Floor Statements

Mr. President, November 8, 2016, was not just election day. It was a day that will live in cyber infamy because it turns out that one of the leading enemies of the United States, the nation of Russia, was directly engaged in the Presidential campaign that resulted in the election on November 8. This is not speculation. It is a fact based on conclusions that came from 17 different intelligence agencies that confirmed this reality. This is the first time we can point to where a foreign power has tried to influence the outcome of a Presidential election in the United States. Their goal was clear: to elect Donald Trump, to defeat Hillary Clinton. They hacked into computers. They released information on a selective basis. They created fake news stories. They used WikiLeaks--everything within their cyber power to influence the outcome of the election. That was the reality.

This morning we were awakened to the headline that President Trump's head of the National Security Council, LTG Michael Flynn, has resigned. That is an incredible blockbuster of a story. And what was the reason for his resignation? It turns out that he had a direct conversation with the Russian Ambassador to the United States, Mr. Kislyak, and that conversation included references to sanctions that President Obama was imposing on Russia because of their involvement in our election. What led to his resignation, of course, was that he misled both the Vice President and the President about that conversation. When the facts came out, he was forced to resign.

This is not business as usual in Washington. What we are dealing with here is, in fact, a historic event--a powder keg in history--when it comes to the United States and its security. The obvious question is, Will this Congress of the United States, this branch of our government, respond? Will we initiate thorough investigations as to the involvement of the Russians in that election campaign and, specifically, any involvement with any Presidential campaign during that time?

Twenty years ago, when I was elected to the Senate, there was an investigation initiated by the Republicans at the suggestion--the suggestion--that the Chinese Government played some role in the Clinton-Gore campaign. The Governmental Affairs Committee of the Senate was entrusted with the responsibility to do a thorough investigation of that allegation, and Fred Thompson, the Senator from Tennessee, was the chairman of that committee, with John Glenn as the ranking Democrat.

The hearings went on for weeks--ultimately, for months--and then there was a formal report issued. No credible evidence was found of the suggestion, but it was taken that seriously by the Republican-led Congress that the Chinese may have been involved in a Democratic Presidential campaign.

How seriously is the Republican Congress taking the allegations and statements from our intelligence agencies that the Russians were involved in this last Presidential campaign?

It is time for us to have an independent, bipartisan commission beyond Congress to look into this and give us solid answers. We need to appoint people to head this commission of the stature of GEN Colin Powell and Sandra Day O'Connor, who served on the Supreme Court, who are credible people to lead this effort and this investigation and give America the truth.

A week or so ago the New York Times published the results of a recent poll that asked Americans what other nations they considered to be our closest allies and worst enemies. The results weren't surprising. Canada, the UK, and Australia topped the list of our best allies. Of America's enemies, the top nations were different, but they included North Korea, Iran, and Russia. That makes me wonder why President Trump, in the span of a week, managed to insult and hang up on the telephone call with the Prime Minister of Australia and then go on national news to once again defend Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, in light of what I just said earlier. Just a few days later, it is revealed that his National Security Advisor, General Flynn, the one who was fired by the previous administration and led chants unworthy of a great democracy about locking up a political opponent, was, in fact, speaking to a Russian official as a private citizen before President Trump took office.

Monday, we learned that former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, whom President Trump abruptly fired, had warned the White House that General Flynn had misled senior administration officials about his communications with the Russian Ambassador and warned he was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail. Understand what I have just said. The man who was picked by President Trump as his top National Security Advisor misled the President and the Vice President about a telephone conversation with the Russian Ambassador and, in the opinion of our top law enforcement officials, left himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

In the last days of the Obama administration, then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan reportedly shared Yates' concerns and concurred with the recommendation to inform the Trump White House. Now that General Flynn has resigned, leaving an already chaotic National Security Council in even greater disarray, perhaps this isn't all that surprising anymore, but it certainly should be.

This President has a troubling habit of lashing out at everyone and anyone involved in a perceived slight--dangerous and unbecoming behavior when granted the privilege to become President of this great Nation. In fact, the number and range of those attacked or insulted by Twitter is so significant I wouldn't even start to list them, but it is important to note the list includes Republicans, Democrats, labor leaders, businesses, retired generals, and others in almost every conceivable category. Actually, one looks at the list and you quickly realize the only unifying factor is not about putting America first or America's image but instead about protecting a deeply fragile ego.

Listen to this excerpt from a vast list of those who have been attacked by President Trump: President George Bush, President George W. Bush, Speaker Paul Ryan, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Federal judges, former Governor of New Hampshire John Sununu, the Republican establishment, NATO, Major League Baseball, Macy's Department Store, European leaders, Britain, Germany, New Jersey, the American delegate system, the ``Today'' show, ``Saturday Night Live,'' ``The View,'' Chief Justice John Roberts, Colin Powell, President of United Steelworkers Local 1999, ABC News, NBC News, FOX News, and seemingly every other media outlet.

Now that we are in the category of those who have been attacked, we can't leave Nordstrom off the list. The President even insulted the former Governor of South Carolina, then chose her to be U.N. Ambassador. In fact, there are hundreds upon hundreds on this list--a list that in a foreboding, Nixonian way keeps on growing.

So if you make any criticism or joke about President Trump, make any perceived slight, run a department store that doesn't carry his daughter's products, lead a labor union, or do just about anything, be prepared for an attack by a Trump tweet--except if you happen to be the former Communist KGB official who now leads the one nation that actually recently attacked our Nation. That would be Vladimir Putin.

How is it possible?

Russian President Putin launched a cyber attack of war on the United

States. He interfered in our election and tried to affect the outcome and pick the winner. The evidence is overwhelming. It has been available in increasing amounts over the last several months. Yet we have a President who not only denies the Russian attack but has a strange infatuation with President Putin--but is also suggesting policies that dangerously puppet those of Putin.

It is now revealed that Trump's National Security Advisor, LTG Michael Flynn, lied about discussing sanctions with the Russian Ambassador immediately after the Obama administration announced new sanctions for the attack on our election. Not only had General Flynn and the White House suddenly remembered the facts differently, but more dangerously, did Flynn's conversation undercut U.S. sanctions, especially after Russia's assault on our election? And who instructed General Flynn to have these suspiciously timed conversations with the Russian Ambassador?

It is deeply troubling to imagine what might have been insinuated in those talks, but given the blinders this President has shown in ignoring President Putin so far, I worry about a suggested or hinted trading for U.S. sanctions on Russia for little in return.

Quite simply, you don't make America great by selling out to a former Communist KGB official. You only negotiate with such a dictator from a position of strength, not denial or naivete.

So what has been the response to the cyber attack of war on America, Flynn's dalliance with the Russians, and the dangerous disarray at the Trump National Security Council from the party of Ronald Reagan, who knew the Communist mind pretty well? Near silence. The party of Ronald Reagan has spoken zero times about the Russian attack or Flynn's actions on the floor of the Senate since early October. I waited this morning for the Senate Republican leader to raise the obvious front- page story across America about the resignation of President Trump's National Security Advisor, and not a word was mentioned.

Compare this to the 36 times the Republicans have come to the floor to talk about stripping health care away from millions of Americans in the last several weeks. Even President Trump's new Attorney General, who brazenly changed his tune on Russia once having joined the Trump campaign, said he had not yet read intelligence reports on the Russian attack--a position even more stunning in light of the recent reports of Sally Yates' warnings. Yet, incredibly, his colleagues were ready to confirm him for the highest law enforcement position in the land.

I see the Democratic leader here, and I want to yield the floor to him, but I will close with this. Are we going to have a fulsome, honest, independent investigation of the Russian involvement in this election campaign? We know it happened. Seventeen of our intelligence agencies confirm it.

We also know that an investigation is underway by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about this campaign and the involvement of the Russians, and we know as well now that because of the conversations of our National Security Advisor with the Russian Ambassador, he was forced to resign in the first 4 weeks of this administration.

This calls out for a thorough investigation. The Republican Party in Congress, which spent hours and days and weeks and months in investigations involving Hillary Clinton, should at least acknowledge the gravity of this matter and bring this to a full investigation--an open and public one that can be trusted, an independent investigation-- that stands up for our basic democracy and does not allow the invasion of the Russians or any other country into our democratic process.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, later today we are going to consider an effort under the Congressional Review Act to change America's background check system when it comes to the purchase of firearms.

For months, I have been listening to President Trump and the Republicans talk about gun violence in the city of Chicago. It is a heartbreaking reality. More than 4,300 people were shot in Chicago last year and over 400 so far this year. It is not just Chicago. The American Medical Association has declared that gun violence is a public health crisis in our Nation.

So what is Congress doing to save lives in Chicago and across the Nation from gun violence? What is the Senate doing to protect people from being shot? Nothing.

Instead, the Republican Congress is trying to weaken one of the gun laws on the books--the NICS Improvement Amendments Act. This is the law passed unanimously by Congress after the Virginia Tech massacre and signed into law in 2008 by President George W. Bush.

This law says that every Federal agency needs to let the FBI NICS background check system know when the agency has information about people who fall within the legal prohibitions on gun possession. Everyone agreed we needed to get these records into the NICS system, especially records about those who are seriously mentally unstable, such as the Virginia Tech shooter. That man had a history of mental illness, but he was able to buy guns and kill 32 people because his records were not in the background check system known as NICS.

There is a longstanding Federal prohibition on gun possession by those who are suffering from mental illness. This prohibition is so well established that the late Justice Antonin Scalia cited it in the Supreme Court's Heller decision as an example of a restriction that is presumptively lawful and consistent with the Second Amendment.

There have been tragic cases where people with serious mental illnesses have used guns to cause great harm. The Newtown, CT, shooter showed signs of severe mental health problems that went untreated before he killed 20 students and 6 educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The Tucson, AZ, shooter, who shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and killed six others, was diagnosed after the shooting with schizophrenia. And it was 9 years ago today when a gunman who had been diagnosed and treated for mental illness killed 5 people and injured 17 in a classroom building at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

About two-thirds of shooting deaths each year are suicides. Last year, there were more than 21,000 suicides by gun. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that ``about 90% of individuals who die by suicide experience mental illness.''

Mental illness is a challenging issue for our society. I have worked to expand treatment and coverage for mental illness, including through the Affordable Care Act, one of the most important single laws we have ever passed to address mental illness. I wish those who are trying to repeal this commonsense gun safety regulation would drop that effort and join us in stopping this repeal of the Affordable Care Act. We need more and better services for people with mental illness.

The reality is that the gun laws on the books are narrowly drawn when it comes to mental illness and so is the rule we are being asked to repeal today. Current Federal law says that a person who has been ``adjudicated as a mental defective'' is prohibited from gun possession. The phrase ``adjudicated as a mental defective'' is defined in the law as a determination by ``a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that a person, as a result of marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease: (1) is a danger to himself or others; or (2) lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs.''

The 2008 NICS Improvement law, signed into law by President George W. Bush, directed Federal agencies to send their relevant records to the NICS system. Last year, the Social Security Administration issued a rule to implement this law after concluding that certain determinations by the Social Security Administration qualify as an adjudication of mental defectiveness.

Let me explain what the SSA rule says. Under this rule, starting in December of this year, the Social Security Administration will begin sending to NICS--the body which gathers information and records for background checks before the possession of firearms--the name, date of birth, and Social Security number of people who meet each of the five threshold criteria. The person must be between the ages of 18 and 65, have filed a claim with SSA for benefits based on disability, have been diagnosed with a serious, long-term mental disorder, have been determined by SSA to be disabled and unable to perform substantial work because of the mental disorder, and have been subject to determination by the Social Security Administration that the mental disorder is so serious that the person needs to have a representative appointed to manage the person's benefits.

This is not a situation where the Social Security Administration would notify NICS just because a person can't balance his checkbook. There must be a seriously debilitating, medically diagnosed mental illness involved.

