Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) and the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), are necessarily absent.

Madam President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Matthew Byrne to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Judge Byrne is one of the most extreme anti-choice judicial nominees the Senate has considered. While serving as a visiting justice on the Ohio Supreme Court, he objected to the court's

dismissal of a case defending the State's abortion ban even after voters' decision to enshrine reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution.

While campaigning to be a State court judge, Judge Byrne stated that he opposed abortion for any reason other than to protect the life of the mother. He opposed exceptions for rape or incest and further wrote: ``I believe the `life of the mother' should be strictly defined so as to avoid creating loopholes.''

Judge Byrne's extreme views extend beyond his opposition to reproductive rights. Nearly 5 years after the Supreme Court recognized the right to same-sex marriage, he stated that he still believed the judiciary does not possess the authority to expand the definition of marriage to include anything but one man and one woman. Judge Byrne has also written: ``There is no reference to a `right to privacy' in the Constitution.''

In his public commentary and his judicial decisions, Judge Byrne has repeatedly demonstrated his extreme views and how he will rule if he is confirmed to the Federal bench.

I oppose his nomination and urge my colleagues to join me.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, last week marked 1 year since President Trump launched an assault against my home State of Illinois and characterized his Operation Midway Blitz. For months, chaos and terror reigned supreme in the streets and the city that I loved and am honored to represent.

This operation was supposedly targeting ``the worst of the worst,'' as President Trump has claimed: Rapists, murderers, terrorists, child predators, we are going after them. We are going to arrest them, and if they are not properly documented, we are going to deport them.

It ended up targeting not that population but American citizens and immigrants who have built their lives and raised their families in Illinois, people who posed no threat whatsoever to the public safety.

Let me give you two examples. One was when an ICE agent in the streets of Chicago killed Silverio Villegas Gonzalez minutes after he had dropped off his children at a daycare in Franklin Park, a suburb of Chicago. Mr. Gonzalez lived in the Chicago area for nearly 20 years. His children were forced to enter foster care because of his murder.

Immediately after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security claimed Mr. Villegas Gonzalez had hit and dragged an ICE agent with his car when he and another officer attempted to conduct a traffic stop causing serious injuries. However, there was a video of what actually happened, and it contradicted the claims made by the Department of Homeland Security.

In fact, Mr. Villegas Gonzalez is not shown hitting or dragging any officer with his car; and in the aftermath, one of the officers said his injuries were ``nothing major.''

In another disturbing example of the horrors of Operation Midway Blitz, an agent of the Department of Homeland Security shot my constituent Marimar Martinez--not once, not twice, five times. Afterwards, the shooter texted his fellow agents and bragged ``I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.''

The administration called Ms. Martinez a domestic terrorist. Ms. Martinez was on her way to her church. She had some clothing she was going to donate to the church clothing drive. That is when the ICE agents pulled her over. She was driving while Hispanic, which under the Midway Blitz rules was enough to stop her, threaten her, and shoot her five times.

What happened to the charges against her? All dropped. Not one single charge was prosecuted. This poor young woman, on her way to her church to give some clothing to a clothing drive, shot five times by ICE agents, and no charges filed against her at all.

Normally, when Federal agents engage in excessive force like I have just described, the Federal Bureau of Investigation steps in to investigate. They follow up, gathering evidence, videos, witnesses.

Instead, following the shooting of Miramar Martinez, FBI Director Kash Patel took to social media to falsely accuse Ms. Martinez of attacking immigration agents.

He said, ``Attack our law enforcement, and this FBI will find you and bring you to justice.'' Tough talk when the video shows that this young woman did not engage in any illegal conduct.

Today, when I asked Kash Patel when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his failure to investigate the shootings of Mr. Gonzalez and Ms. Martinez, he claimed there are ongoing investigations. We will see. It has been more than a year. He refused when he had a chance, and I gave him that chance, to apologize for attacking Ms. Martinez.

I don't have much faith in the director of the FBI Kash Patel, but if the FBI is, in fact, investigating these shootings, they must cooperate with State and local officials to bring these people to justice as well. If you go to the website of the FBI and look under the issue of civil rights, you will find the claim of that Agency that they are the leaders in investigating crimes involving civil rights; and historically

that has been the case, but not under this administration.

If there is wrongdoing by an ICE agent or a DHS official or any suspicion that a crime has been committed, you hear nothing but crickets when it comes to the Department of Justice and the FBI.

