commit to raising this baseline to 3 percent or above, which is necessary to meet today's strategic demands, places a disproportionate burden on the American people. Our military and diplomatic leadership have admitted that 2 percent is insufficient; however, commitments to increasing defense spending have not been made at this year's summit.

While European domestic budgets focus on massively funding free healthcare, shortened workweeks, social welfare programs, climate alarmism, and woke DEI activities, the United States still far exceeds the wealthiest European NATO allies in military contributions to Ukraine, as this graph demonstrates.

While Americans are pinching pennies, we are sending our tax dollars to fight in a faraway war. The burden must shift to Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and London. Instead of confronting reality, however, the Biden administration recently inked a 10-year security agreement with Ukraine, promising that ``Ukraine's future is in NATO'' and asserts that there are no limits to U.S. aid.

This is pure fantasy. To start, Ukraine does not meet NATO's membership standards--not even close, not by a mile. Our defense industrial base and dwindling stockpiles demonstrate that there are practical limits to what the United States can reasonably do for Ukraine.

The agreement also leaves open the possibility that U.S. forces will be used to ``confront any future aggression against the territorial integrity'' of Ukraine, once again sidestepping Congress and the American people to put us on a path to a direct shooting war with a nuclear-armed adversary. This is armchair brinkmanship by politicians whose children won't be the ones dying. The supposed purpose of NATO is to protect its members and prevent war, not bring us closer to it.

Despite these obvious flaws, the Biden administration sought to make it deliberately difficult to terminate this proposed 10-year agreement.

My resolution condemns this 10-year bilateral security agreement with Ukraine. It affirms that the agreement has no force of law without Senate ratification and rejects it as a bridge to Ukraine's NATO membership.

The Biden administration cannot be allowed to skirt the Constitution, to relegate Congress to the periphery, or to tie the hands of future administrations to entertain the fantasies of

Ukraine joining NATO. We must prioritize our national interests and uphold the principles and protections of our Constitution.

It is time for Congress to remind the alliance and the Biden administration that we hold the power to make treaties, to extend NATO membership, and that overtures made to Ukraine and our European allies are not ``irreversible.''

Ukraine's membership is not set in stone. If Ukraine is in, the United States should be out.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign relations be discharged from further consideration and that the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 748. I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate the insights offered by my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from the State of Maryland. I am grateful for his leadership in the Senate, for his friendship and all he does in looking out for the interests of our country, and I am grateful to have his insights today on the floor in explaining the reasons for his objection to the resolution that I have offered.

I would like to note that not one of these arguments negates the fundamental realities that we are dealing with here. Not one of them negates something very fundamental in all of this, which is the requirement in the Constitution, found in article II, section 2 of the Constitution, that says that the President ``shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided [that] two-thirds of the Senators present concur.'' That is a pretty significant requirement. So let's address each of these arguments that we have heard in the last few minutes in turn.

We have heard arguments about the fact that there has been significant bipartisan support for Ukraine aid. That doesn't negate this. I mean, first of all, providing material support--humanitarian or otherwise--to Ukraine is not the same as a treaty. A treaty creates a lasting international obligation, one that is intended specifically to outlast, as my friend from Maryland noted is the objective here, that is supposed to transcend one administration to the next, so it is not just a fleeting moment; it is an ongoing sovereign obligation.

For that very reason, article II, section 2 of the Constitution requires that the Senate ratify treaties before they may take effect. The President may

propose them. The President may negotiate them and even sign them, but unless or until a treaty is presented to the Senate and ratified in executive session by the Senate with a two-thirds supermajority vote-- it takes 67 votes with 100 Senators--then you don't have a treaty, and you don't have that lasting, sovereign, international obligation--one that transcends one administration to another.

As far as the argument that there has been transparency and that there has been outreach by the White House to Senators and communication, that is great. It is the sort of thing that ought to happen. It is in no way sufficient to provide a substitute for or an end-run around article II, section 2 of the Constitution--requiring that treaties be presented to the Senate and ratified only with 67 votes in a 100 Member Chamber. So that doesn't do it. That can't take care of that here.

Look, the point here is that there is nothing in what I am suggesting that would necessarily close any doors in the future. What I am trying to say here is that, if we are going to do this--if we are going to close doors, as is the intention behind this agreement--close doors to future administrations and to future Congresses to bind us to some kind of a lasting obligation as a sovereign nation to one or more other sovereign nations internationally--then we have got to follow the treaty process because that is what the Constitution requires.

As to the idea that Ukraine is the frontline--the frontline of defending democracy as, I think, was one of the arguments raised here-- our own obligation to protect our own sovereign borders and our own people, while at the same time containing and deterring other potential threats to the United States, such as those presented by China, have to come first. Those are the frontlines of our Republic--our own border, our own national defense, our own national security, the safety, the freedom, the security of our own people. That is the frontline that we are supposed to be focused on. That is literally our frontline, and insofar as that is incompatible with our efforts on another continent, those things have to be taken into account.

But there again, this is exactly the sort of thing that the Senate is supposed to consider not just in the abstract but in the context of a lasting, sovereign, international obligation in the context of treaty ratification proceedings, and that takes a two-thirds supermajority vote.