The rule is prospective only. Current Social Security disability beneficiaries are not subject to it. The rule is predicted to cover about 75,000 Americans, once it takes effect, out of the estimated 10 million suffering from a serious mental illness.

I might add here for the record, I do not suggest that every person who has any form of mental illness is a danger. In fact, exactly the opposite is true. But we do know that those who suffer from serious mental conditions many times are engaged in violent conduct and many times with horrible results when they have firearms.

The rule we are being asked to repeal on the floor of the Senate provides for advance notice of the Social Security Administration determination and the right to appeal through an administrative process and in court. A person can

obtain relief from the firearms prohibition by having healthcare providers and character witnesses submit statements that the person is not a danger to himself or others.

Every politician claims they want to keep deadly firearms out of the hands of those who are seriously mentally unstable. A statement made by a Republican Senator from Texas, Senator Cornyn, the senior Senator from Texas and my counterpart on the Republican side; he said in March 2013:

If there was a common thread in the Virginia Tech, Tucson,

Aurora, and Newtown massacres, it was the mental illness of

the shooter. . . . We should refocus our effort to make sure

the current background check system works to screen out the

dangerously mentally-ill.

Reasonable people can disagree over whether the SSA's rule gets it exactly right. There are mental health groups that have concerns about it, and I respect that. But using the Congressional Review Act is a blunt tool. Instead of fixing the rule, the Congressional Review Act would repeal the rule and--listen to this--permanently bar the Social Security Administration from adopting any substantially similar rule. So it likely would bar the Social Security Administration from ever implementing a rule to submit mental health records to NICS in the future.

If there are problems with this rule, they can be addressed by fixing it. But the Republican response is always repeal first. This time, they want to repeal a rule that doesn't start until December and its repeal would preclude the Social Security Administration from even fixing or positively changing it.

We also had disputes over the process the Department of Veterans Affairs used to submit names of people with mental illness to the same NICS background check system. Last December, we fixed it on a bipartisan basis. We passed language in the 21st Century Cures Act to ensure that a person can have his own doctor and lawyer involved in the process. If the Social Security Administration rule needs fixing, we can fix it too. But this Congressional Review Act is a sledgehammer, not a tool to fix it.

We are being asked to vote today to ban an agency permanently from complying with the NICS law that we enacted in 2008. We are being asked to undermine the gun laws that are on the books.

I urge my colleagues to listen to the opposition of this resolution of disapproval. Read the letter from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, who say that the Social Security Administration rule ``is critically important to the fabric of our nation's background check system.'' Read the editorials in newspapers across the country that oppose repealing this rule.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the editorial from the Chicago Tribune be printed in the Record.

We can also read editorials in the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, the Charlotte Observer, the New York Times, and more.

Now listen specifically to the pleas of gunshot victims and their family members. Listen to Patrick Korellis, of Chicago, whom I have met. He was shot in a classroom 9 years ago at Northern Illinois University by a man who had a serious mental illness. He wrote to me and he said:

I was shot in my classroom by someone who was mentally ill,

and was able to obtain guns and a lot of ammunition because

the background checks weren't strong enough. Rolling back

some of these background checks doesn't make any sense, and

will allow more people to get through the loopholes.

Now listen to Janet Delana of Wellington, MO. She wrote to Congress:

My daughter Colby, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who

lived at home with her father and I, received monthly Social

Security disability payments for her mental illness. In 2012

she used the money from her disability check to buy a gun at

a local gun dealer. Because she was ill and suicidal, I had

contacted the gun dealer and begged him not to sell her a

gun. However, my pleas were ignored and the dealer sold her a

gun anyway because Colby passed the background check. An hour

later, she shot her father to death and tried once again to

take her own life. She is now in an institution for life, and

my husband is gone.

Janet said:

This SSA Rule is vital. I am very concerned this resolution

would preclude SSA and possibly even other agencies from

enacting any future regulations on this or related matters.

We have a public health crisis when it comes to gun violence--in Chicago and in communities across the Nation. We have a responsibility to do what we can on the Federal level to reduce the violence and protect our citizens from getting shot. Voting for this resolution of disapproval today would be a step backward. It would weaken the gun laws on the books and make it easier for severely mentally ill people to get guns. On this, the ninth anniversary of the shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, it is unthinkable that we are going to try to revoke a rule that would keep guns out of the hands of those who should have no business owning them.

Let me conclude with a statement from Bloomberg business magazine, published in an edition several weeks ago:

Advocates for the mentally ill caution that mental illness

shouldn't be equated with a penchant for violence. They're

right. But America's tragic experience with mentally ill

gunmen--from shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 to Newtown,

Connecticut, in 2012--shows the folly of simply dismissing

the danger.

In recent years Republicans have prioritized instant

gratification for anyone who desires to buy a gun. Last year

the National Rifle Association spent $50 million on the

campaigns of Donald Trump and six Republican senators. NRA

leader Wayne LaPierre, who met with Trump this week, wants

payback.

The Obama rule established a process for identifying only

Social Security beneficiaries who would be prohibited from

possessing guns under existing law. It required

that beneficiaries be notified of the prohibition, and it

provided means to appeal the determination before an

administrative law judge or a federal court.

Such provisions would safeguard individual rights. But they

offend the fundamental principle that drives the NRA, and

thus Republican, gun politics: Anyone should be able to get a

gun at any time for any reason and bring that weapon, loaded,

anywhere.

Common sense dictates that we be careful to keep guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them. I sincerely hope that gun owners across my State and across the Nation--and I respect them and their constitutional right--will understand that reasonable limitations on the possession and ownership of firearms is in the best interest of protecting their Second Amendment rights as well.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, on January 20, at his inauguration, President Trump stood before the American people and said: ``For too long, a small group of our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.''

President Trump is right. The people have borne unimaginable costs: the cost of foreclosure, the cost of inequality, the cost of poverty, and the cost of injustice. Sadly, it doesn't look like that is going to change soon with this administration. Three weeks into this administration, President Trump has already begun to restore power back to Wall Street and the very same people who he said have caused tremendous problems for us. The nomination of Steve Mnuchin, someone who spent his entire career working on behalf of Wall Street at the expense of hard-working Americans, is a clear example.

Let me say at the outset, I have not met him, but I tried to, but we couldn't get an agreement as to when we might be able to get together. I wanted to talk to him about some important issues that many of us remember.

We know what happened with the recession that greeted President Obama when he was sworn into office 8 years ago. We know about the foreclosures. We know of families being literally wiped out, all their savings gone because of misleading tactics by financiers.

I still look at this, and as much as I respect President Obama and his administration, I shake my head and think: Nobody went to jail for all that occurred. People at the highest levels of the financial community on Wall Street and others were engaged in practices that we know now were unfair and just plain wrong and, in many cases, illegal.

I have taken a look at Mr. Mnuchin's record. I have read a lot of stories about him. I have heard from homeowners' personally impacted by his conduct, and let me tell you, what I have seen and heard leads me to believe he is not the right person to be Secretary of the Treasury.

Like most of President Trump's nominees, Mr. Mnuchin was not chosen for his knowledge and experience on critical issues he will face if confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury. He was not chosen for his commitment to work for average working families. He was chosen for his loyalty to the President, the new litmus test in the Republican Party.

Before serving as President Trump's chief fundraiser on the campaign, Mr. Mnuchin worked to help wealthy individuals and powerful special interest groups reap the benefits of what the President has called ``a rigged system.'' He served as an executive at Goldman Sachs and as a hedge fund manager.

Perhaps what troubles me the most about Mr. Mnuchin's experience is his tenure at the helm of a group known as OneWest, which came to be known as a foreclosure machine in America because of the aggressive and questionable practices it used to foreclose on the homes of thousands of American families.

Mr. Mnuchin was the head of the company that was doing the foreclosure. After our country experienced the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, Congress worked around the clock to prevent the economy from going into free-fall and end some of the worst practices that helped bring the American economy to its knees.

As we were working to save American homes, Mr. Mnuchin--like President Trump--saw opportunity to make a profit, personally earning millions from OneWest's success as a foreclosure machine.

As the head of OneWest, Mr. Mnuchin had the power to destroy lives through foreclosure or find ways to help homeowners stay in their homes. He chose to aggressively foreclose on families.

During his nomination hearing, Mr. Mnuchin defended OneWest's foreclosure practices and said he was proud of the work of the bank during the foreclosure crisis.

Let me tell you about some of the stories, and you can decide whether Mr. Mnuchin should be proud of the record of the company he was managing.

Rex Schaffer and his wife Rose lost their home of nearly 50 years, despite having qualified for a loan modification.

Ossie Lofton, a 90-year-old woman, was foreclosed on because she was short 27 cents in her mortgage payment--27 cents.

The locks were changed on Leslie Park's Minneapolis home in the middle of a blizzard.

We have seen how organizations headed by Mr. Mnuchin treat people. If confirmed, Mr. Mnuchin would have the ability to use the power of the U.S. Treasury Department to stand on the side of Wall Street and on the opposite side of millions of working Americans. I don't have confidence, based on his professional record, that Mr. Mnuchin will put the needs of hard-working families first over Wall Street.

While the foreclosure crisis and its aftermath seem like something in the past for so many people, that is not the case in my home State of Illinois. Foreclosures are devastating for the families forced out of their homes, but they are also devastating to surrounding communities and neighborhoods.

If you want to know what a community looks like 50 years after the foreclosure crisis, visit my birthplace, my hometown of East St. Louis, IL, or even some of the neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago, or the west side, for that matter--vacant lot after vacant lot, neglected buildings and homes, an economy devastated. And what is left? Some of the poorest families on earth.

While we have made significant progress since the recession of 2008, many families in my State and across the country are still suffering. There is work to do. If confirmed, Mr. Mnuchin

will be responsible for protecting these families and ensuring that we don't have another financial crisis. All we have seen from him is his ability to profit from the foreclosure crisis and the devastation left in its wake. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, Congress got together with the President and passed Dodd-Frank. This was Wall Street reform determined not to let another economic crisis follow. The consumer protection act was also passed to prevent these crises and to reform the problems that caused them.

Mr. Mnuchin has made no secret of the fact that his No. 1 regulatory priority is to roll back Wall Street reform, to return the barbarians to the gates. Despite the promises President Trump made during his campaign, including ``not letting Wall Street get away with murder,'' Mr. Mnuchin has an ally in President Trump in undoing Dodd-Frank. President Trump signed an Executive order that would begin rolling back the important consumer and financial system reforms we passed as part of Dodd-Frank. The President signed this order sitting among the biggest beneficiaries of his actions, some of Wall Street's high rollers. Make no mistake, if President Trump gets his way and Steven Mnuchin is confirmed, the banks are going to have the best friend they can think of in the Treasury Department, just like they did before the economic crash of 2008.

It is clear the American people can't count on Mr. Mnuchin, based on his business experience, to decide with them over Wall Street. But, certainly, he should be committed to basic fairness of the Tax Code. He said he was until he wasn't. Shortly after his nomination, Mr. Mnuchin said there would be ``no absolute tax cut for the upper class.'' Yet he has not spoken out against the significant tax cuts the wealthy would receive from the repeal of the Affordable Care Act or under the President's and the House Republican's tax reform plan. We shouldn't be surprised by this because we are asking Mr. Mnuchin to close the loopholes and raise the taxes on the very people he helped to avoid paying taxes by using offshore tax havens as a hedge fund manager.

We are still recovering from the devastation of that financial crisis 8 years ago. We can't afford to have our Nation's top economic official be a man who has only been looking out for Wall Street. For a President who ran on bringing back jobs and being a champion of the working people, the choices of President Trump for his Cabinet are the opposite and have taken advantage of the very system he has derided as rigged against the people.

