Floor Statements

Mr. President, I was happy to yield to the Senator from Virginia because I know this issue of the government shutdown is particularly acute in Virginia and in the State of Maryland, but we feel it all across the United States of America.

Just a few minutes ago, I was on the phone with Dr. Scott Gottlieb of the Food and Drug Administration, and I asked him: What is the impact of the Trump shutdown on the Food and Drug Administration? Dr. Gottlieb was very explicit. He said that the area that was hardest hit was food safety.

Food safety is a responsibility that was assumed by the Federal Government over 100 years ago after publication of the novel ``The Jungle'' by Upton Sinclair. We decided to create a Federal Agency with the responsibility of inspecting food so that people across America would not suffer foodborne illness or worse.

We have a great Agency, and it does a great job when it is fully funded operationally, but the fact is, over 40 million Americans will end up with a food illness in any given year, and over 3,000 will die. The responsibility of this Agency is not some bureaucratic function; it is quite literally a life-and-death responsibility.

I asked Dr. Gottlieb: What does the government shutdown do to the Food and Drug Administration when it comes to food safety? He said: We have had to suspend operations at the highest risk food operations.

I asked him for an illustration, and he said: For example, the facilities that make baby food, high-risk food inspection responsibilities at the FDA. He said: We decided we had to call back 150 employees to make sure that we resume inspections at these high- risk facilities, such as those that make baby food.

Thank goodness.

He told me he has a problem. Here is the problem. The people he is going to call back are in the lower income categories of Federal employees. Many of them are making a decent wage, but only a decent wage, and, certainly, they are not wealthy by any stretch, nor do they have savings to turn to.

He said: I have to call back these folks who are literally out of work because of the government shutdown--some of whom have applied for unemployment compensation--and tell them they have to come to work. Commissioner Gottlieb said: When I declare them essential, that is the law. They have to return to work and come here for no pay.

We have an important responsibility of the government, food safety, which is now being ignored--or I should say diminished--because of the shutdown, and as they try to resume some part of it, Commissioner Gottlieb has the awful responsibility of trying to pick those employees who will be hurt the least if they are called back to work.

This is America. This is the U.S.A. This is a great country, perhaps one of the greatest in the history of the world, and this is where we stand when it comes to making certain that baby food is safe for American families across the United States. Now we have to pick and choose those who will be asked to come to work for nothing to perform that function.

That is not the only area that he mentioned. He went on to talk about areas that are not covered by user fees. You see, some of the pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies actually pay for inspections. As long as user fees are coming in, the inspections continue. But it doesn't apply to every aspect when it comes to medicine. For example, when it comes to compounding medicines, which is done at the State level, primarily, the Federal Government has a responsibility in some areas to make sure that those medicines are safe. Do you recall a few years ago, in the State of Massachusetts, when the compounding standards were lax and innocent people died because the injections they were given were not sterile? Those are exactly the responsibilities of the Food and Drug Administration. They are the responsibilities that are not being met as they are supposed to be met today because of this government shutdown.

If you think this is just about a lot of bureaucrats who are not showing up to work and are sitting by some swimming pool, you are dead wrong. These are people who are doing important things for America and keeping us safe in the process.

There is also one other thing I want to mention to you. If you are in the midst of a clinical trial to approve a new drug--an important drug for someone whose life depends on it--the clinical trials continue through the government shutdown. But if you completed your trials and you want to make an application to sell this drug in America, you are stopped cold by this government shutdown. Commissioner Gottlieb says we can't processes these. Those potential lifesaving drugs have to sit on the shelf because of the government shutdown, which this President has proudly declared he believes is in the best interest of America. Tell that to the families who are waiting for that drug. Tell that to the people who labored for years to get it ready for market--that they just have to wait until the President is ready to move.

I was there yesterday. I was at the meeting of the leaders with the President, Vice President, and members of

his Cabinet. It was not a long meeting. I think it lasted 17 minutes. The President came in and distributed candy bars to the people who were in attendance, and then started his speech. It basically came down to this: Unless you are prepared to give me this wall, I will keep the government shut down. That is what he said. When we made it clear that the government shutdown should not be a bargaining chip in this process, the President stood up after 17 minutes, and said: This is a total waste, turned, and, in a fit of pique, left the room. To me, that was a sad moment in the history of this country, when the Chief Executive of the U.S. Government, a man who was elected to manage and lead our government, has voluntarily shut down important and critical functions of that government for a political purpose. He is not serving the American people as he was elected to serve.

The victims, of course, will not be the President and his family, nor many of the people who were in that room. It will be the 800,000 Federal employees who are victims of the shutdown. It will be half of them who are showing up for work today with no pay and will not receive a paycheck over the weekend.

Many of us will travel home over the weekend and go through an airport. We will go through the TSA inspection, as all passengers do, to make sure we travel safely on airplanes. It is tough to look those TSA agents in the eye because we know what is happening. Many of them, barely making enough money to get by--paycheck to paycheck--will not receive a paycheck this weekend. I called a group of them together at the O'Hare Airport on Tuesday. We held a press conference. I asked them to explain what this means to you. They talked about being unable to come up with the money to pay for gasoline to drive back and forth to work 39 miles each way. They talked about the difficulties the families are going to face when it comes to daycare for their children. What are they going to do with their kids if they are coming to work for no pay and they can't pay the daycare service? For those who have mortgage and rental payments, some real consequences can follow. If you fail to make that mortgage payment on a timely basis, you may face an increase on the interest rate on your mortgage, and you may even face a downgrade on your credit rating.

That is the real world for people who don't live in the White House. That is the real world for the victims of this prideful shutdown, which President Trump believes is in the best interest of this country. He is wrong. It is in the best interest of this country to open this government. It is in the best interest of Democrats and Republicans to sit down together and work out our differences when it comes to border security. We are all dedicated to border security. We just see it differently. We have to find middle ground to come to a conclusion on this important issue.

The last point I want to make is this. I am concerned that the majority leader--the Republican leader, Senator McConnell--has made it clear that he is waiting for a permission slip from President Trump to be the leader of the Senate. We are a separate and proud branch of government. We are given authority under this Constitution which the President does not have. We do not wait for a permission slip from him to exercise that constitutional authority. The votes to pass these appropriations bills, I believe, are on the floor of the Senate today, and that is what has led Senator McConnell to the conclusion that he wouldn't dare call the bill. I think there are enough Republican Senators who have spoken to me privately who are ready to step forward and say: End this mindless shutdown. They are ready to vote for the spending bills. Will it reach 67 to override a Presidential veto? It just might do that. But let's test it by being the Senate under the Constitution, not by waiting for a permission slip from President Trump to exercise the constitutional responsibilities which each of us swore to uphold when we became Members of this important body.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire, as well as the Senator from Virginia and my other colleagues who are gathered here.