Executive agreements do not and constitutionally should not and cannot supersede laws passed by Congress. There is nothing in the Constitution that says that a lasting, sovereign, international obligation taken on by an Executive agreement made by the President of the United States alone, whether with or without consultation to one or more Members of Congress--there is nothing in there that says that that satisfies the constitutional obligation.

Now, if the wording of article II, section 2 or any other provision of the Constitution reads otherwise, then we would be in a different circumstance, but alas, we are not in that universe. Quite fortunately, we are not. It is with good reason that the Founders put in there the two-thirds supermajority requirement, and we can't allow that simply to be bypassed here, not for light or casual purposes, not even for great purposes.

No matter how great our purposes are, no matter how noble one's intentions might be in the administration, in the Senate, or otherwise, one can't get around this simple fact that what we are talking about here is, for all practical purposes, a treaty, and we are being asked to treat it as such. That requires two-thirds. We don't have that here.

So no matter how much bipartisan support, no matter how much flowery rhetoric, no matter how much good that can be done, no matter how evil Vladimir Putin is, that still doesn't change our constitutional realities. We have each been sworn into office under circumstances where, pursuant to another provision of the Constitution, we are required to take an oath to the Constitution itself. Our oath requires nothing less than that we honor this and that we not pretend that we can just circumvent all of this simply by calling something an Executive agreement--no matter how justified by the circumstances we may want it to be.

Look, at the end of the day, we have to come to grapple with the fact that we are $35 trillion in debt and that we face threats around the world, including and especially from China--China, which is gaining, increasingly, a foothold in our own hemisphere and in country after country throughout Latin America. China is gaining a physical presence, in addition to a more and more robust commercial arrangement, in addition to China's investment in so-called dual-use technologies, which in many circumstances have military purposes behind them. It is one of many policy reasons why we have got to be focused on China.

Insofar as we deplete our own resources in continuing to honor an obligation to another country in another hemisphere, we have got to take those things into account. It is one of many things that we have got to consider before taking on a treaty obligation. Make no mistake, this is a treaty obligation.

Abraham Lincoln is quoted as having asked the question rhetorically: If you count the tail of a dog as a leg, how many legs does the dog have?

People would, apparently, routinely--the uninitiated at least-- respond by saying: Well, five legs.

And he would say: No. It is still four legs. Just because you call the tail of a dog a leg, it doesn't make it so.

Just because you call an Executive agreement a treaty and ask people to treat it as if it were a treaty doesn't make it so.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 746.

The clerk will report the resolution by title.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid and upon the table.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, the United States of America has benefited for nearly 2\1/2\ centuries from having one of the world's best, most objective judicial systems in the entire world. While no system run by fallible, mortal human beings can be described as perfect, ours is as good a system as has ever existed in the world and certainly as good as any that exists in the world today. But the capstone of that is an entity that exists by virtue, by operation of the Constitution--the Supreme Court of the United States.

This solution--a solution that is being rammed through today--this is a solution in search of a problem that would itself create another problem for which there would be no solution. That problem would, in turn, turn one of our greatest strengths--an independent, functioning judicial system, one that has preserved the rule of law in this country for nearly 2\1/2\ centuries--into something, a more political animal. It is not what we wanted. It is not what the Constitution contemplates. It is not what we benefited from.

And why? We must ask the question why. Is there any great moral offense that has been committed? No. Is there any grave violation of law that has been committed? No. Is there any violation of law that has been committed at all? No, there is not.

What we have here is something very, very cynical, and what we have is that people on the left have a couple of cases currently pending before the Supreme Court of the United States--cases that they are worried about the outcome, cases in which they are worried that certain Justices might rule against them. And they have some Justices they don't like. They have some Justices that they worry are going to reject the bad arguments that they have made in those cases. So rather than double down on making sure that their arguments are good and that they are persuasive and recognizing that they are not going to win all cases, they are threatening, they are intimidating the Justices.

They are making--it is not just a mountain out of a molehill; they are making a mountain out of nothing. They are doing this specifically to harass, threaten, and intimidate certain members of the Supreme Court in order to influence the outcome of pending litigation. Make no mistake, that is what is going on here. They are trying to trigger more recusals--recusals of those Justices they don't like.

The legislation they are offering would create more problems in this, would make it easier for them to trigger more recusals.

This is not a good outcome. This is a political effort to influence the resolution of pending litigation before the Supreme Court of the United States and to threaten Justices that don't toe the woke line.

I withhold my objection at this moment.

Madam President, I first want to echo the kind words by the majority leader for the pages. As a former Senate page myself, I know that this is a job that few people notice on the outside, but we notice it here. They make sure things run well here, and I am grateful to know these fine people. I hope they had a good time while they were with us.

And so to each of you, I wish you the very best of luck as you pursue your future careers, and I look forward to seeing some of you sitting in these chairs one day.

As I entered this Chamber, shortly after being elected to the Senate in 2010, during my orientation I was told to take a seat in the chairs. I couldn't take a seat. I couldn't figure out why. And then I remembered my training from the time when I was a page, which taught me never, ever, ever to sit in a Senator's chair--only to realize it is probably OK now because I just got elected.

I wish you the best of luck.