The American people deserve better. When Mr. Mnuchin's nomination is brought to the Senate floor for a vote, I will vote no, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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

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

Mr. President, those following the proceedings of the Senate may be wondering what we are doing. Technically, we are considering the nomination of Congressman Tom Price of Georgia to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services--a position he has been nominated for by President Trump. Other Members have come to the floor and discussed other nominees, as the junior Senator from Arizona just discussed the Supreme Court nominee, but I wanted to make sure I came to the floor for a few minutes to put my thoughts on the record about the nomination of Congressman Tom Price to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

It almost seems like a natural fit. He is an orthopedic surgeon. This man obviously is gifted and talented and educated and skilled when it comes to the healing arts, and he made a living before his election to Congress dealing with complex surgeries. On that alone, he needs to have honest consideration from all Members of the Senate as we advise and consent to his nomination to Secretary of Health and Human Services. But he will not be entering surgery when he goes to the Health and Human Services Department, at least not the kind of surgery experience he has had in the past; he is going to be in charge of the most important health care programs in the United States of America. They are programs that literally tens of millions of Americans count on; 50 or 60 million Americans count on Medicare.

Medicare is that program created in the 1970s under President Lyndon Johnson that said: You don't have to reach a point in life where you are so old that you can't work anymore and therefore can't qualify for health insurance at your employment. We are going to create a program that is available for people who are 65 years of age called Medicare. You are going to be able to have health insurance coverage at age 65.

It was a dramatic change in the way we looked at health care in America, and it was controversial. The medical professions opposed Medicare. They argued that creating this health insurance plan for senior citizens--and later it was expanded to the disabled--meant socialized medicine, which meant that the government was going to make the decision about your health care--no longer you and your doctor; it would be the government making these critical decisions. So the American Medical Association and many others opposed the creation of Medicare.

Despite that opposition, the bill went forward and passed and became law. I would go out on a limb today as a politician and say it may be the most popular single political program, perhaps only second to Social Security, in the history of the United States. Overnight, it changed the treatment of our parents and grandparents. There was a time--and there aren't many left who can remember it--when it reached the point where Grandma had to come and live with you because there was no place for her to go. She perhaps worked in life and perhaps hadn't. She had a limited amount of retirement. She had very modest, if any, Social Security. She was in and out of the doctor's office and hospital. And she was in the spare bedroom. I can remember that growing up as a kid. That was considered somewhat normal at the time.

In the 1970s, that started to change. It changed, obviously, with Social Security but also with Medicare. Now your grandmother had access to a doctor and a hospital, and it didn't cost her life savings. What a big change it meant. As we learned when Medicare was created, almost half of the seniors in America had no health insurance. Now that number is 1 or 2 percent.

Medicare has worked, and it has worked to give people longer lives. That is the real proof. I can brag about it all I care to, but the bottom line is that senior citizens, starting with the creation of Medicare, started living longer, more independent lives. Isn't that what every senior wants--decent, good health and independence in the way they live? Medicare has been the key to that.

It is hard to imagine that here in 2017 we are going to initiate another debate about whether America should have Medicare. Fifty years later, we are going to go through this debate all over again? Apparently so, because the nominee of President Donald Trump to be the head of the Health and Human Services Department, Congressman Tom Price of Georgia, has said some troubling things about Medicare.

In Politico, he said: ``Nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the Federal government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare.'' What was he thinking? He obviously never looked at it from the perspective of someone of limited means who finally had a chance for the protection of health insurance at age 65. I met those people. One of them is a friend of mine. Her name is Judy. Judy lives in Southern Illinois. I met her because she is a sweet lady who is head of hospitality at a motel where I stay in Southern Illinois. She is a happy person with a big smile, and I have gotten to know her over the years. We became friends.

I came to learn one day that Judy has spent most of her life in jobs just like that. She is not a lazy person at all, but she is lucky to get part-time jobs. And when I met her at age 63, Judy told me, whispered to me once, ``Senator, I have never had health insurance in my life.'' That is a heartbreaking statement when you think about it, isn't it? This lady lived 63 years never once having health insurance. Then a couple of things happened. She asked me about the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare. Was it good

for her or not? I told her that because her income was at a certain level, she was going to qualify for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act with no premium. She was brought into the Medicare Program at age 63. For the first time in her life, she had health insurance through the Affordable Care Act--a low-income wage earner, eligible for Medicaid at no expense to her.

And it didn't come a moment too soon. On one of my next trips down South, I saw Judy. She didn't look as healthy as she once looked. Turns out she had been diagnosed with diabetes. And at age 64, she was in need--desperate need of ongoing medical care or complications were likely to set in. It was shortly after that she qualified for Medicare. So Judy has coverage. Judy has a doctor. Judy has people who care about her in her life.

That is why I wonder what Congressman Price, who wants to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, is thinking. What is he thinking about people just like her?

Let's take a look at what we have before us with his nomination. This Department touches the lives of virtually every American, Health and Human Services. I talked about Medicare and Medicaid, but this is the Department that is responsible for medical research too--the National Institutes of Health, for example. This is the Department that oversees the Centers for Disease Control, and that is the agency which had to fight the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. This is the Department that is in charge of promoting healthy births of babies in America and, of course, caring for our seniors I have spoken about.

On many of these issues I have just outlined, Congressman Tom Price of Georgia has made his views very clear. His legislative record and his core values as a Republican Congressman from Georgia are in contrast with the missions of the very Department President Trump has asked him to lead. Let's take a look.

New York Times said Congressman Price's views on the role of government in health care can ``be summed up in one word: Less.''

Congressman Price has spent his political career opposing many of the basic Federal health programs he is now being asked for permission to oversee. He has repeatedly voted against the Children's Health Insurance Program, which is a program that provides health insurance to 8 million kids in America. Even before passing the Affordable Care Act, we decided we were going to extend health insurance coverage to children, making a real commitment at the Federal level on a bipartisan basis to do it. Eight million kids are covered nationwide, 300,000 in Illinois.

Congressman Price has spent the last 6 years in a desperate attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare. If he were successful in that effort, it would eliminate health insurance for 30 million Americans and lead to dramatic premium increases for those with health insurance. Last year, it was Congressman Price of Georgia who authored the repeal and retreat reconciliation bill that, thank goodness, was vetoed by President Obama. Bound and determined Congressman Price was to eliminate ObamaCare. And for 6 years, Republicans have never had a replacement. That is why they are changing their rhetoric. It went from repeal, to repeal and replace, and now it is repair. I can't keep up with them. But I will tell you, starting with repeal is inviting a disaster in health care in America and calling into question the health insurance coverage of 30 million people in our country. So if Congressman Price had his way, it would mean less funding, fewer services, and fewer people covered.

In addition to wanting to repeal our health care law, Congressman Price wants to fundamentally and negatively change Medicare and Medicaid. Those two programs together serve about one-third of the people living in America, 120 million. He wants to eliminate the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid.

Remember Judy? Her income was too low. She couldn't pay any health insurance premiums. But because her income was so low, she qualified to be brought into the rolls of Medicaid in Illinois. Over 600,000 people just like her were brought into protection of health insurance for the first time in their lives. This is one of our best tools for primary care for people who are in low-income situations--Medicaid.

Because we included in the Affordable Care Act a guarantee that health insurance would cover mental illness and substance abuse treatment, in some parts of my State where opioid addiction and heroin deaths are so prevalent, people with health insurance have access to substance abuse treatment. Congressman Price, who would repeal ObamaCare, would eliminate that guarantee in health insurance.

Repealing the Medicaid expansion that I mentioned earlier would put 650,000 Illinoisans out of insurance, and our State would lose $37 billion in Federal funding over the next decade.

What impact does it have if a person shows up at an emergency room sick, with no insurance? In America, that person still receives care, but who pays for it? Everybody else. People with health insurance end up paying for those who receive care and don't pay for it. Medicaid makes sure that hospital receives a payment. So when Congressman Price wants to eliminate the coverage of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, it means less money coming into the hospitals across America. Some hospitals are big and prosperous, and they can take it; others cannot. In downstate Illinois, where I hail from, smalltown America, hospitals in those communities losing Medicaid, which Congressman Price would eliminate, are going to have a tough time staying open.

The Illinois Hospital Association tells us we will lose 90,000 jobs if Congressman Price's plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act goes forward--90,000 in Illinois. I need not tell you they are the best paying jobs in downstate communities. So it is a job-killer, and sadly it endangers the health of the people who count on these hospitals.

What is he thinking? He is a doctor. He should be thinking in terms of what it means when you don't protect people with basic health insurance. Right now, if you qualify for Medicaid, you are guaranteed to get health care. Under Congressman Price's plan--the man who wants to be head of Health and Human Services--the guarantee is gone. Illinois would have lost $14 billion in Medicaid funding if Congressman Price had his way.

Faced with far less Federal funding, the States would have to be forced to find ways to save money, even worse than what we currently have in our State. They might start Medicaid waiting lists or work requirements or cut benefits. Think about it. A person nominated to lead the Nation's premier health agency supports proposals that would take health care away from people.

It gets worse. Congressman Price wants to privatize Medicare. Be careful when you hear a politician stand up and say: I want to guarantee your access to health insurance. Well, I have access to a lot of things. I can walk onto the showroom floor of people who are selling $85,000, $95,000 cars. I mean, I have access to those showrooms. Can I buy one of them? No. I can't afford it. Most people couldn't. But I have access to it. So when they say you have access to health insurance, the obvious next question is, What kind of health insurance? And how am I going to pay for it? Watch out for that word ``access.'' It is a loaded political word.

Just the other night my colleague Bernie Sanders was debating Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and darned if Senator Cruz didn't come up with that word, saying we have to make sure every American has access to health insurance. No, we have to make sure every American has health insurance. How about that? Health insurance they can afford that is worth buying.

Congressman Price wants to privatize Medicare. So instead of having a government-run program for tens of millions of Americans, he wants to put seniors and the disabled in America back in the loving arms of health insurance companies. How about that? Do you remember a time when you or your family was on the phone with somebody, begging them for health insurance coverage, waiting and waiting and waiting for your turn? That is what he thinks is access, and that is what he believes is good health insurance. I don't. Ending the guarantee of Medicare for hardworking American seniors and handing them a voucher

and wishing them good luck on finding their own insurance--that may be access, but it is not protection.

The point of voucherizing Medicare is to save the government money by forcing seniors to pay more out of their own pockets. That is Congressman Price's approach, and now he wants to head up the agency in charge of Medicare. Don't take my word for it. He said: ``Nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare.''

Since 1965, when we created Medicare, listen to what has happened. Before Medicare, 51 percent of Americans 65 or older had health care coverage and nearly 30 percent lived in poverty. That is before 1965. Today, 98 percent of seniors have health care coverage, primarily because of Medicare. Fewer than 10 percent live below the poverty line. It has made a dramatic difference in their quality of life, the length of their lives, and the independence they enjoy in their lives.

In addition, by ensuring access to care for more people, Medicare has contributed to life expectancy--5 years higher today than it was in 1965. So Medicare has helped ensure more seniors have health insurance, fewer seniors are living in poverty, and people are living longer. Is that what Congressman Price considers a ``negative effect on the delivery of health care''?

There are so many different issues where Congressman Price has taken what I consider to be radical and extreme views, particularly when it comes to health care. I won't go through the long list, but I will say this. We debated the future of Medicare when I was a member of the Simpson-Bowles Commission. We were looking at the deficit situation facing our country and looking, as we should, at entitlements. Many of us said at the time: Be careful about raising the eligibility age for Medicare. For a Congressman or a Senator, a couple more years at a desk before you qualify for Medicare is not a big ask. But if you happen to be a waitress on her feet every day, suffering from arthritis or some other issues, 2 more years in the workplace literally are backbreakers. If you happen to be driving a truck, making deliveries, changing the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 or 70 is where you are going to get in trouble. That is where people actually are going to face a hardship.