Thankfully, the people of my home State are stepping in and shining a light on this administration's wrongdoing. Governor Pritzker established the Illinois Accountability Commission, an independent State board to investigate and document the conduct of Federal agents during Operation Midway Blitz.

After a 6-month investigation, the Commission found that most of these arrested under the operation were ``not the worst of the worst.''

The Commission found that from September through December of 2025, last year, the Department of Homeland Security detained over 3,900 people in Chicago; an estimated 85 percent had no criminal convictions. The worst of the worst? No.

And Operation Midway Blitz had negative economic consequences as well. I have been to these neighborhoods: Little Village, Pilsen. I have seen what is going on. People live in fear. They don't come out of their homes to go to church or to go shopping; they ask neighbors to do it for them, which they willingly do. But they are afraid of what will happen if ICE returns.

A new report by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago shows that the failed operation of Midway Blitz of the Trump administration cost Cook County $1.26 billion in lost retail activity and restaurants.

Unfortunately, this administration has not stopped circumventing the Constitution and the laws of this country. In immigration courts around the country, immigration judges, employees of the Justice Department, I might add, have been holding so-called ``mega master'' court hearings. In these hearings, a single judge hears between 100 and 200 cases over the course of just a few hours.

Last month, I decided I would go personally to see these courts. I went to the Chicago Immigration Court to observe one of these ``mega master'' hearings. That day, 850 people were scheduled to appear. The court was so packed that people missed their hearing times because they couldn't get from the lobby to the courtroom in time.

There is no way that individuals can meaningfully defend themselves or have due process in this kind of a hearing. I observed a particularly troubling ``mega master'' docket for children. What I saw was heartbreaking. Children who State court found had been abused, abandoned, or neglected, are forced to appear in court without parents and explain why they deserve to stay in this country, all while facing language and cognitive barriers.

The last case on the docket that morning was a high school-aged Guatemalan child. Remember, the State courts have a finding that these children have been abandoned or abused or neglected. Because of the delay in finding a translator that day who spoke his dialect, he was forced to sit and watch every other child before him before he was ordered deported.

After rambling off a litany of directives through the translator, the judge asked the child if he had any questions. The young boy said ``Why are you sending me back to Guatemala? What did I do?''

The answer is devastatingly clear. That poor boy is just the latest victim of President Trump and Stephen Miller's evil vision of a hateful America that turns its back on immigrants.

The President's reckless mass deportation campaign has steamrolled the rights and liberties guaranteed by our Constitution. Its countless victims including Marimar Martinez and Silverio Villegas Gonzalez deserve justice and accountability.

That is why my Illinois colleagues and I requested an investigation by the DHS Office of Inspector General into the patterns of misconduct and unconstitutional use of force during DHS's mass deportation operations including Midway Blitz.

Let me be clear, it is long past time that Congress holds the President and his MAGA loyalists accountable for failing to focus on public safety.

I am retiring at the end of this year. We have very few meetings of this Senate left before the new Senate is brought in to be sworn in on January 3. We still have time to pass meaningful immigration legislation. We still have time, on a bipartisan basis, to resolve some of the many issues that face us.

I just left a press conference where we talked about the restaurant industry. We talked about food service and the importance of immigrants. You may not notice in the wait staff many immigrants, but believe me, behind that swinging door are a lot of people who are undocumented and working. A friend of mine who is in the business in Chicago said if you took the undocumented out of Chicago, you could just start closing down restaurants and hotels.

These people are hard-working people taking jobs that Americans, frankly, don't want because they are so darn tough, but they do it for their families as all immigrants have done in the past, my own family included. Why do we sneer at these people who work so hard, who make this economy hum, who take the jobs which other Americans won't touch?

Why do we want to deport them back to situations that could be the scene of the crime for the very reasons that they came to the United States? That just isn't fair, and it isn't realistic.

We still have time to do something. When it comes to the Dream Act, I will continue to fight for that as long as I can stand on this floor of the Senate, and, thereafter, if necessary. We have got to come together on a bipartisan basis and do something constructive to set the immigration laws in this country on the right track. It has been 30 years since we have done anything of substance on immigration--30 years, and things have changed dramatically in this country and in this world.

We can do more, and we should do more. Operation Midway Blitz was the extreme. Innocent people were killed in the streets of Chicago and other cities across the United States.