My trek each week to this desk starts in Illinois. It means that for a number of years, I have gone through the airports of the Midwest-- primarily in Illinois and Missouri--more than most. In fact, I probably know O'Hare Airport and every corner of it better than anyone who doesn't work there on a regular basis, and I know the people who work there, too, at all different levels.

Starting in 2001, we brought in TSA as a means of making certain that we would be safe boarding airplanes, that people would not bring guns or weapons or bombs onto planes. These men and women, of course, get on our nerves once in a while as we have to open a valise or piece of baggage and take off our shoes, and perhaps we forgot there was a water bottle onboard. It is a little frustrating, and I know I have had that feeling, but I often think to myself: They are doing their job, and thank goodness they are. If it weren't for the men and women of TSA carefully screening passengers every single day, we would not be as safe, nor would our families be as safe, on these airplanes.

At 10 this morning, I went out to O'Hare. Instead of heading to the gate to catch a plane, I had a press conference and brought four of these TSA agents in to explain what has happened to them and what will happen this coming weekend because, you see, this is showdown weekend for these employees. President Trump's shutdown of the Federal Government will mean that for the first time this coming weekend, these employees of the Transportation Security Agency are not going to receive a paycheck. They show up for work every day. They have to. They are known as essential personnel, which means our government has decided we can't really function as a nation without them. Yet our government has decided--at least in the White House--that as important as they may be, as essential as they may be, starting this weekend they will work without pay.

I had not met them personally before, but I asked each of them to explain, what is this going to mean to you and your family--not getting a paycheck.

They really brought home to me what workers across America--not just Federal employees but workers across America--face every payday. They each said to me, with only one exception: Senator, we live paycheck to paycheck. If we don't receive our paychecks, we have to make some basic decisions.

One young woman, who had worked for 16 years for TSA, said to me: I live 39 miles away from O'Hare, roundtrip 78 miles every single day, and I make it because I need this job, and I need gasoline for my car to get here. It costs me a lot of money each and every day and every week. I don't know what I am going to do without the paycheck.

Another one talked about the fact that they are dealing with expenses we all face--whether it is mortgage or rent--and what it will mean to them if they can't make their mortgage payment. Well, if you don't make your mortgage payment on time, and time passes, it affects your credit rating. It could affect the interest rate you pay on your mortgage or whether you even have a mortgage when it is all over. So, for these people, it is a critical element.

One woman brought up something, which I am sure many working families know instantly. She said: Senator, if I can't get my paycheck, I can't pay the daycare center that takes care of my kids while I come to work here every day. That is the reality of life for working families.

So why in the world has President Donald Trump decided that in order to make his case to the American people, he is going to penalize these workers, many of whom are essential to America's security and safety? Why did he do this?

I would have to say, with all due respect to President Donald Trump: Pick on somebody your own size. Stop picking on people living paycheck to paycheck who are trying to serve this Nation in important ways.

What we hear from the President: I just have to do it because I have to have my wall.

We remember the wall. You couldn't miss it in his campaign. He talked about it incessantly, the sea to shining sea concrete wall that was going to protect America and be paid for by the Mexicans. Remember that? Well, here we are. We have given the President money over the last 2 years in his Presidency to construct fences and barriers where they are needed--not his almighty wall, 2,000 miles long--but we have asked him to justify each year how he is going to spend this money, taxpayers' dollars, and whether it really is worthwhile.

The President has decided he is impatient. He can't wait any longer. He has to have huge sums of money, maybe even $5 billion, dramatically increasing spending on barriers at the border, and he has to have it now, and the only way to make his point is to shut down the government.

I was at a meeting last week when the President said: Make no mistake, I am not talking about shutting down this government for a few days. I am prepared--and he repeated it afterward in front of the cameras. Donald Trump said: I am prepared to shut down this government for months, even years.

Now, this President is making history. No President in the history of this country has ever shut down his own government. We have elected men to lead and manage this government, and we understand that their responsibility is to keep the lights on and make sure taxpayer dollars are well spent, but this President doesn't understand that to be his responsibility, and a lot of innocent people are suffering.

Yesterday, I was at the Department of Agriculture research lab in Peoria, IL. It turns out it is the largest one, with 200 researchers there. You think to yourself, they are doing important research when it comes to agriculture. It turns out this lab has some amazing history behind it.

It was during World War II at this lab where they discovered penicillin. It was at the Peoria ag lab where they came up with penicillin that we could use for our troops who were being wounded in World War II, saving countless lives in the process. They are pretty proud of that legacy, and they should be.

Do you know what they are working on now? The Peoria ag lab is working on something called tunicamycin. I had never heard of it, and I am a liberal arts lawyer so I don't understand a lot about it, but here is what it gets down to: This element, which occurs naturally in nature, can boost the healing power of antibiotics that have been spent--they no longer have an effect on people--but if tunicamycin is added, they can once again be effective and save lives. Peoria may have done it again: first penicillin, now tunicamycin. Well, the lights have been turned off at the Department of Agriculture research laboratory in Peoria. They have been turned off because of President Trump's shutdown.

I met with one of the research team. She has worked there for 15 years, she has a degree in chemistry, and she is doing her best to do her job, but she is not going to get paid this weekend. I asked her what she was going to do as a result of it. She said: I hoped I might be able to apply for unemployment compensation, but, Senator, the records I need to produce for unemployment compensation are in that laboratory building, and I can't get in there. They have shut me out.

She can't even apply for unemployment compensation so her family can get by until the shutdown is over. Why did we do this to her? Why does this President want to impose this kind of shutdown and hardship on people who are doing worthy work--at taxpayers' expense, for sure, but for the taxpayers of America? Whether it is TSA agents or it is people at the ag lab, these are good people who are dedicated to this government and have given their life and their life's work to this government. They deserve better treatment than this.

Let me close by saying a word about the border. The President says it is all about walls. Well, it turns out there are things he hasn't shared with the American people, and he is not likely to do it when he makes his presentation this evening.

Take a look here at the apprehensions at the border. These are the apprehensions being made by Federal agencies and people trying to cross the border illegally. Notice something? You may have noticed, in the year 2000, there were 1.6 million apprehensions. Then take a look at the year 2018. The apprehensions are down to slightly under 400,000. So from 1.6 million to slightly under 400,000.

