Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I made the decision to return to Illinois because of the challenges faced by the region's residents due to the extreme cold. As a result, I was necessarily absent from this afternoon's cloture vote on McConnell amendment No. 65 to the Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019 S. 1.

On vote No. 13, had I been present, I would have voted nay on the motion to invoke cloture.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, a vote earlier this month on the administration's decision to ease sanctions on a Russian oligarch puts the Senate on record on where its Members stand in terms of holding Russia accountable for its continued actions against the United States.

We need to be clear about what we are facing. Not only did Russia conduct what I believe to be a cyber act of war against the United States during the 2016 election cycle, it continues to do so with the President and his administration, apparently, indifferent.

Make no mistake. Russia tried to interfere in the recent midterm elections, and it continues to do so against our democratic allies in Europe. What has been the response of this body--the U.S. Senate--sworn to uphold the Constitution, to protect against enemies, foreign and domestic? Other than the belated passage of a Russia sanctions bill in the last Congress--a bill whose sanction provisions this administration has been slow or unwilling to enforce--we have done almost nothing.

Let's start in 2016 when top officials from the administration's national security and intelligence community came and warned congressional leadership of Russia's ongoing and serious attack on our election--this was during the election campaign--rightly asking for a bipartisan statement to tell Russian dictator Putin to stop.

What was Senate Majority Leader McConnell's response to this request to protect our Nation?

No thanks; not going to do it.

History will no doubt look back with amazement at that decision.

What about the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--a historically celebrated body with jurisdiction over this Russian attack on the United States? It did not even conduct an investigation into Russia's actions in the last Congress. To date, I have heard no plans to do so in this Congress. That is incredible.

We have stunning reports--reports that normally would bring this city to a halt--of an FBI counterintelligence investigation opened on President Trump--whether the President called for the destruction of notes after meetings with Russian leaders . . . something unheard of in the history of that office . . . and that Trump has been asking about how the United States could possibly withdraw from the NATO alliance.

These are stunning developments, and they are not alone. For anyone paying attention, they shouldn't be surprised that our President is, in fact, pursuing policies the Russians could only dream of. They include the weakening of our democratic institutions; the weakening of our Western security alliance; the withdrawing of U.S. leadership on the global stage and ceding influence to Russia, Iran, and China; silence when Russia attacked Ukrainian naval ships; entertaining the idea of turning over an American ambassador to Russia for an absurd line of questioning; cozying up to global dictators and ignoring American values of democracy of human rights; and, of course, the President saying publicly and privately to Putin that he believes him instead of our intelligence experts when it comes to denying any attacks on democracy.

We also know that President Trump was incredibly suggesting such Russia-friendly policies during his campaign while at the same time pursuing business interests in that country.

I end with a question I have asked before on this floor. How can the party of Ronald Reagan continue to sit by while this President pursues policies aligned with a former KGB agent? Why are the first bills in this new Senate under Republican control not dealing with the serious threats to our Nation? Why isn't the Senate Foreign Relations Committee holding urgent hearings on these stunning developments between an American President and a Russian dictator, not to mention moving bipartisan legislation to protect U.S. membership in NATO?

Quite simply, with the government finally back open we need deal with these serious threats to our nation and democracy that we have heard involving our White House. When we are elected to office in Congress, we take an oath. In it, we swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The President similarly swears to preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution. As such, it is time for all of us--Democrats and Republicans--to speak up and fulfill our constitutional responsibility.

For-Profit Colleges

Madam President, for anyone who thought the upheaval in the for- profit college industry was over or it was driven by an overzealous Obama administration determined to kill the industry, as some accused just a few short months ago, it is time to think again.

Just last month, amid the loving regulatory embrace of the for-profit college industry by President Trump's DeVos-led Department of Education, two major for-profit college chains have collapsed. It proves true the recent warning by the Department of Education inspector general, Kathleen Tighe, that for-profit colleges represent a disproportionate risk to both students and American taxpayers.

The rot in the for-profit college industry runs much deeper than just the failures of Corinthian and ITT Tech. On December 17, for-profit college company Vatterott Colleges announced the immediate closure of its campuses nationwide, leaving 2,300 students stranded, including 200 at its campus in Fairview Heights, IL. The company had been in financial trouble for some time. It had already closed a number of campuses, including one in Quincy, IL.

The Department of Education must now provide Illinois and other Vatterott students with clear information about their options, including their eligibility to receive a closed school discharge of their Federal student loans and option to file a claim for a borrower defense discharge if they believe they were defrauded by the university.

In addition, the Department must make sure these students are not put at risk a second time by assuring that they have affordable, quality options to continue their education, such as community colleges. It would be adding insult to injury to allow these students to be lured by other predatory or financially shaky for-profit colleges, especially those facing State and Federal investigations.

Early in December, Education Corporation of America closed 75 campuses nationwide, affecting some 20,000 students. I am pleased, in this case, that the Department of Education developed a page on its website to inform ECA students about closed school discharges. It must do more to communicate with affected students and ensure they are able to continue their studies at quality, affordable institutions.

The vultures are already circling these students.

In a recent letter, Steve Gunderson, a former Member of the U.S. House of Representatives and lead lobbyist for the for-profit colleges and universities, announced that for-profit colleges are working to assist the students who were victims of these collapsed for-profit schools and that 20 for-profit colleges had already expressed interest in taking on these ECA students. It is simply double jeopardy to ask students, once defrauded by this industry, to be somehow rescued and lured into another contractual obligation by another school in the for- profit college industry.

Over the holiday season, around 30 campuses owned by Dream Center Education Holdings closed. They include the Argosy campus in Schaumburg, IL, and the Illinois Institute of Art--not to be confused with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a reputable organization.

In August, I led several of my colleagues in writing to Secretary DeVos,

asking her to provide immediate assistance to these students who had borrowed money to go to these worthless schools. We were concerned that Dream Center was not providing students with information about closed school discharges and was pushing them into other bad options, like enrolling in another for-profit school. Among other things, we asked the Department to post an information page on its website to inform the students. Even weeks after the closure, we have yet to receive a response to this letter from the Department of Education.

Adding to the confusion for students in Illinois is the fact that for months Dream Center misrepresented that the Illinois Institute of Art campuses were accredited, even when its accreditor had made clear that was not the case. I have called on Secretary DeVos to investigate this misrepresentation, especially as it relates to these students' eligibility for borrower defense discharges. The National Student Loan Defense Network has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of Illinois borrowers against the company for this misrepresentation, while the Department of Education and Washington remain silent.

Now, reports have surfaced of a new restructuring of these schools, with few details but major implications for students. The Department of Education must immediately inform students and the public about these changes.

Earlier this month, 48 State attorneys general, including our own Illinois attorney general, now retired, Lisa Madigan, and the District of Columbia reached a settlement with for-profit giant Career Education Corporation over consumer violations by the company. Under the settlement, Career Education Corporation agreed to forgo collecting $493 million owed to it by 180,000 students nationally--$48 million in relief for 17,000 students in Illinois who had been exploited by this for-profit school. I have long spoken out about these abuses and the misconduct of Career Education Corporation schools, especially their infamous and now defunct Le Cordon Bleu, Harrington College of Design, and Sanford-Brown brands. These fellows really dream up some wonderful names for worthless schools.

Just last week, for-profit college operator National American University Holdings announced ``substantial doubt'' that its finances would allow it to remain in business over the next year. The company, which has faced lawsuits related to deceptive practices, runs campuses in about a dozen States and online. Its closure would affect thousands of students.

How many more for-profit college collapses, closures, and State legal actions will it take before we get serious at the Federal level, both in Congress and at the Department of Education, about protecting students and taxpayers from this industry?

It just amazes me that so many people in this body stand back and watch the so-called for-profit colleges and universities exploit students and their families, watch them run up debts they will never be able to pay back, wait until they default, and then threaten them with lawsuits and collection agencies, instead of realizing at the outset that these schools are not reputable. These students are lured with promises the schools can't keep, and they are also lured into debt they will never be able to repay. They will never end up with a job that allows them to pay back the debt.

Don't take my word for it; think of two simple numbers. Nine percent of all postsecondary students go to for-profit colleges and universities--9 percent. Thirty-four percent of all federal student loan defaults are students from for-profit colleges and universities. Nine percent of the students; 34 percent of the defaults. Why would that be happening? Well, because they overcharge the students, and they provide them with a worthless diploma if they stick it out and don't drop out.

These schools are a blight on higher education and an exploitation of innocent students and their families. Who are the ultimate losers when their debts are discharged? American taxpayers who subsidize these miserable, good-for-nothing schools and then watch as they are not repaying their debts because the students can't, and the taxpayers end up the losers again. If that is capitalism at work, save this country, because it is a terrible outcome for the students, for their families, and for American taxpayers.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, the announcement this morning that air operations in major cities in this country on the east coast and other places could be delayed or are interrupted comes as no surprise.

This last week, I met with air traffic controllers in St. Louis and in Aurora, IL. We have over 600 air traffic controllers in Northern Illinois because of O'Hare, Midway, and so many other important airports in that region, and, of course, in St. Louis, with Lambert airfield and others. They have quite extensive air operations.

They explained to me what is going on with air traffic controllers. It shouldn't have worried us before the shutdown. It should frighten us at this moment.

Currently, air traffic controllers work 10-hour shifts. It is a stressful job--an important, stressful job. There is hardly any person more on the frontline of public safety than an air traffic controller. They are expected to concentrate--to concentrate exclusively--for 10 straight hours on each shift. Because of a shortage of air traffic controllers, they now are working 6 days a week.

If you can only imagine for a moment what it is like, and, if you have been to an air traffic control tower, you know what it is like--at least from an outside observer's point of view. There they are, with a screen full of dots. In each one of them is an airplane, and in each airplane tens, maybe even hundreds of lives, and they are trying to make certain that nothing terrible occurs.

Imagine the added burden they face now on the 35th day of this government shutdown. As of today, they will have missed two pay periods. The last paycheck came last year. I listened to these air traffic controllers explain what it meant to them. For some of them, it has gotten down to the basics. In the St. Louis area, one of the air traffic controllers has to drive a long distance each day. They didn't have the cash for gasoline. He sold his plasma in order to fill the tank to go to work.

At another air traffic control meeting in Aurora, one of the controllers came to me and said that one of his colleagues, who had been working for some time, came to him and said that he only had 5 days left that he could continue doing this--working for nothing--and then he would have to go look for other jobs and possibly jeopardize his future in air traffic control.

The stories came to me one after another. There was a young family where a little child of the family is suffering from medical illnesses of a serious nature. Luckily, they still have health insurance when they are not being paid. When it comes to the out-of-pocket expenses and copayments, they don't have money for it.

Those are the realities these men and women face. They are the realities that have to be on their minds every waking moment. We pray, as passengers in these aircraft, that the only thing on their mind is their job. Instead, for many of these people, it is just basically getting by, keeping their family together.

A lady came up to me at the airport at O'Hare and told me that she and a lot of friends run a food pantry in Oak Park, which is west of the city of Chicago, and she said to me: We have problems. The Federal employees who are coming around now are in desperate need of help, and we are running out of supplies at our food pantries.

Has it come to that in America, where we have to rely on food pantries and charity for men and women who are performing such a vital function as air traffic control? That is the reality of the situation.

Yesterday we had two votes on the floor of the Senate. I know that every Federal employee and their families were tuned in, in the hopes that this shutdown would end yesterday, that we would muster the courage and political will to come together on a bipartisan basis. We didn't. We fell short of the 60 votes needed on both of the measures that were called.

There is a ray of hope but only a small one. The conversations at the highest level continued last night and even into today. My only hope is that the President will decide that this shutdown has to come to an end.

He alone stood in the beginning and said he was proud to claim that he was the author of this shutdown. I don't see how anyone can be proud of what has happened in this country. It is time to put it behind us. It is time to move forward with serious negotiations about border security and other issues but not at the expense of 800,000 Federal employees.

Venezuela

Mr. President, last year, my staff prevailed on me to make a trip which I really wasn't sure I should do. It was to Caracas, Venezuela. I had never been to that country, and I was visiting there at the invitation of their government. Nicolas Maduro was the President of Venezuela, and he did not enjoy the very best of reputations, but yet he was willing to see me.

So for several days I went down to Venezuela, met with President Maduro, met with the opposition, met with the American who was being held prisoner by the Maduro regime, and in matter of a few days, got an impression of what was happening in Venezuela.

It is hard to imagine that 30 years ago, Venezuela was one of the most up-and-coming countries in South America. It was considered one of most prosperous. Their oil industry was generating money in amounts they had never imagined before. The lifestyles of people were improving. There were a lot of things to be said on the positive side of the ledger, but over the span of the next 20 or 30 years, things became tremendously worse.

Last year, as I had this opportunity to travel in Venezuela and meet with then-President Maduro, I met also with members of the elected National Assembly, civic and humanitarian groups, medical professionals, and the exceptional men and women who were working at the U.S. Embassy.

What I found was that this once-proud and relatively wealthy democracy, last year was on the verge of political, economic, and humanitarian collapse.

The stories I learned in that short period of time were heartbreaking--of children fainting at school because they were hungry, the return of diseases that had once been eradicated, a massive outflow of millions of refugees from Venezuela to neighboring countries, some rates of infectious disease being rivaled only by war zones in this world. So many children were going so hungry while the government cronies were siphoning off millions of dollars from the state food aid program. It was infuriating and disgusting.

I walked down the streets of Caracas and saw firsthand Venezuelans emaciated, waiting in long lines at ATM machines, and I asked: Why is it every hour of the night and day there is a long line at the ATM machine? Inflation was so bad in that country that people had to wait patiently in line to max out each day's withdrawal from their accounts so they would have enough money for a roundtrip bus ride the next day.

I walked through one of the private hospitals, and I heard of unimaginable shortages of key medicines, shortages even worse in the state hospitals, where simple blood tests were no longer possible.

In fact, just this week, a collaborative and brave Venezuelan media effort entitled ``Petrofraude'' released a devastating investigation. It details how the Venezuelan Government decimated the nation's oil supply to enrich the cronies of President Maduro and attempt to buy diplomatic support, all while its people were dying of malnutrition, and inflation was soaring beyond 1 million percent.

When I met President Maduro last year, I told him--this was in April--that if he proceeded with the planned, rigged election, he would find himself even more isolated in the world, and he would bring even greater suffering on his people. He ignored me, and of course, sadly, that is what happened.

In May, he went forward with a bogus election whose illegitimate results were not recognized by many countries in the region.

Maduro also then kicked out America's top diplomats at the time--two of our finest whom I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with on the trip.

Yet, during my visit, I was also inspired and found some hope. There were brave civic leaders who were looking for public service for the right reason--healthcare workers, doing the best they could with almost nothing, and the next generation of young elected members of the National Assembly, the only legitimate democratic body left in the nation of Venezuela.

These young leaders had notably won election in areas that once supported Hugo Chavez, supposedly the patriarch of the country and the godfather of Maduro, but they had prevailed in districts that had gone for Chavez in previous elections because the people in those areas had grown disillusioned with the years of corruption, repression, and movement toward dictatorship by Mr. Maduro.

Among this group of patriotic elected officials were some extraordinary leaders with whom I managed to have dinner one evening.

We went to a somewhat secret location on the second floor of a neighborhood restaurant. There were five of them. They were on the opposition side from President Maduro. They were careful not to meet or be seen too much in public, and I sat and talked to them about why they were in politics. They weren't even being paid. Maduro had decided to stop paying them after they were elected, and yet they continued to try to serve.

At one point, one of them said to me: Senator, if you come back next year, I can tell you that of the five of us, two will likely be in prison, two will be exiled, and one may have disappeared. That is what happens when you oppose the Maduro regime.

I thought to myself, there is a heavy price to pay for politics in our country, but it doesn't get close to what these young people were facing.

Seated at that table that night was a young 35-year-old man. His name was Juan Guaido--the same Juan Guaido who was recently chosen as President of the Venezuela National Assembly.

This last Wednesday, he did a courageous and dangerous thing. He announced that under the Constitution, he believed he had the power to take control and to call for a free and credible election, and he announced that he would be the interim President of Venezuela under that Constitution.

It was a dramatic move. Guaido now finds himself as the interim Venezuelan leader--35 years old.

What has happened since he made that announcement? The United States has recognized him, as has Canada, and virtually every other country in South and Central America, save three, and I will spell them out: Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua which refuse to recognize him.

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States has also recognized him.

Under article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, if the Presidency of the country is deemed unfilled by a vote of the National Assembly, then the National Assembly President ``shall take charge of the Presidency'' and lead a timely transition back to a legitimate government.

This is what has happened on the streets of Caracas because of his courage: The National Assembly passed a measure finding that the Office of the Presidency was vacant due to a clearly stolen election.

So Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United Kingdom have all recognized Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate leader, in addition to the United States and Canada, I might add.

Earlier this week, I also joined in support of his effort, calling on him to fulfill his constitutional role to help Venezuela return to the community of democracies and to do so with a thoughtful and timely transition to a credible election in which the Venezuelan people can once again choose their leaders through a fair, transparent process.

Yesterday I had the privilege to speak at length with President Guaido and offer my support for his transition. Just as when I met with him last year in Caracas, he was deeply thoughtful and expressed his love of his country that he serves. That couldn't have been more clear in our conversation.

He knows how much the Venezuelan people have suffered, how the Maduro regime bankrupted the nation and destroyed its democracy and economy, and how desperate the people of this country are to rejoin the community of democracies.

I told him we in the United States stand ready to help, and the Venezuelan people need our help to rebuild their country's democracy and economy and to help return the millions of Venezuelan refugees safely.

Yesterday the administration pledged $20 million of humanitarian support to the opposition, to those who are in the streets trying to reclaim democracy in that country.

I support that $20 million and hope other countries will join us. It is just the beginning of the help they will need.

This once-proud country can return to the community of democracies. It can start to restore the faith of the people in their government. It can start to answer the basics.

To think of what they are going through, to think that children are fainting in school because of malnutrition and that basic antibiotics are not even available in the hospitals, these are unthinkable developments in any modern country in our hemisphere. I hope this effort, as dangerous as it may be for the new interim President, leads to a credible free election and the restoration of democracy in Venezuela.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague and Democratic leader Senator Schumer for making clear what is going to happen on the floor of the Senate this afternoon. We have a chance, an opportunity when 100 Senators come to the floor, to put an end to the government shutdown this afternoon. I want to tell you, there is nothing more important than that, as far as I am concerned. I hope we will rise to that occasion and rise to that challenge.

During the last 2 days, what I have done is travel across my home State of Illinois and sit down and meet on an informal basis with Federal employees who are going through this government shutdown. In the last couple of weeks I have been to Peoria, Pekin, Aurora, Marion, and I went to St. Louis, though it is clearly not in Illinois, to meet with air traffic controllers who live in my State. I sat down and asked them tell me the stories, to tell me what has happened in the 34 days when they haven't been paid--34 days, as of today. They were a little embarrassed and a little reluctant to talk about what it meant.

Eventually, I said ``Well, tell me about some of your coworkers,'' which is usually a way that people can tell their own stories without embarrassment. I heard some stories that are breaking my heart as I stand here at this moment.

Have you ever been in an air traffic control tower? It is amazing. I have seen some of the biggest. We had one up in Elgin, IL, which takes care of O'Hare and Midway and all of our great airports. It is a little bit frightening to go into one of these towers and see 10, 20, 30 air traffic controllers looking at these screens. On those screens are little dots, and each one of the dots is an airplane, and in each one of the airplanes there are going to be 20, 30, 40, 150, 200 people. That air traffic controller has an awesome responsibility to make sure that they are on the right path for takeoff and landing, to make sure that their paths don't cross. A mistake in that job can be fatal. That is the reality of what they face.

Air traffic controllers have one of the most stressful jobs in the Federal Government. We don't think about it. We get on the plane; we get off the plane. Thank goodness for those men and women who are there to make sure it is a safe experience for all of us.

Do you know that the shifts that are worked by air traffic controllers are 10-hour shifts? How would you like to face a 10-hour shift with that kind of stress every single day you go to work? Do you know how many days a week they work? Six. Six out of seven days they are working 10-hour shifts in one of the most stressful jobs we have in America. Do you wonder why they work 6 days? Most people work 5 days, and they certainly don't work 10-hour shifts. It is because there is a shortage of air traffic controllers. At age 56, you have to leave. Literally, you have to leave as of the next day. You cannot continue to work because they decided that at age 57, you are too old to do this job. It is too stressful.

As these air traffic controllers are leaving, we are hoping, in a system that works, they are being replaced by new air traffic controllers who are skilled and trained so they can take over these important, life-and-death jobs.

Do you know what happened because the government shut down? We stopped the input of new air traffic controllers, so the number is continuing to diminish because of mandatory retirement, and the pressure on those air traffic controllers increases. It increases not just because of fewer numbers; it increases because of what we have done to their lives.

These men and women are totally innocent when it comes to our debate about border security. They had absolutely nothing to do with the President's promise of a grand and glorious wall from sea to shining sea, paid for by the Mexicans. They didn't make that up; the President did. Now he has called for a government shutdown until his campaign promise is fulfilled.

I talked to some of those air traffic controllers. What is it like? What are you facing? They went through a long litany of things they are facing. Many of them are struggling because of no paycheck coming in. It is difficult for them. A couple of them were embarrassed to say that they are going to food pantries set up by churches and charities in their hometown to pick up some groceries to feed their families during this government shutdown. Others talked to me about children in their families with serious medical problems. Yes, they continue to get their health insurance as Federal employees, but there are copays they have to pay out-of-pocket. They worry about making those payments now that they are not getting a regular paycheck, and they can't see any end in sight as to when they will.

