Floor Statements

I want to thank my colleague and friend, the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, for raising the issues of immigration.

We are at a moment in the history of this country that I am sure will be reviewed and reflected upon for many generations to come. Decisions that are being made in the White House today in the area of immigration will be criticized, analyzed, and in many cases repudiated in years to come. It is time for us, at this moment, to have a sober reflection on what this administration has done in 2\1/2\ years with the issue of immigration and where we stand at this very moment.

This President came to the White House promising he was going to get tough on immigration--immigration. Probably at the heart of America, more than anything, has been the issue of immigration. We are a nation of immigrants. My mother was an immigrant to this country.

I believe the diversity of our Nation is one of our core strengths because we have attracted people from all over the world. This President doesn't understand it. If he does, he is not pushing policies that show any reflection on that reality and that historic background.

Think of how this administration started. Within hours after this President was elected, he announced the Muslim travel ban; that he would single out countries with Muslim-majority populations and say that their people were not welcome in the United States. The reaction was immediate across the United States. In the city of Chicago, I can remember the supporters of those coming from other countries heading out to O'Hare and attorneys volunteering to give them counsel. There was an outpouring of support for these people, realizing that fundamentally innocent people were traveling to this country. Yet the President, with his travel ban, made it clear from the very start of his administration his view on these immigrants.

What followed from there was a decision by this administration to eliminate temporary protective status. Three hundred thousand immigrants in this country came here because of natural disasters and political upheaval and got protection in the United States. The President wanted to turn them away. Was there any measurement as to which ones might be dangerous? No. All would be turned away.

Then, of course, there was the President's decision to eliminate the DACA Program. The DACA Program was created by President Obama. These people were brought to the United States as children because of decisions by their parents. They grew up in this country, and every day in classrooms they pledged allegiance to that flag, believing it was their flag too. At some point in their lives, they learned they were undocumented. They didn't have legal status in America. President Obama felt--and I, as a sponsor of the Dream Act, agreed with and encouraged the creation by Executive order of the DACA Program. So 790,000 of these young people came forward, paid a filing fee, went through a criminal background check, and after they were approved, they were given 2 years to stay in the United States, renewable, where they couldn't be deported, and they could work legally in this country. That program, as I said, attracted 790,000 successful applicants, many of them outstanding students and amazing young people. I told their stories on the floor of the Senate. President Trump decided to abolish that program and to end the protection for these young people--790,000 of them.

That wasn't the end of it. The President continued with policies such as zero tolerance. Do you remember that one? Last year, the Attorney General of the United States stood up and quoted from the Bible as to how it was the right thing to do to separate 2,880 infants, toddlers, and children from their parents at our borders. Zero tolerance; treat the parents like criminals and separate the kids.

What was worse was that no effort was made to track those children as to where they were placed and what happened to their parents. It wasn't until a Federal judge in Southern California came forward and forced this administration to finally match up the children with their parents that the effort was undertaken, and still more than 100 of them were never matched--lost in the bureaucratic sea of the Trump administration. That wasn't the end of it by far.

What we have seen at the border in the last several months has been shocking and unprecedented in American history. This ``get tough'' President, who says he is going to cut off foreign aid to countries in Central America and get tough at the border with his almighty wall, has ended up attracting larger numbers of people who are presenting themselves for asylum status at the border of the United States than we have ever seen--dramatic increases we haven't seen for decades with regard to the number of people at the border. The President's immigration policy has backfired.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for an additional 2 minutes.

The net result of this has been the announcement by the administration that, come Sunday, we will see mass arrests and deportations in this country. Reports from the New York Times are that thousands will be rounded up, arrested, and deported. When possible, they say, family members will be arrested together and will be held in family detention centers.

Have these people committed crimes since they have been in the United States? There is no evidence of it. It is simply the fact that they are undocumented at this moment, and many of them may have lived here for years. These arrests and mass deportations are going to create fear in communities across the United States, including in the city of Chicago, which I am honored to represent. For what? It will not make America safer for us if we deport these people. Sadly, it is going to mean that their families will be torn apart and that there will be more children and families in detention.

We were told there was a humanitarian crisis and that we needed to apply ourselves and make certain that we had billions of dollars to deal with it, and we did. Now the administration has turned around and announced a new wave of splitting up families and deporting them from the United States. This is not what America is all about. There is a way for us to deal with immigration in a sensible, thoughtful, rational way. Cruelty has no place in the history of this country, and it has no place when it comes to the treatment of those who are in the United States today.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for votes Nos. 202 and 203. Had I been present, I would have voted nay on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Peter C. Wright to be Assistant Administrator, Office of Solid Waste, Environmental Protection Agency. I would have also voted nay on confirmation of the Wright nomination.