We are going to be told we are facing a security crisis at the border, and it turns out that we have fewer people seeking to cross the border illegally now than we have in 45 years, and the apprehensions of those people have gone down dramatically from 1.6 million to slightly under 400,000, and we have already dramatically increased the number of people in Border Patrol.

Meanwhile, let me add something that the President doesn't talk about because it doesn't fit into his wall scenario. We are facing the worst drug epidemic in the history of the United States of America. It is opioids, heroin, and fentanyl, and fentanyl has now been identified by the CDC as the deadliest narcotic on the streets of America.

Where is the fentanyl coming from? I can tell you where a large part of it is coming from, from China through Mexico. Oh, they must be putting it in backpacks and jumping over the border. No, 80 percent of the fentanyl seized by CBP in 2018 was coming through ports of entry, places where vehicles and railroad cars go through now. So 80 percent of this deadly fentanyl seized by CBP was coming through ports of entry. What are we doing to stop it? Let me tell you, we are not doing enough. Ninety-eight percent of the railroad cars that come into the United States are scanned, a basic x ray, to find out what is inside that car. Is it something that wasn't disclosed? When it comes to cars and trucks coming into this country, 18 percent are being scanned, fewer than one out of five of the cars and trucks coming into this country. Ever wonder how the fentanyl is coming into this country and killing people in every town across the State of Illinois and across America? It is coming in through ports of entry.

If the President would stop preaching about his almighty wall and take a look at real border security, he would be doing what is necessary to stop this fentanyl and these drugs coming into this country--and we are not doing enough.

I am for border security. Make it smart. I am not worried about a President keeping a campaign promise that didn't make sense from the start. I am worried about keeping this border safe for our families across the entire Nation. Tonight, let's make sure the people who work that border and work at TSA and work for the Federal Government get back to work this week. That is priority No. 1.

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

I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, let me first say how grateful I am to Senator Grassley for his friendship, No. 1., and his leadership, No. 2. It has been one of the highlights of my Senate experience to work with him on this bill. We trust one another. It reached a point where he said: I am not going to make a big decision unless you tell me it is all right, and I hope you will feel the same way when it comes to decisions affecting me. And I did, and it

paid off because we came to trust one another. We worked together to reach a point last night where we passed a bill which I think will be judged in a positive way in the history of our country.

I might add that Senator Mike Lee of Utah was an early ally in this effort, but our team wasn't putting together a winning record until Chuck Grassley joined the squad--not only joined it but led it. Then we brought in Cory Booker, who was a valuable spokesperson and ally when it came to bringing groups together on the left and in the center to achieve this bill. Last night, the four of us celebrated a victory. But the victory was not ours; it was a victory for the American people and for those who want to make sure we have a just system when it comes to criminal law and prison terms that follow from those convicted.

For those three Senators who joined me, I can't thank you enough. I really hope we can get the band back together sometime for another issue. Maybe it is the second step. Whatever it is, I would like to continue to work with this group and expand it to those who would like to be part of our effort.

I think we showed something last night that most American people wouldn't believe: that a bipartisan group of Senators from across the political spectrum could tackle one of the toughest political issues of our day; assemble an array of support--left, right, and center--from Members of the Senate, as well as organizations devoted to law enforcement and civil rights; and at the end of it, have something we all felt was a fair product to send over to the House, which I hope will act on this very quickly.

I will say a few words about how we reached that point in a moment, but I want to take time now, as Senator Grassley has, to honor the staff of my office, who have done such an exceptional job to bring us to this moment.

Joe Zogby. Joe has been my chief counsel for several years now. For 6 years, he has worked tirelessly to get this legislation through the Senate--and I mean tirelessly. He fielded calls to negotiate the provisions of this bill at the same time he was coaching his sons in baseball and trying to take care of his family responsibility. Joe was available every hour of the day and night.

A special word of thanks to his wife, Lamece Baligh, and their sons, James, Elias, and Luke. I want to apologize to them for taking their dad away so many times for lengthy conversations, but we would never have reached success last night without that input from their father and husband.

This win would not have happened without the dogged determination of Joe Zogby. He is a rabid Phillies fan, so he is always looking forward to the next season and the next victory. Last night, finally, we won the World Series and passed this bill on the floor of the Senate.

No matter what assignment I give to Joe Zogby, whether it is the most technical, difficult, and challenging immigration issues or coming up with a new system of criminal justice or improvements to our system criminal justice, he always rises to the occasion. I am truly blessed to have him as my chief counsel. I may get the headlines, but, believe me, Joe Zogby deserves the credit.

By his side was Rachel Rossi. Rachel is a detailee to our office. She comes from the public defender's office. She told me this morning that they had warned her ahead of time this was probably going to be a pretty lackluster and boring experience, and nothing serious was going to be considered or passed during the time she was a detailee. Well, quite the opposite was true. She was here to be an integral part of the construction of this legislation and its passage. She is leaving as detailee at the end of the year, and I am going to miss her. While she will be missed, she is leaving our office on the highest possible note.

Rachel, I wish you the best. You were an important part of the legislation that passed last night.

Stephanie Trifone is our office counsel. She is involved in every issue that goes through the Senate Judiciary Committee. She played a supporting role to ensure that the bill was properly written and fielded countless calls and emails to keep our Senate staff and other staff well informed. She has been a steady hand, and we needed her every step of the way.

The rest of my team has its own assignments. Some of them worked tangentially on this bill, but I really couldn't function without Dan Swanson. He takes another agenda in the Senate Judiciary Committee, primarily on the civil side, and there is none better. There are times when people who were so-called experts would visit my office and say: Where does this Swanson learn all of these issues in such detail?

Well, he is a pretty bright guy, and I am lucky to have him. His day in the hot seat will soon come when we face another issue.

Debu Gandhi is an associate counsel. He is relatively new compared to the others, but I like his style and his determination. I have never asked anything of him that he hasn't produced the very best quality project in a timely way.

Manpreet Kaur Teji is the legislative correspondent who has to field all of the mail when I get up and give speeches that either make people happy or angry. I thank her for her commitment to our office.

I want to say a word about my floor staff. Reema Dodin has been with me since she was an intern in my office in Chicago. She went on to graduate law school and came to join my staff and eventually became my floor director. I didn't realize how much she was studying Senate procedure, but she has really become a valuable asset, not just to my office but to the Senate when we consider the options under the Senate rules.

Having been parliamentarian in the Illinois State Senate for 10 or 12 years, I can tell you that those who work in the parliamentarian's office, as well as those in support staff who are interested in Senate procedure, are absolutely essential to the successful consideration of important bills. Reema is in a unique position of helping to maneuver and whip the bill on both the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle. She certainly did her job last night with 87 votes in favor of our legislation.

