Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, let me say at the outset that I will yield the floor if either leader comes. I know they are busy in their offices, and I would be prepared to give them whatever opportunity they need.

Madam President, this week, the Senate will consider Lauren King's nomination for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

Ms. King is an incredibly qualified jurist with experience as a lawyer and a judge. If confirmed, she will make history--the first Native American Federal judge to serve in Washington's Western District, which is home to more than 25 federally recognized Tribes.

Ms. King received her undergraduate degree from the University of Washington, her law degree from the University of Virginia, and for more than 12 years, she has been a litigator in private practice. She has handled cases involving intellectual property, commercial contract disputes, construction litigation, and Tribal hunting and fishing rights.

In addition to her work in private practice, Ms. King has served the public as an appellate court judge in the Northwest Intertribal Court System. She has also advocated for her community as a member of the Seattle Indian Health Board, which provides care to Native Americans and Alaskan Natives.

Ms. King has long been recognized as a leader in the legal community. She served on the board of the Northwest Tribal Court Judges Association, has chaired both the Federal Bar Association's Indian Law Section Conference and the Washington State Bar Association's Indian Law Section.

How is she rated by the American Bar Association? ``Well qualified.''

Ms. King has the strong support of her home State Senators, Murray and Cantwell, and bipartisan support in our Judiciary Committee, with Ranking Member Grassley and Senator Graham joining us in supporting her nomination.

Her nomination has been endorsed by dozens of Tribes and Tribal organizations throughout the United States, including the National Congress of American Indians, the Native American Rights Fund, and the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes. Ms. King has given back to her community every step of her career.

With her confirmation, the Members of the Senate can continue the vital work of building the Federal judiciary that really reflects the diversity of this Nation.

I urge my colleagues to support her nomination.

Madam President, today is the first Monday in October. It is the date that marks the start of a new term for the U.S. Supreme Court.

All indications are this term will be of major consequence. The Court has chosen to take up a number of cases that have the potential to dramatically change America as we know it. For example, the Court has decided to hear cases in which it is being asked to overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as strike down State laws regarding the carrying of weapons in public places. These are among the momentous issues on the Court's first term.

Madam President, I would yield the floor to the leader.

He has asked me to carry on for a little bit here.

Back to my statement.

These are among the momentous issues on the Court's merits docket this term.

But the Court has been also very active on another docket, the ``shadow docket.'' Most are not familiar with that term and don't know what it means. We learned in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It refers to decisions issued by the Supreme Court outside of the regular routine merits docket. These decisions are often rendered on a very short timetable without full briefing, public deliberation, detailed explanation, or signed opinions.

Historically, shadow docket orders were mostly noncontroversial. They typically involved routine or procedural questions, such as establishing deadlines for parties to file briefs. But that has changed in recent years. Not only have the orders from the Supreme Court shadow docket become more substantive and controversial, they have also been taking an increasingly clear, ideological bent.

Consider the weeks leading up to the start of this new October term. The Court's conservative majority used the shadow docket to block the Biden administration's COVID eviction moratorium and to reinstate the Trump administration's cruel ``Remain in Mexico'' policy that, unfortunately, blocked families and children fleeing persecution.

The Court's majority also used the shadow docket last month to allow Texas law S.B. 8 to take effect, a law that effectively bans abortion after 6 weeks, directly violating the constitutional protections the Court recognized half a century in Roe v. Wade.

These and other shadow docket orders from the Court's conservative Justices are having profound consequences for millions of Americans.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair and the Presiding Officer has joined as a member, held a hearing on the Court's use of the shadow docket.

We heard from a number of experts about the increased use of the docket and the increasing ideological nature of its use. They pointed out, for example, that President Trump's Justice Department, in 4 years, requested the Court take emergency action on their shadow docket a recordbreaking 36 times in 4 years. The Court granted 28 of those requests.

