Floor Statements

Mr. President, I also want to draw attention to the crisis surrounding medical research in this country, created entirely by this new Trump administration.

Ten years ago, I met with Dr. Francis Collins, then the Director of the National Institutes of Health, the world's premium biomedical research agency. I admired his work so much that I asked him what I could do to help.

He said:

If you can provide a 5-percent increase to NIH's medical

research budget, year after year, we'll light up the

scoreboard.

So I took that message and went back to Congress. With the help of colleagues on both sides of the aisle--Republican Senator Roy Blunt, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, and Democratic Senator Patty Murray--we increased NIH funding from $30 billion to $48 billion over the next 10 years, a 60-percent increase in research--a 60-percent increase in cures, hopes, and breakthroughs.

But what took us 10 years to build, President Donald Trump has all but dismantled in less than 11 months.

Recent reporting from the New York Times shed light on the dire consequences of President Trump's medical research cuts. The President and DOGE instituted a new set of rules at NIH that resulted in 3,500 fewer medical research grants, affecting virtually every area of medical study.

Funding for mental health was reduced 31 percent, brain diseases by 26 percent, and cancer research by 19 percent. All of these reductions are in real areas of opportunity, which we are walking away from under Trump. This is a fundamental blow to how America supports medical research and has real implications for the progress we made.

Instead of ushering in the next wave of medical breakthroughs, which could save you or your loved one from suffering, this administration has cut them off at the knees.

I am pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee, on a bipartisan basis, rejected Trump's proposed cuts and actually provided an increase for next year. But if the administration ignores Congress's wish and continues to upend research funding, that could create irreparable harm.

As the father of a child born with a severe medical condition, I know personally that families across this country depend on the hope and promise that research holds. Cures and treatments that come from the National Institutes of Health funded the research behind 99 percent of the new drugs approved by the FDA in the last decade.

Oh, sure, you see the ads on television for all these new drugs that they say hold onto some promise. The pharmaceutical companies that are selling them and developing them have virtually all started with Federal research by the taxpayers of this country--the same research that has been cut off now by President Trump.

So when Donald Trump handicaps the NIH's work, he is telling patients: Your cure can wait.

Our communities will feel the pain of this change too. Our universities, not just in blue States but in every State--great research institutions in Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma--will be unable to pursue more cures. Our hospitals, already scaling back operations thanks to budget cuts and the President's so-called ``Big Beautiful Budget Bill,'' will be forced to diminish services even more.

The scientists and doctors of tomorrow may decide to forego their profession entirely or bring their talents to other countries.

As we fight to protect healthcare for millions of Americans, let us also not forget to fight for research that fuels that care. We cannot stand for this assault on medical research funding. We need to continue to work on a bipartisan basis to make sure that funding does continue.

It is not just a matter of national pride. It is a matter of finding cures and drugs that will help people all around the world and that has defined America for decades.

We can't let the Trump administration kill off medical research and kill off that dream that people keep alive every single day.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Schiff) and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, earlier this year, Pope Leo XIV asked us to reflect on chapter 25 of Matthew's gospel. This passage details the questions that will be posed to determine the contents of a person's soul. They will be asked, ``How did you receive the foreigner? Did you welcome him or not?'' At this moment of judgement, I know two people who would feel confident in their answer: Sisters of Mercy JoAnn Persch and Patricia Murphy. So well-known among immigration groups that they were known simply as ``the Sisters,'' these two women collectively spent nearly two centuries doing God's work here on Earth. Sadly, both sisters passed away earlier this year, leaving a legacy of strength, kindness, and grace.

Sister Pat was born on April 20, 1929, in Chicago, and Sister JoAnn was born on June 27, 1934, in Milwaukee. Although both women entered the Sisters of Mercy in Des Plaines at a young age, their paths would not converge until they both arrived to teach in Fox Point, WI. This meeting of two kindred spirits sparked a decades-long advocacy effort that began in the 1980s.

That was a period of violent upheaval in Central America's Northern Triangle. Civil wars and conflict in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras were displacing thousands of people every month, and many of these refugees came to the United States to avoid persecution. But once these immigrants arrived in America, many of them

found the asylum system completely inaccessible. Mass rejections of asylum applications threatened to return immigrants to the violence they had just fled. Witnessing this injustice, the Sisters became involved with the immigrant sanctuary movement to demand that the United States protect immigrants from chaos in their home countries.

As the Sisters advocated for immigration reform, they simultaneously worked to provide charity and housing for those applying for asylum. In 1990, the Sisters established the Su Casa Catholic Worker House, a home for refugees in Chicago. The Sisters lived at Su Casa for 7 years, helping families and children fleeing war, torture, and unspeakable violence find a home in Chicago. Because this didn't keep them busy enough, during their time at Su Casa, the Sisters helped a single mother with a mental health condition raise her daughter. They became foster moms for 13-year-old Clarice, sharing their love while dropping her off at her dance class and song lessons.

The Sisters left Su Casa in 1997 to go to Casa Notre Dame, a different shelter that provided housing and protection to women fleeing domestic violence. Sister Pat was 68, and Sister JoAnn was 61. One would think, at this stage of their lives, these two sisters would want to slow down after what were already four decades of service to others. But only a few short years after arriving at Casa Notre Dame, the Sisters were asked to become justice coordinators with the Sisters of Mercy, taking on a larger leadership position in the movement for immigration reform.

In their role as justice coordinators, the Sisters were called one January day in 2007 to go to the Broadview ICE facility and pray for a group of detainees there who were to be deported from the United States. They arrived early in the morning, with temperatures plunging to negative 20 degrees, not that it would stop them. The two stood outside Broadview and prayed for the immigrants who were about to be deported. Seeing the grief and powerlessness experienced by these immigrants, the Sisters decided to return to Broadview every Friday and pray for its detainees. For more than 20 years, they honored this commitment. Through pouring rain and sweltering heat, the Sisters would be outside Broadview, offering support for immigrants and their families.

Soon after they began this mission, the Sisters walked up to the front doors at Broadview and rang the bell. They wanted to go inside to speak directly to the detainees and offer them comfort. Their request was quickly denied. But what the ICE employees did not know at the time was that these were two women who, peacefully and respectfully, never took no for an answer. Together, the Sisters founded the Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants, or ICDI. This group ventured to Springfield the next year to lobby for the Access to Religious Ministry Act, a bill that would allow immigrant detainees in State and county facilities to consult with a religious worker regarding their spiritual needs. Less than a month after their visit to the State capitol, the bill passed both chambers unanimously.

As Sister Pat said, ``The divine and the sacred are the ordinary human things of life. It's love, life, death, eating, sleeping, socializing with people.'' I had the great fortune of going to Broadview with Sister Pat and Sister JoAnn where we shared in these sacred moments. As these immigrants' lives were turned upside, sometimes there was nothing to be done but offer our support, our prayer for their situation. The Sisters helped counsel hundreds of immigrants amid their grief and offer them what little comfort they could. Even the guards at Broadview grew to appreciate the Sisters' presence, and they began to invite the Sisters to some of their office parties. Very few people could leave an interaction with these two women without being touched by their love for humanity.

The decades of kindness that the Sisters showed immigrants, activists, and anyone in their path continues to leave a mark on Chicago. There are still dozens of people who show up outside of Broadview every day to offer prayer and hope for those inside. There are still those in Springfield and Washington, DC, who are fighting against the inhumane separation of immigrants from their lives and families. In their actions, the spirits of Sisters Pat and JoAnn live on. In each person's decision to welcome the stranger, the Sisters' memory is honored.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Aarin Kevorkian, a detailee to the Senate Judiciary Committee, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 119th Congress.

Mr. President, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is my friend and my colleague. We work together, and he is a real doctor--a real doctor. And what I have read about his medical career is that he treated people with limited income, and I respect him so much for doing that.

Thank you for all that.

I happen to disagree with his policy on this, and let me explain why. How far does $1,000 take you in medical bills? How far does $1,500 take you in medical bills?

Well, I had a knee replacement last year. Do you know what the surgeon's bill was for that? It was $30,000.

Mr. President, $1,000 doesn't take you very far in the 21st century. It didn't take you very far in the 20th century. And to have that as your fallback position to protect yourself--imagine a cancer diagnosis--a shocking cancer diagnosis. And you think: Well, thank goodness I have got $1,000 in the bank for treatment for cancer.

That isn't going to work.

To say that people are going to have money left over at the end of the day and this is what they really want doesn't reflect reality.

I would be happy to yield.

No, I am happy to yield, and we came perilously close to debate on the Senate floor, by my recollection. Wouldn't it be something if we did this on a regular basis? Wouldn't it be something if we took this whole issue, the subject matter, and put it in a committee for a real hearing, with experts, where Democrats and Republicans sat at the same table? It would be almost like the U.S. Senate used to be. It doesn't anymore.

What I am suggesting today is simple and direct. I met a waitress at a Chicago Loop restaurant for breakfast last Sunday. She is 63 years old, and she spent her life as a waitress. It has taken its toll on her physically.

She was in tears as she described to me what is going to happen to her if we fail to act the right way today on this legislation. She is going to see her health insurance bill more than double--$300 or $400 more per month. Let me tell you, she doesn't know how she can do it, and I don't either.

That is what we have to address first. Triage, I would say to my friend Dr. Cassidy, triage is first. Help these families pay for their premiums, and then let's do our job. Our job is to sit down and debate his idea, my idea, the ideas of the Senate, and to come up with an alternative that serves the needs of this Nation. That is what the Senate is supposed to do. But this take-it-or-leave-it, high-noon strategy isn't fair.

If, at the end of the day, we fail to help this waitress pay for her premiums and she loses her health insurance, I don't know what is going to happen next. This poor lady is working hard, and she has every day of her life. Why we won't come to her rescue first and then get into this policy debate, I just don't understand.

As Members of the Senate, we cast votes, and many of them are routine, but there are votes that stay with us for decades. I will never forget voting for the Affordable Care Act. It was this time of year, December 24, 2009. The Senate passed a bill that helped make healthcare affordable for millions of Americans.

It was 8 years later, on a late night in 2017, that the late Senator John McCain of Arizona came through those doors at 2 in the morning, stood in the well right by this table, lifted his right arm as high as he could, and came down with the thumbs no. With that, he saved the Affordable Care Act. That ``no'' vote sunk President Trump's first attempt to abolish the Affordable Care Act, and it gave peace of mind to millions of Americans who would come to rely on it.

It has been more than 8 years since Senator McCain showed that courage and 16 years since we passed the original bill. Yet, once again, the Senate is about to take another vote on healthcare that will reverberate for decades throughout America.

The question today is whether the Senate will extend the ACA's enhanced premium tax credits. What is that? In the Tax Code, it is a helping hand to pay your premium based on your family income.

If we fail to extend these tax credits, that waitress I described to you and 22 million Americans will begin to pay double or triple for their insurance in 3 weeks, including 500,000 people living in Illinois. More than 4 million Americans will not be able to afford their insurance at these higher rates and will be forced to forgo health coverage for next year. Merry Christmas.

Senate Democrats have sounded the alarm bell about the need to prevent this catastrophe. We have told the stories of people who have called our offices, crying because they are afraid

they won't be able to afford their healthcare next year. We have shared reports from farmers, small businessmen, and rural hospitals that rely on these tax credits. The only thing left to do is vote.

The question is whether 13 Republicans will not endorse the Affordable Care Act but will stand by the people who face these premiums and then be willing to sit down and have a meaningful, bipartisan debate on where we should go as a matter of policy. Isn't that what the Senate is all about?

Every Senate Democrat is united behind the plan just to extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits and ensure continued access to quality, affordable health coverage. Republicans are not united behind any plan. They haven't been for 15 years. The Republicans hate ObamaCare like the Devil hates holy water. They can't imagine voting for it.

What I ask them to do is hold your nose if you don't like it, vote for it today with the promise that you have the power as the majority party in the Senate to introduce a bill and start a meaningful debate in the appropriate committees. It is your authority. You are in the majority.

We need 13 of you today to join us and show the bravery that Senator McCain did in that early morning hour. Otherwise, it will not only be those here in the Senate who will remember this vote; it will be millions of Americans who saw their Senators take their health insurance away.

I want to face this friend of many, many years, this waitress in this restaurant, and tell her we not only had the chance to help her, we did help her. Let's do that together and then go home and decide what we are going to do as a matter of policy and bring that back to the Senate for deliberation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to respond to my colleague and friend from Wyoming and just note one thing that happened last Sunday that, I think, puts this whole debate into perspective.

I go into a restaurant in the Loop in Chicago. My wife and I have breakfast there regularly. It is well known. It is named Lou Mitchell's. Lou Mitchell's restaurant claims they are the beginning of Route 66 in America. Tourists come from all over the world to travel Route 66, and they start at Lou Mitchell's. Well, that is where my wife and I start with breakfast on Sunday morning. And we have a favorite waitress whom we have been working with for years, and a lady who serves as maitre d' who is 94 years old. She comes to work every day. It is a great place. It is a real slice of America, a real slice of Chicago. It is usually a pretty happy place, too--rooting for the Bears and talking about upcoming holidays.

It wasn't that way with my friend the waitress--I will call her Sara--last Sunday. She came over to me and said: Senator, do you know what is going to happen to my health insurance on January 1? And I said: No.

And she said: I am going to have to pay 3 or $400 more a month for me and my husband under the Affordable Care Act. What happened? How can I possibly pay that amount of money as a working waitress?

She is 63 years old. She has been working as a waitress for years, and she has had a ton of medical problems. I know that as a fact.

And I said to her: Well, what happened was, we didn't approve the continuation of the tax treatment for your health insurance premium. There was a dispute in the Congress over that issue, and we will have our chance this week on Thursday, when there is going to be a vote on whether we give you the tax credit that you have been receiving for years to help you pay your health insurance premiums or not. If we can get 13 Republicans to join us, we could continue to pay that basic helping hand for you and for so many others who work hard, and that is the only way you can get health insurance.

She said: I don't know what I will do if you don't change the law.

And I said: I don't know either.

I thought, when I left her, that at least we would have a chance for a bipartisan response to solve this problem. The speech just given by my friend--and he is my friend--and colleague from Wyoming tells me that there is little chance that this is going to happen. When it is all over, Sara is going to face a health insurance bill which she can't pay as a waitress--a working waitress. I don't know what she will do. I suspect she will just have to cancel her insurance coverage at a time when she still has some serious medical problems. That is the reality of it.

So I would say to my friend from Wyoming, there is plenty of opportunity for your party, as the majority party in the U.S. Senate, to call a hearing and address any changes you want to make in the Affordable Care Act. If you believe there is fraud, and we can establish it, count me in. Let's do it together. Let's make it bipartisan. I don't want to waste a taxpayer's dollar, and I want to provide real healthcare to people who otherwise can't afford it. We need to do that.

In the meantime, what are we going to do about Sara's health insurance premium that in 2 or 3 weeks is going to go up and almost double. What is she going to do about it? Shouldn't we care about her first?

This is really a triage, and the first thing to do is to help Sara, make sure that her family has health insurance coverage.

The second thing we do in the triage is address changes in the system. I am open to them. I think some of the things that were said on the floor probably exaggerated the situation, but I am open to any changes which want to be suggested that will improve this system. But let's start with this triage by helping Sara, the waitress at Lou Mitchell's in the city of Chicago--make sure that she has health insurance when it is all over.

Give us those 13 votes and call for the first meeting of the Congress in the next calendar year to address any fraud in the system we can find and deal with

it openly and directly. But don't walk away from 24 million Americans who count on this as an avenue for health insurance and say that because there is fraud in the system committed by insurance companies or insurance brokers, we are going to show you; we are going to basically say Sara gets no health insurance. That is wrong. It is just plain wrong.

The second thing I want to say, Mr. President, is to really note something said yesterday by the President of the United States Donald Trump.

The year was 2018, 6 years ago, and President Trump challenged me and other Members of the Senate to come up with an immigration plan for the United States that included his big beautiful wall, if you remember. And so I went to work with several of my colleagues here and several on the Republican side to help write an immigration bill.

I ended up calling the White House when I thought we came up with such a bill, a bipartisan bill, and they said: Come in and see the President this morning. Well, that kind of shocked me that I could get in that quickly to see him. But I appealed to my Republican colleagues, and we went down to the White House together to meet with the President in the Oval Office.

The meeting was historic. It turned out that others had been invited--Democratic and Republican Senators and Congressmen--to discuss the issue, and they, frankly, didn't agree with the conclusions which we brought to the President.

The President spoke at length on his views about immigration. The conversation declined at some point to a level I had never expected to witness in my life. The President started saying things about immigrants in ways I thought had never been said before in the White House. He used terminology, which I am not going to repeat on the Senate floor, but it referred to a phrase of ``s-hole'' nations. You can fill in the blank if you wish. But I was shocked to hear it, and I heard him refer to several countries in this fashion. I thought to myself, How did we reach a point that we discuss immigration in such crude and vulgar terms?

After I left the White House, it leaked out what the President said, and the White House denied it. They said it didn't happen. I said it did. They said I am lying--to the point where two of my Republican Senate colleagues went on television several days later and said that I lied when I said the President made those statements.

Well, yesterday at his rally in Pennsylvania, President Trump admitted that he had used the slur that I referred to earlier to disparage Haiti and African nations during that 2018 meeting with lawmakers, bragging about the comment that sparked global outrage during his first term.

I want to put that in the Record because for 6 years I have lived with the shadow of people saying that I misled the American people as to what the President said. Yesterday, he admitted what he said. It is not for my sake but for the sake of discussing this issue of immigration because we have got to get beyond crudity and vulgarity and what we have seen in the extreme in the last several months when it comes to immigration.

I will make it clear where I stand. We need an orderly process at our border, period. Second, we should never knowingly allow a dangerous person to come into this country. Third, if a person is in this country seeking legal status and commits a dangerous crime, they should be gone, period. Fourth, we cannot accept all of the people in the world who want to come to America and live in America at this point. I wish we could, but we can't. Some are important, and I want to stand up for them. We can't allow everyone. We need an orderly process to achieve this goal.

We are a nation of immigrants, and I am proud of that fact. I hope everyone is. Let us make sure we do immigration the right way.

The reference in 2018 was an embarrassment--an embarrassment to the White House, to the Oval Office, and to the Presidency. I am glad that the President has finally admitted what happened on that day.

Mr. President, on a separate subject, for more than 3 months, Secretary Kristi Noem and President Donald Trump have used the city of Chicago as their personal playground for militarizing immigration operations. When they announced the start of this campaign, they called it Operation Midway Blitz. They promised to target and deport murderers, rapists, terrorists, the criminally insane, the worst of the worst. The results tell a different story.

In an ongoing lawsuit, a judge examined whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement violated a consent decree preventing warrantless arrests of individuals without probable cause. In a list the administration presented--a list that came from the Department of Homeland Security, came from Secretary Noem--submitted to the Federal court of more than 600 immigrants recently arrested, do you know how many of them had a significant criminal history? Sixteen. Sixteen out of more than 600.