Sadly, Congressman Tom Price of Georgia doesn't get it. He doesn't understand that part of it. Because he doesn't, I am going to be opposing his nomination and watching carefully and closely.

There is going to be a battle royal on the floor of the House and the Senate about funding important programs in America. The Department of Defense, as important as it is for America's security, wants all the money it can get its hands on, and I want to make sure we always spend enough to keep us safe. But the battle is going to be between defense and nondefense. Nondefense includes health care. Nondefense includes medical research. Nondefense includes education.

Now we are going to have someone here at the Department of Health and Human Services who, sadly, is not committed to the basics of Medicare and Medicaid. That is not good news for seniors and disabled people across the America. That is why I am going to oppose Congressman Price.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) is necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, we gather on the floor of the Senate at an unusually early hour. In fact, the Senate has been in session all night. The question before us is the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education. It is possibly the most controversial nomination made by our new President Trump.

This is an office which doesn't usually attract this kind of controversy. Former Secretaries of Education have included Arne Duncan, who ran the Chicago Public Schools system. He was the first to be appointed in the first term of President Obama. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee--who is a friend of mine and whom I have served with-- before his service in the Senate, was also the Secretary of Education.

The choice is usually one that is bipartisan and largely supported by not only teachers but parents and administrators and education officials from across the United States. In this case, though, we have in Betsy DeVos of Michigan a person of some controversy.

Last Saturday, I spoke to the Illinois Education Association, a group of about 150 teachers who had gathered in Springfield, IL. They have been my friends for many years. Cinda Klickna, who is the President of the organization--we have a relationship that goes back to the days when she was a classroom teacher--she now has risen through the ranks and heads up one of the major teachers organizations in our State.

Cinda is a true teacher at heart and really cares for students, cares for schools. She has devoted her life to it. She brought together 150 of her best teachers from around the State, preparing them to become more active politically in our State and Nation.

Naturally, they were tuned into this nomination of Betsy DeVos. They have a lot on their minds these days with the selection of the new President. Nearly all of them have written me, sent me an email, or contacted me personally opposing the nomination of Betsy DeVos.

I have not met Betsy DeVos. We tried to set up our schedules so I could, but it didn't work. I take as much blame as necessary for that not happening. I have studied her background. I have paid close attention to what she has said since she has been nominated and tried to understand where she comes from.

It is true that she is a person of wealth. The Prince family, which she was born into, is well known in the Midwest and in Michigan for its success in the automotive industry and many other endeavors. Then, she married into the DeVoses of Amway, another legendary business, where she has been able to accumulate some money.

There is nothing wrong with that in America. In fact, many people aspire to it and reach that goal and are admired for reaching it. It doesn't disqualify her for anything in life as far as I am concerned, but it does not necessarily qualify her for certain things in life.

It is not clear to me from her record, when it comes to the field of education, that she is prepared to serve this Nation as our next Secretary of Education. I don't find in her background qualifications for the job that I found when the Presiding Officer was chosen as Secretary of Education or when my friend Arne Duncan of Chicago, whom I had breakfast with yesterday, was chosen for the same position.

Ms. DeVos's experience in education is limited to using her family's substantial wealth to push for a so-called reform agenda in her home State of Michigan. Ms. DeVos has never been a teacher. She has never been an administrator. In fact, she has never held any

job in public education. Neither she nor her children have attended public school. That is not a disqualification. I attended Catholic schools. My children attended both. She has never been a professor or college president. She has never had anything to do with college financial aid, as I understand it. She has never been involved in a loan program--least of all one as large and complex as the Department of Education's Direct Loan Program.

She has never taken out a Federal student loan, nor have her children. Admittedly, that is not a requirement to be Secretary of Education, to have had any of these experiences, but had she had even one or two of these, we could point to real-life experiences which would prepare her for this awesome administrative responsibility.

I think these gaps in her life experience are fair to raise when a nominee to be the Nation's top authority in education has shown a lack of familiarity with even basic educational policy issues, as Ms. DeVos did in her testimony before the Senate HELP Committee.

She could not articulate the difference between proficiency and growth in the context of K-12 accountability. I can tell you that Saturday at the Illinois Education Association meeting, everyone in the room knew those terms well. They knew the central role they had played in the national debate on education since the election of President George W. Bush and the creation of No Child Left Behind.

Ms. DeVos also said in her testimony that States should be able to decide whether to enforce the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. She apparently didn't know that IDEA is already a Federal law and has been for more than 40 years. As a nominee, Ms. DeVos did not do her homework.

Is that the person we want as Secretary of Education? The experience Ms. DeVos has is limited to using her considerable wealth in favor of an agenda for so-called school choice. Ms. DeVos has spent years supporting school vouchers, which funnel taxpayers' money from public schools into private schools.

I am familiar with that model, as it was implemented here in the District of Columbia years ago. It actually started with an amendment in the Appropriations Committee by a friend of mine. Mike DeWine was the Senator from Ohio and offered an amendment to create a voucher program in the District of Columbia. It was a surprise because a markup of the Senate Appropriations Committee is not usually the place you tackle something of that moment, but he offered it, and I offered some amendments. The notion behind it was that the District of Columbia would provide vouchers for the parents of children so they could choose the schools for the kids. They wouldn't be forced to attend public schools. They might not attend charter schools. They might choose instead to use their voucher to send their kids to a private school.

I offered three amendments that day in the Appropriations Committee. The fate of those amendments told a pretty graphic story about the voucher program in the District of Columbia, and it also reflects on the candidacy of Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education.

The three amendments were, No. 1, that the teachers in the voucher schools had to have college degrees. That to me did not sound like a radical idea. Most of us assume that if you are going to teach in a school, you have a college diploma. It turns out my amendment was rejected with the DC voucher program that day when it was offered. The argument was made they needed more flexibility in terms of who would teach in these schools. That was worrisome.

The second amendment I offered said that the schools themselves, the students, had to take the same test--achievement test--as students in public schools in DC so we could measure one against the other. That amendment was also rejected. They wanted to have the right in the so- called voucher schools to have their own set of tests that they would approve, not necessarily the same test as the kids in public schools. That amendment failed.

The third amendment I was sure would pass, but it failed as well. The third amendment said the actual school buildings used for DC voucher schools had to pass the fire safety code requirements of the District of Columbia, and that was defeated too.

I voted against the DC voucher program for those reasons. I couldn't understand how you could push for a voucher program not guaranteeing that the teachers had diplomas from colleges, that they had schools in safe buildings, and that the students would be tested against the same public school test that DC Public School students faced.

That raised questions in my mind about the true intent and motive of those who were pushing voucher schools. Ms. DeVos, in Michigan, has been a proponent of voucher schools. She has pushed the expansion of charter schools and used her extraordinary wealth to insulate them from commonsense oversight and accountability in her State.

Even as the schools failed to deliver on the promises made to children of parents, Ms. DeVos continued to protect them from the same accountability standards as public schools. In 2015, a Federal review found ``an unreasonably high'' percentage of charter schools on the list of Michigan's lowest performing schools.

Today, for-profit companies operate almost 80 percent of charters in Michigan, more than any other State, and are underperforming compared to public school counterparts.

Let me be clear. I believe some charter schools can be effective. I have visited so many schools in my State, public schools, Catholic schools, charter schools, every imaginable school. I have supported high-performing successful charter programs.

I think about the KIPP program here in the District of Columbia, in Chicago, and other places, consistently producing some of the highest results, the best results, and the highest standards for students. Is there a lesson to be learned from the KIPP model for all schools? Of course there is. You have to be blind to ignore it.

But on average, charter schools don't perform any better than public schools--on average. To say that this is a model that we should embrace regardless is unfair to students. If we are going to exalt performance and results, let's do it in an honest fashion.

These schools that receive Federal and State taxpayer funding should be held accountable, as all schools. Ms. DeVos doesn't agree. Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia asked Ms. DeVos at her confirmation hearing if she agreed with equal accountability for any K-12 school that receives taxpayer funding, whether that school is public, charter, or private. She refused to agree, and at one point even said ``no''.

Ms. DeVos also seems unwilling to acknowledge that many private and charter schools are not equipped to support students with disabilities and other special needs in the way the public schools are required to do. These students, along with many low-income and minority students, would certainly be left behind in Ms. DeVos's ideal education world.

Last year--and the Presiding Officer was a major part of this decision--Congress did what seemed unimaginable. We came together and passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. ESSA makes important improvements to our elementary and secondary education program. It requires States to set academic standards, measure student achievement, and develop accountability plans for all schools receiving Federal money.

Giving Illinois parents, teachers, and principals a replacement to No Child Left Behind was a great bipartisan achievement. I do want to call out in a favorable way, my colleague, the Presiding Officer, Senator Alexander of Tennessee, and my colleague Senator Murray of the State of Washington. They did a great job.

While ESSA provides more authority to States and local school districts, it also included important Federal guardrails to ensure key civil rights protections and holds States and school districts accountable. Federal rules to carry out that important Federal task are now in doubt and in jeopardy.

I don't have confidence that, as Secretary, Ms. DeVos will appropriately carry out the Federal Government's responsibility under the law to ensure that all students--regardless of income, race, gender, or disability--are achieving.

For me, it all boils down to this. I do not believe Betsy DeVos will keep the promise we made more than 50 years ago when Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which guaranteed in the United States of America a free and equal quality public education to every child.

I am not going to give up on that promise, which really is a bedrock principle of America. There is more work to do, I am sure, but I believe we can improve America's public schools.

Let me also say that I couldn't disagree more with what Ms. DeVos has said about guns in schools.

My colleague Senator Chris Murphy represents the State of Connecticut. Both he and Senator Blumenthal have told us many times, in heartbreaking and graphic detail, what happened that day at Sandy Hook Elementary--what they went through just as observers--what they saw in the eyes of the parents who came to realize that their children had been killed--brutally killed in the classroom at that elementary school. I have had the responsibility to meet with the parents of those kids, and to try to make some sense out of a tragedy which is just nonsensical.

Ms. DeVos was asked by Senator Murphy about guns in schools. Ms. DeVos said she would not commit to opposing efforts to repeal Federal law that makes schools gun-free zones. She went on with a hard-to- explain explanation about grizzly bears and why schools may need guns to ward off grizzly bears. That kind of statement is reckless and dangerous. We should expect more of someone who wants to be our Nation's top education authority.

I am also concerned when it comes to higher education policy. Betsy DeVos has a tendency of siding with corporate and for-profit interests over students when it comes to education. Take for-profit colleges as an example. Despite years of fraud and abuse by for-profit colleges, the extent of which is unparalleled in other sectors of higher education, Ms. DeVos does not see the connection between the business model of for-profit colleges and these abuses. When she was asked by Senator Murray if she believes different types of corporate-controlled structures result in different decisions and behaviors by for-profit institutions compared to nonprofit institutions, Ms. DeVos simply answered: ``No.''

Even for-profit industry insiders have acknowledged that the business model indeed encourages abuse. In a 2015 interview with Deseret News, John Murphy, the founder of the University of Phoenix, admitted that the company experienced a shift in priorities that led to diminished student outcomes when it became a publicly traded company. He says the new focus became increasingly the value of the stock--at any cost, including ``lowering its admission standards,'' and ``jettisoning the academic model'' it had previously relied on. Other companies soon followed the University of Phoenix's corporate example. As John Murphy said, ``Phoenix was the one that got it rolling, then all the other for-profits followed them in.''

What resulted was an entire industry built on defrauding students and fleecing taxpayers. For-profit colleges and universities in America today are the most heavily subsidized private for-profit businesses in our country. These are not good corporate models. These are crony capitalist ventures that have found a way to tap into the Federal Treasury at the expense not only of taxpayers but of unwitting students and their families. Nearly every major for-profit college has been investigated or sued by one or more State or Federal agency for unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices.