What about previous Presidents? In contrast, the Justice Department only requested emergency relief eight times total--eight times--in 16 years of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and on only four occasions was the shadow docket approved--the request was approved.

At this point, I am going to yield the floor and ask unanimous consent that when I return to the floor, I be able to resume these remarks. But I want to yield to the majority leader.

I ask consent to speak as if in morning business.

Madam President, I listened closely to the speech by the Republican Senate leader, and I have heard statements made over the weekend on television. I think this is a moment where we might consider for just a minute or two a lesson on Senate 101 so there is an understanding of where we are and why we are at this place.

There are 100 Members of the Senate. Currently, there are 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. Under the ordinary course of business, which has become extraordinary in this Chamber, a majority rules, so 51 votes will pass an amendment or a bill in most cases.

However, there is a creature in the Senate known as a filibuster, and the filibuster requires that 60 votes be found in order to prevail on a motion or a measure.

The filibuster raises the requirement from a simple majority to 60 votes. The Senator from Kentucky knows that as well as I do, he has been here longer than I have, that filibuster makes all the difference in the world. So to argue ``The Democrats have the majority; why don't they just take this majority and do their business?'' is to ignore the obvious.

What the Republicans have decided to do is, for the first time perhaps ever--I don't want to say that without checking the record for sure--but certainly in modern history, to require that when we pass the debt ceiling, we need to have 60 votes on the floor of the Senate. Well, it is no great revelation that with 50 Democrats, we would need 10 Republicans, and the Senate Republican leader has made it clear: He ain't giving us a vote, not one. So we have come to a standstill.

We are 2 weeks away from a default. For the first time in the history of the United States that we would default on our debt, it is as if America had a big home and a big mortgage and decided one month not to pay on the mortgage. Well, let's hope the day would come when the payment would be made, but in the meantime, there is a serious question then raised about the credit reputation of the United States, and that is exactly the fire that the Republicans are playing with by imposing a filibuster on this simple measure. They know that they can stop us as long as 60 votes are needed and they give none.

One of our colleagues, Senator Whitehouse, made an interesting observation in our caucus lunch last week. I hope he will forgive me if I try to paraphrase it. He said: Many people argue that we need a filibuster because it really encourages bipartisanship. We have to come together. We have to look for compromise.

Well, how do you compromise when the debt ceiling question is whether you do it or don't do it? And that is what is at stake here. Are we going to acknowledge the debt of the United States to its creditors far and wide and continue the business of this economy and this government? Republicans say: No, we would rather play fire with it. But they leave out that one element that is so critical: It is their decision, their filibuster that stops this.

I believe that Senator Schumer and the Democrats will offer them this opportunity again this week. Senator Schumer said as much. But it really troubles me that we are at a point in our history, recovering from this pandemic, businesses getting back on their feet, employees need to go back to work--and the Republicans have taken this strategy of defaulting on the national debt.

As far as the characterization of what reconciliation will do, Senator McConnell continues to come to the floor repeatedly and say: ``It will hurt families.'' Well, one of the provisions in the reconciliation bill, which I hope survives our compromise negotiation, will help families find affordable, quality daycare.

When you look at the fact that the vast majority of those who are not returning to work are women, you understand the circumstances. Many of them question whether or not school is going to be in person or by Zoom. They question whether or not they can find affordable daycare in any direction, and they question whether they can afford it once they find it.

If we took that worry off the family plate and said ``We are going to make sure that you have accessible, affordable childcare for your children,'' think of the relief it would give and the fact that many would return to the workplace.

According to the Senator from Kentucky, Senator McConnell, that hurts families. Hurts them? It helps them in ways that many of us don't even understand. Can you imagine frantically leaving a child at home in the care of someone you don't quite trust because you have no alternative but to go to work and try to earn a paycheck to feed that child and pay the rent? I wouldn't want to be in that desperate situation. I wouldn't want anyone in family to face it. To say that hurts families, to do that, is certainly wrong. It would help them if reconciliation includes that measure.