MJ Kenny is by her side. He is the deputy floor director. He was always in the cloakroom and always on the floor to ensure the FIRST STEP Act had a fair shot of consideration and passage. MJ and Reema are an incredible floor team. I am lucky to have them, and I thank them both.

Corey Tellez is my legislative director. She ensured that all of the staff worked together to finalize the bill. She kept our office and other offices well informed every step of the way.

Emily Hampsten, my communications director, has been sending out messages from my office on a bipartisan basis from the beginning. She is always there with a smile and does professional work, and I thank her so much for her work.

Claire Reuschel is my director of scheduling. She controls my life more than anyone other than my wife. She sends me places when she thinks it is right, and she usually has good judgment in those decisions. She has navigated thousands of meetings and phone calls on this legislation and so many other things. To say that she is an important part of this process is a gross understatement.

Finally, Pat Souders is my chief of staff. He has been with me from the beginning. He started off in the House and now has assembled, I think, the best team on Capitol Hill. I thank him for not only finding these talented people but making sure that they get along with one another and that in their cooperation we can serve the people of Illinois first and the Nation in the most effective way. I couldn't do it without Pat Souders.

Let me say that this moment in history arrived because we had an idea that was due; it is an idea whose time was due. It was due for a number of reasons.

Thirty years ago, in the war on drugs, we were so frightened by crack cocaine that as a House Member, I ended up casting what I considered one of the worst votes in my career. I voted for the 100-to-1 crack to powder disparity in sentencing. It meant what it said: You would get 100 times the penalty for the same amount of crack cocaine as you would have in powder cocaine--the same narcotic, different form, dramatically different results.

We tried this in an effort to scare America straight, to let them know we were serious. We would get tough and use all of the political muscle we could find to stop the spread of crack cocaine. It was cheap. It was easily produced. It was deadly, especially to the fetus being carried by the addicted mother, and it scared us. I voted for that bill and have regretted it ever since.

I know what happened; it didn't work. You couldn't scare people straight. We ended up with more people addicted. The price of drugs on the street went down, and we started filling our prisons, primarily with African-American and Latinos inmates who were convicted under these crimes. We knew in our heart of hearts that like so many other laws, it was unfair. The majority--majority--of users of narcotics and dealers of narcotics are White. Seventy-five percent of those who are convicted and sent to prison for crimes related to drug dealing and use are African American and Latino.

This disparity on its face tells us that our system was fundamentally unfair and ineffective. I believe that is the reason we decided last night to stop trying to muscle our way through the drug war and start using our brains: What is it that will work, that will make certain those who are truly guilty pay a price and those who can be rehabilitated get that chance? It is as basic as that.

There is a second thing that has happened in America in recent years, and it is heartbreaking when you see the results. We are facing the worst drug epidemic in our history. For the first time in decades-- maybe in modern memory--we are being told that life expectancy in the United States is going down. It is because of the opioid drug epidemic. Thousands of people are dying because of overdoses of opioids, heroin, and fentanyl.

The opioid epidemic has opened our eyes to something else. Narcotics and their problems are not confined to the inner city. They are not confined to people of color, and they are not confined to the poor. This opioid epidemic has touched every corner of America in every State. There is no suburb too wealthy, no town so small that it can avoid this opioid epidemic. What it has done, sadly, is educate all of us in what happens with addiction and what we need to do to fight it.

We now look at drug addiction not as a moral curse but, rather, as a disease that needs to be treated. That doesn't mean we should give up on prosecuting kingpins and doing everything we can to stop the flow of narcotics, but we have come to realize that just sticking someone in jail, if they lived long enough to reach that point in their lives, is no guarantee they are going to come out of jail without that addiction. We have to be thoughtful.

We also have to have rehabilitation that is available for people across the board, whether they are rich or poor. That is something our opioid legislation of several weeks ago moves toward solving.

The other thing we have come to understand is, the cost of the current system is unsustainable. We cannot continue to fill our prisons at great expense and not put money into things that count in terms of protecting our communities. Arresting someone after the crime is, of course, part of a just society, but it doesn't stop that original crime from happening. We have to think about the crime prevention that makes our homes and neighborhoods and towns and cities safe all across America, and that was part of the calculation last night in this embarkation on a new approach.

Finally, I want to say that virtually every major issue that passes on the floor of the U.S. Senate--virtually every single one of them-- has someone backing it, pushing for it with a personal passion on the issue. I feel--not personally but having visited so many prisons and worked with so many people who have served time in those prisons--that we need to have a more just system, a more effective system.

I want to give credit where it is due. Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, spoke to me about his feelings on prison reform the first time we ever met. I know it is personal to him, and I know it means a lot to him and his family. Because he cared and because he mobilized the conservative side of the political equation, we had an amazing vote last night with 87 Members of the Senate supporting the bill. All of the Democrats and then, on top of that, 39 of the Republicans were also supportive of the bill. I might add, Senator Lindsey Graham was absent. Now that he is back from Afghanistan, he told us he would have made it 88 if he were here.

I will close by saying thank you again to Senator Grassley. Thanks to Aaron Cummings. I thanked him personally last night. He worked so closely with Joe Zogby and with Rachel Rossi during the course of this; they really became a team. I think it was one of the reasons we closed this deal and sent it to the House. It is, however, the first step. We have to start thinking about the second step, and we need the help of all of our colleagues.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill ) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, McHenry, IL, lost one of its favorite sons on November 21. Donald Doherty was the mayor of McHenry from 1961 to 1973. He was a county board member for 20 years. He was a husband, a father, grandfather, a veteran of the U.S.

Army, and someone who truly loved his community. He was 91 years old.

If you go down Green Street in McHenry, you will come to the intersection of Pearl Street and Green Street and a sign for Honorary Donald P. Doherty Drive. Donald loved living in McHenry. People could always find Donald along Green Street at St. Patrick's Church or at city hall or at his family's drug store, Bolger Drugs. McHenry and his family were his life.

Before Donald became mayor in 1961, he ran the Bolger Drug Store. He was famous for going out of his way to help customers. If his store didn't have it, he would make sure the customer got it. The community rewarded him by choosing him to be mayor for 12 years.

His love of the community continued well after his time as mayor. He went on to serve as a member of the county board, the Knights of Columbus, and the McHenry Area Chamber of Commerce where he received the chamber's highest honor, the Frank E. Low Award. Donald often would consult succeeding mayors if they needed help. During McHenry Fiesta Days, you could find him as the parade marshal.

