Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, for almost a week, the Senate has been considering an urgent priority: aid funding for communities across the country that have been literally ravaged by natural disasters, like last year's powerful hurricane season, which carried torrential downpours and gale-force winds across the coasts of Florida and the Carolinas and left families sorting through literally billions of dollars of damage; the fierce wildfires that consumed millions of acres in California and across the West, damaging or destroying tens of thousands of homes and businesses in their path; the tornadoes that tore through communities in East Alabama and West Georgia; and the heavy rains and flooding that impacted part of Kentucky.

As Puerto Rico continues to get back on its feet following Hurricane Maria, an especially urgent concern today is funding for the nutrition assistance program. Hundreds of thousands of residents have already felt the impacts of dwindling food aid on the island. Preventing further serious reductions will take prompt Federal action. Even as we speak, communities across the Midwest are still underwater, trying to combat the severe floods that washed away homes and livelihoods.

From coast to coast and beyond, we have Americans rebuilding their communities, their local infrastructure, their livelihoods, and in some cases their own homes. Here in Congress, it is time to finish the good work our colleagues from Georgia have started and pass legislation to provide a helping hand.

I was encouraged last week when 90 Senators took the first step and allowed the full Senate to turn to disaster funding on the floor. Yet it has been unsettling to hear behind the scenes that our Democratic colleagues may now be toying with the idea of opposing Chairman Shelby's comprehensive substitute amendment.

This is no time for our colleagues across the aisle to prioritize a political fight with the President ahead of the urgent needs of communities across our country. Chairman Shelby has carefully assembled a comprehensive proposal that our Democratic friends ought to jump at the chance to support. It ensures that no affected region would be left behind. That includes $600 million to immediately shore up disaster nutrition assistance for the vulnerable people in Puerto Rico.

Unlike the underlying House bill, which does not address this year's disasters, it would provide for a significant downpayment on relief and rebuilding in the flood-damaged Midwest. The House bill has nothing for the Midwest flooding, so it is a nonstarter for that reason and also because the White House has indicated the President would not support that legislation because of policy decisions made by House Democrats.

Chairman Shelby's amendment is the only game in town. It is our only sure path to making a law with anywhere near the urgency these Americans deserve; it is the only bill on the table with any provision for the Midwest flooding; and it is the only bill on the table that could earn a Presidential signature in time to deliver urgent relief on the nutrition assistance needed in Puerto Rico.

In my view, this does not need to be a difficult partisan decision. Indeed, I can hardly put it better than my Democratic colleagues explained it themselves just a few weeks ago. As recently as the end of February, 11 of our Democratic colleagues wrote to all 4 congressional leaders to insist that this subject could not wait. They said: ``Providing desperately needed relief to impacted communities should be a bipartisan, bicameral priority and continued inaction is unacceptable.''

They said Congress had to fund disaster recovery and rebuilding ``immediately.''

Well, this afternoon, our colleagues will have the opportunity to make good on their words and vote to advance Chairman Shelby's legislation. It is our way to help all the affected communities, including the Midwest, which the House bill would simply leave behind.

It is our path to securing hundreds of millions in nutrition aid for Puerto Rico and doing so promptly. It is our shot at exactly the kind of bipartisan action that a number of our Democratic colleagues have actually been clamoring for, so let's vote to advance it later today.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 8.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 32.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 133, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the President of the Senate be authorized to appoint a committee on the part of the Senate to join with a like committee on the part of the House of Representatives to escort His Excellency Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, into the House Chamber for the joint meeting on Wednesday, April 3, 2019.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, April 2; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. Res. 50, with the time until 12:30 p.m. equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; finally, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senators Isakson and Perdue.

Madam President, in recent months, my home State of Kentucky has been hit by severe weather. Over half of our 120 counties have reported flood damage. Governor Bevin has placed the entire Commonwealth under a state of emergency and mobilized resources to help with recovery. Local, State, and Federal emergency officials have started assessing the flood damage. My staff and I are monitoring the progress to provide assistance wherever we can. I look forward to meeting with the Kentucky emergency management director later today to get the latest updates.

Unfortunately, my State is not alone--far from it. Many States are currently bearing heavy burdens in the wake of powerful natural disasters. Families in Florida and the Carolinas are still picking up the pieces from a damaging hurricane season. In Alabama and Georgia, recovery is just beginning after vicious tornadoes. The effects of serious flooding remain across the Southeast. In places in the Midwest, such as Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, many Americans are still waiting, praying, and working to mitigate the destruction from devastating flooding. Many communities are still literally under water.