It is only right that we investigate these crimes and find out if there is any violation of civil rights and prosecute it if there is.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Rosen) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, on Friday, our country observed a solemn milestone: the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

I remember that morning vividly. I was just outside this Chamber in the Democratic leader's office, meeting with Senator Daschle. We had just heard the news that the first plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, and we watched in real time on the television as the second plane flew into the Twin Towers. Shortly thereafter, we were told to evacuate the Capitol Building.

From outside, we could see black smoke billowing up across the National Mall, and we knew something terrible had happened mere miles away from where we stood. But we didn't yet know that a third plane had struck the Pentagon. Nor did we know then about the heroic actions of the passengers aboard Flight 93 who lost their lives stopping the hijackers from crashing the plane into another target--likely

the Capitol Building or the White House.

There were countless other unsung heroes that day across the country, who worked tirelessly, coordinating rescues, cleaning debris, serving meals, and more. And across the border to our north, Canadians opened their homes, schools, and churches to house and care for more than 30,000 stranded travelers from hundreds of flights that were diverted due to the closure of American airspace. Their hospitality, mobilization, and warmth were never in question and are fondly remembered today. Twenty-five years later, relations between the U.S. and Canada are strained due to the President's trade war, but we will never forget the generosity of our neighbors.

Ultimately, nearly 3,000 innocent victims were needlessly and cruelly killed that morning--leaving behind grieving spouses, children, parents, siblings, colleagues, and friends. More than 3,000 children lost a parent that day--parents who had left home that morning for work or the firefighter, police officer, and other first responder parents who were off duty but rushed to the scene to help.

The victims of 9/11 and their loved ones deserved justice decades ago. But a quarter of a century after 9/11, the trials of those accused of orchestrating the attacks have not even begun.

In the meantime, the children who lost parents on 9/11 have grown up. Countless family members of the victims have passed away. And many continue hoping and waiting for the closure of a trial that remains out of reach.

This injustice is the result of leaders discarding our Nation's highest values and the rule of law when we needed them most--turning instead to torture, indefinite detention, and makeshift military tribunals at Guantanamo. These fateful decisions tainted key evidence and led to years of avoidable litigation that continues to this day-- with no end in sight.

We cannot turn back time. But we owe it to those who lost their lives on 9/11 and their loved ones to salvage what justice remains possible-- not in another two and a half decades but now. At this time of division and turmoil, today's leaders should learn from these failures, not repeat them. It is upholding the rule of law and respecting universal rights that make a nation great.

Mr. President, on another topic, the Senate may consider an initial procedural vote on the CLARITY Act as soon as tomorrow.

Crypto enthusiasts and the crypto industry claim the Senate needs to pass this bill soon in the name of ``innovation,'' but I used to work for a fellow in politics who said, ``For every political issue there's a good reason and a real reason.''

And the real reason for this rush job is the crypto industry's willingness to spend millions against crypto-skeptic candidates and Trump's desire to continue to enrich himself and his allies.

Back in 2019, President Trump said that crypto is ``based on thin air'' and a ``disaster waiting to happen.'' But when he found a way to profit from it, he suddenly changed his tune.

In just the first year of his second term, the President and his family made more than $1.4 billion off cryptocurrency. And his allies, like Steve Witkoff and Todd Blanche, raked in hundreds of millions in crypto profits last year alone. President Trump has sold access to the White House through seedy schemes like his meme coin and pressured Federal banking regulators to grant his family's crypto firm--World Liberty Financial--a banking charter.

He even pardoned Changpeng Zhao, a convicted crypto criminal and founder of Binance, the same company that helped the Trump family's crypto firm launch its stablecoin.

However, my Republican colleagues want Senate Democrats to accept the CLARITY Act as written, even though it does not require President Trump to divest from his crypto fortune, which would allow the President to continue to profit off his crypto schemes.

My Republican colleagues' version of the bill also lacks meaningful consumer protections.

Although I am happy to see some provisions that regulate scandal- ridden crypto ATMs, the CLARITY Act does not do enough.

The FBI received nearly 13,500 complaints about crypto ATM scams in 2025, resulting in $389 million in losses.

Federal financial regulators have warned consumers about these scams, and it is high time for Congress to act.