We also have a pre-K program to give kids who struggle a helping hand and a fresh start. We know the Head Start Program--it was created I guess almost 60-plus years ago--has had positive results in preparing people to go to college. Yes, Head Start Programs when they are young children--3, 4, and 5 years old--can make difference in their lives, how they learn, and what they do. So we want to make that the official policy of this country, that we have 2 years of pre-K education available to families. I think they will thank us for it, and in the future, generations that are helped with this will thank us as well.

The notion of extending the school year from K-12 through K-14, to put 2 years of community college without cost for families, is an extraordinary commitment.

There was a time in the turn of the 19th to the 20th century when America decided to make a big, bold experiment. It was called high schools. Up until that point, most families were lucky to get kids through eighth grade. The rich families, the ones well-positioned, would take them to high school. Well, we decided to make high school a universal, national experience in America. So you wouldn't quit at the 8th grade; you would finish in the 12th grade. Did it result in anything good for us? Take a look at the 20th century. With an educated, motivated workforce, America led the world. It is

no accident that extending education brought us to that moment.

Now, Joe Biden and many of us agree the 21st century is a brandnew set of challenges and putting 2 more years that you don't have to worry about going deep in debt affording on to a person's education gives them a better chance. Some will go to college. Some will develop skills that they need to get into the workforce and succeed. Some will have an experience that will change their lives. That is what this additional 2 years will be.

Senator McConnell thinks an additional 2 years of free higher education hurts American families. What is he thinking? I don't know what it is like in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, but just north of it, in Illinois, we appreciate education and how it liberates, motivates, and educates young people to be part of the future.

So I would say to Senator McConnell: Understand Senate 101. Your filibuster is stopping the extension of the debt ceiling, and stopping the extension is going to jeopardize our credit rating, raise interest rates, and cost 6 million American jobs, according to the best economists. Why would we do that to America at this moment in history? We should be doing just the opposite, helping everybody we can.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to return to my statement that I was making earlier when I voluntarily surrendered the floor.

Madam President, I noted that the shadow docket in the Supreme Court was a subject of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. It is one of those esoteric subjects you wonder if anybody will even notice. We thought it was important enough to talk about it in light of the Texas abortion statute.

We noted the fact that in the last 4 years, there were 36 times when the Trump administration asked for the shadow docket to be used. The Court granted 28 of those Trump Justice Department administration requests. In the previous years, under George W. Bush and Barack Obama: 16 years; 8 requests; 4 were granted--4 versus 28 out of 36.

You can tell that something is happening in the Court. The day after our hearing, someone happened to notice. That person was Justice Samuel Alito. He made headlines for a speech he gave at Notre Dame Law School criticizing lawmakers--I suppose that is myself and the Presiding Officer--journalists, and scholars who raised concern about the Court's use of the shadow docket.

There doesn't appear to be a publicly available transcript or video of the full speech given by Justice Alito, so I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Congressional Record an article from The Hill newspaper entitled ``Alito bristles over criticism of Supreme Court's `shadow docket'.''

In his speech, Justice Alito reportedly zeroed in on our Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week and criticized one of the experts who testified, University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck. He also reportedly criticized an article by a respected journalist who writes about the Court frequently for a major magazine.

Justice Alito derided the phrase ``shadow docket'' as a ``catchy and sinister term'' meant to convey something ``sneaky and dangerous.'' In fact, the phrase ``shadow docket'' was coined by a University of Chicago law professor, William Baude, who, incidentally, clerked for Chief Justice Roberts and has spoken more than 30 times in Federalist Society events.

Justice Alito dismissed concerns about the shadow docket. He said:

The media and political talk about the shadow docket is not

serious criticism.

What he failed to mention, however, is that some of the strongest warnings about the Court's changing use of the shadow docket have come not from politicians like ourselves or journalists but from Justice Alito's colleagues on the Court.