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

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

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

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

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, just a few minutes ago, four young people from the State of Illinois visited my office. They were a variety of different ages, from 10 years of age to the age of 17. They all came because they had a similar life experience, and they wanted to share it with me. Each one of them had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

Ten-year-old Owen from Deerfield told a story--the cutest little kid; great reader; read me a presentation that he put together--and the young women who were with him all talked about how their lives changed when they learned at the age of 7 or 8 that they had type 1 diabetes. For each one of them, from that point forward, insulin became a lifeline. They had to have access to insulin, and they had to have it sometimes many times a day, in the middle of the night. It reached a point where, through technology, they had continuous glucose monitoring devices and pumps that were keeping them alive, but every minute of every day was a test to them as to whether they were going to get sick and need help.

It was a great presentation by these young people, whose lives were transformed, and their parents, who were hanging on every word as they told me their life stories.

They brought up two points that I want to share on the floor this afternoon. The first is the importance of medical research. As one young woman said--she is about 17 now. She has lived with this for 8 or 9 years. She said she is a twin, and her brother told her when she was diagnosed that he hated the thought that, as an old woman, she would still be worried about her insulin every single day. She said: I told my brother ``We are going to find a cure before I am an old woman.''

Well, I certainly hope that young girl is right, but she will be right only if we do our part here on the floor of the Senate and not just give speeches. What we have to do is appropriate money to the National Institutes of Health. It is the premier medical research agency in the world.

We have had good luck in the last 4 years. I want to salute two of my Republican colleagues and one of my Democratic colleagues for their special efforts. For the last 4 years, Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri; Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee; and Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, have joined forces--I have been part of that team too--to encourage an increase in medical research funding every single year, and we have done it.

The increase that Dr. Collins at NIH asked for was 5 percent real growth a year. That is 5 percent over inflation. Do you know what we have done in 4 years? NIH has gone up from $30 billion to $39 billion. Dramatic. A 30-percent increase in NIH research funding.

We are going to have a tough time with this coming budget, as we have in the past, but I hope we really reach a bottom line, as Democrats and Republicans, that we are committed to 5 percent real growth in medical research every single year so that we can answer these young people who come in dealing with diabetes, those who are suffering from cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's--the list goes on and on--that we are doing our part here in the Senate; that despite all the political battles and differences, there are things that bring us together, and that should be one.

The second point they raised--one of the young girls there, Morgan of Jerseyville, started telling me a story about the cost of insulin. As she was telling the story about the sacrifices being made by her family to keep her alive, she broke down and cried. What she was telling me-- her personal experience, her family experience--was something that every family with diabetes knows: The cost of insulin--charged by the pharmaceutical companies--has gone up dramatically, without justification, over the last 20 years.

In 1999, one of the major insulin drugs--called Humalog, made by Eli Lilly--was selling for $21 a vial. That was 20 years ago. In 1999, it was $21 a vial. The price today is $329 a vial. What has caused this dramatic increase? There is nothing that has happened with this drug. It is the same drug. And, I might add, Eli Lilly of Indianapolis, IN, is selling the same insulin product--Humalog--in Canada for $39. So it costs $329 in the United States and $39 in Canada.

These families told me they were lucky to have health insurance that covered prescription drugs. That sounds good, except they each had large copays--$8,000 a year. And what it meant was that for this young girl, this beautiful little girl who was in my office and who has juvenile diabetes,

they would spend $8,000 a year at the beginning of the year for 3 months of insulin before the health insurance kicked in and started paying for it. Of course, there are families who aren't so lucky--they don't have health insurance to pay for their drugs.

So what are we going to do about it? It happens to be something the Senate is supposed to take up. We are supposed to debate these things and decide the policy for this country. We will see. Very soon, we will have a chance. A bill is coming out of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and we will have a chance to amend it on the floor and to deal with the cost of prescription drugs. I will have an amendment ready if my colleagues want to join me--I hope they will--on the cost of insulin, and we will have a chance if Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, will allow us--it is his decision. We will have a chance to decide whether these kids and their families are going to get ripped off by these pharmaceutical companies for years to come.

It isn't just insulin; it is so many other products. It is time for us to stand up for these families and their kids, to put money into medical research, and to tell pharma once and for all: Enough is enough. Insulin was discovered almost 100 years ago. What you are doing in terms of increasing the cost of it for these families is unacceptable and unconscionable.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), are necessarily absent.

Madam President, if you are a baseball fan, and many of us are, this is a big day--the day of the All-Star game.

I would like to spend just a few moments reflecting on an important issue for the fans of baseball across America.

Thirty-five million people every year enjoy one of America's great summer experiences--seeing a game at a Major League Baseball park. Fans join their friends and family to eat hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, and so much more. We sing the national anthem together at the start of the game and ``Take Me Out to the Ball Game'' at the seventh inning stretch, a tradition started by a man named Harry Caray in a place called Wrigley Field.

Some--the more dedicated fans--keep scorecards of home runs, RBIs, and earned run averages. Sadly, there is another statistic that has been seeing more and more attention lately--injuries to fans.

A Bloomberg report from 2014 estimated 1,750 fans suffer injuries in Major League Baseball parks every season. Some are hit by balls; others are injured trying to escape being hit by a ball. This is far too many.

On May 29, a 2-year-old girl was hit by a foul ball at Houston's Minute Maid Park. She suffered bleeding, bruises, and brain contusions from the ball's impact. Her skull was fractured. She continues to suffer seizures.

What makes her injuries even more disturbing is that they likely could have been prevented had the safety netting behind homeplate been extended.

Cubs outfielder Albert Almora, who hit the ball, was so devastated by the little girl's injuries that he could barely speak. One will never forget the image of his head bowed, crying, when he saw the damage that was done to this innocent little 2-year-old girl by a foul ball that he hit.

What did he say afterward? ``I want to put a net around the whole stadium.''

In the weeks following, we have seen more injuries in the stands. On June 10, a woman was struck by a line drive at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago. Two weeks later, a young woman was hit by a foul ball at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

A survey by the polling organization FiveThirtyEight found that 14,000 more foul balls were hit in 2018 than 1998, and there is just no way--no way--for fans to entirely protect themselves. Here come these baseballs at 105 miles an hour off the bat. Even if you are watching it intently, you just can't protect yourself or the people you love who are watching the game with you. Bryant Gumbel made that point on his cable TV show on this very subject.

If fans can't do more, baseball teams can. In 2017, after a child was hit by a line drive at Yankee Stadium in New York, I wrote a letter to Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred. I urged the league to extend safety netting at all Major League Baseball stadiums past the home plate to the far edge of each dugout. To their credit, the league did exactly that.

It is now clear, however, that is not enough. The little girl at Minute Maid Park was 10 feet beyond current netting.

In June, the Chicago White Sox became the first Major League Baseball team to announce it is going to extend netting to the foul poles. Let me tip my hat to Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the Chicago White Sox, for leading the way with this safety measure. The Washington Nationals, the Texas Rangers, and the Pittsburgh Pirates are all planning to do the same, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are conducting a study before making a protective strategy permanent.

I commend all these clubs for their leadership and commitment to fan safety, but I think we need more. We need a leaguewide standard.

Last month, my colleague from Illinois, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and I wrote to Commissioner Manfred calling on all 30 Major League Baseball teams to extend the protective netting to the right- and left-field corners.

Folks who complain that extending the safety netting to the foul poles will create an obstructed view ignore the obvious--right now, the most expensive seats in baseball are behind the nets, and people don't complain. It is something you get used to, and you can get used to the safety of it as well. We should be reminded that the most expensive and popular seats have been behind netting for decades.

In 2002, a 13-year-old girl named Brittanie Cecil died after being struck in the head by a hockey puck at a National Hockey League game in Columbus, OH. The National Hockey League responded quickly, ordering protective netting behind the goal. Major League Baseball should show equal concern for its fans.

Ensuring the safety of fans at baseball stadiums is a tradition that stretches back to 1879, when the Providence Grays put up a screen behind homeplate to shield fans from the area that was called ``the slaughter pen'' at that time.

The increasing number of fans hit by balls makes it clear that new safety standards are needed at ballparks.

Today, we will see Major League Baseball's finest players at the All- Star game. Baseball fans deserve the best too. I urge Commissioner Manfred and all baseball teams to extend safety netting at Major League Baseball parks to the foul poles. Let's not wait until next season. Increasing fan safety is a win for everyone.

Madam President, if you ask the American people about issues they truly care about, let them volunteer what they think about, what they worry about, the No. 1 item on the list is the cost of prescription drugs.

We all know the problem. You reach a point where you need a drug or someone in your family needs a drug, and then you face the reality of what it is going to cost. If you are lucky, and you have a good health insurance plan, it covers the cost--no worries--but for many people, that is not the case. They have copays and deductibles or sometimes no real coverage when it comes to the cost of prescription drugs.

Of course, the prices of these drugs are way beyond our control. You go to a drugstore, and you are shocked to learn that what sounded like a great idea in the doctor's office turns out to be a very expensive idea at the cash register. For some people, it is an inconvenience, an annoyance, but for other people, it is a burden they just can't bear. They can't pay the cost. It is just too much.

Some of these drugs are just not minor additions to your life; they may be matters of life and death. In those circumstances, what are you to do?

I am reminded of people I have met across my State of Illinois as I have talked about this issue. One group

stands out because there are many of them--people who are suffering from diabetes.

Of course, they know that using insulin and taking care of themselves is the way to have a good, normal life, but it turns out that the cost of insulin has gone up dramatically.

Did you know that insulin was discovered in Canada almost 100 years ago? The researchers who discovered this drug--this life-saving drug for diabetes--said at the time that they were going to surrender their legal patent rights to sell the drug for $1, give it away for $1. Do you know why? They said it was because no one should make a profit on a life-or-death drug. That was almost 100 years ago. But what are we faced with today? We are faced with a dramatic increase in the cost of insulin, a life-or-death drug.

I have sat down with parents and their children and talked about what they go through to have enough insulin so that their diabetic daughter can survive. It is incredible. Mothers in retirement go back to work to take a job to pay for the daughter's insulin.

The cost of insulin has gone up dramatically. In 1999, Humalog--a very common form of insulin made by Eli Lilly--ran about $39 a vial. What has happened to the cost of that drug in 20 years? It has gone up to $329, a dramatic increase on a drug that was discovered 100 years ago.

At the same time, Eli Lilly is selling that drug in Canada for $39-- $329 in the United States. Why? Because the Canadian Government has said to Eli Lilly: That is the most you can charge in our country. We are going to fight for the people who live in Canada to have affordable drugs.

Let me ask an obvious question. Who is going to fight in the United States for affordable drugs for our people, for those sons and daughters with diabetes--and not just for diabetes but so many other conditions for which life-and-death drugs are now being priced way beyond the reach of ordinary Americans? Do you know who is supposed to fight? We are supposed to fight for it. That is why we were sent here-- Members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives--to pass legislation to bring these under control.

Now we have legislation coming forward from the Senate HELP Committee on the issue of healthcare, and many of us had hoped that committee would use this opportunity to put in provisions to bring the cost of prescription drugs under control. Unfortunately, with only one exception, the bill is silent on the major issues.

The measures coming out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where I serve, don't go to the heart of the matter. They really will not make a big difference on the insulin scandal that we are now facing or on the cost of drugs in general.

I had a simple measure that I introduced with Republican Senator Chuck Grassley last year. Think about this. Have you ever seen an ad for drugs on television? If your answer is no, it is because you obviously don't own a television. You can't turn it on without seeing a drug ad, right? And if you watch during the day, when many seniors are watching, it is one after the other after the other.

I have said with amusement here we have even reached the point at which we can not only pronounce but spell the word XARELTO. We see those ads so often for XARELTO and HUMIRA and so many other things that they just bombard us. Why? They bombard us with these ads in the hope that consumers watching those TV ads will go to the doctor and say: Doctor, I need XARELTO.

Well, XARELTO is a blood thinner. There are other alternatives that are much cheaper. But if you ask for that high-priced prescription drug and the doctor doesn't want to get in a debate with you and puts it on the prescription pad, guess what you have just done. You may have the right drug for you at the moment--maybe--but you may have just added to the cost of healthcare by putting the most expensive drug out as an option when another form would work just as well.

In all of the things they tell you about these ads, some of the things I think are the most amazing and amusing are claims like this: If you are allergic to XARELTO, don't take XARELTO. Excuse me. How will I know I am allergic to it? After I take it, maybe.

Those sorts of things and warnings about suicide and death and everything else come at us, but there is one thing that isn't included in those drug ads--one very basic thing. Excuse me, Eli Lilly; excuse me, Sanofi. How much does this cost? They don't tell you because it is shocking sometimes for them to tell you that some of these drugs cost thousands of dollars, and perhaps getting rid of that little red patch on your elbow of psoriasis will not be worth $5,000 a month if you know the price.

So Senator Grassley and I put this in the bill last year and passed it in the Senate. How about that? It happens so rarely around here. We passed in the Senate a bill that required the drug companies to disclose the actual list price that they list for the cost of the drug. It passed the Senate, and it got killed in a conference with the House when the pharmaceutical companies came in and said: We don't want to tell anybody what these drugs cost.