However, unlike my Preventing Crypto ATM Fraud Prevention Act, the CLARITY Act fails to require verbal confirmation from consumers before processing transactions and does not allow the Federal Government to impose civil penalties on fraudsters.

That is why legislators need to go back to the drawing board to create meaningful consumer protections.

Congress also must ban the Social Security Trust Fund from investing in crypto and ensure the crypto industry cannot get one dime from a government bailout if and when there is a crypto crash.

Americans' wallets are hurting, and they want real economic reform, not crypto regulation. Polling shows that just 1 percent of Americans rank crypto as a top priority for Congress.

Congress should not help the President get richer or grant the crypto industry their wish list of deregulation. There is no reason to rush a vote on the CLARITY Act; let's take our time and get this right.

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

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

I announce that the Senator from Maine (Mr. King) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Welch) is necessary absent.

Mr. President, a few years ago, I met a young woman who lives in the Chicago suburbs. She told me a story of her college career and what it led to. It was something I had never heard before.

Her experience in trying to pursue a degree leading to law enforcement took her not to the normal, predictable academic sources, but to a new industry, which was opening up in our country--for-profit colleges and universities.

Hers was a sad story. She had been enrolled in one of these for- profit colleges and paid the tuition, took the courses--some of them in person, some of them online--and ultimately went to a counselor and asked if she was headed for a bachelor's degree because of her coursework, and he assured her that she was. She went on to say that she hoped to be able to get into law enforcement--that was her ultimate goal. He gave her assurances that that would happen.

She finished her degree at this for-profit college and university in Chicago and then took her certificate showing her graduation to would- be employers--police departments in the area. They laughed at her, and they said: That is not a real school. That is a for-profit school, and the courses you took don't count. If you want a degree in law enforcement that leads to a real job, you can't get it from a for- profit college and university.

Well, that was a heartbreak to her because she spent years working on it. But what was even worse was, she was so deeply in debt for student loans that she borrowed from this phony university.

She, when I met her, was living in her parents' basement, had no future ahead of her for doing what she thought was the right thing-- getting a college degree.

What she didn't know, and what we know now, is that there are two numbers that tell the story of for-profit colleges and universities. You hear their names like University of Phoenix--that is probably the most prominent one people hear over and over--and you see their advertisements and brochures that are mailed to high school seniors enticing them to sign up for these for-profit schools.

What you don't know is that although only 8 percent of high school graduates go to for-profit colleges and universities--8 percent--30 percent of all student loan defaults are the students from these same schools.

What is going on here? Such a low number--8 percent--going on to these schools and such a high number of loan defaults. That is because they issue worthless degrees and entice these students into deep debt.

Many times, a parent or even a grandparent will cosign on the loans for these for-profit schools; and when everything falls apart, as it is likely to, everybody is held liable and responsible. That is why we have had an ongoing battle here in Washington for years against the for-profit college and university industry.

There was a legal battle in a case called Sweet v. McMahon, which has gone on for years. It finally, this week, came to an end, and it is an important

case on the subject of for-profit colleges and universities.

It was the largest class-action settlement against the Federal Government in the history of our Nation. That is life-changing news for nearly half a million Federal student loan borrowers who will receive $23 billion in relief after being misled and defrauded by for-profit colleges.

If you listen to the radio on your morning commute or watch TV after a long days' work, then you have no doubt been hit with flashy advertising from institutions like the University of Phoenix looking to lure in unsuspecting students.

Here is the catch: These institutions often rip off those students, lying about their prospects for a job, their ability to have credits that transfer to any other school, or their likely salary after graduation.

In fact, these schools, as I mentioned, enroll only 8 percent of the students but account for 30 percent of all Federal student loan defaults. Too much debt; too little education.

NPR recently highlighted the story of Jessica Feindt of Michigan. She enrolled at the University of Phoenix to study psychology.

She said she ``paid a lot out of pocket'' and ``through student loans.''

She realized later that the school's recruitment counselor had repeatedly misled her, including by telling her that a degree would be accepted by Michigan graduate programs--that was false.

By the time she had learned her degree was useless, she was already underwater and deeply in debt. So she joined this class-action lawsuit, originally filed during President Trump's first term, to get relief. Mr. President, 4 years later--it took 4 years--she will finally see the relief, which she is entitled to.

The first Trump administration--go figure--denied nearly all of these claims by the students, which a Federal court described as ``disturbingly Kafkaesque.''