I know right now the entire Senate is especially mindful of the destruction in America's heartland, so I am grateful for the efforts of several colleagues to bring forward a package of supplemental disaster relief funds to address the most urgent needs.

The legislation we are considering this week would help growers and producers with storm-related crop losses. It would help local infrastructure--from roads to schools and hospitals--resume full operation. It would help our Nation's military restore readiness at bases and installations that were caught in harm's way.

Thanks to Chairman Shelby, Senators Isakson, Perdue, Scott, Rubio, and others, we will have the opportunity to deliver critical resources to the communities facing the long road back to normal. I hope each of our colleagues will join me in supporting this measure, which will do just that.

Now, Madam President, on an entirely different matter, this week, the American people saw our Democratic colleagues go on

the record on a truly astonishing policy proposal--a truly astonishing policy proposal.

After months of enthusiastic declarations of support, after tripping over one another to prove their devotion to the far-left core of the new Democratic Party, the vast majority of our colleagues across the aisle were unable to vote against even an obviously ludicrous proposal to tank the U.S. economy and to leave American workers out in the cold.

You might think that after their radical proposal met with such an inglorious end, my colleagues might choose to pause and take stock. Well, think again. Just yesterday, our Democratic colleagues introduced a Senate version of Speaker Pelosi's sweeping legislation to rewrite the rules of American politics to benefit one side--new Washington rules for how citizens can exercise political speech, new Washington systems to funnel taxpayer dollars into the pockets of political campaigns, and an unprecedented Washington intrusion into State and local election law all across our country.

As I have argued before, it conveniently turns out that the vast majority of their proposed changes seem tailored to help more Democrats get elected and stay elected; hence my name for this legislation: the Democratic politician protection act.

Apparently, our friends are under the impression that if Democrats aren't winning as many elections as they would like, then the entire process by which we elect our representatives must certainly be broken. If Democrats don't like an outcome, then the rules themselves need to be tossed aside. This seems to be emerging as a kind of pattern on the other side of the aisle.

When our Constitution, our institutions, or the American people disappoint our Democratic colleagues, instead of taking the hint and perhaps making their own positions more mainstream, they instead look to change the rules.

After they failed to defeat the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh last year, liberal leaders decided the underlying structure of the American judiciary needed to be radically overhauled to suit their whims.

They set out to rehabilitate the absurd notion of ``court-packing''-- a term that since the 1930s has been synonymous in American history with the idea of an unprincipled power grab.

The idea that Democrats sometimes lose Presidential elections and that Republican Presidents sometimes subsequently appoint Supreme Court Justices is apparently no longer tolerated. Instead of filling the existing vacancies, why shouldn't the next Democratic President just make up a bunch of new ones--create a bunch of new ones--so the far left can stack the Court? Forget about nine Justices. Forget about judges who don't wear red robes or blue robes but black robes. Forget about interpreting and applying our laws and Constitution the way they are written instead of how partisans might wish they were written. The far left wants to forget about all of that because Democrats would rather rewrite the rules.

So out of the ash heap of history came this talk of ``court- packing''--a notion that would threaten the rule of law and our American judicial system as we have long understood it. It is a truly radical proposal that has been dead and buried by bipartisan consensus for almost a century. But now President Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, says: ``We should be talking even about expanding the number of people who serve on the Supreme Court, if there is a Democratic president.'' One of our Senate colleagues, who is currently running for President, called this an ``interesting idea that I would have to think more about.'' The New York Times reported that at a recent campaign event, another Democratic candidate said that he is open to the idea after being asked about it by a member of a new far-left group that is literally named--this is their name; listen to this--``Pack the Courts.''

I hope the lion's share of our Democratic colleagues will speak out forcefully against exhuming this thoroughly discredited idea. I hope my colleagues will have the courage to look these far-left agitators in the eye and tell them that some traditions and some institutions are more important than partisan point-scoring. But given that we have already seen Democrats rush headlong to embrace schemes like the Democratic politician protection act, Medicare for None, and the so- called Green New Deal, I have to say, at this point, that kind of courageous statement would come as a pleasant surprise.

Madam President, I understand there is a bill at the desk due for a second reading.

In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to further proceedings.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw Amendment Nos. 5 and 6.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

I have an amendment at the desk and ask the clerk to report.

I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with.

I have an amendment to the text of the underlying bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with.

I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions be waived.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.