Our hearing in the Judiciary Committee highlighted how Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, Breyer, and even Chief Justice Roberts sounded the alarm about the Supreme Court's shadow docket ruling on the Texas abortion ban.

Justice Sotomayor said of the Court's shadow docket decision on the Texas law:

The Court's order is stunning. Presented with an

application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law

engineered to prohibit women from exercising their

constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority

of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.

That is from Justice Sotomayor.

How about Justice Kagan? Justice Kagan expressed alarm that the Court's shadow docket decisionmaking ``every day becomes more unreasoned, inconsistent, and impossible to defend.

The Justices made it clear that the Court's shadow docket handling of S.B. 8 in Texas raises urgent concerns that American people should be aware of. That is why we had the hearing. Chief Justice Roberts noted that Texas has now created ``a model for action,'' in his words, showing how States can undermine constitutional rights by using a bounty hunter enforcement scheme that avoids judicial scrutiny, thanks to the shadow docket. Lawmakers in a number of States are eyeing this procedure to try to copycat Texas's enforcement model. That ought to trouble anyone who cares about our Constitution.

With its order on the Texas abortion ban, the Court's majority has also shown its willingness to use the shadow docket to allow ``flagrantly unconstitutional'' laws, in the words of Justice Sotomayor, to take effect, at least when the laws align with the majority's ideological beliefs. As a result,

millions of Texans have had their constitutional rights stripped away, and the rights of all Americans are less secure. That is a major change that demands serious discussion.

Justice Alito may bristle at perceived criticism of the Court's practices, but that doesn't mean the Court should be immune from scrutiny from the American people, a free press, even legislative branch of government.

Historically, Congress has played an important and essential role in debates over the proper functioning of the courts.

First and foremost is the Senate's advise and consent role that results in the appointment of men and women to the Supreme Court. In addition, many aspects of the Supreme Court's operation, including the starting date of the Court's fall term, are established by an act of Congress. In fact, much of the Court's jurisdiction is set by Congress.

Congress is asked regularly by the Judicial Conference to pass new legislation governing the operations of the judiciary, and Justices have routinely come before Congress to discuss the requests and a wide range of other matters. In March 2019, for example, Justice Kagan testified before the House Appropriations Committee about such topics as whether the judicial code of conduct should apply to the Supreme Court. With her that day was none other than Justice Alito.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has frequently and appropriately been the forum for many debates over the Supreme Court's operations. I remember in 2011 when Justices Scalia and Breyer appeared before the Judiciary Committee for a wide-ranging discussion of the role of judges under the Constitution.

Our committee also has robust debates about the appropriate degree of transparency for the Court's operation. Earlier this year, the committee approved bipartisan legislation to allow cameras in the Supreme Court so that all Americans can see what is going on.

We are going to continue this debate in the Judiciary Committee over the shadow docket. It is not politicizing the Court to do so. And Republicans have no standing to accuse Democrats of politicizing the Court, especially after their unprecedented, politically motivated blockade of President Obama's Supreme Court nominee in 2016 and their haste to confirm a third Trump Justice mere weeks before the 2020 election--both acts of raw, political power.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kelly) are necessarily absent.

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

Madam President, yesterday afternoon, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that long overdue immigration reform could not be included in the budget reconciliation process. I respect the Parliamentarian very much, but I respectfully disagree. The pathway to citizenship has a substantial and direct budgetary impact, which makes it appropriate to be included in a reconciliation bill.

The last measure which we put before the Parliamentarian literally was a date change. That was the sum and substance of the amendment--a date change that had a budgetary impact in it. We were not creating new categories of immigration. We were not creating any new laws other than the date change.

I want to say to all of the Dreamers and immigrants and all of the mixed-status families who are desperately following the situation: We are not giving up, and you shouldn't give up either. America needs you, and I will keep my promise to keep working on this as long as it is my honor to serve in the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print the following letter in the Congressional Record.