Donald helped make McHenry a better place to live for people. He loved car rides, playing bingo with his friends at the McHenry Country Club, and he missed playing Scrabble with his late wife, Rosalie. He leaves behind 10 children and 21 grandchildren.

Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to thank a remarkable woman whose commitment to justice has helped more people in my State and in our Nation than she will probably ever know.

Her name is Cathy Hurwit. For the last 20 years, she has served as chief of staff to my friend from Chicago, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.

Cathy Hurwit is retiring from public service at the end of this year. This week, as she was packing up her office in the Rayburn building, a coworker happened to see her pull a photo from a drawer and pack it away with her books and files. It was a signed photo of Cathy with President Barack Obama.

That small incident tells you a lot about Cathy Hurwit. You see, for Cathy, public service has never been about personal gain. She has no use for ``vanity walls'' covered with photos of herself with powerful people.

Where others might hang a photo of themselves with a President, Cathy Hurwit hangs a poster from a rally to save Social Security and Medicare. For her, public service has always been about helping others and making our government better and fairer.

Cathy Hurwit is an icon in the progressive movement. She is committed to her values, and she is a genius at organizing and legislating. She knows how to use power to help others, whether in the minority or majority.

She didn't set out to work on Capitol Hill. Her first job after college was working as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, helping migrant laborers in Utah.

She went back to school to earn a master's in journalism. After her first year, she was hired as a summer intern by Congressman Toby Moffett. She never went back to ``J school.''

She worked as Congressman Moffett's energy policy director for 3 years.

She then worked as adviser to the Subcommittee on Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources of the House Government Operations Committee, followed by 2 years as legislative director for then- Congressman, now Senator, Ed Markey.

Cathy left Capitol Hill to become legislative director for Citizen Action, a coalition of progressive organizations, from 1988 to 1997. After that came 2 years as legislative director and healthcare policy expert for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, one of the great public employee unions in our country.

Cathy had vowed never to return to Capitol Hill. Thank goodness, Congresswoman Schakowsky persuaded her to change her mind.

Few people know more than Cathy Hurwit about the complexities of healthcare policy or about the consequences of the healthcare policy decisions we make in Congress for ordinary people. If you are among the millions of Americans who are grateful that insurers can no longer deny you coverage or charge you astronomically more for health insurance because of a preexisting medical condition, you can thank Cathy Hurwit. She was fighting for a Patients' Bill of Rights more than 20 years ago. With Congresswoman Schakowsky and others, she helped to include that and other essential protections in the Affordable Care Act.

Her work has improved the lives of millions of Americans.

While Cathy is leaving the Hill, she is not leaving the fight. I hope that she will find a little more time to enjoy a good show at the Kennedy Center. I know that she will continue to be a force for social justice.

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

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

Madam President, let me first acknowledge my good friend and my colleague Chuck Grassley, who has just paid tribute to a member of his staff who has served for more than 30 years. I don't know her personally, but we can tell his words were heartfelt and could tell of his appreciation for her public service.

On behalf of the Senate, I want to thank her and all of the staff people who make our careers possible. As talented as we may think we are, we wouldn't be anywhere without staffers who are determined to serve the people and serve us.

His tribute to his chief of staff--chief of everything, as he described her--was certainly heartfelt from a man I know is a very sincere and positive individual. I just wanted to say those words.

Tribute to Joe Donnelly

Madam President, I also wanted to add my comments to what was said earlier by the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, about our departing colleague Joe Donnelly. We are really going to miss him. We are going to miss all four who are not going to be back with us.

Joe is my neighbor in the State of Indiana. There is hardly a meeting of

Democratic Senators where you don't hear some laughter and look at the center of the meeting and see that it is Joe Donnelly. He makes us all feel good about who we are and what we do, even when some of these assignments we receive are pretty tough.

I want to join Chuck Schumer in saying thanks to Joe Donnelly for serving Indiana and for being such a great colleague during these last 6 years. We will miss him.

Madam President, on a separate subject, this bill, S. 3747, is a bill which is historic. It is 149 pages, and the first 60 are pages that address prison reform. This bill in its entirety has been endorsed by the political spectrum of America. I would say to Senator Grassley that I can't remember another bill that had this kind of support, left and right, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat. It is all there, supporting this legislation.

To have a bill that Senator Grassley and I worked on with Senator Lee and Senator Booker tells a story in and of itself--the four leaders on this legislation--but then to consider the fact that President Trump has endorsed it, that Vice President Pence has come to the Republican conference lunch saying he is behind it and urging the Republican caucus to support it as well, really speaks to the political bipartisanship that we rarely, if ever, have seen in Washington.

The groups who are behind it are equally amazing. To have the support, on an important criminal justice reform bill, of the Fraternal Order of Police is a great starting point, as far as I am concerned. Then to have the leading prosecutors--the leading criminal prosecutors association--join with the police really tells us that on the law enforcement side, we have the major players. On the other side, incredibly, we have the American Civil Liberties Union supporting this and most of the major civil rights organizations.

I think we have really struck a good point here where we have worked and compromised for 5 or 6 years to reach this moment. It is possible that as early as today, this bill will be up for us to vote on, but before we reach that point, there is the possibility of amendments that are going to be offered--three amendments, as we understand it, under the current procedure. I would like to address generally the amendments that will be offered.

Senator Cotton of Arkansas is the lead sponsor of these amendments. There are three amendments because Senator Cotton took his original amendment and literally divided it into three pieces, which is his right under the Senate Rules of Procedure. I have taken a look at those--a very close look, I might add--and I want to put on the record some facts that I hope Members of the Senate on both sides will consider when the Cotton amendments come before us on the floor.

One of the major elements in Senator Cotton's amendment is ``notification of victims.'' In other words, if we are going to change the status of a person in Federal prison to the point where they may be released early, Senator Cotton suggests that we must--we must--notify crime victims. It sounds reasonable on its face, and it is. In fact, it is so reasonable that we currently have a law that guarantees that.

The Crime Victims' Rights Act is the Federal statute, and under the Crime Victims' Rights Act, we say to victims: You have the right to know if a criminal defendant who perpetrated a crime against you is going to have a change in their status as a prisoner. We spell out many other things in about 10 different provisions giving rights to crime victims.

This isn't the only guarantee of crime victims learning what is happening to the criminal defendant who perpetrated the crime. It turns out that the Bureau of Prisons does the same thing. They notify crime victims of change in status of the criminal defendant.

What is the difference? What is Senator Cotton trying to add to this? He is adding to it an element that is very worrisome, and I am afraid he hasn't thought it through clearly.