Nationwide, ICE has arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal history between January 20 and October of this year. Federal immigration agents have arrested and detained the following as examples: a mother on her way to visit her 15-day-old baby in the NICU, a teacher in a preschool in front of her young students, day laborers, vendors, construction workers, and cooks simply trying to work hard, make a living, and support their families.

Immigration agents arrested and detained at least 40 U.S. citizens in Illinois alone between late August and early November. Does that sound like we are getting rid of the worst of the worst; people with no criminal history, many of whom are citizens of the United States, not given the advantage of due process guaranteed by the 5th and 14th amendments?

I have repeatedly warned that these actions amount to political theater to promote the President's anti-immigrant agenda and spread fear and reduce crime. I have cautioned that it is a slippery slope from this trampling of rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

I have urged my Republican colleagues--just one Republican colleague--to consider the possibility that these raids could come to a city they represent, and they would be faced with the very same reality. How might they feel then? Would they call out these abuses of power if that time came?

Well, I regret to inform them that the time has come. After wreaking havoc in Illinois, Border Patrol official Greg Bovino and his traveling circus have hit the road and descended on more communities, including red States. Last month, in Charlotte, NC, a video posted to social media showed a U.S. citizen construction worker being swarmed by Federal agents while he was in his vehicle. They proceeded to smash the truck's window and handcuff him while verifying his citizenship. The man said the agents ``didn't believe I was an American citizen'' and ``wanted to know where I was born.'' He was released only after the agents verified his citizenship.

In a separate incident--this one in Louisiana--a viral video showed a silver unmarked SUV pulling up to a woman and two masked agents exiting to chase her. She repeatedly yelled she was a U.S. citizen and to ``leave her alone'' before making it to her home.

Other States, including Florida and Texas, have also witnessed increased Federal immigration enforcement operations.

These types of confrontations with Federal agents that we are seeing in the streets of many American cities will, unfortunately, continue unless we speak up. The lack of professionalism and the use of overly aggressive tactics and excessive force is sad but not surprising.

The Trump administration has surged ICE hiring with the goal of onboarding 10,000 new agents by the end of the year. That would more than double the number of deportation officers from the current number of 6,000 to 16,000. The Trump administration should be working to improve the screening, hiring, and training of recruits before unleashing them onto the streets of America. Instead, they have lowered requirements for ICE agents,

including loosening the age restrictions for prospective agents and shortening the training period from 13 weeks to merely 6 weeks and giving each of the new ICE recruits a $50,000 cash bonus. This approach has proven woefully inadequate and downright dangerous.

Recent reporting suggests these new lowered hiring standards have resulted in ICE recruits who have barely been able to read or write, failed drug tests, displayed tattoos associated with gangs and White supremacists, failed to meet basic physical fitness requirements, and even have pending criminal charges.

Secretary Noem calls this her dream team--her dream team.

In one instance, the staff of the Georgia-based Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where recruits were trained, were left shocked when a student asked to be excused from class to attend a court case that he faced on a gun charge.

A male recruit reportedly barged into a female dorm at one of these training facilities, after bar hopping, and harassed the occupants. Another recruit groped a woman in a training course. These are the people--the dream team of Secretary Noem--that President Trump is attempting to release onto our streets to restore law and order.

With these lower standards, the troubling incidents I have described are definitely going to increase. Given all this, I ask my Republican colleagues, if you think we need to keep an eye on the Federal Government, why don't we start here? Will any of you rebuke this lawlessness and cruelty, any one Republican Senator? What will it take for you to finally do so?

We ought to be united in calling out these abuses. Secretary Noem wants to play dress-up in her camo wardrobe, demanding government jets to tour battleground States, brag about her dream team of masked secret police, arrest ordinary people who are working hard on tough jobs, with what, I believe, is an attempt to change basic constitutional principles. We have to stand up and speak out. Is this what America is really all about?