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.

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.

Mr. President, earlier today, as we just heard from my colleague from Texas, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the abortion ban that took effect in the State of Texas earlier this month. I hope every American who tuned in to this hearing listened very closely--very closely--because here is what we heard:

My Republican colleagues on the committee literally made no effort to defend the Texas abortion law, the Texas abortion ban--SB 8, as it is known in Texas--not a single effort to defend it on its merits. They made no effort to engage on the issue of the shadow docket process through which the Supreme Court allowed this bill to become law, and they made no effort to argue that women's constitutional rights should be protected.

What we witnessed during today's hearing was the opening salvo on the fate and future of Roe v. Wade. Here are the facts:

This Texas law is no ordinary piece of legislation. To quote Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, it is ``a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny.''

This law has effectively banned abortion after 6 weeks in the Nation's second largest State, even in cases of rape and incest. The fact is, many women do not even know they are pregnant by 6 weeks.

The architects behind SB 8 took an extreme proposal that clearly violated Supreme Court precedent and paired it with a new, disturbing private bounty hunter enforcement scheme, and they did so in the hope that the courts would not block the law because it wasn't clear who should be sued.

At midnight on September 1, the Supreme Court allowed SB 8 to go into effect. As a result, millions of Texas women have had their constitutional rights challenged and suspended.

This attack on women has already caused irreparable harm to countless women who lost their right to reproductive care in Texas.

At today's hearing, we heard from Donna Howard, a State representative from Texas. In her written testimony, she shared the story of a woman who was denied the healthcare she was entitled to under the Federal Constitution. The woman went in to an appointment on August 31 of this year, and at the time, there was no heartbeat detected on the State-mandated sonogram. But when she came back the next day to have the procedure done, a cardiac motion was detected.

Representative Howard said of this woman that at only 5 weeks--5 weeks of pregnancy--she was too late to receive an abortion under the provisions of this new law. She was devastated. She already had a child at home and knew that bringing another child into their lives threatened her family's situation and their financial security.

As Representative Howard went on to note, having an abortion was ``the right decision for this mother's life and her family's well- being.''

But the Texas law went into effect, and the Supreme Court deprived this woman of her constitutional right.

SB 8 marks a turning point in the decades-long campaign to undermine the Supreme Court's holding in Roe v. Wade. For years, legislative efforts to ban previability abortion have been stopped by courts. Until now.

The legal architects behind this Texas law crafted a scheme to avoid judicial review. They lifted the responsibility of enforcement from the State and put it in the hands of private citizens. Listen to this: As a result of this Texas law, they have turned ordinary citizens into bounty hunters.

I want to clarify something. I have read it and asked the Texas State representative to verify. It has been said that you can sue a person who aids and abets an abortion in Texas and recover $10,000 costs and attorney's fees. That is not what the law said. The law says you can recover not less than $10,000 in costs and attorney's fees. The first lawsuits have been filed already against doctors in these clinics, and they are seeking damages in the amount of $100,000 or more.

You don't even have to live in Texas to receive this bounty. Consider Dr. Alan Braid, the first person to be sued under this new Texas law. Earlier this month, Dr. Braid, a practicing OB-GYN in San Antonio, penned an op-ed in the Washington Post explaining why he is continuing to provide abortions despite the law.

As someone who has worked in medicine since 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade, Dr. Braid remembers a time when women could not safely access abortion care. He believes he has a ``duty of care'' to his patients, and he refuses to ``sit back and watch us return to 1972,'' in the doctor's own words. Well, as I mentioned, he is already facing the legal consequences of this new Texas law.

Who is exactly the bounty hunter who filed the first lawsuit against him? You might guess it is a fellow Texan, right? You are wrong. It is a disbarred lawyer who lives in Arkansas, a bounty hunter; $100,000 is what he thinks this law is going to give him.