But in 2022, President Joe Biden and his administration settled the case and forgave the student loan debts of nearly 300,000 borrowers who had been defrauded. Under the terms of that settlement, borrowers who were not part of the original class had 5 months to file claims. If the Department of Education had not adjudicated the additional claims by early 2026, borrowers still waiting in limbo would be automatically entitled to relief.

But while the Trump administration can quickly green-light permanent tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, as in their so-called Big Beautiful Bill, they hesitated when it came to giving relief to these students who just wanted a fair shot.

In late 2025, the Trump administration asked for an additional 18 months to review the students' claims--students who were defrauded by these schools.

A Federal district judge said ``enough.'' Last month, a panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously upheld this decision. Good.

Like their tactics with DACA recipients and the slow-walking of renewal applications with the USCIS, the administration was asking for more time so that they could bleed out these borrowers and deny relief to hundreds of thousands of students deep in debt living in their parents' basement trying to figure out if they had a future.

This is where the priorities lie. I am glad these borrowers, after years and years of waiting, will finally get the relief they are entitled to.

For the last 15 years or more, I have sent a letter to every high school counselor in the State of Illinois. I send it about the first of the year and warn them: Be careful not to let your students be lured into these for-profit colleges and universities. They are going to send them brochures. They are going to tee them up with all sorts of things on the internet. It will be a dazzling display about the college, which is not a real college; it is a for-profit college and university.

Be careful. The time that you spend there, the money that you spend there may be a total waste or worse. It could be a debt that trails you for years and years, if not decades, in your life.

Thank goodness for these students, the thousands of students who are benefited by President Biden's decision. The courts finally stood by them and gave these students a second chance. It has been a situation I have run into time and again. I have threatened some of these for- profit schools as a way of getting them to drop the loans that they were enforcing on these students because I know what happens in the end.

Students need to be careful. You can't go wrong starting with city colleges and community colleges in your community. It is affordable. There are alternatives there. Most of the time, the hours that you earn there are going to be transferable to real colleges and universities. I beg my young students in Illinois to start there and the student counselors to do their job and discourage kids from getting involved with these for-profit schools.

energy grant funding

Mr. President, last October, the Trump administration cut more than $7 billion in energy grant funding going to States across America, including more than $580 million for Illinois. At the time, the administration promised that these cancellations were meant to cut ``waste, fraud, and abuse.'' But someone once told me that in politics there is always a good reason, and then there is always a real reason.

Of the 284 cancelled grants, how many do you think went to a State that voted for President Trump? 100? 50? 10? Of the 284 grants this administration revoked, only one went to a State that voted for Donald Trump. The rest went to blue States. At the time, the Trump administration went through pains to tell us that these cancellations were not political. We knew that could not be true. And now, we have proof.

The Department of Energy admitted in court documents that these cancellations were ``based solely on the political identity of the recipient's state,'' or in other words ``whether the recipient's location was in a Blue State.'' The administration wasn't making policy based on what's best for America. They were making decisions based on the President's vendettas. This is petty, it is unlawful, and it is wrong.

It is especially egregious to cancel these crucial grants when Americans' energy bills are skyrocketing. In the last year alone, Illinoisans paid $210 more for their power, and that number is only expected to go up in light of Trump's war with Iran. You would think that President Trump, who ran on bringing costs down on ``day one,'' would make addressing these record price hikes his top priority. Instead, he has deeply undermined our capacity to lower prices, all to settle petty political scores.

In Illinois, more than $150 million of the cancelled awards were meant to upgrade the power grid. These upgrades would have made the grid more reliable in the face of rising energy demand. Now, that work is in jeopardy. When the government cancels funding for grid upgrades, those needs do not just go away. Instead, utility companies will pass along the cost of upgrades to consumers. My constituents are paying more for their electricity, heating, and cooling because of President Trump.

That is why I am leading Illinois Democrats in a letter to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and OMB Director Russ Vought outlining the harm these cancellations have done to our State over the past 9 months. I urge my Republican colleagues to join in urging this administration to reverse course and reject this administration's blatant defiance of Congress' authority under the Constitution. If this precedent is set, your State could be next to see its funding revoked.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, each of us serving in the Senate hopes to leave behind some sort of legacy. My own begins with the interns that have passed through my office. Over my four decades in Congress, I have had more than 3,000 interns work for me at one point or another, although my staff are convinced that the true number is even higher. These young people have covered me with glory, and it has been a great privilege to help them get their foot in the door of politics. Today, I would like to recognize one of my former interns, who has made a name for himself in his own right: mayor of Rockford, Tom McNamara.

Tom worked in my office in Washington, DC, in 2005, around the time he completed his undergraduate degree at John Carroll University. He arrived with a strong commitment to public service--a commitment instilled by his parents and honed during his time at school. At John Carroll, Tom volunteered at a correctional facility, where he assisted parolees and probationers who struggled with alcohol and substance use disorder. In between answering phone calls and giving tours of the Capitol, Tom's interest in the criminal justice system only deepened. He contemplated how he could improve the way we treat the incarcerated and how he could make his vision a reality.

After completing his internship, Tom took on a full-time role in my office as a staff assistant. But, in a great loss for my operations, he soon decided that he wanted to continue his education at John Carroll and returned to his alma matter to obtain a master's degree in nonprofit administration. While studying, he simultaneously worked at a nonprofit to help incarcerated individuals reunite with their families and reintegrate into society. But Tom couldn't stay away from Rockford for long. After completing his master's, he moved back to the Forest City to be closer to his family. Upon his return, he immediately plunged himself into a wide array of community service initiatives and began to assist candidates in various political races.

As Tom settled down in Rockford, he increasingly reflected on those who lacked the same opportunity. He could count on his fingers the number of his high school classmates who still lived in Rockford and was worried that this trend would continue unless someone fought to change it. Fortunately, Tom is not the kind of person to sit on the sidelines. In 2013, he ran to be alderman for Rockford's 3rd Ward, where he ran against a three-term Republican incumbent. Tom won and quickly got to work investing in Rockford. As alderman, Tom led initiatives to revitalize Rockford's housing market and spark new commercial developments across the city. When the city faced a budget crisis in 2017, Tom helped to craft a compromise resolution that spared the city from tax hikes while investing in public safety initiatives. With his success as a first-term alderman, it is no wonder that he won Rockford's 2017 mayoral race with 68 percent of the vote.

If you want to know how Tom has performed as mayor, just look at the numbers. In 2021, there were 2,301 instances of violent crime in Rockford. Last year, there were 1,359--a 41-percent decrease over the course of 5 years. In 2017, Rockford's property tax rate was 3.31 percent. Today, it is less than 2 percent. Property values have increased 56 percent since 2017, the number of vacant buildings has decreased by 17 percent, and the city is adding thousands of jobs as major corporations move in. It is remarkable to witness the transformation Rockford has undergone under Tom's leadership. Dilapidated factories are being turned into new homes and businesses, and people are flocking to what the Wall Street Journal has described as America's ``top housing market.'' The problem of vacant homes has been reversed, and now Rockford is racing to construct enough houses for all those who hope to move to the area.

While these changes are the fruits of the labor of thousands of people committed to Rockford's future, it is important to note the central role Tom has played in the city's redevelopment. Tom brought together police and community groups for more effective violence prevention programs. He worked with businesses and the city council to incentivize new developments across the city and balance Rockford's budget. As mayor, he brought an infectious sense of hope and optimism that now permeates throughout the city. I have worked with Tom throughout the years on a variety of Federal initiatives in Rockford, where I have had the opportunity to see his love for his city and community firsthand.

Of course, if you knew Tom's family, none of this would be surprising. Public service runs in the McNamara blood. Tom's grandfather served on the city council and school board in Whiting, IN. And John, Tom's father, was a U.S. Army veteran, having earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam, and was mayor of Rockford during many of the Forest City's darkest years. Like Tom, John guided Rockford through an incredibly difficult time and helped the city recover from a devastating manufacturing recession. Also, like his son, John did it all with unyielding optimism. John was a dear friend of mine, and I know that he would be so proud to see all that Tom has accomplished.

While Tom is stepping down from his position as mayor, his time in public service is far from over. Later this year, he will become CEO of the Illinois Municipal League, an organization representing Illinois' 1,300 municipalities. I look forward to seeing how he will support the State of Illinois in this new role.

I am grateful that I had the opportunity to welcome Tom to the world of politics more than two decades ago. It has been a great honor to see him develop as both a leader and public servant. I hope the whole Senate will join me in congratulating Tom, his wife Sarah, and their children Olympia and Malachy as they begin the next chapter of their lives.