You see, under the Crime Victims Act, it is up to the crime victim to determine whether they want to be notified. It turns out that over the last 5 years, 10 percent of the crime victims, when given the offer of being notified about a change in status of the criminal defendant, 10 percent of them--about 160,000--have said: No, we don't want to be notified. We have consciously decided. Don't notify us.

Why? Why would a crime victim say: Don't notify me. Well, there are a myriad of reasons. Consider the possibility that the victim is an infant or a child who has gone through the horrible experience involved in this crime, and the guardians or parents of that crime victim, who is a child, have decided that they don't want their child to be exposed to all of this information about some criminal defendant, for whatever reason. It could be as a result of psychological counseling. It could be that they don't want them to face retraumatization by going through--reliving that horrible criminal experience.

Think of an adult who decides as a crime victim: I want to put this behind me. I don't care to hear anything more about this. My life is going to go on on a separate track, and this is the past. I want to look to the future.

So a crime victim--even an adult--can decide, don't notify me. It is their decision. It is not a government decision; it is an individual decision. We give to crime victims the respect and the freedom to decide if they will be notified. Senator Cotton does not. Senator Cotton mandates notification, requires notification of the change in status. That is serious, and it could have a serious impact on someone who has already been victimized, forced into some horrible condition in their life that they would be forced again to revisit again when they do not want it, when they consciously do not want it.

What have the crime victims associations said about the Cotton amendment? It is universal--they have said it is wrong, and they have said that in very explicit terms. Let me tell you one group that I think is important for us to consider: the Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice. We believe it is the leading, largest crime victims organization in America. Over 30,000 crime victims are part of this organization to stand up for the rights of those who have been victimized by crime. What do they have to say about the Cotton amendment that would force notification on people who do not want it? Here is what they say:

A mandatory notification requirement is contrary to the

victim-centered approach of avoiding re-traumatization.

Current law and DOJ policy permit a victim to determine

whether he or she wants notification of release. A mandate--

The Cotton amendment--

like this requires notification for those who may not want it

and could trigger trauma for thousands of victims many years

later after the crime.

They go on to say:

[Bureau of Prisons] data on the release date of any

prisoner is publicly available on the [Bureau of Prisons]

website. Victim notification is already required by law if

victims choose to receive the notice. The Crime Victims'

Rights Act provides the right to timely notice of any

release.

Victim notification already occurs through the [Department

of Justice's] Automated Victim Notification System if victims

opt to receive the notice. This system is a partnership with

the [Bureau of Prisons], the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection

Service, and the United States Attorney's Office. It is a

free, computer-based system, which provides victims with

information on scheduled court events, the outcomes of

events, custody status and release dates.

In other words, all of the information about the disposition of a criminal defendant is currently available online, easily accessible by crime victims if they choose to receive it. Ten percent of them--1 out of 10--say: No, we don't want to receive it. Senator Cotton, with his amendment, does not respect that decision by the 10 percent and says they will be required to receive it. That is not good for crime victims. It certainly violates the spirit of the Crime Victims' Rights Act, where we leave that decision, when it comes to minors and even adult victims, to the families affected. Why would we override that provision in the law?

There is another group who has come forward, a woman by the name of Tricia Forbes, a regional training manager with the Texas-based Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice. In The Hill newspaper that was published this morning, she has a lengthy article opposing the Cotton amendments. Here is what she says:

Cotton and Senator Kennedy claim they are trying to protect

victims with an amendment to force the Federal Bureau of

Prisons

to notify victims of a crime when the perpetrator is being

transferred to pre-release custody, but their real goal is

simply to delay, dilute, and derail the bill. The existing

draft of the FIRST STEP Act was the result of careful,

bipartisan and bicameral negotiations. By adding their last-

minute amendments, Cotton and Kennedy want nothing more than

to break up the broad bipartisan coalition that has come

together to support this bill.

There is also a letter from Anne Seymour, project director for Fairness, Dignity & Respect for Crime Victims & Survivors. This letter, which she sent to all Members of the Senate, says:

I write today to urge you to vote No on Senators Cotton and

Kennedy's ``Victim Notification'' Amendment. It is clear that

Congress can and must do more to support the needs and rights

of crime victims and survivors. I am disappointed that almost

no elements of the FIRST STEP Act are tailored specifically

to the needs of victims. However, Senators Cotton and

Kennedy's proposed amendments neither comply with best

practices in trauma-informed victim services, nor improve

this bill.

She closes by saying:

I urge you to vote No on Senators Cotton and Kennedy's

amendments, and encourage you to offer solutions that are

better tailored to identify and address the critical needs of

crime victims and survivors in a manner that is survivor-

centered and trauma-informed.

So crime victims groups have come forward and said that the Cotton amendments would be harmful to crime victims.

Those who wish to be notified have every right to be, and they are provided that notification under statute and under existing policy of the Bureau of Prisons. Those who opt out and say ``I don't want to be notified'' should be respected. We should not force this on them.

I encourage my friends--those who are considering this bill and discussing it with their staffs--to look closely at what the crime victims organizations say about the Cotton amendments and understand that if we are going to be respectful of these people who have been victimized by crime, we have to vote no on those amendments.

The second element that has been raised by Senator Cotton in the amendments relates to the crimes that are listed as making someone ineligible for prison reform programs or early release programs. Our bill is 60 pages long. More than a third of the bill is filled with a list of over 60 different Federal crimes, and we say: If you committed this crime, you are not eligible as a Federal prisoner for the rehabilitation program in this bill. There are 60 different ones that we have added.

Members would come up to us--Senator Grassley, myself, Senator Booker, Senator Lee--and say: We think you ought to add such-and-such crime. We would take a careful look at it, and in most cases, we agreed to do it. Let me give an example.

Senator Ted Cruz, a conservative Republican from Texas--and I think he wears that label proudly--said he would consider voting for our bill if we would consider adding a number of crimes to the list of crimes that would make a criminal defendant ineligible to ask for help under this bill. We looked at it carefully. There were about six or eight of these that we thought were acceptable. We asked if we could add those to the list--a list of already 60 crimes. Unfortunately, Senator Cotton objected. He did not want that added to the bill. Now it turns out he is going to argue in his amendment that he wants part of the Cruz list to be added at this point.

Well, we had a chance to do it, and it was a bipartisan measure, but he objected to our adding it. However, he has one provision in his amendment that goes far beyond Senator Cruz's list or the enumerated crimes that we said make you ineligible. He has created a new category of crime. I have read a lot of definitions over the years, but it is really hard to follow what he is trying to achieve here because, in addition to the enumerated crimes that would make you ineligible, he adds the following: any offense that is not otherwise listed in the subsection for which the offender is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year and ``has as an element, the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another.'' I have never seen that definition--``physical force against the person or property of another.''