That lawsuit being filed against Dr. Braid illustrates how irregular this Texas law's bounty hunter enforcement model really is. Anyone from any State can file a lawsuit against any physician. But when we include the categories of people who aid and abet the person receiving the abortion, the categories go wide afield, from the people who gave her advice, the folks who gave the transportation to the clinic, the minister who counseled her--all of these things makes them eligible to be sued for a minimum of $10,000 now in Texas.

There is a reason why the Texas legislators designed the law this way. They sensed an opportunity on the Supreme Court. They knew an emergency legal challenge to this Texas law had a good chance of coming all the way to the Supreme Court. And they knew the Supreme Court has shown a willingness to allow sweeping changes to the law to take place on a short timetable without detailed explanation.

It was interesting to listen to the Republican Senators go into orbit over the fact that we would raise questions about the shadow docket. It is a motions docket where the Justices on the Supreme Court can decide an issue on a very short timeframe without even explaining their position.

That is exactly what happened with SB 8. When the law came before the Supreme Court, a majority of Supreme Court Justices, late at night, allowed it to take effect.

The next day, the Court issued a one-paragraph opinion to explain it. It said they would not stay Texas's abortion ban because of the law's ``complex and novel'' procedural questions. In other words, the Texas legislators got their way. By designing SB 8 with a new bounty hunter enforcement model, Texas lawmakers managed to evade judicial review.

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor explained how this scheme worked. She said, ``The Court has rewarded the State's effort to delay federal review of a plainly unconstitutional statute, enacted in disregard of the Court's precedents, through procedural entanglements of the State's own creation.''

The Court's ruling on SB 8 is distressing for a number of reasons. For one, it has galvanized lawmakers across the country to undermine constitutional rights in their States. Over the past month, lawmakers and candidates in Arkansas, Florida, South Dakota, and other States have pledged to follow suit and copycat the Texas law. They saw what happened when this bill came before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court basically said it can go forward.

Additionally, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has now signaled that it is willing to use the shadow docket to allow even laws unconstitutional on their face to take effect, as long as it aligns with certain ideological norms.

Another witness we heard from today was Professor Steve Vladeck, an expert in constitutional law who has written extensively about the Court's shifting use of the shadow docket.

The shadow docket, of course, refers to situations where the Court issues

decisions outside the traditional merits docket. Historically, shadow docket orders are used to help resolve routine or procedural questions frequently without public deliberation, full briefings, or even signed opinions.

But as Professor Vladeck testified, there has been a notable uptick in the Supreme Court issuing shadow docket orders that are ``having a far broader substantive impact, for better or worse, compared to [the] emergency rulings in the past.'' And many of these shadow docket orders appear to be driven by ideology.

Let me tell why I say that. Listen to these numbers. During the 4- year Presidency of Donald Trump, the Supreme Court issued 28 grants of emergency relief on the shadow docket at the request of the Trump administration--28 grants of shadow docket relief out of 36 requests. Each of these orders advanced President Trump's political agenda, including one that allowed the resumption of Federal executions for the first time and in nearly two decades.

Now, let's do a comparison. If there were 36 requests of the Supreme Court for shadow docket opinions and 28 of them were granted in the 4 years of Donald Trump, how about previous Presidents? During the 16 years of the George W. Bush and Obama Presidencies, from 2001 to 2017, the Supreme Court issued four--four--orders in 16 years. In this last 4-year period of time, they granted 28 out of 36 with the Trump Justice Department.

With its handling of Texas's abortion ban, as well as other shadow docket orders, the Supreme Court's conservative majority has indicated a willingness to change substantive law in sweeping ways without due deliberation and public reporting.

In doing so, they are undermining confidence in the Court, and the conservative majority has opened the door for ideologically driven legal schemes to rewrite laws from the shadows, like SB 8. This is a five-alarm fire for due process, as well as our constitutional rights.