A couple of them have some very practical issues. One of them went to one of his coworkers, who is the head of the local union for those air traffic controllers, and he said: I want to tell you something in confidence. I have 5 days left here. I cannot continue to come to work beyond 5 days. I drive a long distance. I have to buy gasoline for my car. I have to find another job. I may have to drive an Uber car. That is what some Federal employees are doing. I may have to find some job tending bar--which some Federal employees are doing--just so there is income coming in for my family.

The worst one was in St. Louis, where this woman air traffic controller said: One of my colleagues here at air traffic control confided in me that he has to drive a long distance to get to work in St. Louis. He buys a lot of gasoline each day to make that roundtrip. To buy gasoline last week, he went and sold plasma from his own body to get the cash to buy the gas. That is the reality of this government shutdown.

All of us asked these air traffic controllers: Do you see any evidence on the job that people aren't doing the job as they are supposed to?

No, we have an awesome, life-or-death responsibility here, and we take it seriously. But they quickly added: Senator, if this continues and people are not replaced, we are going to reach a point where we have to keep the system safe. To keep it safe, the distance between aircraft flying into and out of airports will have to be increased and the intervals between aircraft will have to be increased so there is always a safe atmosphere when it comes to our airports.

What happens when that interval and distance are increased? Your flight is late again. Mine was about an hour and a half late leaving O'Hare last night. We asked why. A member of the crew was coming in on an international flight. She had to go through Customs. Customs has been reduced in number to two people at St. Louis because of the government shutdown, so it took her an extra hour to join up with the flight I was on. It was a minor inconvenience for me but maybe a major inconvenience for some other passenger.

It is an indication of what happens when all these men and women who are behind the scenes keeping our air control system working are under pressure and when there are fewer of them than there should be doing their job. It reflects what happens when we don't have enough people in the Customs section at international airports to process people in a timely way. The system slows down.

Why are we at this point? Did the air traffic controllers need to be punished for something? If they did, I don't know what it might be. They are good men and women. They are trained in such a fashion that very few people could actually do their job. It is interesting. I have been down to Oklahoma City and places where they have been trained. Everybody doesn't cut it. You have to be pretty darn sharp to be able to keep track of all those aircraft and to not buckle under pressure because it is a pressure-filled job. President Trump's shutdown has added pressure to that job. Does it make you feel safer when you get on an airplane to know that? I don't. I worry about it. I worry about those men and women who simply want to do what they were hired to do.

Incidentally, about one-third of them are veterans. They served our country--many of them in the Air Force--and they took the skills they learned in the military and brought them into air traffic control.

We give a lot of speeches on the floor here, Republicans and Democrats, about how we want to honor our veterans. How can we be honoring our veterans when 800,000 Federal employees have gone without pay for 34 days, and between 25 and 35 percent of them, depending on the Agency, are veterans? Are we honoring our veterans by not paying them in a timely fashion?

The first bill we have today is President Trump's bill in dealing with this crisis. It will deal with the shutdown he created, but it also addresses several other problems which the President made a decision on and we are trying to fix. I want to address one of them in particular because it is an issue I have worked on for a long time; that is, the fate of people known as Dreamers, those who are protected by DACA.

These are people who were brought to the United States as children, some of them as infants and babies. They grew up in this country believing this was home. They went to school here. They prepared for a future life. At some point, usually in their teenage years, their parents brought them in and said: We never filed the papers for you. You are undocumented in America. Through no fault of their own, they were brought to this country, grew up here, and they learned some time in high school that there is no future for them in America.

I have met so many of them over the years, these Dreamers. I appealed to President Obama: Do something to help them. And he did. He created the DACA Program. The DACA Program allows these young people I just described to apply for protection for 2 years at a time--protection from being deported from America--and to be allowed to work legally in America. Almost 800,000 came forward across the Nation and signed up for this protection under President Obama. These are amazing young people. They are tomorrow's doctors and engineers and lawyers and teachers and leaders. They are incredible young people. I have met so many of them. All they are asking for is a chance to be part of America's future.

President Trump came in September of 2017 and announced he was abolishing this program, abolishing the DACA Program, which meant that these young people had no protection for the future and really didn't know which way to turn. President Trump challenged us to come up with legislation to solve the problem he created. We were unable to do so. We couldn't reach an agreement. The President's bill, his own solution to the problem, came before the Senate and received 39 votes. It didn't even receive the support of his own political party when he brought it up. It just wasn't a reasonable approach.

The President said last weekend: I am going to address the fate of DACA and Dreamers as part of this effort to end the stalemate in Washington.

My hopes were raised. He talked about a bill that I had introduced with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, 2 years ago called the BRIDGE Act and said that is what we are going to do. It sounded hopeful. Maybe this would be part of the solution. For these young people, it meant everything that they might have a chance to be able to stay in this country and not be deported.

It turns out that when the President produced this bill a couple of days ago and we read the text, it was a bitter disappointment. It really bears no resemblance to the BRIDGE Act, which he referred to.

I would say to my colleagues in the Senate who are considering voting for the President's bill: Please don't vote for it if you think you will be doing something to help DACA and the Dreamers. This bill, as written by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, and Mr. Miller, who is the President's adviser at the White House, shows their barely masked contempt for these young people. They have dramatically increased the costs of going through this process-- doubled it. They have set in new conditions so they can eliminate more and more people from being eligible for this protection. They added provisions that are totally unnecessary. During the 7 years DACA has been in place, we have seen positive things happen, not negative things. Unfortunately, what the President proposes now is a dramatic step backward. This does not help.

After meeting with air traffic controllers and Federal prison guards at Federal penitentiaries in Marion and Pekin, I can tell you what they want. They want the shutdown to end today. They want to get a paycheck for their families so they can get back to the business of being good husbands, good fathers, and good members of their community. They are embarrassed about going to these food pantries. They can't imagine what they are going to do because of some problems that have been created with their credit ratings because this President has shut down their paychecks for 34 days.

These prison guards and air traffic controllers don't have any choice but to come to work. They are called essential personnel. I would hope at the end

of this day that we would think of them first and make sure the shutdown ends immediately, today.

One other thing. This needs to be the last time we have this conversation on the floor of the Senate--the last time. We have to make government shutdowns an unacceptable tactic of either political party or any branch of our government. It is absolutely terrible that these innocent people who work for our government are paying the price of our inability to reach a political agreement on issues. We can find an agreement on border security, but it shouldn't be because 800,000 innocent Federal employees haven't received a paycheck for 34 days.

Let's step forward and do this in a bipartisan fashion. Over this last weekend, I received scores of phone calls from my colleagues in the Senate. Some people may find it hard to believe, but Republicans have called, and I have called them, and Democrats have called. There is a bipartisan feeling that this crisis--this manufactured crisis--has to come to an end.

The second vote that will be offered today--the one the Democrats will offer--is simply to extend the continuing resolution to fund our government, end the shutdown immediately, and give us a matter of days to get this job done in coming to a compromise on border security. I know we can do it. I am convinced we can do it. I know there is a feeling of good will, but we need enough Republicans to join with the Democrats to make this a bipartisan effort today.

I don't believe the President's bill is going to pass. There are aspects to it that I described that are unacceptable to so many of us. But this bare-bones approach--a 3-week extension; a number of days to actually bargain and compromise while the government is up and running and people are being paid--is a reasonable end to this.

I don't know how any of us can go home if, at the end of the day, we have done nothing and the shutdown continues. Let's stick here and do our job--the job we were elected to do to solve problems, not to create them.

As Senator Schumer said earlier, there are so many individuals who are providing security and safety across our Nation. Whether it is our FBI, our prison guards, the Coast Guard, the air traffic controllers-- why in the world would we endanger any Americans because of our inability to reach a political agreement? The votes today will give us a chance to emerge from this with a positive approach to solving this problem. I believe we can do it. The sooner the better.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Rosen) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Rosen) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Rosen) is necessarily absent.

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 Vermont (Mr. Sanders) is necessarily absent.

Madam President, last Saturday was a historic day in Springfield, IL, my hometown. It was the biggest snowfall in one day in our city's history. I spent that Saturday not shaking hands with my constituents but shaking hands with my shovel, trying to shovel snow away. It was a historic day in Springfield but, sadly, it was a historic day for America too.

Saturday marked the longest shutdown of the U.S. Government in the history of the United States. As of today, the shutdown has continued for 26 days. Day by day, the harmful effects of this government shutdown are getting worse. Alarmingly, the President seems not to really understand or appreciate the real-life impact this shutdown is having on many Americans.

In all, more than 8,000 Federal workers in my home State of Illinois are going without a paycheck during this shutdown--8,000 people who are concerned about paying their bills, as most working families are. These are hard-working Americans.

I want to show you a photo of one of them. He happens to be a friend of mine. His name is Toby Hauck. This is Toby here. Toby is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. His job in Aurora, IL, is to make sure that my plane, when it arrives at O'Hare, lands safely. Toby Hauck is an air traffic controller. Air traffic controllers have some of the most important and most stressful Federal jobs in America, and this shutdown is a kick in the gut to Toby Hauck and all of these air traffic controllers.

Many air traffic controllers, like Toby, are already working 6 days a week. I am not happy to report that. Pushing them to the limits of physical exhaustion isn't in the best interest of safety when it comes to our aircraft, but because of staffing shortages, that is what they are faced with, working 6 days a week. The shutdown is making staff shortages in the air traffic control facilities across the United States even worse.

The shutdown has closed down the FAA academy where new air traffic controllers are trained and has stopped training in each facility to implement new procedures and new equipment.

Toby's father and grandfather, incidentally, served in the U.S. military, as he did. This picture depicts his great son and Toby's granddaughter. I wanted to bring another point home. Toby's son is deploying overseas this month. Toby and his wife will be looking after their 2\1/2\-year-old granddaughter during the 10-month deployment. Toby's lack of a paycheck since December 31 of last year adds stress to an already hectic life.

Toby says:

Veterans are very proud of our heritage and what we have

done for the country. And those of us who continue to serve

the Federal Government as Federal employees continue that

pride throughout their careers.

Toby says:

We are hardworking, proud American employees doing a job

for the American public that is essential as an air traffic

controller. It's not acceptable as a veteran, as a federal

employee, as an air traffic controller to use my profession

and my livelihood as a political football.

Toby doesn't stand alone as a veteran working for the Federal Government. Veterans are some of the hardest hit Federal employees of the Trump shutdown. Today as many as 250,000 Federal workers and Federal contractors are going without pay during the shutdown. According to the Office of Personnel Management, as of the end of fiscal year 2016, veterans represented 31 percent of the Federal workforce. This is more than a 5-percent increase since 2009, when President Obama encouraged veterans to apply for employment with the Federal Government to boost the hiring of men and women who served our country in uniform.

In Illinois, we have 50,000 Federal workers, and almost 28 percent of them are veterans. More than one-quarter of all veterans working in the Federal Government also have a Department of Veterans Affairs disability rating.