The numbers tell the story, and I have told them many times. Some 10 percent of college students go to for-profit colleges and universities, and 20 percent of all the Federal education aid goes to the same schools. That is 10 percent of the students and 20 percent of the Federal aid. The schools are extraordinarily expensive. And 40 percent of all the student loan defaults in America are students from for- profit colleges and universities.

Corinthian may be one of the worst and well-known examples, though it's not unique. Corinthian, a for-profit college, falsified and inflated job placement rates to entice more students to sign up for their worthless programs. One of the tricks they used was to pay employers to hire their graduates for a couple of months so they could count them as successfully off to work after they graduated. It was a fraud, and they were caught red-handed. The company's predatory practices, once exposed, led to its bankruptcy. But tens of thousands of students were left with huge amounts of student debt and a worthless education.

Shame on us in the United States of America for the Department of Education's giving the green light to these schools to do business in America and to defraud these students, their families, and, ultimately, the taxpayers.

This embarrassing episode at Corinthian led the Department of Education to create an interagency task force to coordinate Federal oversight efforts of for-profit colleges and a new enforcement unit within the Department to investigate allegations against schools participating in the Federal title IV program. Unfortunately, at her hearing, Ms. DeVos would not commit to maintaining this important office, signaling she is ready to take the cops off the beat at the Department when it comes to for-profit colleges and universities. I am afraid that is consistent with what she has done in Michigan, where she leans toward the for-profit model--blind to the fact that many of these for-profit schools in her State are worthless. For-profit colleges, the most heavily subsidized private entities in America already, have friends in high places in Washington.

We know what happened to their stock prices over the years, as students and families realized how terrible they were and stopped attending them. Enrollment went down in many of the schools. Guess what happened the day after President Trump was elected? The stocks of for- profit colleges and universities started to rise again. They saw new opportunities. They were going to get a Department of Education that would stop enforcing the law to stop the fraud that they have been guilty of.

At her hearing Ms. DeVos gave us no hope for any different outcome. We know from recent data released by the Obama Department of Education that many for-profit colleges actually receive nearly 100 percent of their revenue from Federal taxpayers in the form of title IV funds, Department of Defense tuition assistance, and Department of Veterans Affairs GI bill. I don't know how a good business-oriented Republican could overlook the fact that these so-called for-profit schools are thinly veneered operations, gleaning every available Federal tax dollar to keep their schools open. Annually, they take in nearly $25 billion in title IV Federal funds alone.

The Department has a responsibility to ensure that taxpayer funding isn't wasted by enriching investors and executives at institutions that prey on students and don't deliver on their promises. In keeping with that responsibility, the Obama administration created new Federal regulations to ensure that career training programs are meeting the statutory requirement and that they prepare students for gainful employment. The gainful employment rule cuts off title IV funding for programs where graduates' ratio of student debt to earnings is too high. In other words, if they sink these students deeply in debt and they can't end up with a job that is worth at least as much as they need to earn to pay off their debt, then something is wrong with the program.

Ms. DeVos would not commit to maintaining this protection for students and taxpayers. Proactive oversight and enforcement is one thing, but when fraud and abuse do occur, Ms. DeVos would not even commit to make it right by the students harmed. She refused to say that she would ensure defrauded students received the Federal student loan discharges to which they are entitled under the law.

Maybe this shouldn't surprise us. For one, Ms. DeVos's would-be boss, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, operated his own for- profit college that defrauded students. And as it turns out, Ms. DeVos, a billionaire, has financial connections to the for-profit college industry. She has disclosed investments with several entities linked to for-profit colleges, including Apollo Investment Corporation, which is connected to one of the organizations that

just bought the University of Phoenix. Apollo invests in another for- profit college chain that has several programs that are in danger of losing Federal funding because of the gainful employment rule. These colleges also happen to be accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, or ACICS, which put its stamp of approval on the likes of Corinthian, ITT Tech, and the notorious Westwood College. Last year, the Obama Education Department revoked ACICS' Federal recognition, and the accreditor is now actively suing the Department over this decision. Now Ms. DeVos wants to take over the Department, and she is supposed to defend against the lawsuit when she has a financial interest in the schools that are involved?

For-profit colleges aren't the only ones who may be given free rein to prey on students under a Secretary DeVos. The private student loan industry is also licking its chops. A recent Chicago Tribune article entitled ``Student Loan Lenders May See Opportunities with Trump in The White House'' told the story. It noted that, since the election, stocks of major private student loan issuers have also gone up. The article quotes a report by financial analyst Bob Napoli that says: ``There could be substantial growth potential in the student lending business as we believe the Trump administration is likely to reduce government involvement in the student lending business.''

What is government involvement in the student lending business? Well, it is an effort to have oversight so that students and their parents aren't exploited by student loans. The fear is that with Secretary DeVos, that oversight would disappear. This government involvement in student lending, which Napoli speaks about, also includes Department of Education direct loans, which help millions of low-income and middle- class students attend college each year with lower interest rates for loans. These loans have fixed interest rates, strong consumer protection, and flexible repayment. In addition to loans, Federal Pell grants provide much needed financial support to thousands of low-income students across the country--financial support they don't have to repay.

On the other hand, private student loans often have variable interest rates that can reach nearly 20 percent, hefty origination fees, few consumer protections, and no alternative repayment option. Unlike nearly all other private debt, private student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. That is a debt they will take to the grave. A greater role for private student lenders, without strong new protections and oversight by critical agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, would be a ``sentence to debt'' for many college students across our country.

I have deep concerns about Ms. DeVos's ability to hold this job as Secretary of Education. This morning or perhaps early this afternoon, we may see history made on the floor of the Senate. It is quite possible that the only way Betsy DeVos can become Secretary of Education is if the Vice President of the United States will come and preside and cast the deciding, tie-breaking vote so that she can become a member of President Trump's Cabinet. I understand from news reports that this will be the first time in history that someone has had to rely on the Vice President's tie-breaking vote to become part of a President's Cabinet. Doesn't it say a lot about the controversy surrounding Ms. DeVos that it has reached this point, that she has to pull out all the stops--literally, all the stops--to become part of the Cabinet?

She was asked at one point--I believe by Senator Sanders of Vermont-- how much money she had actually contributed to the Republican Party over the years. Was it $200 million or more? She said she just didn't know. Well, it is not against the law to contribute money under most circumstances. It shouldn't be held against people because many folks who receive political appointments are contributors to the President who makes the appointments. That is not unusual. It has happened with both political parties, but it is seldom a person with such a thin resume--and such a big wallet--who is given such an important job. This goes too far. For Ms. DeVos to be the Ambassador to Aruba, or wherever she might be, that is a good political reward. To be placed in charge of the public education system of the United States of America, I think, is a step too far.

I have deep concerns about Ms. DeVos's ability to hold this job and her commitment to public education and protecting students from for- profit interests that seek to exploit them. Like tens of thousands of Illinois parents, teachers, and principals who call my office--as well as national education civil rights organizations--I oppose Betsy DeVos's nomination as Secretary of Education.

Two of my Republican colleagues have shown extraordinary courage in announcing their opposition to Ms. DeVos. I want to salute Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Senator Susan Collins of Maine. I am sure it wasn't easy for them to come out publicly against Ms. DeVos. That means right now that there are 50 ``no'' votes and 50 ``yes'' votes, by rough calculation. We need, at this moment in time, one more Republican to stand up and do what is right for America's children and America's students.

Who will it be? Who will join these two women from Alaska and Maine and the Democrats in saying to President Trump: We can do better. To my Republican colleagues, I say: Parents, students, teachers in your States are counting on you to stop this dangerous nomination. Please don't let them down.

I would also like to note some excerpts from mail I have received about Ms. DeVos's nomination from my home State of Illinois. Hannah is a graduate student at the University of Illinois in a K-12 librarian program. She writes:

I am a student who benefitted from IDEA. . . . Without this

Federal protection it is unlikely that I would be where I am

now. [Betsy DeVos] does not share the American value of equal

and free education. Confirming her is dangerous and reckless.

The children who need help the most will not be helped.

Barbara, mother of two Chicago public school high school students writes:

Please do not support Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary.

She knows nothing about public education. We need strong

support for public education.

Hanan, a certified and licensed speech language pathologist writes:

As . . . a Mother with three children who received therapy

while two currently do, I beg you to vote no on Betsy DeVos.

I am afraid of what will become of my children, as well as my

students if therapy services are not provided through the

public education system. Many of my student families cannot

afford private therapy. They rely on getting their therapy

through the school they attend.

Michelle, a teacher from Chicago writes:

As an educator myself, I believe Betsy DeVos is unfit to

serve as Secretary of Education. Our schools and our children

need a leader who supports public education, is qualified and

experienced, and does not have conflicts of interest.

Katie, a school counselor from Chicago writes:

I fear the impact [Betsy DeVos] will have on the lives of

our students. My greatest concern is her sheer lack of

understanding of education in the U.S. For myself and my

colleagues, many of the questions she was asked during the

hearing were topics we share a variety of opinions and could

talk about at length. The fact that she answered very few

questions, did not know what IDEA is and doesn't even seem to

understand the concerns of having guns in schools does not

qualify her to be in this position.

Alejandra, middle schooler from Bellwood, IL. She writes:

I do not believe that Mrs. DeVos is a suitable choice for

the place as Secretary of Education for the United States.

One of the many reasons for this is because she lacks

experience. Another reason . . . is because she has no plans

and the few plans that she does [have] may result in harm to

the public school system. I believe that Mrs. DeVos does not

understand how public schools function and I also believe

that she should be replaced with someone with more knowledge

and understanding on this subject. Mrs. DeVos does not

understand that public schools have the same impact on

students as private schools and should be treated fairly.

This affects my community because many cannot afford private

school and public schools are their only option. If Mrs.

DeVos were to become Secretary [of Education] she would most

likely harm the public school system and leave many students

without an education.

From Loves Park, IL, Lisa writes:

While my own child attended Catholic school, I am opposed

to vouchers. I do not complain about paying education taxes.

It was my and my husband's decision to send our child to a

private school. It was our choice. But as my immigrant

grandmother

often said, one of the things that makes America great is

education for all regardless of social class. I want every

person as well educated as they can be in grades K-12. For

goodness sake, vote No [on DeVos].

Travis, a principal from Southern Illinois writes:

As a strong supporter of public education, I ask that you

oppose the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the

U.S. Department of Education. We must have a secretary who

can commit to supporting every student in all public schools,

and provide leadership that will help our neighborhood

schools succeed. Betsy DeVos' record in education and her

performance at the recent confirmation hearing prove she is

the wrong candidate for the job. As a principal, I have

spoken with teachers, parents, students, and community

members who agree that America's future depends on a strong

investment in our Nation's public schools.

Celia from Streamwood, IL, writes:

[Betsy DeVos] will not do justice to all of our students,

because she has no experience with public schools. A lot of

school districts outside of the metropolitan area do not have

charter schools, which she is a big proponent of.

Tawnya from Chicago writes:

I attended public school in rural Illinois. My kids attend

public school in Chicago. My husband teaches at a charter

school, but you and I both know that not all charter schools

are run efficiently . . . and the record of charter schools

in Michigan, Mrs. DeVos' home state are proof of that. Mrs.

DeVos has absolutely no business making decisions about

public schools, having never attended, nor sen[t] children of

her own, nor having worked in any capacity there. I am an

evangelical, white Christian who votes in every election, and

while I might share some of her basic beliefs, I vehemently

oppose her nomination for education secretary. Please lean on

those who support her to withdraw her name and do what is

best for our Nation's children.

Peggy from Belvidere, IL, writes:

I am extremely concerned and actually appalled that Betsy

DeVos is the nominee for Secretary of Education. I have been

in public education my entire life and believe we need to

look at the millions that benefit for quality public

educators and their dedication. There are wonderful

classrooms, but also some systems in need of great

improvement, but this candidate is clearly not qualified for,

or even interested in giving a second thought to what middle-

class and poor children may need. Please vote no! Our

children deserve better than this! In this uncertain time,

please stand up for our kids' and educators!

When I went back to Springfield, IL, I asked the local office there what kind of telephone calls we have been receiving this past week. They showed me the results from Wednesday, approximately 600 calls voting no on Betsy DeVos, 3 yes.

Sarah from Hyde Park writes to me:

Mrs. DeVos would single-handedly decimate our public

education system if she were ever confirmed. Her plan to

privatize education would deprive students from a good public

education, while helping students from wealthy families get

another leg up. It would deprive teachers of a decent salary,

and it would make it harder for parents to get a good

education for their kids. Public education has lifted

millions out of poverty, has put millions in good paying

jobs, and has been the launching pad for people who went on

to cure disease and to create inventions that have changed

our society for the better. I have a daughter who will be

starting kindergarten in Chicago's public schools this fall.

Please do the right thing for her and millions of other

Illinois children who depend on public schools and who will

be negatively affected by Mrs. DeVos's confirmation.

Dr. Kranti Dasgupta, a doctor from the City of Chicago writes:

Not only do ethical concerns exist regarding [DeVos']

conflicts of interest but I am also appalled at how

unqualified she is to lead this country in such an important

arena. As a family medicine physician, I have worked and

trained in some of the poorest neighborhoods [in Chicago]. I

have seen firsthand how behind many of these children are

compared to their more affluent peers. I strongly believe [a]

voucher program would further this education gap by taking

money away from public schools that need it the most. Without

a solid education, there is little chance for many of those

children to lift themselves out of their socioeconomic

situation. I implore you to consider the well-being of these

children and give them a better chance to be productive

citizens of Illinois. Please cast your vote against Betsy

DeVos for Secretary of Education.

I have a message from Daniel from the Ukrainian Village; Michelle from Bolingbrook; Kristi, a mother of two from the Rogers Park area of Chicago; Crystal from the city of Pekin; and Kristin from Naperville,

I also want to direct my colleagues--I see my colleague on the floor from Connecticut, and I want to yield to him--to a New York Times article, which was published on June 28, 2016, entitled ``A Sea of Charter Schools in Detroit Leaves Students Adrift,'' by Kate Zernike.

Let me close by saying, this is rare. It is rare that we have a nomination for the position of Secretary of Education which has drawn such controversy. There were many things that Ms. DeVos could have been given as a reward for her loyal support of Republicans and all of the things she has done in her life, but to be entrusted with the responsibility of running America's public education system at this critical moment in our history certainly is not one of them, as far as I am concerned.

We should have taken the time and the President should have taken the time to find a person who had the resume, the qualifications, and the expertise in education policy for this important responsibility. We owe our children nothing less.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, let me say at the outset that I am glad I was here for the statement made by the Senator from South Carolina. We disagree on many things. We agree on things as well. I respect him very much and turn to him often to find bipartisan support when, frankly, no one else will answer the phone. He has been a great friend and ally and has been very blunt with me when we disagree. We do disagree today, and I do it respectfully because Senator Graham is a person I do, in fact, respect as a Senate colleague.

He is right about one thing: You would expect a new President to pick someone to be an Attorney General whom they know and trust. It might have even been someone from the campaign trail.

A classic example is 1960, when President John Kennedy was elected and chose his brother Robert Kennedy, who had worked on his campaign, to serve as Attorney General of the United States. You can't think of a clearer analogy to what has been described today. But the point that was made earlier by Senator Feinstein about the relationship of Senator Sessions with Candidate Trump is one that goes beyond familiarity, beyond support in a political campaign. In fact, they did work together, and they do agree on some fundamental issues.

If the press can be trusted--and the White House is the first to tell us they can't--but if the press can be trusted,

in a Washington Post article of January 31, 2017, we see a very clear working relationship that extends beyond the would-be Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the new President Donald Trump but includes a former key staffer for Senator Sessions, Steve Miller, and a man named Steve Bannon, who is with Breitbart News and is now a political inspiration to the Trump White House. It appears that they have a very close working relationship among them. That in and of itself is not troubling, except when you look at the issues they have worked on closely together--the issue of immigration, the Executive orders, of which the Post said Senator Sessions was the ``intellectual godfather.'' That is a clear example pointed out by this article, and that is one of the reasons it was raised by Senator Feinstein.

I understand what Senator Graham has to say: that Senator Sessions has been nothing more than a Senator loyal to his home State of Alabama in his politics and in his views on issues. I do acknowledge that and can tell you that, over 20 years, I have heard Senator Sessions's speeches repeatedly, and he does take those positions. But the thing that troubles me is the question about whether the values of the Senator from Alabama are the values we want in the Attorney General of the United States. To be very blunt, in some cases, they are not, as far as I am concerned.

I understand that President Trump won the election, but that doesn't mean, when it comes to advice and consent, that every Member of the Senate has to bow and step back a few steps for every nominee proposed by this new President. We have a responsibility to ask what is right for America, what is right in terms of values and judgments that we bring to this job, as well.

It is not a happy moment for me to say this, but I do stand in opposition to the nomination of Jeff Sessions to serve as Attorney General of the United States. The reason I don't view this as a happy moment is I have known him for 20 years. We have worked in the Senate, in committees, and on the floor. I know him personally. I met his family. And to say that I don't support him for this elevation to Attorney General is something that is hard to say, but I know that I have to. This is not a decision I have come to lightly. Senator Sessions is a colleague of over 20 years. But the question we now face is whether he is the right person to be the No. 1 law enforcement official in the United States of America.

He comes to this new opportunity in a sharply divided nation. We have a controversial new President who already has seen an Executive order blocked by the courts in what appears to be record time. Think about that for a moment. Donald Trump has been President of the United States for 19 days. In those 19 days, he has issued an Executive order stopped by the Federal courts of the land from implementation and he has dismissed an Attorney General. No other new President, in 19 days, can point to that happening. It is an indication of the types of policies he is promoting. It is also an indication that in the future, he is likely to again test the separation of powers in this government.

In this context, the need for an independent Attorney General has never been greater. We need an Attorney General who will not just serve as the President's lawyer or cheerleader but who will defend the constitutional rights of everyone, including protecting those rights from an overreaching President, if necessary. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I have carefully considered this nomination, and I am not persuaded that Senator Sessions will serve that level of independence.

Also, I have strong concerns that. if he is confirmed, he won't adequately pursue the cause of justice on a range of important issues. In his nomination hearing, Senator Sessions said on issue after issue that he would simply follow the law, enforce the law, but that doesn't come close to capturing the real role of the Attorney General. The Attorney General, as chief prosecutor in America, doesn't just ``follow the law''; that person uses his discretion to determine how the law is enforced and whom it is enforced against. Ignoring that is to ignore one of the key elements of service as Attorney General.

As Acting Attorney General Sally Yates reminded us, the Attorney General has a critical role at times in even standing up to the President. The American Bar Association standards say that the duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict. I don't have confidence, based on the answers he has given me, that Senator Sessions would follow that standard.

Here is one example. At the hearing, I introduced Senator Sessions to Alton Mills of Chicago, who in his youth was a street-level courier for drug dealers. He was sentenced to life without parole and prison at age 24--life without parole at age 24 under the Federal three strikes and you are out law. He was sentenced on a nonviolent drug offense--no guns, no violence. He sold drugs a third time and got a life sentence.

Even the judge imposing the sentence did not agree with it, but he said the law said what he had to follow and his hands were tied. Alton Mills needed to pay for his mistakes, but he did not need to spend the rest of his life in prison. In December 2015, President Obama commuted Alton's sentence, after he had served 22 years in prison.

Under the Obama administration, Justice Department prosecutors were directed to search out low-level offenders like Alton Mills and use the discretion of the Department of Justice and make sure that they were given a second chance. Senator Sessions has said that he strongly opposes these guidelines.

When it came to clemency, Senator Sessions fiercely criticized President Obama, saying he commuted sentences in ``an unprecedented reckless manner.'' Senator Sessions also said: ``So-called low-level non-violent offenders simply do not exist in the Federal system.''

When it came to changing the law that led to Alton Mills sentence, Senator Sessions led the opposition. I appreciate the work we did together on the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. But every time I have returned to Senator Sessions and asked him to work with me for the thousands still stuck in Federal prison for nonviolent drug offenses under the old sentencing disparities which we have now rejected, he refused, time and again. He has opposed every bipartisan effort, including a bill that I put together with Senator Grassley, Senator Cornyn, and others to allow individuals to petition on an individual basis for sentence reductions.

So to sum it up, Senator Sessions has staunchly opposed using prosecutorial discretion, clemency, or legislation to address the plight of thousands of people like Alton Mills. What can we expect of Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the next 4 years when it comes to criminal justice and criminal sentencing reform? I am afraid we can't expect a caring person to take a look at the simple injustice in our system.

I have listened. time and again, as many other colleagues have, to the statements made by Senator Sessions on the issue of immigration. I have said before on this floor--and I will say it again--that I am the proud son of an immigrant. For generations. America has been renewed and enriched through immigration. Since World War II, we have set an example to the world when it comes to providing a safe haven for refugees.

We have four Hispanic Senators in this Chamber. Three of them are Cuban Americans. What can we say about the Cuban refugees who came to the United States by the hundreds of thousands to flee the oppression of Castro? They were not subjected to extreme vetting. In most cases, we said: If you can find freedom in this country you are welcome. They have made America a better nation for it.

Since World War II, that has been America's standard. Now it is being challenged. It is hard to understand how the Trump administration could consider spending so much on a Mexican wall that Texas Republican Congressman Will Hurd, whose district covers 800 miles of the southwest border, described as ``the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border.''

I have come to this floor and voted for more money for walls and obstacles and technology on that border than I ever imagined necessary, in the hopes that we could finally put to rest this notion that we could always do more. I wonder what image it creates of this

country, as we continue to talk about walls and banning travel.

President Trump signed an Executive order on January 27 banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, and banning refugees from those countries into the United States. As I go through the list of the people who were affected by this, overwhelmingly they are women and children, victims of war, terrorism, and persecution. Many of them have been waiting literally for years to come to the United States. Since World War II, we have accepted so many refugees from Eastern Europe, from Vietnam, from Cuba, as I mentioned earlier, and from Yugoslavia. Over 100,000 Soviet Jews make their home in the United States because we accepted them as refugees.

Now President Trump has issued this Executive order that is being challenged in court, and we will know within a matter of days whether it will be stayed or continued, contested or if it will stand as law. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates said that she could not stand to defend that order. She felt it was illegal and unconstitutional.

The question, obviously, is what would the new Attorney General, if it is Jeff Sessions do, when faced with that same challenge? My fear is that he would not stand in independent judgment of the actions of the President. That to me is unfortunate and falls short of what we expect from the Attorney General.

We need someone like Edward Levi, the longtime president of the University of Chicago, who served as a truly nonpartisan Attorney General under President Ford. He restored honor and integrity to the Justice Department after Watergate. Where would Senator Sessions stand once confirmed? Would he defend the President's Executive orders? Would he stand up to the President if he disagreed with him? I have strong concerns.

Mr. President, one of the most important issues when it comes to the Attorney General is the oversight of the Civil Rights Division, which is, in fact, the crown jewel of the Justice Department, as far as I am concerned. It is responsible for protecting the civil rights of all Americans.

Senator Cory Booker and Congressmen John Lewis and Cedric Richmond gave powerful testimony at Senator Sessions' hearing. They discussed their concerns about the Justice Department under his leadership and whether it would protect the civil and voting rights of all Americans. I took their words to heart. I want to talk specifically about their concerns about the Voting Rights Act.

One month from now, we will recognize the 52nd anniversary of what came to be known as Bloody Sunday--March 7, 1965. John Lewis and Rev. Hosea Williams led 600 brave civil rights activists in a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL. The marchers were brutally beaten as State troopers turned them back and chased them down. John Lewis was beaten unconscious and nearly killed.

A few months after Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, guaranteeing that the right to vote would not be restricted through clever schemes like poll taxes and literacy tests devised to keep African Americans from voting.

In 2006, Congress voted to reauthorize that same act after holding 21 hearings, hearing testimony from more than 90 witnesses, and receiving 15,000 pages of evidence.

Congressman Lewis said in an op-ed about the ongoing need for that act:

Congress came to a near-unanimous conclusion: While some

change has occurred, the places with a legacy of long-

standing, entrenched and state-sponsored voting

discrimination still have the most persistent, flagrant,

contemporary records of discrimination in this country. While

the 16 jurisdictions affected by Section 5 represent only 25

percent of the nation's population, they still represent more

than 80 percent of the lawsuits proving cases of voting

discrimination.

While Senator Sessions ultimately voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, his comments about the law have been very troubling.

In contrast to Congressman Lewis's statement about the need for a strong Voting Rights Act, Senator Sessions repeatedly criticized the law's section 5 preclearance provision, which required certain jurisdictions--including, but not limited to, Alabama--to ``preclear'' any changes to their voting laws with the Department of Justice. At his nomination hearing last month, Senator Sessions reiterated his view that section 5 of the law, in his words, was ``intrusive.''

He also celebrated the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder when a divided Court--5 to 4--gutted the Voting Rights Act and struck down the preclearance provision. That decision left the Department of Justice with fewer tools to protect Americans' right to vote. Nonetheless, on the day of that awful decision, Senator Sessions stated: ``[The decision was] good news, I think, for the South, in that [there was] not sufficient evidence to justify treating them disproportionately.'' Senator Sessions was wrong to dismiss the vital role that preclearance has played in protecting voters from discriminatory laws.

When Senator Sessions came to my office for a personal meeting before this hearing began, I sat down with him and talked about the Voting Rights Act. I gave to him a book written by Carol Anderson. She is a political science professor at Emory University in the State of Georgia. The book is entitled ``White Rage.'' Carol Anderson systematically goes through the history of race in America after the Civil War, and she points out in each section how Congress would, on one hand, give rights to African Americans and then turn around and take them away. The most recent example relates to the Voting Rights Act itself and all the efforts of the 1960s to guarantee that minorities had the right to vote in America. She follows it with the undeniable record of efforts toward voter suppression when it comes to minorities in the United States.

I pointed this out to Senator Sessions because he has been in denial over this reality. I told him about hearings that we held in Ohio, in Florida, taking election officials, putting them under oath--officials from both political parties--and asking them point blank: Before you established the need for these voting restrictions in your State, what was the incidence of widespread voter fraud that led you to believe it was necessary? And the answer repeatedly was, there was none. No incidents of widespread voter fraud to speak of. No incidents of anything substantial when it came to prosecution. Clearly the motive behind these voter suppression laws are just that--to suppress voters from their opportunity to vote.

What can we expect of Attorney General Sessions on this issue? I am afraid, based on his statements, his record, his voting, we can expect the worst.

Example: A three-judge Federal appeals court struck down a North Carolina law that required voter ID and limited early voting. The court found that the law was crafted and passed with ``racially discriminatory intent,'' in violation of the Constitution and section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In the decision, this Federal court noted this regarding the North Carolina statute:

Before enacting [the] law, the legislature requested data

on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon

receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted

legislation that restricted voting and registration in five

different ways, all of which disproportionately affected

African Americans.

We are still facing this challenge in America. I wish it were not the case. I had hoped at this point in my life that I would be pointing to our problems with race as something from the past, but it is a current challenge we face, and it is a challenge the Attorney General must face squarely. I do not believe that Attorney General Jeff Sessions will do that, and that is why I can't support him for that position.

Of course there is also Senator Sessions' decision as U.S. attorney to bring the 1985 Perry County case when he was in Alabama. He prosecuted three African-American civil rights activists for voter fraud. All three were acquitted. That case prompted former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who was an attorney for the defendants, to send a letter to members of our committee saying, ``To use prosecutorial discretion to attempt to criminalize voter assistance is wrong and should be disqualifying for any aspirant to the Nation's highest law enforcement post.''

Senator Sessions' statements and his records are particularly concerning in

light of President Trump's recent repeated, baseless claims about voter fraud in the 2016 Presidential election. Make no mistake--President Trump's false claim that there were millions of fraudulent votes cast in the last election is an excuse for further voter suppression efforts.

It is imperative that the Department of Justice be led by someone who values the vital role the Department plays in protecting the right to vote. Given Senator Sessions' dismissive comments about the Voting Rights Act and his history of supporting burdensome voting laws, I am not confident he is prepared to do that.

Senator Sessions' record on religious freedom also raises significant questions. The free exercise of religion is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution. However, Senator Sessions has only been outspoken in his defense of religious freedom for some faiths. For example, he denounced a 1997 court order that limited prayer in Alabama public schools, calling it ``one more example of the effort by the courts to eliminate the natural expression of religious belief from public life.''

A year later, he introduced a Senate resolution ``affirming the right to display the Ten Commandments in public places, including government offices and courthouses.'' He said ``[w]e've got to end the hostility toward the display of the Ten Commandments in public places.''

But he has been much more ambivalent about Islam. He has referred to Islam as ``a toxic ideology'' and said of American Muslims ``our nation has an unprecedented assimilation problem.'' When President Trump first proposed his ban on Muslim immigrants during the 2016 campaign, Senator Sessions said, ``I think it's appropriate to begin to discuss this, and he has forced that discussion.''

I am also concerned about Senator Sessions' support of laws and cases that permit individuals and companies to discriminate against other Americans on the basis of religious beliefs. For example, in 2015, the Supreme Court held that marriage equality is the law of the land in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision. Sessions referred to the decision as an:

effort to secularize, by force and intimidation, a society

that would not exist but for the faith which inspired people

to sail across unknown waters and trek across unknown

frontiers.

After disparaging the decision, Senator Sessions went on to cosponsor the First Amendment Defense Act, which would permit widespread discrimination against LGBTQ individuals on the basis of religious beliefs.

Senator Sessions also praised the Supreme Court's troubling 5-4 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act permits closely held, for-profit corporations to deny contraceptive coverage to employees due to religious objections.

If confirmed to be the next Attorney General, Senator Sessions will be responsible for protecting the rights of all Americans, regardless of their faith or beliefs. That is why I am deeply concerned about Senator Sessions' record, which suggests that he may prioritize the freedom of certain faiths over others, and permit religious freedom to be used as a guise for discrimination.

The Attorney General also has great power to determine how the Department of Justice's resources will be prioritized. I am alarmed that Senator Sessions will not commit to support funding for important programs like COPS and Byrne-JAG. And I am deeply disappointed that he will not commit to increase Justice Department resources for Chicago to address the city's surge in gun violence.

I asked Senator Sessions about this when we met in person before his hearing and again as part of my written hearing questions. It is well known that there's been an epidemic of gun violence facing the City of Chicago. There were more than 760 homicides in Chicago last year, a 58 percent increase over the previous year. More than 4,300 people were shot last year in the city. It is a crisis.

At our meeting, I handed Senator Sessions a copy of Mayor Emanuel's plan to improve public safety. The plan calls for hiring nearly a thousand more Chicago police; more training and equipment, like body- worn cameras and gunshot detection technology; more mentoring programs for youth; and reforms to rebuild trust and cooperation between police and the community.

All of these are areas where the Justice Department can, and must, help. The Justice Department's COPS program helps local police departments put more cops on the beat. The Byrne-JAG program helps them buy equipment. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention provides mentoring and violence prevention funds. And the Civil Rights Division was invited in by me, the mayor, and the state Attorney General to review the Chicago Police Department's practices. On January 13, they reached an agreement in principle with the City to pursue much-needed reforms and to seek to enforce the reforms through a consent decree.

I asked Senator Sessions about his support for these efforts, especially in light of President Trump's tweets where he has urged Mayor Emanuel to ask for Federal help--even though the Mayor has already asked for aid--and threatened to ``send in the Feds'' to Chicago. But Senator Sessions has steadfastly refused to make any commitment of Justice Department resources to help reduce Chicago's violence. He refused to commit to increase Justice Department funding for Chicago. He wouldn't even commit not to cut funding. He refused to commit to honor the agreement in Principle that the Justice Department signed with the city to reform the Chicago Police Department.

And he refused to commit not to request budget cuts to the COPS and Byrne-JAG programs and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

This is unfathomable to me. Now is not the time for the Justice Department to turn its back on the City of Chicago and its people. It is hard to understand how the Trump administration could think about spending $15 billion on an inexpensive and ineffective wall and not commit to spend another penny to address gun violence in Chicago. If the administration took just 1 percent of what they want for a border wall and used it to help Chicago implement the mayor's public safety plan with more police, training, and youth job programs, we could save a lot of lives. But instead Senator Sessions and the Trump administration are threatening to cut Federal funds for Chicago. Their priorities are profoundly misplaced.

Senator Sessions did say he would increase Federal gun prosecutions. That may be helpful, but it is not enough to reduce gun violence. The Chicago Sun-Times looked at Federal gun prosecutions over the past 5 years and found that cities like Detroit and Baltimore had significantly more than Chicago, but their per-capita homicide rates are still higher that Chicago's. So that is not enough.

Senator Sessions also seems to think that immigrants are at the root of most of our Nation's crime problems. That is why he pushes to withhold critical Federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities. But many studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes than native-born individuals. And there is no evidence whatsoever that undocumented immigrants are responsible for any significant proportion of the murders in Chicago. If sanctuary cities are the problem, why did a sanctuary city like New York City experience record low crime in 2016? Senator Sessions' priorities when it comes to these issues does not give me confidence.

I am also troubled by the casual approach that Senator Sessions has adopted when it comes to Russian interference in our Presidential election.

Election Day 2016 is a day that will live in cyber infamy. A foreign adversary intentionally manipulated America's Presidential election. Amid warnings of Russian manipulation going back to early October, President Donald Trump not only resisted these findings, he has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and dismissed the true nature of Putin and his threat. As early as July of last year, then-candidate Trump urged a foreign adversary of the United States to conduct espionage against Hillary Clinton. He said, ``I will tell you this, Russia: If you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing . . . I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.'' And

President Trump, who has impulsively attacked just about anyone who criticizes him, has not criticized the one person who is guilty of sponsoring this cyber attack: Vladimir Putin.

This is bigger than one election or one person. This is about our national security, and we should take it seriously.

For those who have been following Putin's actions over the last several years, this attack should come as no surprise. Russia has conducted cyber warfare against Ukraine, the Netherlands, Georgia, Lithuania, Estonia, and a host of other nations. Russia now appears focused on disrupting the upcoming German elections over Putin's dislike of Chancellor Merkel. And it could happen again here.

We need to know that the next U.S. Attorney General will take this matter seriously as well and will be independent of the White House. This means allowing career Justice Department prosecutors and the FBI to follow the facts and the law.

I am concerned about Senator Sessions when it comes to this assignment. I asked Senator Sessions questions about this. In his written responses, he admitted that he has not even read the January 6 intelligence community assessment on Russian involvement in the U.S. election--neither the classified nor the unclassified version. As recently as last week, Senator Sessions admitted he still has not read this report.

The unclassified version incidentally is just a few pages if you don't count the annexes. I read it in less than 15 minutes.

Senator Sessions, seeking to be the top law enforcement official in the land, should have found time to read this report. His failure to do so is inexplicable. This does not give me confidence that Senator Sessions is giving this matter the attention it deserves.

I also asked Senator Sessions if he would commit not to impede or terminate ongoing Justice Department or FBI investigations into Russian involvement in the 2016 election. He would not make any commitment about allowing investigations to continue if confirmed.

And I asked Senator Sessions if he would recuse himself from any FBI or DOJ investigation into Russian efforts to influence the election. He said he was not aware of a basis to recuse himself.

Well, Department of Justice regulations call for recusals from investigations due to personal or political relationships. And it is clear that Senator Sessions has a close relationship with President Trump, including on Russia issues. Senator Sessions was a prominent supporter of the President's campaign.

On March 3, 2016, then-candidate Trump announced that Sessions would serve as chairman of Mr. Trump's National Security Advisory Committee and that he would ``provide strategic counsel to Mr. Trump on foreign policy and homeland security.''

In a July 31, 2016 interview with CNN, Senator Sessions stated the following:

What I want to tell you is that Hillary Clinton left her

email system totally vulnerable to a Russian penetration.

It's probably clear that they have what was on that system. I

have people come up to me all the time and say, why don't

you--if you want to find out where those 30,000 emails are,

why don't you ask the Russians? They're the ones that have

them . . . The big issue is, can we, should we be able to

create a new and positive relationship with Russia. I think

it's . . . it makes no sense that we're at the hostility

level we are.

On August 15, 2016, USA Today published an article entitled ``Sen. Jeff Sessions backs Donald Trump on Russia Policy'' detailing how Sessions changed his hawkish position on Russia to align with then- candidate Trump's statements. It said:

"Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has long supported increased

military spending and tough talk about the threat Russia

poses to the U.S. and its allies in Europe. Since becoming an

adviser to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump,

however, those principles appear to have undergone some

revisions. Trump has upended traditional conservative caution

toward Russia by exchanging niceties with President Vladimir

Putin and expressing hope for warmer relations. And Sessions,

a frequent surrogate for the Trump campaign in public

appearances, is nodding in agreement.''

On October 7, 2016, Politico published a story entitled ``Lobbyist advised Trump campaign while promoting Russian pipeline: Richard Burt helped shape the candidate's first foreign-policy speech while lobbying on behalf of a Moscow-controlled gas company.'' The Politico story noted that the lobbyist in question ``attended two dinners this summer hosted by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, who had been named chairman of Trump's national security committee'' and that the lobbyist ``was invited to discuss issues of national security and foreign policy, and wrote white papers for Sessions on the same subjects . . . `'

In an October 30 interview with DefenseNews, Senator Sessions said, ``The United States and Russia should be able to be far more harmonious than we are today.''

Clearly, an investigation into the reported Russia-Trump allegations has the potential to significantly impact the interests of Senator Sessions' soon-to-be-boss, if he's confirmed, and his close political ally.

Again, Senator Sessions' answers to my questions do not give me confidence. In the end, the American people deserve the truth about Russian involvement in our election. The stakes too high to ignore.

There are other aspects of Senator Sessions' record that give me serious concerns about what his priorities would be if confirmed as Attorney General, including his vote against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act; his votes against the Detainee Treatment Act and the McCain-Feinstein Army Field Manual Amendment; his past statement that the use of prison chain gangs was ``perfectly proper''; his opposition to laws such as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act; his questioning of the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship; and his refusal to commit to recuse himself from involvement in any case, investigation or Office of Legal Counsel decision involving the receipt of emoluments by President Trump. All of these factors have weighed on me as I have considered this nomination

Mr. President, let me conclude.

We need a nonpartisan Attorney General with the independence, judgment, and backbone to stand up to a President when his actions are illegal or unjust. Senator Sessions is an able politician. He has been an able representative of his State of Alabama. But he is not the right person to serve as Donald Trump's Attorney General.

The Justice Department's motto ``qui pro domina justitia sequitur'' refers to an Attorney General ``who prosecutes on behalf of justice.'' Based on his record and his responses to questions over the past few weeks, I am not confident Senator Sessions would be such an Attorney General. I cannot support his nomination, and I will vote against him.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Carper), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Carper), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Carper), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, I would like to respond to the statement made by the Republican whip, my friend from Texas, Senator Cornyn. This is day 20 of the Trump administration. Day 20. Not quite 3 weeks since President Trump was sworn in as President of the United States. This evening at about 7 p.m., we will vote on his nominee for Attorney General. So in the first 20 days of his administration, he will have his Attorney General.

What the Senator from Texas failed to relate was the experience we went through not that long ago when President Obama wanted to fill the vacancy of the Attorney General's office with Loretta Lynch, a woman who had served as prosecutor, U.S. attorney, lifelong professional in the Department of Justice, who went through the regular hearing process in the Judiciary Committee, was reported from the committee, and she was sent more than 20 additional questions by Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama--more questions which of course, she dutifully answered, as she was required to do. Then she was reported to the calendar, where she sat for 2 months. A 2-month vacancy in the Attorney General's office. Why? Was there something substantively wrong or controversial about Loretta Lynch? If there happened to be, I never heard it.

Where then was that argument about national security and leaving the Attorney General nomination in limbo when it was President Obama seeking to fill that spot? Well, we didn't hear it at all. In fact, the Senator from Texas said: Oh, it was related to another bill and whether that bill was going to be called; it was actually Senator Reid who was holding it up.

From where I was sitting--and I came to the floor at one point and said: What are we waiting for? This lady is eminently qualified. She has been reported by the committee. She has answered all the questions. She languishes on the calendar.

She wasn't alone in this experience, incidentally. The Executive Calendar, as the Obama Presidency ended, was filled with nominees who were held for

no obvious reason by the Republicans. They had been reported from the committees. They were ready to fill judicial vacancies across the United States and other posts. And the official position of the Republican Senators happened to be: We are not going to ever let people vote on them because we are hoping and praying we will get a Republican President who can fill those same vacancies with people of our political persuasion. That was the reality.

That was the same reality that left Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, languishing for almost 1 year. The Republicans and the leaders in the Senate would not give him a hearing or a vote. And Senator McConnell came to the floor and said: I won't even meet with him.

So when I hear these protests now from the Republican side of how we are not moving quickly enough on these nominations, we are. And I think we are moving in the appropriate way. We are asking hard questions.

And I don't subscribe to the position of the Senator from Texas, who preceded me here, when it comes to the Voting Rights Act. I listened as Senator Sessions of Alabama said that he believed the Shelby County v. Holder decision was a victory for the South when it ended preclearance of legislation that could have a direct impact on the voting rights of individuals. And I do recall what happened when the Federal court took a specific look at North Carolina's legislation statutes as it related to voting and said the North Carolina legislature had ``with surgical precision'' found ways to exclude African Americans from voting--not 20 years ago but just a few months ago, before this last election.

This is a critical issue, and it is interesting to me that last night the dustup on the floor involving the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Warren, was about the same issue, the Voting Rights Act.

In a letter sent by Coretta Scott King to Strom Thurmond--then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee--when Senator Sessions, before he was Senator, was being considered for Federal judgeship-- this is what Coretta Scott King said in the letter. I am not going to read the personal and controversial sections that have been pointed out before, but it is critical to what her message happened to be. She said to Strom Thurmond in a letter about Senator Sessions moving to the Federal bench:

Free exercise of voting rights is so fundamental to

American democracy that we cannot tolerate any form of

infringement of those rights. Of all the groups who have been

disenfranchised in our Nation's history, none has struggled

longer or suffered more in the attempt to win the vote than

black citizens. No group has had access to the ballot box

denied so persistently and intently.

It was a critical issue over 30 years ago when Mr. Sessions was then being considered for a Federal judgeship. It is a critical issue to this day because of two things: a decision by the Supreme Court, which basically took away one of the major powers of the Voting Rights Act, and, secondly, a coordinated effort by Republicans across the United States to suppress the vote of minorities and particularly African Americans.

I point directly to that North Carolina decision for what I just said. What they have tried to do is to systematically reduce the likelihood that poor people and minorities will vote. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, I held public hearings in Ohio and Florida. Those hearings were held in those States because they had proposed new restrictions on voters.

So, both in Cleveland and in Florida, I brought the election officials--Democrats and Republicans--before my subcommittee, put them under oath and asked: What was the incidence of widespread voter fraud in the elections in your State which led you to make it more difficult and challenging for the people of your State to vote?

The answer was: There were none. There were no examples of widespread fraud. There were only a handful of prosecutions for voter fraud. That told the story. This didn't have anything to do with voter fraud. This had to do with discouraging turnout in areas that were more friendly to Democratic candidates, period. So when we make a big issue of the position of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions on the Voting Rights Act, it is with good cause.

It is historically an issue which has haunted the United States since the Civil War, when excuses after excuses were made for African Americans seeking the right to vote, and people were denied the right to vote with poll taxes and literacy tests and ridiculous standards to this very day, when the Republican Party strategy is to diminish the African-American vote by voter suppression.

Is it important that we know the position of Senator Jeff Sessions on the Voting Rights Act? To me, it is one of the most important questions to be asked. The fact that it evoked controversy on the Senate floor with Senator Warren last night is an indication of how seriously we take it. Yes, we have added a few more hours to the debate. I disagree with the Senator from Utah and the Senator from Texas who say: You know how it is going to end; why are you wasting our time?

I don't think it is a waste of time to have a fulsome debate in the Senate on something as fundamental as protecting the right of every American citizen to vote.

I yield the floor.

I will be happy to yield.

Through the Chair, I will respond to the Senator from Montana. Here is the difference. Eight years ago, when Barrack Obama was elected President and was to be sworn in on January 20, he brought together his team to serve in his Cabinet and said to them: The first thing you need to do is to follow the law. You need to file all the papers required of you by the ethics standards of the United States Government.

So, I am told that on January 8, almost 2 weeks before he was sworn in, their paperwork was on file. So they had complied with the law and they were awaiting their opportunity for a hearing. Contrast that with the current situation. There are still proposed Cabinet members by President Trump who have not filed their required ethics disclosures.

Why is it important? Because we believe that though we can't reach in and require the President to file his income tax returns, which he has steadfastly refused to do, we know what the standards are when it comes to many of those departments.

The standards are very demanding. There has to be a disclosure and there has to be a process of divestment. If I am about to become the head of an agency and my personal wealth includes holdings that have a direct impact on that agency, I am required by law to divest myself of those holdings. The more complicated my portfolio and net worth might be, the more challenging this is.

Penny Pritzker, a very wealthy individual from Chicago, was chosen by President Obama to be the Secretary of Commerce. It took her 6 months, I say to the Senator from Montana, to fully comply with the law so she could go through the hearing--6 months. Now we hear complaints from the Republicans: Well, why aren't the Trump nominees going through more quickly? Why aren't our billionaires put on the fast-track?

I am sorry, but Trump billionaires are subject to the same rules as all billionaires. They have to file the necessary documents. I might add, you can go back a little further in history and find disqualifications for Cabinet positions. Oh, you hired someone in your

household to work for you and you did not pay their Social Security, their FICA? Sorry, you are disqualified from being in a Cabinet.

Now we have Trump nominees where that is happening--not with frequency, but it is happening--and it doesn't seem to be even close to a disqualification. So it clearly is a double standard. I would say to the Senator from Montana, the fact that the Obama nominees moved through as quickly as they did showed they took the law seriously, they made the disclosures they were required to make, and in virtually every case had unique qualifications for the job.

To put Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education next to Arne Duncan, who headed up the Chicago Public School System as Secretary of Education, is to show that contrast.

I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) is necessarily absent.