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Robert Chamberlin to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.

I will vote in opposition to Justice Chamberlin's confirmation to a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench. There are several reasons why I cannot support his nomination.

Justice Chamberlin's positions as a State legislator demonstrate that he holds extreme views that are out of the mainstream.

While serving as a State Senator, Justice Chamberlin cosponsored legislation to advance so-called ``fetal personhood'' by expanding the definition of human being under State law to include every stage of gestation, beginning from conception.

He also cosponsored legislation that would allow healthcare providers to refuse treatment to patients if they claim it violates their conscience, without facing any liability.

But that is where his ``pro-life'' views end.

Although gun violence is the leading cause of death for American children, Justice Chamberlin voted for a bill making it illegal for Mississippi communities to sue gun manufacturers or dealers for faulty design, manufacture, distribution, or sale of firearms and ammunition.

With Justice Chamberlin's troubling record, we cannot trust that he will be fair and impartial if confirmed to the Federal bench. His record demonstrates a devotion to partisan politics, not the rule of law.

I cannot support this nomination, and I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing it.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm William Crain to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

During his time as a State court judge, Justice Crain has repeatedly demonstrated his partisan ideology. In 2019, while serving as a State appellate court judge, Justice Crain ran for election to the Louisiana Supreme Court. He identified himself as the ``most conservative'' candidate and emphasized his pro-life credentials. His campaign materials identified him as ``the conservative choice'' and further noted that the Louisiana Republican Party had endorsed him to ``protect Louisiana and keep a conservative lean on the state's highest court.''

Justice Crain has not only campaigned as a far-right activist. He has also ruled as one from the bench. Throughout his career as a State court judge, Justice Crain has imposed extremely harsh criminal sentences. In case after case, his rulings show that he prefers to pursue his own ``tough-on-crime'' political agenda, instead of fairness and justice.

As a State district court judge, he once imposed a life sentence and a 40-year sentence on two defendants who had stolen cameras from a Walmart store. As a State supreme court justice, he dissented from a majority opinion finding that a 60-year sentence for a nonviolent drug offense was excessive. Justice Crain argued that his colleagues ``deflect[ed] from the violence long associated with drug culture.'' And in 2022, while on the Louisiana Supreme Court, Justice Crain dissented from the court's majority opinion in June Medical Services v. Landry that prevented trigger statutes outlawing abortion from going into immediate effect.

This nominee's extreme record on the State bench provides us with a clear view of how he will rule if he is confirmed to the Federal bench.

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

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessary absent.

Mr. President, I am going to raise a different issue on the floor, and I am going to be joined in that issue by the cosponsor of the legislation, Senator Hawley of Missouri. So I will speak to the measure and then defer to him and then make a motion, which I believe the Senator from Oregon Senator Wyden is going to respond to.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to ask the Senate to pass the STOP CSAM Act, bipartisan legislation that would finally open the courthouse doors to survivors of child exploitation and their families.

Too many parents in America live in fear every time their child logs into a phone, a tablet, or video game console. They know the internet has, unfortunately, become a hunting ground for predators of children.

Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee learned more about the horrors facing our children online, and we heard from one of those families.

Three years ago, 17-year-old James Woods--an honor student, an accomplished track athlete from the State of Ohio--died by suicide after being targeted by predators on Instagram. We asked his mother today: How long did this relationship online last?

She said: Start to finish--the finish was the end of her son's life-- 19 hours.

They tricked James into sending them sexually explicit photos, and they threatened to ruin his life if he didn't pay them to destroy the photos. His tormentors sent him 200 messages in 19 hours, encouraging, finally, that he end his life, which he ultimately did.

In January 2022, 13-year-old Jay Taylor--an artistic, compassionate child from the State of Washington, gifted in math--died by suicide after being targeted by predators on Discord. Jay was pursued by a group who used Discord to bully him into taking his own life, which was live-streamed for his abusers to watch.

These are two examples of cruelty and danger for kids that they can encounter on online platforms. How do we do something to stop this?

In 2014, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, called NCMEC, received 1.1 million cyber tips of child sexual abuse material, known as CSAM. By 2023, less than 10 years later, the number of cyber tips have exploded to 36 million--from 1 million to 36 million--and every one of those reports represents a child harmed, exploited, and degraded.

As I have heard and learned more about the horrors of online child sexual exploitation, I have made it my mission to try to put an end to it. That is why I worked with survivors, prosecutors, law enforcement, victim advocates, and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to write a bill that responds with the urgency this situation demands. The bill is called STOP CSAM. The lead sponsor, beginning this year, is Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, and the cosponsor is Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. I would like to thank Senator Hawley for being the lead sponsor who voted unanimously with the Judiciary Committee to advance this bill last year.

And I want to recognize the extraordinary survivors and advocates who continue to make this legislation possible by their impassioned pleas. Unfortunately, due to Big Tech's deep pockets, it has not been easy to pass a law to finally hold the tech industry accountable for the harms they cause.

Ask any parent or child walking around holding a cell phone if they are worried about what is going on, on that cell phone, and I will tell you they are. They hope that their children are doing the right things and not being lured into a trap by somebody on the other end of the line. The same thing, of course, is true with computers.

So when STOP CSAM didn't pass the Senate last year, Senator Hawley and I were determined to bring it up this year.

Because Big Tech has failed to take the steps to keep kids safe when they are online, it is imperative that Congress do something for the parents and the children who are victims.

The STOP CSAM Act takes a comprehensive approach to stemming online childhood exploitation. Most significantly, it creates accountability. It pierces the broad immunity granted to Big Tech by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

I can't think of another element of our economy that is free from any worry of being sued. If you drive in a haphazard and reckless way, you will be held responsible. But when it comes to this industry, they conduct their business with little or no regard for the victims. They are immune from responsibility under section 230.

STOP CSAM, which we bring to the floor today, changes it. It does one simple thing: It allows the victims to sue tech platforms and app stores that promote or aid and abet online child sex exploitation.

Survivors deserve a day in court. I just guarantee you, if there is civil liability on the line here, the industry is going to change and rework their online offerings to protect children. Right now, they could give a darn.

STOP CSAM also forces transparency onto Big Tech by requiring the companies to submit annual reports describing their efforts to protect children. This is more than a box-checking exercise. This bill requires providers to disclose concrete steps they are taking to protect children.

We have all seen the headlines. We all know the worry. Tech companies promise to improve but only repeat the same conduct over and over again at the expense of children.

Last year, half of all cyber tips provided by tech companies included insufficient information to be actionable by law enforcement. Civil liability will change that.

The STOP CSAM Act passed unanimously out of the subcommittee this summer. That unanimity is no accident. It reflects an understanding of what we need to do to protect children.

I am honored to have as my colleague in this effort Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, and I yield the floor to him.

In a few minutes, we made the case. When a conservative Missouri Republican and a progressive Illinois Democrat can agree on a measure this important to the families of America, I think it is a unique message.

How many times are we told back home: For God's sake, stop playing politics. If you must, compromise, but get something done.

And, certainly, protecting our children is the highest possible priority.

These measures, as Senator Hawley alluded to, passed unanimously out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trust me, the 20-plus members of that committee span the political spectrum. They all voted for these measures. That is why we bring them to the floor.

For those who are following the debate, we are going to have a voice vote pretty soon, I assume. The question is going to be, Are we going to pass this or not? You are going to hear me make a motion. Then, I believe the Senator from Oregon is going to seek recognition. I will make the motion as to whether we should pass the measure we just described.

Here is the motion. As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 106, S. 1829; further, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute be considered and agreed to, and that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.