For example, if SNAP, the food stamp program, runs out, 38 million Americans could lose their food stamp benefits. That includes veterans living in households that participate in SNAP. You don't think about that very often, do you? Do you mean there are veterans on food stamps? The figure has averaged about 1.4 million veterans a year between 2015 and 2017, according to the Census Bureau. Illinois is home to nearly 50,000 veterans who are beneficiaries of food stamps and HUD rental assistance programs on an annual basis as well. So the very programs that are going to be hampered, slowed down, and stopped because of the Trump shutdown affect veterans across my State of Illinois and across the Nation. About 1,150 contracts under the project-based rental assistance program have lapsed, with hundreds more scheduled to expire because of this shutdown. People are suffering around the country.

Federal workers are suffering. Their workers are suffering and veterans are suffering because of this Trump shutdown. More than 380,000 Federal workers have been furloughed; 450,000 or more are being forced to work without pay. These are hard-working Americans like the TSA officers I met last week at O'Hare and met just a few days ago when I flew to St. Louis Lambert Airport. They go to work every single day, and their job is to make sure that dangerous people don't get on the airplanes with you, your children, and your family. They can't afford to have their paychecks held hostage by a manufactured crisis.

These families of Federal workers have bills to pay. A worker at the Environmental Protection Agency, Cynthia Colquitt, is going without a paycheck after serving 26 years as a Federal employee. How hard is it? She is a single mom, and she says, quite honestly: I get by paycheck to paycheck. She has never missed a mortgage payment; she is very serious about those things. But now she is worried the shutdown will impact her credit rating if she doesn't have a paycheck to pay her bills on time.

Shutdowns not only hurt our Federal workers, but the impact is also felt by small businesses around the country that rely on the business of Federal workers and the government. This shutdown is hurting our economy and only adding to economic uncertainty. Remember what happened in December? If you happen to have a retirement account with investments in stocks, you noticed that December was a pretty horrible month. There was an 8.7-percent drop in the stock market in December-- the worst December for the stock market since 1931, during the Great Depression.

The CEO of JPMorgan Chase is now warning that if this shutdown lasts another several weeks, it could reduce our Nation's quarterly growth to zero. The victims of the shutdown will not be the Federal employees; it will affect the entire economy because the input into the economy--the things they buy and pay for--will be diminished.

Just why are we in this mess? Well, as the President said several weeks ago on camera in the Oval Office, it is his shutdown and he is very proud of it. He said that he was going to hold the hard-earned paychecks of Americans hostage in an attempt to fulfill his campaign promise to build a wall on the southern border of the United States, a concrete wall, as he described it, ``from sea to shining sea,'' which, incidentally, he promised would be paid for by the Mexicans.

Let me say that again. All of the pain of this shutdown is caused because the President made a campaign promise to build this almighty wall. Well, we know something about walls. They don't work very well. We know it

might have been a great response several hundred years ago to build a wall--not so much today. There are better ways to make America safe, other than building a wall. Yet the President said: It is my wall or a shutdown.

If we have a debate about border security, I want to be a part of it, but we shouldn't do it while holding the Government of the United States hostage. Every day of the government shutdown is another day that President Trump is harming innocent Americans, preventing hundreds of thousands of Americans from getting their paychecks and millions more from getting access to vital Federal services.

We should reopen this government and we ought to do it this afternoon and we can. One phone call from the President to Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican leader of the Senate, is all it takes. Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House, has already passed the spending bills to open the government. She did it last week. She sent them over here. They are sitting at the desk up here. We are not touching them because Senator McConnell said: I am not going to solve this problem until the President gives me permission. A little reminder to my colleague Senator McConnell, under the Constitution, we are a separate branch of government. We don't wait for a permission slip from the President of the United States to do the job we were elected to do.

Today we had a vote earlier, and I looked at the other side of the aisle and talked to a number of my Republican colleagues. I wasn't a bit surprised to find so many of them fed up with this government shutdown. They want it to end today, and so do I. Then we can sit down and negotiate border security and do it the right way, not with a gun at our head--I should say, a gun to the head of 800,000 Federal employees. Let's reopen the government and then continue to negotiate. House Democrats have given us the bills we need to do that. Now it is up to Senator McConnell. Will he come forward through that door onto the floor, call these bills, and end this shutdown before 5 p.m. today?

He could. He has the power to do it. He can pass the spending bills. He warns us that President Trump may not sign these bills. Well, Senator McConnell has been around the Senate for decades. He has been around so long that I am sure he is familiar with our Constitution. Do you know what? If the President vetoed these spending bills, we have the constitutional authority and opportunity to override his veto--to come up with 67 votes in the Senate, two-thirds in the House to override any Presidential veto. I think the votes are there, and I think that is the reason Senator McConnell is afraid to call the bills.

It is time for the Senate to act. Let's not wait for a permission slip from President Trump. Let's do what we were elected to do. Let's spare Toby Hauck and 800,000 Federal employees, including many veterans, the hardships their families are facing.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Aurora, IL, is blessed with a long history of visionary leadership. The first public school district in my State was founded in Aurora in 1851. Aurora was a center of abolitionist activism before the Civil War.

In 1881, Aurora, of Chicago's northwest suburbs, became one of the first cities in America to line its streets with electric lights, and people began to call it a City of Lights--Paris on the Plains.

Sadly, last month, 2 days after Christmas, one of Aurora's brightest lights was extinguished. Former Aurora mayor Tom Weisner died after a long, brave, and public struggle with cancer. He was 69 years old.

Tom Weisner spent his earliest years in nearby Batavia, IL. He came to Aurora in the 1960s to attend Marmion Military Academy. It was during his time at Marmion that Tom met his future wife, Marilyn Hogan, who was then a student at Marmion's ``sister school,'' Aurora Madonna High School.