We went to the Sentencing Commission and said: How many crimes would that include? They said: It is impossible to calculate. But we think that at least 30,000 people would be ruled ineligible--by those words that I have just read--who might otherwise be eligible for earlier release.

So what he has come up with is his own definition of criminal standard, one which we have never seen before, and he wants that to apply to this bill, which we worked on for 6 years.

So I would say, when it comes to the Cotton amendments, Members of the Senate really have a very clear and stark choice: They can support a bill that has been worked on on a bipartisan basis and enjoys the support of police, prosecutors, and those groups which protect our constitutional rights--all together, right and left, supporting; they can support a bill that has bipartisan support here on the floor of colleagues and Members who rarely come together, but we have come together on this bill because we found a good compromise; they can support a bill that has the support of survivors and criminal victims organizations; or they can vote for the Cotton amendments.

Supporting the Cotton amendments that are being offered--opposed by crime victims' rights groups across the board, by the leading crime victims' rights groups--is basically saying to these crime victims: We are going to force this information on you whether it is in the best interests of your family, whether you want it or not. That is not respectful of crime victims.

I hope my colleagues will join me in opposing the Cotton amendments.

I thank the Senator.

Yesterday, our colleague Senator Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, came forward and said that his State of Texas and other States are showing that they can reduce recidivism--in other words, committing another crime after you are released--by treating prisoners differently in their State prisons. As I said on the floor, you may be shocked to think that Texas would be a leader in this, but they have been, and they have seen a reduction in the incidence of crime and a reduction in the incidence of incarceration--things we like to see happen. Reduce the cost to taxpayers of the prisons, but reduce crime on the streets too. Make sure you do both.

He believes they have achieved it. What they did was they looked at programs that work. So what we did was the same thing. Senator Grassley and I, as well as, as you mentioned, Senator Cornyn and Senator Whitehouse, looked at these prison reform programs in the States and said: What can we learn from them?

What we did was to establish the obligation of the Attorney General-- this

is not the obligation of social workers but the obligation of the Attorney General of the United States to take a hard look at the programs that work for prisoners. What can we do to make sure they don't commit another crime, create another victim, and come back to prison?

We spell out exactly what we are looking for: the most effective and efficient, evidence-based recidivism-reduction programs. That is a long title. What that basically means is that we don't want to waste any more time here. We want to focus tax dollars on programs that have proven results, and unless they commit one of the crimes that make them ineligible, we offer these to prisoners. By participating in them, they can reduce the time they serve or be released to a halfway house or something similar to that. That is what this is all about, start to finish, and we believe this will work.

What if they mess up in the course of being enrolled in the program? We have a provision in here that says: You are done. You are either going to do this in good faith, positively, without any violations of your responsibilities as a Federal prisoner--we will give you a chance for less time but no nonsense.

Good program. Good participation. We hope good results, and we are going to measure it. We are going to come back. The General Accounting Office is going to give us a report on our success--of those who are released, how many turned around and committed another crime? So we are going to take a hard look at this--an honest look, I might say. I believe this is the best way to do it. Make sure it is evidence-based. Make sure it is a fair opportunity for those who want to participate and turn their lives around to do just that.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wanted to thank the Senator from Florida for his kind words of encouragement on this criminal justice reform bill that is pending before the Senate. I thank him. I know his personal interest in this subject. I am going to miss his service and his friendship here in the Senate Chamber. I want to thank him for his many years of serving the people of Florida and for standing by me in many causes. It is rare that one of these causes is so bipartisan, and this one is.

I heard the testimony or the statement earlier by the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Kennedy. I count him as a friend. We have cosponsored bills together, and I like him. We disagree on some issues, but we do it in a very positive way, and in the comments I am about to make, I want to be as positive as possible.

Senator Kennedy brought a chart to the floor and suggested that there was no support by national law enforcement for the bill that is before us, and he said that most of the State and local law enforcement groups were opposed to it as well. I beg to differ with him.

I would like to submit for the record that currently we have the support on this Grassley-Durbin bill from the American Correctional Association, the American Federation of Government Employees, the AFL- CIO, and the Council of Prisons. The very prison guards whom Senator Kennedy referred to on his chart are in support of our position. The Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, the Association of State Correctional Administrators, and the Fraternal Order of Police supports our bill, and, in addition, the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

I ask unanimous consent to submit for the Record the remainder of these law enforcement, corrections, and government groups.

Mr. President, at the heart of the amendments being offered by Senators Cotton and Kennedy is an effort to provide notification to crime victims. I spoke to this early this morning, and I think it bears repeating.

It is interesting to note that they are arguing that their amendments are necessary for the sake of crime victims. At the same time, virtually every leading organization in America representing crime victims supports our bill and opposes the amendment being offered by Senators Cotton and Kennedy. Why do they oppose it? Because we already have a law. The law says if you are a victim of crime, you have certain rights written into the statute--some 10 specific areas where you have the right to be consulted or notified if you are a victim and you want to know what is going to happen to the person who is accused of the crime of which you were a victim. It is only right that we do that, and we have done it for a long time.

We also have regulatory provisions where the Bureau of Prisons will not release someone without notification to the crime victims. So there is a healthy pattern established by law that victims of crime in the United States have the right to receive all of this information and, in some cases, can actually participate in the proceeding. We voted on that on a bipartisan basis years ago. That is the way it should be.

So what does the Cotton-Kennedy amendment add when it comes to crime victims? It adds something that the crime victims organizations oppose. Let me tell you what it is. You have a right as a crime victim to be notified, but you are not mandated and required to be notified. That is your call. It turns out that 10 percent of crime victims over the last 5 years--over 160,000 American crime victims--have chosen not to be informed. They don't want to be notified. Why? Why would they not want to be notified? What if the victim is a child in your family who was the victim of a crime at an early age and you have decided, for the sake of that child or our family, that you want to put this behind you? Don't put me on the list, then, to notify me about what happens with a criminal defendant. We want to put that chapter behind us. We want to move forward as a family.

Or perhaps as a crime victim you are dealing with psychological trauma--understandable. You are going through counseling, and you believe that constant reminders about the criminal defendant don't help you get well and don't help you move forward. You can make an individual personal decision--you have the right to make it--that you don't want to be notified.

Then, comes the amendment that will be on the floor tonight or tomorrow. The amendment by Senators Cotton and Kennedy says: Forget that; you are going to be notified whether you want to or not.

I think that is wrong.