And as I expressed during this today's hearing, I hope every Member of the Senate--Democrat or Republican--will join together to protect and preserve independent, transparent, and reasoned judicial decision making based on the rule of law.

At a time when the public's confidence in our governmental institutions has been greatly eroded, we must restore it.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Madam President, more than 680,000 Americans have died from COVID. The majority of these deaths occurred before we had viable, effective, and safe vaccines. Doctors were begging for these vaccines to save lives, and now we have three safe, effective, widely available vaccines in America. All three have been proven successful and safe.

However, one in four adults in America still refuses to get the vaccine. According to the CDC, these unvaccinated individuals--listen to this--are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized from COVID, 10 times more likely to die from COVID than those who got the shot. And as long as large numbers of Americans remain unvaccinated, this virus is going to continue to spread and raise the risk of mutation and more deadly variants.

We have tried approaches to incentivize people. What more can we do? We created a lottery in Illinois and said: If you are vaccinated, you are automatically buying a lottery ticket; you don't even have to pay for it.

The head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons union for employees, with only 50 percent of those working in Federal prisons vaccinated, said they were going to set up a popcorn machine at the prisons in the break room in the

hopes of getting people to be vaccinated--trying everything to get people to try the vaccine.

We have tried every approach to incentivize them, but the vaccine numbers are not where they need to be. So, facing this reality, the President accepted responsibility to try harder. He has directed Federal Agencies and OSHA to mandate vaccination for Federal employees and certain private workers. These directives were issued under the OSHA Act and other established legal authorities; and, listen, they have been welcomed by the Business Roundtable and other employers who were waiting for a signal from the White House that we were serious, and they are supported by a majority of the American people.

I recognize that some of my colleagues disagree with that action, and that has prompted this bill from my friend and fellow Senator from Utah. His bill, the Don't Jab Me Act, would create a private right of action for any ``aggrieved individual'' to sue the Federal Government ``for injuries sustained as a result of a COVID-19 vaccination mandate.''

I know that the Senator is careful in his words. I would ask him to look carefully at that word ``injuries.'' It is misleading.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. They were evaluated in tens of thousands of clinical trials. They meet the FDA's rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and quality. They have undergone and will continue to undergo the most extensive, intensive safety monitoring in history.

In an extremely rare case that an individual suffers an injury, a harm, from a COVID-19 vaccine, there is a system in place to provide compensation. Under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, a person can already seek to recover damages for physical injuries suffered because of COVID-19 vaccines.

The Senator from Utah's bill appears to go beyond compensating individuals for physical injuries caused by the vaccine. It lets people sue the government for ``injuries sustained as the result of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.''

Now, what kind of injuries might there be?

Well, we surely don't know. The bill does not define the type of injuries that a person could sue for. The entire bill is two and a half pages of very vague language.

What we do know is that the bill, if enacted, would authorize a flood of lawsuits by individuals claiming that a vaccine mandate injured them in some physical, maybe nonphysical way. We don't know.

It is ironic. For more than a year, my Republican colleagues claimed the pandemic would create a tsunami of COVID lawsuits. Remember all of the times Senator McConnell went to the floor and said: Hang on tight. The trial lawyers are just going to be hell-bent now, filing lawsuits all across America. There will be a tsunami of lawsuits.

Well, it never happened. Despite that fact, the Senator from Utah is apparently urging a new set of lawsuits to be filed.

I am a former trial lawyer. I made a living at it. When people have been harmed, I support their day in court, but liabilities laws need to be carefully calibrated to promote the right behavior and incentives. This short, vague bill does not even try to strike a balance between health and safety. It is a shot across the bow to entities that are using vaccine mandates.

Remember, courts have long rejected challenges to vaccine requirements imposed by public entities. And the Senator might take a look at his home State. In Senator Lee's home State of Utah, there are public actors, like Salt Lake Community College, the University of Utah, and Utah State University, that are using COVID vaccine mandates to promote health and safety.

And I want to show the Senate this chart because it tells an amazing story.

Remember the report about all the attorneys general who were going to file lawsuits, in keeping with the Senator's message, against Joe Biden for these mandates for these employees?

Well, we took a look at their State.

Twenty-four States threatened lawsuits against Joe Biden for the very reason stated by the Senator from Utah.

How are they doing compared to all the other States, the 26 States that didn't file a lawsuit?

Well, it turns out the infection rate for COVID-19 over the past 3 months is more than twice in those States as it is in the States not filing these lawsuits. Since mid-June, the death rate is almost three times the rate of those States that didn't file the lawsuit, and the vaccination rates are significantly lower.

So for those who have an idea about guiding the State to the right outcome, shouldn't public health and safety be important?

I am sure we all understand the issue of liberty and how important it is to America, but there was a word before liberty that the Founding Fathers used: life. Life.

These vaccine mandates are about saving lives in America, and it is for that reason that I object.

Mr. President, I have 6 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, I am glad that the Democratic leader came to the floor after the Republican leader. He certainly clarified some of the statements that were made by Senator McConnell and brought a dose of reality into the picture. I listened carefully to Senator McConnell's speech, and I was waiting for one word. I knew he would say it at some point, and yet I don't think he did. I might have missed it, but I don't think he ever used the word ``filibuster''--``filibuster,'' the requirement of 60 votes to proceed with the business of the Senate.

The reason why that is essential is the Democrats are prepared to accept the responsibility of funding the government and dealing with our national debt, acknowledging our debt ceiling. And if the Republicans don't care to be part of that conversation--or to engage in it, that is their wish--that is what they can have. But Senator McConnell has put in a filibuster, a requirement of 60 votes, which makes it literally impossible for the Democrats on their own to accept their responsibility. He didn't mention that the entire time.

I think we have reached a new low point in the U.S. Senate, where the Republican leader and his followers, to a person, are prepared to jeopardize the economy of the United States for purely political reasons. We know that this filibuster means we need Republican votes to move this measure. And he has made it quite clear that he won't give those votes, at least as of yesterday. I can only hope that Republican Senators going home, maybe this weekend, hearing from their constituents and businesses, will have second thoughts about this and accept that bipartisan responsibility that we all face.

There is a second you had to listen very carefully to catch with Senator McConnell's opening statement. He went on to say at great length that the last time we passed a debt ceiling extension was in August. And, he said, incidentally, all the spending leading up to August was covered by that debt ceiling. Well, that may have been true. What did he fail to tell us? There was another bill that he voted for, Trump supported, the Republicans supported, and the Democrats voted for, too, in December for $900 billion in spending. That wasn't covered by the earlier August debt ceiling. He knows that. So to say all the debt of the Trump administration has been taken care of just isn't the fact. And I am glad we have a chance to clarify that.

He seems to think that we are going to ``hurt families and help China'' if we press forward with the reconciliation bill. Does it hurt families to find an affordable way to have quality daycare for their kids? I don't think so. Does it hurt families when children get a chance for pre-K education so they are ready for school when the day comes? Does it hurt families when we extend education from K-12 to K-14 and say to our community colleges, We are going to give you a mission: Prepare the workforce for the 21st century? Give these Americans the skills they need for a good paycheck and a home and a family and a future.

According to the Senator from Kentucky, that hurts American families. I think he is just flatout wrong. It helps them in critical ways. It really addresses expenses and challenges they face and need a helping hand to succeed.

And in terms of helping China, a competitive American workforce, investment in research and innovation does not help China. If we invest in this country, in its people and its ideas, we have always succeeded and led the world.

So I disagree with the Senator from Kentucky completely. His approach--tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, corporations that, frankly, can escape any tax liability--hasn't worked. And it won't work. It is fundamentally unfair, and it fails to invest in the people that need it the most: working families, middle-income families, children and their future.

(Mr. PADILLA assumed the Chair.)

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.