What a great pair. As a young couple in the 1980s, Tom and Marilyn served together in the Peace Corps, helping rainforest dwellers in the highlands of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. They were married for 46 years.

After finishing their Peace Corps service in 1986, Tom and Marilyn returned to Aurora, and Tom was hired by the city's then-mayor, David Pierce, to be Aurora's director of emergency services. Over the next 18 years, he headed a number of city agencies, including the departments of motor vehicles, public property, and community services and organizational development.

``It was in his three terms as Aurora's mayor, from 2005 to 2016, that Tom Weisner left his greatest mark. His keen understanding of organizational efficiency, his commitment to public service, and his passion for children, for a vibrant, sustainable economy, for the arts and environment, and many other concerns helped to make Aurora a better place to live, own a business, and raise a family.

There is one statistic that says a lot about the kind of leader Tom Weisner was: In his 11 years as mayor, Aurora rehabilitated 11 bridges. At a time when government at all levels is struggling and often failing to maintain basic public infrastructure, Aurora repaired 11 bridges in 11 years. The strengthened bridges helped spur a rebirth of Aurora's downtown.

The Fox River is one of Aurora's greatest economic and cultural assets. Mayor Weisner authorized the city's first long-term plan for the river. He oversaw the removal of a dam on the Fox River, which opened up space for bike paths and new commercial ventures, and he helped organize a regional coalition of communities to improve the southern portion of the Fox River.

Tom Weisner championed new conservation and sustainability policies that made Aurora a greener city. At the same time, he supported changes that made it easier and faster to obtain city building and other permits.

He oversaw the construction of a new police headquarters, with new tools and more resources, and crime in Aurora decreased.

Children were a special concern of Mayor Weisner. Under his leadership, Aurora created a new program called SPARK to help children from birth to age 5 to prepare for kindergarten. SPARK stands for ``Strong, Prepared, and Ready for Kindergarten.'' It is a collaboration involving Aurora's public schools and public library, the local United Way, and other groups. Nearly 5,500 children and their families have benefited from its services.

Next year, a new Paramount School of Performing Arts will open and offer young people a chance to study under some of the best teaching artists and professionals in the country. Tom helped raise money to make this happen.

The DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference honored Tom in 2015 as its Governmental Leader of the Year. The American Public Works Association awarded him its Exemplary Service Award in 2017, the year after Tom retired.

Tom Weisner's public achievements are even more remarkable, given the private pain that he and Marilyn endured during his years as mayor. In 2006, they lost the younger of their two sons, Thaddeus, to complications of cerebral palsy. The following year, Tom was first diagnosed with colon cancer. He continued to serve the people of Aurora through two surgeries and long bouts of treatment. When his cancer became public, he used his own health challenges as a public service reminder, urging people to get colonoscopies and early treatment.

In 2013, Aurora welcomed RiverEdge Park, a tremendous new waterfront open space and concert venue. Years earlier, when the Great Recession threatened to derail the project, Mayor Weisner helped ensure that it continued. In 2016, the Aurora city council voted unanimously to rename the park in Tom Weisner's honor. It is a fitting tribute to a leader who loved few things more than enjoying music in his city's parks, dressed in a brightly printed Tommy Bahama shirt and sandals.

Loretta and I offer our condolences to Tom's wife Marilyn, their son Anthony, their two granddaughters, and to Tom's many friends.

He ran the race, he fought the good fight. Now he is gone, but the light that Mayor Tom Weisner helped to bring to Aurora will continue to shine for a long while.

Mr. President, I want to take a moment to thank a leader who has worked for nearly 60 years to create a strong economy built on pride, progressive values, and shared prosperity for all Americans.

Ronald Powell is the legendary president of Local 881 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. He is also a vice president on the UFCW International Union and a vice president of the Illinois State AFL-CIO. He is retiring this month after an astonishing 58 years as a proud union member and leader.

You may not be familiar with the initials UFCW, but you almost surely benefit from the good work of its members. The men and women of the UFCW include grocery store workers and bakery clerks, hospital and nursing home employees--even barbers and beauty shop employees.

When Ron Powell joined the United Retail Workers union, a forerunner to Local 881, in 1961, the union had fewer than 5,000 members. Fifty- eight years later, UFCW Local 881 represents more than 34,000 working men and women in Illinois, northwest Indiana, and parts of Missouri and Kentucky. The growth of Local 881 in an age when the labor movement is under relentless attack and many unions are losing members is a testament to Ron Powell's leadership and his commitment to dignity and fairness for working people.

Ron Powell became president of UFCW Local 881 in 1983, just 2 years after the local was chartered. Strength, vision, and compassion are the hallmarks of his service. Illinois' working families and our State's economy have both benefited from his progressive and innovative leadership.

In addition, under Ron Powell's leadership, Local 881 Ron has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, with the hope to find a cure. It has also raised funds for the Jackson Park Hospital in Chicago and for the Little City Foundation, which helps Chicago-area children with developmental disabilities.

My old friend, Senator Paul Wellstone, liked to sum up his definition of good economic policy by saying, ``We all do better when we all do better.''

Ron Powell believes in that same, proven plan for economic growth and justice. Working families in my, State of Illinois and far beyond are better off because of his decades of service on their behalf. I am honored to join those families in honoring Ron Powell on his distinguished career, and as a former member of UFCW's early unions, I wish him the very best as he begins the next chapter in his remarkable life.

I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent from this evening's vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019, S. 1.

On vote No. 3, had I been present, I would have voted nay on the motion to invoke cloture.