Then I got an interesting call from the Trump administration. Notice, I am on the Democratic side of the aisle, so I was surprised. Dr. Azar from Health and Human Services called me and said: We like your bill. The President wants to make your bill the law, so we are going to pass a rule that requires drug companies to disclose the cost of pharmaceutical drugs on their ads. Direct-to-consumer advertising has to tell the cost of the drug. Well, that is progress--a rule in that direction.

Do you know what happened yesterday? In a Federal court hearing in Washington, the judge struck down that rule. The judge said: Congress, you haven't given this administration or any administration the authority to do that on its own. You have to change the law, giving it the authority, or you have to change the law itself to require the disclosure of drug pricing. Does it sound like a radical idea to people that we would disclose to them how much these drugs cost in the drug advertising itself? It isn't unusual for people to list the cost of items we buy every day. When it comes to lifesaving drugs, shouldn't we have that disclosure as well? Well, I hope we will. I hope this bill that is coming to the floor will consider that as well as several other aspects when it comes to prescription drug pricing.

For example, did you know that the Veterans Administration, on behalf of the men and women who have served our country, actually negotiated with the pharmaceutical companies to have lower prices for the drugs that are used in VA hospitals and clinics? They sit down with these same drug companies and negotiate lower prices for our veterans. Good. Our veterans deserve it. But why won't our Federal Government negotiate for those who are under Medicare? Why can't we use the same drug formulary and pricing for the VA when it comes to Medicare? If we want to give our veterans a break--and we should--why wouldn't we give our seniors a break?

I think we ought to have negotiated pricing in Medicare. I think the drug companies will get along just fine. Incidentally, they are pretty profitable today. If we had that commitment for renegotiating for Medicare, it could make a difference.

I also think we ought to take on this insulin issue head-on--head-on. A story on ``60 Minutes'' recently was about a heartbroken mother from Minnesota whose son was on her health insurance plan under ObamaCare until he reached the age of 26. Then he was on his own. He was managing a restaurant. He didn't have drug coverage, and he was diabetic. He couldn't afford to pay the thousand dollars that was being charged for his insulin, so he decided to ration the dosage himself. It cost him his life. He, unfortunately, died because he couldn't afford enough insulin at the high prices that are currently being charged.

We can change that. We can come to the side of consumers across America, to families who are trying to keep their kids alive, and many others. We can do that because we work in a place called the U.S. Senate, but in order to do that, we have to act like Senators. We have to say to the pharmaceutical companies: I am sorry, but there comes a point where you have pushed it way too far. There comes a point where we

have to step in on behalf of families and consumers in America and speak up on their behalf. Watch closely to see if that happens.

The gentleman who was on the floor, my colleague from Kentucky, will be the person who will decide that. Senator McConnell will decide whether we are going to challenge the pharmaceutical companies this year.

Do you remember how I started? It is the No. 1 issue that American families volunteer to us. So is it important? Yes. Secondly, will it make a difference? You bet--not just in Illinois but I bet in Kentucky as well. Many a family can step forward and talk about how tough it is to pay for these prescription drugs.

Do we have a chance to do it? You bet we do. There is a series of bills coming out of committee in the next couple of weeks. We could bring this to the floor of the Senate. Wouldn't that be amazing if the U.S. Senate, instead of doing a handful of nominations of people you have never heard of, ended up actually passing a bill, making a law that addresses the issue of prescription drug pricing in America? That, to me, is a reason we were sent here.

What I would like to see and hope to see is a bipartisan effort. We Democrats are ready to stand up, but there are certain things we believe in. First, we believe in keeping the Affordable Care Act on the books. People with preexisting conditions shouldn't be discriminated against. Families ought to be able to keep their kids on their health insurance plans until kids reach the age of 26. We are willing to fight for that even though this week there is a lawsuit by the Trump administration to do away with it.

Secondly, we believe we should negotiate prices under Medicare so that seniors get the price breaks that our veterans get today and many others do too.

Third, we need to do something about the overpricing by these drug companies, not just price disclosure on the ads but changing the patent laws to give American consumers a fighting chance. Canada is fighting for Canadians. When is America going to fight for Americans?

When it comes to pharmaceutical prices, this is our chance to do it, and we can get it done in the next 2 weeks. Who will decide that? The majority leader from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell. He will decide whether this comes to the floor, whether it is important enough to the people living in Kentucky, Illinois, New York, Mississippi, or wherever. It is his choice. It is in his power to make that decision. I hope the American people will reach out to him to encourage him to do that.

I yield the floor.