Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) is necessarily absent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, last week, my friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Texas, came to the floor to speak about two highly qualified nominees seeking senior positions in President Biden's Justice Department--Lisa Monaco and Vanita Gupta.

I was pleased to hear Senator Cornyn express support for Lisa Monaco. She is nominated to be the Deputy Attorney General. She has vast experience and deep ties to the Department. She has served in multiple roles as both a career employee and a Senate-confirmed official. She is also someone who has predicted and responded to several of the greatest threats of our time, including global pandemics and the rise of domestic terrorism. She has what it takes to serve as the No. 2 person in the Department of Justice and along with the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, to restore independence and integrity in that Department.

Unfortunately, my friend from Texas went on to take a different view when it came to Vanita Gupta, who has been nominated to be an Associate Attorney General, the No. 3 position at the Department. Every Senator, of course, has the right to oppose any nominee, even though many of my colleagues across the aisle have spoken about the importance of deferring to President Biden and his choices to lead his Cabinet.

But when opposition turns from beyond just feeling negative toward someone to stating things about that person that may not be altogether accurate, I feel obligated to come to the floor and correct the record. I would like to address a few of the false attacks that are being leveled against Ms. Gupta.

She unequivocally stated in her testimony under oath before the Judiciary Committee last week that she opposes defunding the police. Any suggestion to the contrary is patently false. We have seen statement after statement from law enforcement organizations that support Vanita Gupta and her nomination. They admitted plainly that they know she doesn't call for defunding the police.

Yet we also continue to see statement after statement from Republican Senators and many of their allies buying television ads claiming the contrary. Ask yourself this basic question: If Vanita Gupta wants to defund the police, how would she get the support and endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Major Cities Chiefs Association, National Sheriffs' Association, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and others? I think we know the answer. She doesn't want to defund the police. It is simply something that is said about her that is not true.

But what Ms. Gupta has called for and what she reiterated before the Committee on the Judiciary last week is making sure that police officers, the men and women who put themselves in harm's way every day, are not called upon to be mental health counselors. Some may have that skill, but most are not trained in that field, and it is not why they signed up for the job.

As Ms. Gupta explained at her hearing, we have spent far too long laying too many of our Nation's social problems at the feet of police-- no matter what goes wrong in the neighborhood, on the street, in the household--call 9-1-1. From homelessness to mental health issues to substance abuse disorders, they all fall on the laps of our law enforcement officials. This is something that police officers, police chiefs, county sheriffs, and civil rights advocates agree on, finding the right person can be critical in an intervention.

Ms. Gupta is a consensus builder, and the consensus from law enforcement is this: Confirm Vanita Gupta.

My friend from Texas also suggested there was something amiss in Ms. Gupta's response to his question on whether she supported decriminalizing drugs. He asked her this at the hearing: ``Is it true that you advocate decriminalization of all drugs?'' Ms. Gupta, under oath, responded: ``No, Senator, I do not.''

My friend from Texas suggested this answer was misleading, given that Ms. Gupta wrote 9 years ago that she would support decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs.

There was nothing misleading about her response. The question was posed in the present tense. It was not limited to decriminalizing possession. More importantly, as she eloquently explained at the hearing, Ms. Gupta's position on decriminalizing drug possession had changed due to her family's own experience with opioid addiction. She did something that far too few people in Washington are willing to do. She acknowledged that she had changed her mind.

I have done that, too, as an elected official. Sometimes people call me on it, and, luckily, I can turn to a good source for rebuttal. You see, Abraham Lincoln spent many years in politics, and he was once accused of changing his mind on an issue, and he replied: Yes, it is true, I changed my position on that issue, but I would rather be right some of the time than wrong all the time. That is the way I feel about being honest if you change your mind based on new information, new experience, or thinking it through from a different angle.

My friend from Texas also suggested that Ms. Gupta somehow wanted to follow her own personal convictions rather than the law. That is not true. Ms. Gupta is a Justice Department veteran. She spent 3 years leading the Civil Rights Division. She enforced the law regardless of her personal views, and she will do the same as Associate Attorney General.

Senator Cornyn suggested that Ms. Gupta harbors personal views that are hostile to police. I won't recount again all the police organizations that have endorsed her. But he omits the fact that she has already served in the Justice Department. And what was the verdict on her time in the Department? These police groups believe in her. They like her approach. They think she is fair. They have endorsed her. I hope my friends on the Republican side of the aisle will acknowledge that.

Unlike the prior administration, President Biden has nominated senior Justice Department leaders who are driven by fidelity to the rule of law. They understand their role at the Department as officials who enforce the law, and they will do so. Ms. Gupta is no exception.

Next week, we will vote on Ms. Gupta's nomination in committee. She has broad bipartisan support across the Nation--law enforcement, Justice Department officials of both parties, civil rights groups, even some of the most conservative Republican advocates, they back Ms. Gupta. She deserves that same bipartisan support here in the Senate.

Mr. President, one floor above this Senate Chamber, near a bank of elevators, sit the marble busts of two leaders of the Ojibwa, or Chippewa, people who came to Washington, DC, in 1855 to sign a treaty with the U.S.Government.

The terms of the treaty had been dictated by the U.S. Government: The Ojibwa people would surrender more than 2 million acres of their ancestral homeland in northern Minnesota. In exchange, the Tribes would receive less than $20,000 in cash, goods, and services, and assistance to resettle on two reservations.

There was no real negotiation. The Ojibwa has two choices: Accept the terms, or face annihilation. So the two chiefs, whose English names were Buffalo and Flat Mouth, signed the treaty and hoped that they had salvaged some future for their people.

It was one of more than 500 treaties that Indian nations signed with the U.S. Government between 1778 and 1871.

Like every one of those 500-plus treaties, the 1855 treaty with the Ojibwa Nation was violated by the U.S. Government.

The part of our government most responsible for carrying out treaty obligations and maintaining government-to-government relations with Tribal nations was--and still is--the U.S. Department of the Interior. That is part of what makes the vote we will take today so historic and important.

It has taken too long--244 years--for a Native American to be included in a President's Cabinet.

Deb Halland is a leader of honor, integrity and vision, and I commend President Biden for nominating her to this important post. As Secretary of the Interior, she will oversee the department that manages America's national parks and vast public lands. She also will lead the Bureau primarily responsible for maintaining relations between the U.S Government and the nearly 600 federally recognized, sovereign Tribes within our national borders.

Her nomination has the strong backing of more than 500 national and regional Tribal leaders, civil rights organizations, and environmental and conservation groups. She received bipartisan support in the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

She is a thoughtful and inclusive leader who will search for balanced solutions on energy, climate, and natural resource policy. I also hope--and expect--that she will correct mistakes the previous administration made in removing protections for vast amounts of lands, including large portions of Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monuments in Utah. These natural and cultural treasures are part of our shared national inheritance and must be protected. Deb Haaland understands that.

In 2018, she became one of the first two indigenous women ever elected to Congress. She is a 35th-generation New Mexican and an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo, a Tribe of people who have lived on the land that is now New Mexico for 900 years.

Defending this Nation is in her blood. Her father was a marine who received the Silver Star for his service in Vietnam and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Her mother is a Navy veteran who worked for a quarter century at the Bureau of Indian Education, an Interior Department Agency.

This historic nomination is an important step towards healing a deep wound of our past, and it offers hope for a better future.

I am honored to support Deb Haaland to serve as U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Hickenlooper), and the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, for 20 years now, I have come to this floor hundreds of times to speak on behalf of the DREAM Act, which I introduced long ago. During that period of time, I have had an occasional vote. I have not been successful in making it the law of the land.

The closest I came was about 8 years ago, when we had the comprehensive immigration reform bill. Four Democratic Senators and four Republican Senators--and I was among them--worked for months to try to address our immigration system. We came up with an agreement that was no mean feat. It is a complex area of law. It is a controversial area of law. It is an area of law that changes almost by the day, and we were trying to find a solution to all the challenges it presents.

To think that we are a nation of immigrants and, then, to reflect on our history on immigration is to leave one puzzled.

Most of the time we have been against immigration, despite the arrival of good people on our borders. Occasionally, when we were building a transcontinental railroad, we would invite people from China in to take the backbreaking jobs, only to categorically exclude them from immigration in the meantime. It is hard to explain, understand, or appreciate where we stand on immigration.

When I hear the Republican leader come to the floor and criticize President Obama for DACA, I have to say that it is personal to me. I was writing letters to President Biden, my former Senate colleague from Illinois, begging him to do just that, and he did.

In creating DACA, he gave the Dreamers a fighting chance, and more than 800,000 of them came forward. These were young people who were brought to the United States as toddlers and infants and children, not because of a personal decision but a family decision. They grew up here, went to school here, and believed they were a part of this country, only to learn in a quiet moment of honesty from their parents that they didn't have the necessary paperwork and they had to be extra careful or face deportation.

I thought that was a heartbreaking conclusion for their time in America and introduced the Dream Act. And when we could not pass it, I asked President Obama to do what he could to help, and he did. I thank him for it still to this day.

But DACA, if it was stretching Executive power, was certainly reflective of where the American people are on this issue. No apologies; the American people don't hold these young children now grown responsible for their family's decision. They want to give them a chance. They want to give them a chance to earn their legal status, to earn a path to citizenship. No apologies here; these are wonderful young people who make America a better country, and we need them to be a part of our future.

So for those who come to the floor critical of DACA, I just tell you: Take a couple of minutes and meet these young people. I have come to the floor over a hundred times telling their personal stories. They are a great source of pride, not just for me but for this Nation.

Now we face problems on our border--and we have for some time--and they are challenges that are very real. Mr. Mayorkas has taken over as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. He is a person I willingly and anxiously support for that job. He has a personal family story of immigration, but, more importantly, he has a depth of experience that is almost impossible to find in other places.

He has tried to come together with the leaders in Central America to fashion a plan for order on the border, and it is difficult. It is true that larger numbers are coming to the border at this time. The Senator from Kentucky said earlier that they believe they have a right to break Federal law. I couldn't disagree with him more. They are presenting themselves at the border under the law of asylum in the United States so that they can be judged as to whether or not they are eligible to come into this country. That is the process, but it has broken down because the numbers presenting themselves at the border and the backlog of cases, more than a million cases pending.

We don't have enough judges. We don't have a procedure that is sensible and humane. We need all of that, and it is not going to happen the day after tomorrow. Part of it depends on us. It is one thing to come to the floor and lament the situation of immigration in our country. It is another to roll up your sleeves and say: Let's do it; let's solve it on a bipartisan basis. And it is certainly an imperative in a 50-50 Senate that any immigration legislation be done on a bipartisan basis.

I stand ready to do that as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and I think colleagues on the Republican side agree with me. As tough as it may be, we need to tackle these issues and not ignore them as they have been ignored during the last 4 years. That is going to call for some cooperation and some compromise on both sides, but we owe it to our country to do the right thing to make our immigration system sensible, logical, and fair.

I don't want to go back to those moments under the Trump administration of zero tolerance, where over 2,000 children were forcibly removed from their parents, sent into a bureaucratic ``Never Never Land'' and then were only reunited--and not all of them have been--those who were reunited were because of a Federal court order calling on the Trump administration to do it.

They cast those children adrift in the bureaucracy. It wasn't until the Federal court demanded that they be reinstated with their families that it happened--in most instances but not in all of them. So we have a lot of work to do, and I hope we can do it on a bipartisan basis. We need to do it as quickly as we can on a bipartisan basis.

56th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday

Mr. President, I was a college student in town here at Georgetown University, and I can remember it well. You have a lot of time to talk with your roommates about things that you might just do with your life and things that you should do, even as a student. I remember that week before the march on Selma, there was a serious conversation among my roommates as to whether we ought to pack up and head to Selma, AL, to join in the march. We were serious about it. We thought about it, but, in the end, it fell through. Too many classes would be cut and jobs we wouldn't be attending to, and we decided at the last minute it just wasn't practical at all for us to do it. I regret that decision to this day. I wish I had been there, even if I were in the back of the line, to say I was part of that day in history.

It was 56 years ago last Sunday, some 600 civil rights activists, 56 years ago, were kneeling in prayer outside the Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma. Leading them was our dearly departed friend--and I know he was the Presiding Officer's friend as well--and former colleague John Lewis. As they stood up outside the church, they formed two rows and began a silent, orderly march toward Montgomery, AL. We all remember that photo of John Lewis coming over that bridge in his tan raincoat and his backpack.

As the civil rights activists reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met by a phalanx of State troopers and armed vigilantes. They wielded cattle prods, billy clubs, shotguns, and other makeshift weapons. We all know what happened next. Today, that violence is remembered as ``Bloody Sunday.''

What some may not know is what happened the night before that march. The county sheriff in Selma, Jim Clark, had issued a call to arms. He ordered White men in the area to join troopers in Selma, and he deputized those people to help stop the march. They answered the call, lining up by the hundreds alongside the State troopers.

John Lewis and his fellow patriots were not going to be intimidated. They

stood tall. They bore the brunt of racist violence, and they did so with a solemn purpose: They wanted to build a more perfect union in this country, to make sure every voice is heard in our democracy.

Days later, with the brutal scenes from Selma fresh in the minds of America, President Lyndon Johnson urged Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. That August, he signed the bill into law. It is hard to imagine, isn't it? In the same year he proposed it, we actually saw Congress pass the law. That is what happened in the good old days. His law fundamentally changed our Republic for the better, but our work remains far from over.

Last weekend also marked the anniversary of another tragic moment in our Nation's history, far more recent than Bloody Sunday. It was 2 months ago--2 months ago on January 6 that a violent mob stormed through the halls of this Capitol Building. Like the vigilantes in Selma, they, too, were answering a call to arms--except this one wasn't issued by a county sheriff; it was issued by the former President of the United States, Donald Trump. The failed insurrection of January 6 not only left five people dead, but, like Bloody Sunday, it left a permanent stain on our Nation's history.

Make no mistake, no more than half a century stands between these two dark days for democracy. They are part of the same thread that sadly has run through American history: racism--racism weaponized to deny full citizenship to Black and Brown Americans.

The mob violence that we personally witnessed on January 6 in this building was not an aberration; it was the continuation of a sad chapter in our history. For months, former President Trump had sowed doubt about the legitimacy of the election. He claimed that it was stolen from him. ``Stop the steal,'' they chanted. We know that President Trump's claims have no basis in reality. Just 2 days ago, the Supreme Court finally dismissed the last remaining case brought by Trump supporters to push the big lie. The Supreme Court didn't buy it. In fact, no court bought it.

The former President has never let facts stand in his way, has he? In fact, he claims to know exactly where this supposed fraud transpired, cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Detroit-- coincidentally, cities with large populations of Black and Brown voters. This is no coincidence. President Trump and his enablers believe they were entitled to victory because they don't think that every American should have an equal vote in our democracy.

President Trump's efforts to overturn the election are just the most recent example of a decades-long movement to suppress voters of color.

I have spoken on this floor before about investigations I conducted as chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Human rights of the Senate Judiciary. I took the show on the road. I traveled to Ohio and Florida, where lawmakers at that time were considering making it more difficult to vote, requiring IDs, and this was before the Supreme Court's disastrous decision in Shelby County.

That ruling opened the floodgates. It allowed a number of State legislatures to enact discriminatory restrictions on voting that would no longer require approval from the Department of Justice. That decision was a repudiation of the sacrifice John Lewis and his fellow patriots made on Bloody Sunday.

We must learn from our history, whether it was 56 years ago or just 2 months ago, and we must recognize that the fundamental right to vote is still under attack. Just last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could further fracture the Voting Rights Act by limiting the effectiveness of a provision that allows voters to challenge discriminatory restrictions. Lawmakers in 43 States have already introduced more than 250 bills this year to restrict voting access

This book, ``One Person, No Vote,'' was written by Carol Anderson, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta. I read her first book, ``White Rage,'' contacted her, and we are friends. I think her analysis of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, and all that followed is the most lucid presentation I have read about that chapter in history.

In this book, she goes directly into the issue of voter suppression. One of her observations is worth repeating on the floor of the Senate. She refers to what is known in history as the Mississippi Plan. I will read a few sentences from this book, as follows:

That became most apparent in 1890 when the Magnolia State

passed the Mississippi Plan, a dizzying array of poll taxes,

literacy tests, understanding clauses, newfangled voter

registration rules, and ``good character'' clauses--all

intentionally racially discriminatory but dressed up in the

genteel garb of bringing ``integrity'' to the voting booth.

This feigned legal innocence was legislative evil genius.

Virginia representative Carter Glass, like so many others,

swooned at the thought of bringing the Mississippi Plan to

his own state, especially after he saw how well it had

worked. He rushed to champion a bill in the legislature that

would ``eliminate the darkey as a political factor . . . in

less than five years.'' Glass, whom President Franklin

Roosevelt would one day describe as an ``unreconstructed

rebel,'' planned ``not to deprive a single white man of the

ballot, but [to] inevitably cut from the existing electorate

four-fifths of the Negro voters'' in Virginia.

One delegate questioned him: ``Will it not be done by fraud

and discrimination?''

Glass responded:

``By fraud, no. By discrimination, yes,'' Glass retorted.

``Discrimination! Why, that is precisely what we propose . .

. to discriminate to the very extremity . . . permissible . .

. under . . . the Federal Constitution, with a view to the

elimination of every negro voter who can be gotten rid of,

legally, without materially impairing the numerical strength

of the white electorate.''

In those days, they were very direct and honest about their ambitions in voter suppression. What is the explanation these days?

If we don't believe that there was massive fraud--and there was not, by any objective measure--in the 2020 election, why are so many legislators in the business now of reducing the opportunity for Americans to vote in their States? Why? If they can't sell an idea, they just want to change the electorate, and perhaps that would lead to victory, but at what cost?

The most enduring legacy of Bloody Sunday is the legislation that it helped to inspire, the Voting Rights Act. We must now draw from this moment in our history, a lesson to be realized, the promise of that legislation: a full and vibrant democracy, made up of all Americans of every color and creed.

We have an obligation not just to restore the Voting Rights Act but to build on it, to make it stronger and more comprehensive. Fortunately, President Joe Biden's administration has indicated it is ready to do just that. Last Sunday, in honor of the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, President Biden signed an Executive order calling on the Federal Government to make it easier for Americans to register to vote and access the ballot box.

While this Executive order was a welcome announcement, we need to act as well in Congress. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a cosponsor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act in the last Congress, I look forward to working to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act in the months ahead.

Though our friend and colleague is no longer with us today, his legacy towers over us. We stand on his shoulders and those of all the American heroes who bled on the streets of Selma in 1965 and long after. We must carry on the fight for equality, and we can begin by enacting a bill the House of Representatives passed last week, the For the People Act.

This bill would prohibit voter roll purges, as we have seen in States like Ohio and Georgia, and modernize and strengthen voter registration systems and ballot access.

I would say to the other party: Don't be afraid of the voters. In this democracy, they have the last word. Denying them the right to vote is no way and no strategy for a great political party.

It would also help end the dominance of dark money in our political system, including through establishing a small-donor public financing system for congressional elections, based on my Fair Elections Now Act.

The For the People Act is a vital step toward repairing and improving our democratic process. Passing it and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act will provide critical tools in the fight to ensure that all Americans can exercise their right to vote. These bills represent the bold actions that Americans have been calling for. We must not ignore that call.

In 2020, the American people turned out in historic numbers in the election, but they also turned out in historic numbers in protests in support of racial justice across America. John Lewis's march to Montgomery never ended. It has taken on a new life, a new generation of marchers, and more Americans than ever before are putting their feet to the pavement.

It is time to finish the work of John Lewis and the heroes of the civil rights movement. As we commemorate the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, we can do no less. With his eyes wide open, John Lewis marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma knowing he was facing a deadly, hateful crowd. They broke down his body, but they could not defeat his spirit. The question we face today is whether John Lewis's spirit still lives in us.

I yield the floor.

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.

Madam President, I had a press conference this Sunday back home in Illinois to talk about what the American Rescue Plan means to our State. It is dramatic. Dramatic.

Millions of dollars will be coming to our State to buy vaccines. I can tell you, all across Illinois, people are asking: When is it my turn? When do I get my chance? And we want to make sure they get that chance sooner rather than later.

Think about what President Biden inherited just a few weeks ago. Surely they had found some vaccines--excellent vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna--approved by then, but he came to the White House to find that there was no plan to administer those vaccines across the Nation.

Vaccine is important, but it is of little value if it is not in the arms of Americans. So he set out to establish a standard that we would be distributing this vaccine across the United States as quickly as possible and the mechanism, the infrastructure to make certain that it was administered by professionals who know what they are doing. That is quite an undertaking. It is the largest vaccination in the history of our Nation. But President Biden said he needed help to do it--not just money for the vaccine but money for testing, money for the genomic sequencing necessary to detect variants that might be emerging in the United States. That was a major element of the bill that passed this Senate last Saturday.

He also put money in there that had already been promised to the American people. Remember when President Trump said $2,000 for every American? We agreed on a bipartisan basis. The first downpayment was last December, $600, and the remainder, $1,400, was included in the bill that passed on Saturday.

I have yet to hear a Republican Senator come to this floor and criticize that sum of money. All of them--I should say most of them have publicly supported it, and others say little or nothing about it, but no one is saying that it shouldn't be given as a result of the promise made. We kept that promise. That was part of what we were doing.

We also had a responsibility to millions of Americans who are still collecting unemployment. As of March 14,

they were going to lose their opportunity to continue that unemployment check.

There were arguments made on the floor here that these were just lazy people and that if you give them an unemployment check, they will just continue to be lazy and won't go back to work. I don't buy that. I don't believe it. Are some lazy? Well, possibly. I think the vast majority of these people are desperate. They are desperate because they have been laid off or lost their jobs and they need to keep their families together.

Unemployment benefits do that, and they also give fuel to the economy to recover. We were told that by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and others--to put enough stimulus back in this economy so we can come out of it strong sooner rather than later. I believe that. Yet people like the Republican Senator from Ohio came to the floor talking about the recovery underway and we don't really need to do as much as President Biden had asked for. I disagree.

All across the board, the bill that we passed, whether it is money for schools or money for hospitals or money for clinics or money for administering this vaccine, was money that will be well spent in the State of Illinois and all across the United States.

Now what troubles me is this: Last year, we had two major bills for COVID relief. They talk about five. There were two major bills. The first was in March, the CARES Act that was worth $2 trillion. That bill passed the Senate after it had been engineered by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin of the Trump administration. It passed the Senate with every Senator voting yes, 96 to nothing. Every Democratic Senator voted for it.

Then came the followup bill in December, some $900 billion for more COVID relief, for a temporary, first-quarter-of-this-year fix. When you look at the final rollcall there, it was 92 to 6. All six ``no'' votes were Republicans. Every Democrat who voted, voted for it--again, a Trump proposal that we supported on the Democratic side.

So then the tables turned on January 20, and a new President came to town. Joe Biden said: Let me finish this and do it effectively. Give me an American Rescue Plan.

How many Republican Senators stood up and said: Well, since the Democrats, in the spirit of responding to this pandemic, came around and supported the Trump plans last year, we will do the same this year. The number--zero. Not one Republican Senator supported the bill that passed on Saturday. We passed it with 50 Democratic votes. That is what it took, with one Republican Senator being missing. But what a disappointment that is, to think that this pandemic and the economic crisis that followed was addressed on a bipartisan basis with every Democratic vote in the major legislation last year, and this year, under President Biden, we couldn't get one Republican Senator to join us in that effort. It is a disappointment, but I hope it isn't a portent of things to come. We have a lot to do, and we need to do it together on a bipartisan basis. The American people are going to count on us to do it.

I also might say a word about the nominations that Senator McConnell referred to earlier. It is true that some of these nominees are getting votes that indicate a strong majority in support, and that does evidence Republican cooperation, and I want to thank them for joining us in that bipartisan spirit. But it evidences something else as well. These are good nominees. These are good men and women who can serve this country effectively. Given the chance, they will, and the votes that have been cast in support of them indicate that as well.

I won't go into the experience 4 years ago with the Trump nominees, but many of them had troubled records, and some of them didn't even file the necessary disclosures before their names were submitted to us for consideration. So there are a lot of things that have changed in the 4-year period of time. Now we have a chance to approve a team for President Biden and to fill out his national security team.

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

Mr. President, let's face reality. The immigration law system in America is broken. If we are going to get behind slogans and bumper stickers and do something about the problems we face in America, we have to talk about comprehensive immigration reform.

The amendment being offered by the Senator from Arkansas brings back another one of the old arguments about sanctuary cities.

Let me tell you what the police chief, Art Acevedo of Houston, had to say before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If we are to be tough on crime, we must not forget that it

begins with trust and cooperation in our communities.

He went on to say:

[I]f we want to be effective and work to disrupt the drug

cartels, we cannot afford to alienate broad spectrums of our

community. Asking local law enforcement officers to become

involved in immigration enforcement is counterproductive.

Vote no on the Cotton amendment.

Mr. President, this amendment will cause harm to the families of incarcerated individuals, joint filers who would receive only half of the payment that the families are owed while the spouse is incarcerated. Given the stark racial disparities in our criminal justice system, this would cause the most harm to Black and Brown families and communities already harmed by mass incarceration. Children should not be forced to go hungry because a parent is incarcerated. Relief payments would allow families to replace lost income and pay rent and put food on the table.

The Cassidy amendment sweeps broadly, denying recovery of rebates not only to incarcerated individuals but also to anyone violating a condition of probation on parole, but the Social Security statute that Senator Cassidy's amendment copies from has a safety valve giving discretion to allow payments to persons because of mitigating circumstances. His amendment does not.

I would urge my colleagues to understand what we are facing with our criminal justice system today. We need to bring more justice to it and caring for the families of those who are incarcerated.

Mr. President, the statement of the Senator from Texas is just plain false--false. Let me be clear. Undocumented immigrants do not have Social Security numbers, and they do not qualify for stimulus relief checks, period.

And just in case you didn't notice, they didn't qualify in December when 92 of us voted for that measure, and they don't qualify under the American Rescue Plan. Nothing has changed.

And for you to stand up there and say the opposite is just to rile people up over something that is not true.

No. It is not true, and we know what is going on right now. They want to be able to give speeches and say the checks go to undocumented people. In the circumstance where there is a parent receiving----

--a check for the child, that is it; but no money going to undocumented people under the American Rescue Plan.

Mr. President, some of our Republican colleagues say that America doesn't need President Biden's COVID rescue plan because ``the pandemic is nearly over.'' Funny. I have never heard them say we shouldn't spend money to help tornado victims in their States after the tornadoes were gone.

Let me say it clearly. We are not out of the woods yet. I wish we were. There are 510,000 Americans--maybe more now--who have died. The United States has 5 percent of the world's population. We have 20 percent of the COVID infections and deaths. Why? Because of poor leadership during the first year of this pandemic.

We had a President then, who is now gone, who would announce it was a hoax, and it was going to disappear by Easter, downplaying the seriousness of the situation with his fanciful flights about certain chemicals that were going to save us or whether or not we should all be gargling Lysol every morning. It made no sense, and the American people came out of that experience confused and infected, with deaths in their families. That was the reality of the first year of the pandemic.

There was also another reality, which the Republican leader just alluded to in that, 12 months ago, we passed something called the CARES Act. It was historic--the largest Federal expenditure in the history of the United States of America. Who designed that bill? Well, it was Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, whom I didn't know well but who, apparently, had some skill as a negotiator because he managed to not only speak for President Trump but to negotiate a bipartisan package in March of last year, called the CARES Act, for $2 trillion. It came to the floor of the Senate, with a vote of 96 to nothing. Every Democrat voted for the COVID rescue plan of the Trump administration a year ago--every Democrat.

The second major bill occurred in December, that of $900 billion, designed to help us through the first 3 months of this year--again, with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin at the table on behalf of President Trump, negotiating with Democrats and Republicans. It came to the floor of the Senate, and, this time, there were 92 votes in favor of it, including every Democrat, and 6 Republicans voted no.

So, you see, when it came to COVID rescue plans under the Trump administration, the Republicans were happy to ask us to join them, and we did. Oh, some people said we were giving them a political advantage here or there or the other place, but those arguments didn't prevail on the Democratic side. The Nation came first. The pandemic came first. Unemployed people and businesses that were struggling came first, and we voted that way.

Then came a new President: Joe Biden, elected November 3, despite the denial of some. It was a reality. He took this pandemic and faced it squarely--no excuses about hoaxes or ``it is going to go away'' or ``I have got a favorite chemical that will save everybody's life.'' He faced it squarely. He accepted the responsibility, as President of the United States, to tell the American people the truth.

The first thing he told them was that we cannot, we should not, stop in our efforts to end this pandemic and put America back on its feet. So he made a proposal, a proposal with at least $160 billion in it, for buying vaccines, administering those vaccines, and distributing them across the United States. I would think that everybody would agree with that as a starting point. It wasn't the end point.

As for the cash payment promised by the Trump administration and agreed to by most Democrats, he wanted to keep his word on that--$1,400 more for families all across America.

He talked about State and local aid. I can tell you that this is more than a theoretical exercise in my State of Illinois. We need help. The expenses of COVID-19 and the lost revenue by our shrunken economy have taken their toll in my State and in the cities across the State.

I just got off a Zoom call with a dozen small towns in Illinois. They are all down from my neck of the woods. They are great folks, doing their best, struggling under COVID-19.

They asked me: Are you going to send us any help?

I said: President Biden has made his American rescue proposal. If we can pass it, help is on the way.

Assistance won't just go to Springfield, our State capital, or to Chicago, which does need help, but to cities across our State and across our Nation. That is included in this bill too. Help for our schools is included in this bill too. The list goes on, and it is an important list because it really highlights the priorities of recovery in the United States.

President Biden and all of us heard the news a day or two ago when the Governors of Texas and Mississippi, in full-throated denial of the reality of this pandemic, basically took off all the limitations on businesses and on individuals. No more mask requirements. Let's open up everything all the way. The President was right. That was not a smart choice. It was not a wise choice. We are up against it, and we have to remain united in our effort to defeat this coronavirus.

So this week, in a day or two, President Biden's American Rescue Plan will come to the floor. Will we have another bipartisan rollcall, 96 to nothing, 92 to 6? I am afraid not. As of this moment, and I hope it changes, no single Republican Senator has expressed an interest in voting for this bill. Not one. I hope it changes, and it could. Some Senators at the last minute, I think, will realize this is the right way to go.

Meanwhile, the Republican leader comes to the floor every day and mocks this plan--a Democratic wish list, a liberal wish list, Nancy Pelosi's wish list. This is the American people's wish list. Eighty percent of the American people support what President Biden is trying to do, and the leading economists have told us we have to do this. If we don't inject money into this economy to restore its energy and future, we will pay for it not just for months to come but far beyond.

It is a situation that every parent knows, when they go to the doctor, to the pediatrician, with their little boy or little girl with an earache, and he says: I am going to give you some antibiotics. Now, this is a 5-day prescription. This little boy is going to start feeling better on the second day, and by the third day, he is going to be playing as usual. You are going to think, well, he doesn't need the rest of these antibiotics. Don't make that decision. Keep giving him the full dose of medicine to get well completely, or he may lapse back into it again and get sick all over again.

So you stick with it even when your little boy is running rings around you or the little girl is getting ready to get on her tricycle, because that is what the doctor said, and that was the right thing to do.

That is the same thing with this. If we accept the Republican argument that this pandemic is really over; if we accept the argument of the Governor of Texas--that was yesterday; we don't have to worry about it tomorrow; if we take that approach, we could have a disastrous result. We could be back in trouble again in just a few weeks.

I hope we don't. I hope we come together in the Senate, preferably on a bipartisan basis, and help the President get us through this pandemic. This is our chance. We have no greater responsibility than to put an end to this pandemic, put the economy on its feet, get the kids back in school, and let grandparents visit those grandkids again. That is part of getting America back where it needs to be.

We need bipartisan support. As Democrats, we provided that support to a Republican President. Now that we have a Democratic President, will our Republican Senators do the same?

I yield the floor.

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 order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, history was made on Monday. Judge Merrick Garland finally got a vote before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was a long time in coming. His nomination was approved by a bipartisan vote of 15 to 7. I am not surprised. He is superbly qualified to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

With experience, judgment, and integrity, he checks all the boxes. He served with distinction on the DC Circuit Court for 23 years and, in that time, developed a reputation for fidelity to the rule of law, a strict adherence to judicial independence, and a commitment to treat people with fairness, dignity, and respect. It is no surprise that he has been endorsed by 60 former Federal judges and by judges, of course, who have been appointed by Presidents of both political parties. In addition to his experience on the bench, he is a longtime veteran of the Department of Justice, where he served before he ascended to the DC Circuit.

He is uniquely qualified at this moment in history to lead the Department and to investigate and prosecute, for example, the January 6 insurrection--the mob that invaded this Capitol Building. The reason he is qualified is that he led the investigation and prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombing. We remember that very well. That was clearly a case of domestic terrorism. His work on that project won praise from across the political spectrum.

He also personally understands the Department's role in protecting civil rights. I believe he is the person to restore honor and dignity to this Department. He has support from every major law enforcement organization in the country, from 150 former Justice Department officials of both parties, from the Nation's leading civil rights organizations, and from many others--left, right, and center. His credentials are second to none, and his character--in particular, his selflessness--is a model to us all.

When we held the markup on his nomination in the committee, the most significant witness may have been a lady by the name of Mrs. Tucker. She testified on the second panel. She is the mother of two DC public school students who were tutored and mentored by Judge Garland. After the first child had received his helping hand for several years, the second child asked if she could be included in the next round, and then they both won the help of Judge Garland. Doesn't it speak volumes of a man who has reached that station in life that he would be so humble as to sit down and help children whom he had never met before find their way through life? It was a touching moment when she testified. It really was an insight into his character.

So you would think, with a 15-to-7 vote, you would think with all of these endorsements, and you would think that the fact of there being four members on the Republican Senate side of the Senate Judiciary Committee behind him that this would be a nomination of an Attorney General so important to this Nation that it would be given expedited treatment on the floor of the Senate. No. Unfortunately, there was an objection to expediting his nomination so he could get to work for the Department of Justice, and, as a consequence, we face the Senate procedure, which means that it could be days, maybe even into next week, before he can take the job. That is unfortunate. We need him now more than ever. Even Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has said he would support him. Chuck Grassley, my friend and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, voted for him.

There is just no reason the Senate should not immediately hold a vote for Merrick Garland's nomination. He is the last remaining member of President Biden's national security team to be chosen. It is time for him to take this job. The Attorney General is needed to fight the threat of domestic terrorism, which the FBI Director spoke to yesterday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, to reorganize this Department and get it moving in the right direction, and to face the many challenges when it comes to national security and the administration of justice.

We should confirm Merrick Garland immediately. I sincerely hope that whoever is holding his nomination on the other side can be persuaded to give him his chance

Mr. President, on a different subject, I listened to the speeches of Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell about the American Rescue Plan--Joe Biden's proposal, his initial proposal as President-- to deal with the pandemic, the state of the economy, and many other aspects of American culture and life that need to be addressed. Clearly, there is a difference of opinion.

I couldn't help but think, as Senator McConnell was recounting our experience last year, that when it came to the CARES Act a year ago-- the $2 trillion plan to respond to the state of the pandemic and the economy, the plan that was engineered by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, a member of the Trump administration, who argued and negotiated with Republicans and Democrats alike--that, when they finally agreed, the vote was 96 to nothing in this Chamber. Every Democrat voted for the proposed CARES Act that was engineered by the Trump administration. Party was pushed aside because the priority was our Nation. It happened again in December of last year. In President Trump's administration, with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin at the table and with Democrats and Republicans bargaining, the final vote was 92 to 6 in the Senate--not bad--and the 6 noes were all Republicans. Again, the Democrats stepped up and said: We will support this bipartisan effort because that is why we are here. The American people sent us here to do a job.

Now comes the new President, Joe Biden, who says: Good work last December, but that was temporary, and that was supposed to be a special effort. Now we have to finish the year. We have some deadlines coming. Just 2 weeks from now--or in less than 2 weeks--the unemployment insurance programs will be running out for millions of Americans, and the rental assistance program as well. Some will face eviction, and some will not have enough money to feed their families. So get to work. Pass the American Rescue Plan on a bipartisan basis.

We have yet to hear from one Republican Senator who will support President Biden's plan. Some of them have

legitimate differences with his policy, and I wish they would come to the table and be a part of the conversation, but none of them has really stepped up and said: We are in for the big effort that the President is calling for. That is what it will take. Unfortunately, because of that, in a 50-50 Senate, we will need every Democratic Senator to support the President's plan and to pass a version of what the House is sending over to us. We will go through an exercise called ``reconciliation'' in just a few days. It is not a pretty scene if you follow legislative history, but it is long overdue.

Do you know the one thing that should drive us on? It is not only the obvious need for this but the fact that the American people overwhelmingly support what President Biden has proposed. The American people believe, as he does, that we should be investing billions into more vaccines and more people to administer them. The American people believe that a cash payment to families is essential in some parts of this country. They would like to see the $600 in last December's bill complemented with the $1,400 in this proposal. They would like for us to put money on the table for people who are unemployed so they can put food on that same table, and they would like for us to get the schools ready to deal with reopening and classes that are safe for the kids and the teachers. There is no argument about that.

While 20 percent of the people may oppose it, 80 percent support it. Yet we can't find one Republican Senator to support President Biden's plan. They say it costs too much. Well, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Powell, a conservative Republican economist, has told us to be careful that you do too little. This economy is fragile. It needs to be strengthened. We need to inject into this economy enough of our resources so that people are back, purchasing again, and businesses are reopened. He has warned us, if you do too little and if you cut it off too soon, you are going to pay for it for years to come with unemployment and problems with the sluggish economy.

My Republican colleagues say it is just too much money. Well, I think they are wrong, and at this moment in history, I am prepared to err on the side of investing in the American people and American businesses and making certain that we have a fighting chance to put this behind us.

Our constituents know about the cost of this situation. They want us to provide the solutions. They want results from Congress. If we were to delay this payment, people would see their unemployment insurance lapse and hardships continue.

We shouldn't play politics with it either. In the two big bills last year, the Democrats were on board for plans engineered by the Trump administration. Economists believe that we need to move and move decisively.

According to an analysis by the Brookings Institution, passing a comprehensive plan like the American Rescue Plan could produce a 4- percent growth in U.S. GDP this year.

Moody's estimates that passing the same plan would create 7\1/2\ million American jobs. How about that?

We got good news over the weekend with the arrival of another safe and effective vaccine. This is the third one, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, in our arsenal--perhaps more to follow. It holds the promise of finally getting America inoculated, vaccinated, and breaking the back of this pandemic.

This new vaccine prevents hospitalizations and deaths, stored at normal temperatures, a single shot--all good news.

But we need more than a promise of a vaccine. We need a plan. These vaccines are of no good to us sitting on a shelf or not being produced in volumes necessary.

President Biden's rescue plan, which not a single Republican supports, would provide 100 and--I think I have got the number right-- $160 billion in resources for the production of vaccines and the distribution. If we ever needed it, this was the moment.

Thankfully, President Biden's leadership has led to allocations to Illinois of vaccines that have increased by 70 percent since he took over as President. We still have our challenges at the local level.

I want to salute the Governor, JB Pritzker; the mayor of the city of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot; the Cook County Board President Preckwinkle; and all the others who are doing their best.

I announced with Senator Duckworth just last Friday that we are going to put a new facility in the parking lot of the United Center, where the amazing Chicago Bulls play basketball from time to time, and it is going to be able to vaccinate thousands of people every single day.

It is Federal assistance that is making it happen, and it happens to be in a neighborhood where African Americans and Latinos are nearby, and we need to protect them with even more effectiveness than we have to date. They account for 33 percent of the population of that area, and only 16 percent have been vaccinated.

The American Rescue Plan provides $20 billion to expand our vaccine distribution capacity. You would think that that would maybe attract one Republican supporter. It should. There are certainly some who argue against all vaccines and spending any money for it and all the rest, but they are such a small minority. The vast majority of Americans of both political parties understand that we have got to go to vaccinations as quickly as possible. The Biden rescue plan does that. I wish they would join us in supporting it.

There is also a need for money for education. There is $128 billion in this bill for additional education funding K-12, and there have been arguments made on the floor here by the Republicans that we just don't need it. They point to data showing that the school districts haven't spent the money that we provided in previous relief packages. Well, just talk to the principals and the teachers in your home State about that conclusion. You will find the money is desperately needed and that the money that has been appropriated before will be spent in an orderly way and not shoveled out the window.

We are looking ahead to the entire year and making certain that we have a real school year--perhaps the remainder of this year but certainly for next year. Illinois needs these funds and America does.

When it comes to State and local support, I have to tell you, we have paid a heavy price in our State of Illinois and our major cities. We have seen expenses go up and we have seen revenue go down and we need help, not unreasonable.

This helping hand will save jobs that are necessary for us--some of them healthcare jobs, some of them security and safety jobs, but they will save jobs, and that is why the State and the local resources included in this bill are so important and timely.

Over the past year, States and localities have lost 1.3 million jobs of their payrolls, far more than the 750,000 lost in the great recession. There is needed help from the Federal Government, and it is needed now.

We have recovered just 12 million of the 22 million jobs we have lost since the start of the pandemic.

According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, more than 8 million rental households and 2 million homeowners were behind on housing payments at the end of last year. The burden is tough, and for those of us lucky enough to have escaped it, we may not know the feeling, the empty feeling of eviction or the loss of a home that you have paid a mortgage on for years.

I am going to close. I see one of my colleagues on the floor preparing to speak, but I would like to close with the story of Galen Hensen from Midlothian, IL.

For 34 years, Galen has supported touring artists through his work in live concert production for some of America's most iconic musicians. When the American economy was upended by the pandemic, his industry froze to save other lives and to avoid crowds.

Like so many others, Galen went on unemployment. Yet, even with the Federal $600 supplement to State unemployment, he had only half of his regular income replaced. He struggles--still struggles to make ends meet. He wrote to me urging that we put aside our partisan differences and pass the American Rescue Plan. Let's listen to Galen, and let's listen to many others like him. They are counting on us.

I hope when all is said and done after all the speeches, that just as we came together on a bipartisan basis to pass the rescue plan twice last year--96 to

nothing, 92 to 6--under the Trump administration, with all Democrats supporting it, wouldn't it be great if we showed that same bipartisanship again

I yield the floor.