Don't take my word for it. Go to the crime victims organizations and ask them what they think. They think this mandatory notification will retraumatize many crime victims. They respect the right for a crime victim to say: I don't want to learn this. I don't want to know about it. Don't send me these notifications.

They respect the crime victims and the circumstances, and the Cotton- Kennedy amendment does not. So at the heart of their amendment process, in an effort to ``help crime victims,'' they have drafted a provision that the leading crime victims organizations oppose. No Senator of either party should vote for the Cotton-Kennedy amendments in this bill and believe they are helping crime victims. They are not. The existing law gives all crime victims the right to know and the right to be informed, as well as the right to say: I don't want to know. Don't contact me anymore. I want to put that behind me.

That is up to the individuals. The Cotton-Kennedy amendment, unfortunately, moves into new territory and forces this information on people who are not looking for it.

In addition to that, they have a list of crimes, if you have committed these crimes and have been convicted--a list of crimes that would be ineligible. You couldn't get the prison reform package that we are talking about, the possibility of early release, if you commit certain crimes. Well, we tried to take care to create a process that was sensitive to this, and we started with a challenge. There were 5,000 Federal crimes. You wouldn't believe how many there are. We had to go through and pick those that clearly should disqualify you from getting any special treatment when it comes to your prison sentence. We came up with a list that was 20 pages long of specific crimes--over 60 crimes--and after we produced the list, Members would come to us and say: Well, what about this crime? Well, if we thought it was a legitimate concern, we added it to the list. So we tried to be as inclusive as possible and to cover the most serious crimes, whether they involve violence or harm to an individual, and to be sensitive to them.

Along the way, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas produced a list that he wanted included. We took a good-faith look at it, and we agreed with him on about 8 or 10 of the provisions he made. We said: We will include these in our list. If you committed the crimes that Senator Cruz came up with, you would be ineligible for this prison recidivist program.

So we started to put it in the bill, and we thought it was in the bill, incidentally, and we learned it had not been included. We asked for unanimous consent to amend our own bill to include these new categories and, unfortunately, the Republican leadership and Senator Cotton objected. They wouldn't let us include a new list of crimes which would make a person ineligible. That is unfortunate.

Sadly, the provision of one of the amendments from Senator Cotton is now attempting to include some of those crimes in his list. We made a good-faith effort to do this on a bipartisan basis, and we will continue to do that.

I see the Senator from Pennsylvania has come to the floor.

The last point is that there is a provision in one of the Cotton- Kennedy amendments that redefines the crimes that would make you ineligible to participate in this program. It is a new definition. It includes a reference to something that you don't see often--violence to property. I am not sure what that means. The use of physical force on property is in the law in many places, but the terms ``violence against property'' is something that I am not sure what Senator Cotton is trying to achieve with this. It is going to create confusion.

Unfortunately, if you add every crime that might involve some damage to property, you can see that it would expand the list dramatically and go way beyond what we are trying to achieve. We are trying to give those incarcerated who truly want to turn their lives around and who truly want to have training and be ready to move forward the opportunity to do just that.

So at this point I am going to conclude my remarks.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, when I spoke to Senator Toomey about this issue, it personally struck a chord with me. I recognize that we have had this same debate in the Appropriations Committee. Its champion in the committee is Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, who has at least for 2 years, or maybe longer, suggested the change the Senator from Pennsylvania brings to the floor. I think he made a compelling argument, and I voted with him for the change he wished to see in the law. We did not prevail in the Appropriations Committee--at least didn't prevail in changing the budget rules--but Senator Lankford, with his effort in the committee, has prevailed in changing the allocation of funds.

The amendment Mr. Toomey, the Senator from Pennsylvania, offers creates a new point of order against any CJS appropriations bill if it doesn't spend at least the 3-year average of collections in the Crime Victims Fund. There is good news. Because of Senator Lankford's effort and the support of Senator Shelby, which the Senator from Pennsylvania noted, the amendment is not necessary. Since fiscal years 2015 through 2018, the CJS appropriations bill has spent at least the 3-year average of collections--a total of $12.4 billion--which has been returned to crime victims. So we have, in fact, changed the budget policy that governs how the Crime Victims Compensation fund is distributed.

What I would suggest, though, is that this good, worthy issue and battle, which I would be happy to join, does not belong on this bill. In fact, the result could complicate this bill and its passage. We have been working to put this measure together for 6 years, Democrats and Republicans. There were some 82 or more Senators--I know the Senator from Pennsylvania was not one of them--who voted for cloture on this bill because we felt we should move forward in this debate.

I might say, some of the amendments the Senator from Pennsylvania said he is going to support for this bill are not helpful. They are opposed by those who are behind the bill. Let's save this budget debate for another day. On behalf of myself and the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I object.

Mr. President, I would like to respond to the statements made by the Senator from Arkansas in terms of the pending business before the Senate. We are close to reaching agreement to bring the underlying bill--the criminal justice reform bill--for a vote this evening. It is a bill that has been literally years in the making. I believe we have discussed it at great length, and we are prepared to make a decision in the Senate.

There will be three amendments offered by the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Cotton. After those amendments are offered, then we will launch into another consideration of a change to the bill which has been characterized as a Cruz-Lankford amendment. For the record, we reached an agreement with Senator Cruz about this amendment. We reached an agreement with Senator Lankford about his amendment on a bipartisan basis, and I included a provision in there which required annual reports on the success of this program, so we can measure it carefully and see if it is working as we hoped it would.

There were three pieces to this for Senator Cruz, for Senator Lankford, and a piece I offered for this annual report. We accepted that language which will be considered in the Senate. I certainly hope that when the request is made to include that language, the annual report will be included in it so we can move forward very quickly on the three Cotton amendments, as he suggested this evening.

We can agree on the Cruz, Lankford, and Durbin amendment. I think that would not create any burden to move on that, and we are in a position to consider final passage this evening. That seems to be the lineup.

As I said to Senator Grassley and Senator Lee, my partners in this effort, as well as Senator Booker, worked long and hard on this. We have had police groups, prosecutors, civil liberties groups--all have carefully reviewed this. No one is getting what they wanted completely. This is a product of compromise. That is how you pass a bill in the Senate--at least, that is my experience.

This is the strongest bipartisan bill I have seen in terms of Democrats and Republicans working for final passage. It will be significant and historic if we

are successful, but I will not presume that until we go through the process of the amendments this evening.

I, again, thank my colleagues who have patiently waited for us to reach this moment, but I think we have a chance to even move forward this evening if we reach a basic agreement.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 Rachel Rossi, a detailee on my Judiciary Committee staff, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress.