Floor Statements

Under the previous order, the Senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m.

Thereupon, the Senate, at 12:45 p.m., recessed until 2:15 p.m. and reassembled when called to order by the Presiding Officer (Mrs. Capito).

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, this Saturday, March 2, the great State of

Texas celebrates the 183rd anniversary of its independence from Mexico.

Texas became a free republic--for 9 years our own nation--and soon after became one of these United States.

As is tradition, in commemoration of the brave Texans who fought and died for liberty and the rule of law, let us reflect a moment on the immortal words of Colonel William Travis, the leader of the besieged forces at the Alamo. His clarion call for reinforcements resounded around Texas and still rings with strength today.

Indeed, it has a special place in my heart because the very first time I spoke on this Senate floor, I read from Travis's letter from the Alamo. It was during Senator Rand Paul's extended filibuster in defense of individual liberty. It fit then, and it fits now. It is a letter that has stood for the ages--written to us today, demanding that we stand with all good and free people against oppression and reminding us that there are some things worth dying for.

The letter reads as follows:

Commandancy of the Alamo,

Bexar, February 24th, 1836

To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World:

Fellow citizens & compatriots--I am besieged, by a thousand

or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna--I have sustained a

continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not

lost a man.

The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion,

otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the

fort is taken--I have answered the demand with a cannon shot,

& our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never

surrender or retreat.

Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism &

everything dear to the American character, to come to our

aid, with all dispatch--The enemy is receiving reinforcements

daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in

four or five days.

If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain

myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never

forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country--

Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis

Lieutenant Colonel Commandant

P.S. The Lord is on our side--When the enemy appeared in

sight we had not three bushels of corn--We have since found

in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & got into the walls 20

or 30 head of Beeves.

Travis

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I rise to strongly support the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from Louisiana and the Senator from Mississippi.

We should pay our Coast Guard. It is not right that we aren't paying the Coast Guard. Right now, every other military branch is being paid. The Army is being paid. The Navy is being paid. The Air Force is being paid. The Marines are being paid. Those in the Coast Guard are not being paid even as they are risking their lives.

Many of us in Texas and along the gulf coast saw the incredible heroism of the Coast Guard in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, during which so many brave men and women risked their lives to save thousands upon thousands of innocents. They should be paid. I think it is important for the American people to understand what just happened here because it is highly consequential. It is easy for things to get lost in procedural gobbledygook and to assume: Well, this is some back and forth about the shutdown and about the wall. It has nothing to do with any of that.

What Senator Kennedy did was to bring forward a bill to pay the Coast Guard. The bill did nothing else. It didn't address any aspect of the shutdown. It didn't address any aspect of the wall. It simply said: Let's pay the men and women in the Coast Guard--yes or no. That means you can be a yes on that, whether you think we need to secure the border and have a steel barrier or whether you support open borders. It doesn't say anything either way. It just says that the men and women in the Coast Guard deserve paychecks.

We could have passed that right here today. There is one reason and one reason only that we didn't. It is because the Democratic leader stood up and said: I object.

I note that if there are Democrats on the Democratic side of the aisle who are not comfortable with that, who agree that the Coast Guard should be paid, let me encourage my Democratic colleagues to say so because it is their party's leader who has lodged an objection on behalf of, effectively, every Democratic Senator.

The Democrats are fond of using the phrase ``hostage-taking.'' They are, quite literally, holding the men and women of the Coast Guard hostage because they want to win a political victory against the President. Their objective here is to have the President back down and to have not a single mile of border wall built--never mind that the Democratic leader and every Democrat in this Chamber voted in 2013 to build and fund 350 miles of border wall. That was 350 miles that every Democrat in this Chamber voted for.

We are in a shutdown today because they are now unwilling to fund 234 miles of border wall, which is less than they voted for in 2013.

We understand that politics rears its head in this business, and the Democrats want to defeat the President politically, and so the substance is secondary to trying to get the partisan victory over the President. Let me suggest that this ought to be an issue. We keep fighting back and forth on whether securing the border or having open borders is a good idea, but this ought to be an issue that should be real simple.

Senator Kennedy brought forward a clean bill that does one thing and one thing only. It pays the salaries of the men and women in the Coast Guard. If the Democratic leader hadn't objected, that would have passed right now. The President could have signed it tonight. The paychecks could have gone out right now for every man and woman in the Coast Guard.

If you are serving in the Coast Guard in any of our 50 States, let me say: No. 1, thank you for your service. Thank you for your heroism. Thank you for the amazing difference you make. You deserve to be paid. You will be paid. But if you want to know why you aren't being paid right now, it is because the Democratic leader objected to your getting a paycheck.

It is my hope that the Democratic Senators will go to their leader and say: This is a bad idea for Democratic Senators to hold hostage the paychecks of the men and women of the Coast Guard.

We should pay the Coast Guard, and that ought to be something that commands unanimous, bipartisan support.

I yield the floor.

Would the Senator from Alaska yield for a question?

Did the bill that Senator Kennedy brought forward do anything--anything else--beyond simply paying the men and women of the Coast Guard?

So if the Democrats had not objected and it had passed and the House had passed it and sent it to the President, could we get the men and women of the Coast Guard paid right now, today, and get that passed into law?

So the only thing that is necessary to pass a clean bill, paying the salaries of every man and women in the Coast Guard, is for the Democratic Senators to withdraw their objection; is that correct?

Thank you.

Madam President, there is an old saying in Texas among Texas trial lawyers. If you have the facts, you bang the facts. If you have the law, you bang the law. If you don't have either one, you bang the table. We have seen a whole lot of table banging right here on this floor.

The Senator from Colorado spent a great deal of time yelling, spent a

great deal of time attacking me personally. He did at one point briefly rise to the defense of my father. I appreciate that gesture, but he spent a lot of time yelling.

I will say, in my time in the Senate, I don't believe I have ever bellowed or yelled at one of my colleagues on the Senate floor, and I hope in my time before me, I never do that. I think we should discuss issues and substance and facts and not simply scream and yell at each other.

Let's go over some of the facts. In the angry speech of the Senator from Colorado, he did not dispute, No. 1, that he and every other Senate Democrat in 2013 voted for 350 miles of border wall. That is a fact. He has voted for 350 miles of border wall, as did every other Democrat in this Chamber at that time.

No. 2, he did not dispute that in December of last year, the then- Republican House of Representatives voted to fund the government--to fund the entirety of the government--and to secure the border, and the Senator from Colorado, and I believe every other Democrat, filibustered that bill and caused the shutdown.

I voted to take up that bill. You voted to take up that bill. Had we taken up the bill, had we simply passed the bill the House of Representatives had passed funding the government and securing the border, the government would never have shut down.

It takes some degree of chutzpah to stand up, after filibustering funding for the government, as the Democrats did, and blame the shutdown on the opposing party.

The Senator from Colorado did not dispute the Republican House voted to fund the government, and he and his Democratic colleagues filibustered that, which caused the shutdown.

No. 3, the Senator from Colorado did not dispute that the stated reason the Democrats filibustered that bill is because it authorized the funding of 234 miles of wall.

I have to say, I find it amusing that a new adjective has crept in. It is now not 234 miles of wall; it is medieval wall. I don't know if there is something in there that has a moat and has catapults that are throwing burning tar--medieval wall now.

It is kind of an odd thing. It does raise the question: Well, if walls are medieval, why did the Senator from Colorado and every other Democrat in 2013 vote for 350 miles of medieval wall? To the extent walls are medieval, they presumably were medieval in 2013, just as much as they are now.

The President has a good observation. He said: I will tell you something else that is medieval, the wheel. There is a reason the wheel is medieval--because it rolls things, and it works. Walls are effective.

Unlike the Senator from Colorado, I live in a border State. We have 1,200 miles of border. I have spent a great deal of time down at the border with Border Patrol agents. We have miles and miles of wall right now that are working. I have been to those walls--not once, not twice but over and over again.

One of the rich things about this Chamber is, Senators from States nowhere near the border presume to lecture border States about what it is like on the border and what works securing the border. Walls are effective. I will tell you, every single Border Patrol agent I have asked----and I have asked dozens, probably hundreds of Border Patrol agents--are walls effective, unquestionably, they say yes.

Let's not destruct the straw man. Walls are not the only thing. You need technology. You need boots on the ground. You need all sorts of other tools. The critical point in intercepting someone crossing over illegally is the time between detection and interception, and what a wall does is slows down the traffickers to give the Border Patrol time to intercept them.

By the way, we have seen it over and over again in San Diego. When they built the wall, the illegal traffic plummeted. In El Paso, when they built the wall, the illegal traffic plummeted. Now the Democrats' position is not substantive. They voted for 350 miles of wall. So why are they shutting the government down over 234 miles of wall? It is not substantive; it is political.

We get that they hate Donald Trump. If anyone in America had missed that point--that they really don't like this man--their yelling and screaming and bellowing has made that abundantly clear. Just because you hate somebody doesn't mean you should shut down the government. I voted to keep this government open, right now, today. The Democrats are filibustering funding for the government.

Let me tell you something else the Senator from Colorado didn't dispute. We had a whole colloquy with the Senator from Louisiana and the Senator from Mississippi and the Senator from Alaska about funding the Coast Guard. Did you notice, in that entire bellowing speech, the words ``Coast Guard'' were never uttered? Not once.

What Senator Kennedy asked this body to do was pass a clean bill to pay the paychecks of the Coast Guard. Senator Kennedy's bill doesn't mention a wall--whether you like one or not, it doesn't mention a medieval wall or any other kind. It simply says: Pay the Coast Guard-- yes, no.

Every Republican agrees, pay the Coast Guard right now. It is not fair to treat the Coast Guard differently than we are treating the Army and Navy and Marines and Air Force.

The Senator from Colorado didn't address that because it is indisputable, it is a fact that the reason that didn't pass right now is because the Democratic leader stood up and made an objection.

By implication, every Democratic Senator presumably agrees with it. The fact that the Senator from Colorado didn't say, yes, we should fund the Coast Guard, and, you know what, my leader was wrong when he held the paychecks of the Coast Guard's men and women hostage because he wants to win a political fight with the President.

By the way, I would note to the Senator of Colorado, it is not the end of the world to stand up to your party's leader. Some of us have a history of having done so in the past.

We are now in the longest government shutdown in history. This shutdown needs to end--the American people want it to end--but we also need to secure the border.

I have to say, the contrast between the two parties could not be clearer. The President has repeatedly said he wants to negotiate and compromise. He says he is willing to meet in the middle. He hasn't insisted on every mile of border wall he asked for. He hasn't insisted on every single dollar of border security. He said: Let's meet and compromise. Republicans on this side of the Chamber have said: Let's compromise in the middle.

The position of Senate Democrats is that they will not negotiate; they will not compromise, period. Their position, how many miles of wall can be built? Zero. They are not to 1 yet. When it comes to negotiating, their position is not an inch of wall can be built, even though we the Democrats already voted for 350 miles of it. Why? Because Donald Trump is President.

That is an extreme and radical position. Look, I understand, folks watching at home, it is hard to tell--you are reading the news. It seems like both parties are bickering. It is hard to tell what is happening, particularly because on the Senate floor, there is a lot of procedural mumbo jumbo.

If you want to understand what is going on, the exchange between Senator Kennedy and Senator Schumer illustrates it all. Senator Kennedy's bill did one thing and one thing only. It paid the salaries of the men and women of the Coast Guard. It didn't touch any other issue.

Every Republican agrees with that bill. The Democrats objected and said: We will not pay the Coast Guard.

Had they not objected, we could put that bill on the President's desk today, and they could get their paychecks right now. That is emblematic of the approach of Senate Democrats.

When the Senator from Colorado stopped screaming at me, he then engaged in a bit of historical retrospective about the great Framers of our Constitution, which I enjoyed and very much agree with. I am someone who spent a lifetime devoted to the Constitution. I am inspired by the Framers who gave us this extraordinary democratic Republic. The Senator from Colorado called for Members of this body to aspire to be more like the men and women who gave us this country, gave us this Republic, if you can keep it, as Benjamin Franklin put it. I concur with that.

What I urge the Senator from Colorado do is to reach out to his Democratic colleagues and counsel compromise. I am urging my colleagues on this side to do the same. The difference is, the Republicans are willing to compromise, have offered to compromise, and, in fact, just now sought to pay the Coast Guard, and the Democratic position is: No, no, no. We object.

That is partisan, it is extreme, and it is not behavior that would bring pride to the Framers of our Constitution. I hope this body can do better.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to give tribute to a great American, a great Texan, and a 32-year veteran of this institution who has dedicated her career to serving the needs of her fellow citizens. Her name is Joyce Sibley.

She has led my team of caseworkers in Texas for the last 6 years, and she is now retiring. Joyce started working in the U.S. Senate in 1971, working for John Tower of Texas, answering the phones at his Austin office.

Since then, Joyce has become a living legend among Texas caseworkers because she simply doesn't take no for an answer, and she always goes the extra mile and more to help someone in need. Indeed, her work has extended so many extra miles beyond our State boundaries that it is difficult to comprehend.

``To move mountains'' is a figurative expression, but when I say Joyce has moved battleships, I mean it literally. During the Albanian civil war of 1997, Joyce got the 6th Fleet to come ashore and help rescue nearly 100 Americans on a beach, including several Texans.

The office of my predecessor, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, was in communication with the Texans throughout that scary night in which the American evacuees were huddled at the Port of Durres in Albania, having been sent there by the U.S. embassy. The Albanian Task Force at the State Department reported that everyone had been evacuated, but the Americans still trapped there disagreed and started calling offices in Houston and Austin.

Joyce and her team had to give up on the State Department's part and, instead, they transferred a cell phone call from that beach in Albania directly to a Pentagon duty officer who contacted the Texans and connected them with the 6th Fleet. Together, they coordinated a Zodiac evacuation in the early morning hours.

Joyce was instrumental in organizing their escape.

There was another occasion, when a soldier was wrongfully convicted of counterfeiting in South Korea, after copying and printing Korean currency in order to test the quality of his new printer. There was no intent and no evidence of any attempt to distribute fake Korean currency.

After being convicted and imprisoned for months, largely abandoned by his command, the Texas office asked the

Korean Government to take another look at the case, and the conviction was reversed. The airman returned to serve with distinction in San Antonio, thanks in part to the amazing casework skills of Joyce Sibley.

Likewise, when the earthquake hit Haiti, there were several Texans buried in the rubble at one of the local hotels. Joyce and others stayed in touch with the family members, set up regular briefings with the State Department, and kept the family closely informed until all were found and accounted for.

The Haitian Government even arrested a group of Texas missionaries and charged them with kidnapping for providing relief and housing to orphaned Haitian children. A few tense weeks followed, but they were all freed once Joyce helped to turn up the heat.

There are too many stories to list about Joyce's helping families with heartbreaking international adoption situations in Romania, Russia, Haiti, China, Korea, Guatemala, and Ethiopia.

Here is one of my favorite stories. Last fall, a heart surgeon contacted our office on a Thursday evening. He had been traveling out of the country. When he was coming back to Houston, he realized he had lost his passport. He was supposed to travel to Houston overnight and go straight to the hospital to perform several surgeries. Joyce, working with other members of our staff, was able to get a government official to meet his plane to confirm his identity and to get him through customs at 6 a.m. on Friday morning.

He called me when he was on the way to the hospital and said that thanks to our office, thanks to Joyce, he was able to make it there on time to perform lifesaving surgeries.

There are quite literally thousands of Texans whose lives have been made better by Joyce's decision to stay in Texas and to devote her professional time to helping families who needed help, often in times of great stress. Dealing with the Federal Government, the often maddening leviathan of Federal bureaucracy, Joyce was an expert at getting that leviathan to move and helping Texans who were frustrated and needed relief.

Whether it has been handling an international crisis or ensuring that a veteran gets his or her paycheck, Joyce has been tireless on behalf of Texans in need of help and guidance. The hallmark of a great caseworker is knowing the system, having great contacts at the multitude of Federal Agencies, and pushing back whenever she heard the word ``no.'' Instead, she would ask, isn't there something else we could do to help this soldier, to help this veteran, to help this Texan? So many times, thinking of the ``something else we can do'' was exactly what was needed.

Joyce has been an irreplaceable asset to the U.S. Senate and to the people of Texas. The good news is that everyone who has worked with her has her spirit in their blood now, has been trained directly, hands-on, by Joyce. It is in their DNA now to go that extra mile and to try to get to yes, no matter the obstacles, when they are looking out for and fighting for Texans. That is her legacy--a team inspired by her leadership. And I know that legacy will endure.

Joyce starts a new adventure at the end of this month as she begins her well-earned retirement. My team will be a little bit poorer for having lost her, but the Senate, the people of Texas, and thousands of families she has assisted over the course of nearly five decades are much richer for having had her on their team.

Thank you, Joyce, for your work, your passion, your patriotism, and most of all, your shining heart. It has been a pleasure, an honor, and a privilege to serve the people of Texas alongside you. God bless.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, for over half a century, the United States has been the global leader in space. In that time, we have not only watched as NASA has sent humans farther than they had ever gone before, but we have also witnessed a new and growing commercial space sector that has pushed the bounds of what we thought possible.

As a nation, we can't simply rest on our laurels and take our leadership for granted. That is why I was proud to be joined by Senators Bill Nelson and Ed Markey in introducing the Space Frontier Act, which passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee by voice vote on August 1, thanks to the leadership of Chairman John Thune, who helped make space issues a priority for the committee.

The Space Frontier Act builds upon the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act that I was proud to work hand in hand with Senator Nelson as well, that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2015.

The United States has the potential to grow an incredibly vibrant and competitive commercial space industry. The FAA reported in 2009 that commercial space transportation and enabled industries generated $208.3 billion in economic activity.

While the commercial space industry is continuing to grow, it has been unable to meet its full potential due to outdated regulations and policies that have the potential to stifle innovation, to restrict investment, and to drive the American launch sector and nontraditional space activities to foreign countries abroad.

The Space Frontier Act seeks to address these challenges by reducing the regulatory barriers that are facing our Nation's commercial space sector so we can allow companies to continue to grow and establish U.S.-led commercial economy in space.

The Space Frontier Act also takes the critical step of continuing the operations and utilization of the International Space Station through the year 2030; ensures that the United States will not cede low-Earth orbit to China; it enacts meaningful reforms to modernize our Nation's launch and reentry regulations; and it streamlines nongovernmental Earth observation regulations. The bill also ensures that both the Department of Commerce and the Department of Transportation will take leading roles in promoting and helping to grow our Nation's commercial space sector.

I am proud to work hand in hand with my friend and colleague, Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, in seeing bipartisan agreement continue in support of America's leadership in space.

I yield the floor to Senator Nelson.

I thank my friend, the senior Senator from Florida, for his leadership and congratulate him on our success in bringing this body together and getting this bill passed.

I hope the House will join us and pass it into law later today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 686, S. 3277.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee- reported substitute amendment be withdrawn, the Cruz substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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

Mr. President, I want to thank the bill's sponsors for working with me on this amendment. I think this bill that the Senate is getting ready to pass is a major bill that moves in the direction of justice. It lowers mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders.

This amendment excludes a series of specific violent offenses, including carjacking, destruction of aircraft and motor vehicles, and drive-by shootings. Another component of it is an amendment that Senator Lankford has introduced that protects religious liberty.

The sponsors on both sides, Democratic and Republican, have agreed to this amendment. I want to thank them for their cooperation in that.

I yield my time to Senator Lankford.

Madam President, I rise today to recognize my distinguished colleague and friend, Senator Bill Nelson. He has represented the people of Florida in the U.S. Senate for 18 years now.

Today it may seem that there is very little that unites people of different parties in this Congress. It may seem a strange notion to say good things about your political rivals and opponents. But this is America. I think the

day will never come where men and women of honest hearts and good faith cannot come together and find common goals worth fighting for together.

Bill and I have served together on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on the Senate Commerce Committee, but the principal area where Bill and I have had the privilege of working closely together concerns space. Bill and I have worked hand in hand promoting and protecting America's program of space exploration and supporting the critical institutions in the State of Texas, the State of Florida, and throughout the country that have made our country a world leader in space. It has been a truly bipartisan partnership. Both Bill and I believe that America is and should be going forward the leader in space, that we have a responsibility, and that there are great and glorious things to accomplish for mankind through space exploration. In this time of bitter, partisan division, of nasty personal rivalries, we have been able to see truly bipartisan cooperation.

We worked together hand in hand on the 2015 commercial space bill, passed into law and signed into law by President Obama. We worked hand in hand on the NASA Authorization Act of 2017. We worked hand in hand and passed that into law, signed into law by President Trump. There are very few major, substantive areas that have major legislation, one signed by Obama and one signed by Trump. I think that is a reflection of the bipartisan cooperation we have seen.

We worked hand in hand on the Space Frontier Act, and we are working together to extend the operation of the International Space Station to 2030. That accomplishment, that cooperation is good for America, and it is good for our leadership in space.

I have to say that I am still jealous that, unlike Senator Nelson, I haven't been on an actual trip to space for a hands-on experience, but I suppose anything can happen.

Bill, I promise you, our work will continue. America's leadership in space will continue. We will persevere and constantly show those who say it can't be done that there is still the will to drive, to explore, to create, to learn, and to search the unknown for answers.

Bill, you are right--I believe that in our lifetime, a human being will step foot on the surface of Mars and that the first boot that lands on the red planet will be the American boot of an American astronaut planting the flag of the United States of America.

There is still a will in our Nation to tame the stars and behold the wonders of creation even closer. I will say that spirit of exploration also inspires generations of little boys and little girls who look to the skies and wonder, what if? We cannot limit our gaze on the Earth below us; it isn't in our nature.

I will say finally, in addition to his commitment to space leadership--and I would note that in addition to Bill's bipartisan cooperation, his team worked hand in hand with my team, both committed to passing meaningful, important legislation, to finding compromises that would make it not just through the Senate but through the House and be signed into law, and the members of his staff were skilled and dedicated partners in producing those results.

But I will tell you, beyond that, on a very personal level, Bill is a good man. Just a moment ago, when I congratulated him on his farewell speech, he chuckled and said: I may be one of the only people who have taken you to dinner. And you know, that is right.

I remember back in 2013--my first year in this body--it was a tumultuous time. We were in the midst of battles where more than a few bare-knuckle punches were being thrown all around. Right in the midst of that, Bill said: Ted, why don't you come out and have dinner with Grace and me. The two of them took me to dinner, and we had a delightful, relaxing, engaging dinner. We didn't debate big policy; we simply talked as three human beings privileged to have the chance to serve our country. It was a gesture of friendship.

We all know that Harry Truman famously said: If you want a friend in politics, buy a dog. That has not been the approach Bill Nelson has taken to politics. He extended a hand of friendship, and that blossomed into cooperation, and it blossomed into accomplishments together for the United States and for the States of Florida and Texas.

Bill, it has been a privilege to work with you, and I look forward to continuing to work with you in the years ahead in your next chapter. It is an honor to serve with you.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of President George Herbert Walker Bush.

This week, American hearts are heavy as we bid farewell to our 41st President. Since we heard the news of his passing just a few days ago, there has been a ceaseless stream of communications and commemorations and testimonies to President Bush's character from every corner of our Nation--from the worlds of politics, philanthropy, entertainment, business, the Armed Forces--and from our living ex-Presidents. Even those who were his rivals and critics during his public life have returned to praise that life so well and honorably lived.

He will be remembered as a good and faithful servant to his country, whose great legacy of leadership and love of homeland became a family tradition. It earned him the admiration of countless Americans and secured him a special place in the memory of every Texan.

Over his storied career, President Bush was a war hero and a businessman, a legislator and an Ambassador. His 8 years as Vice President prepared him well for the heavy burdens of the Nation's highest office in his steering our Nation with a steady and strong hand at the helm through the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first Gulf war. Indeed, of his legacy as President, that calm, steady, strong leadership as America won the Cold War will, no doubt, be his enduring legacy.

A great many of us in this body were blessed to know President Bush personally and to have had experiences in which he and Barbara touched our lives. For me, my favorite experience with President George Herbert Walker Bush occurred in 2009.

In 2009, I was beginning a campaign for attorney general in the State of Texas. It appeared that the job would be vacant, and I was campaigning to fill it. I had never run for office before. President Bush invited me to go to the family home up in Kennebunkport, ME. So I got on a plane, and I flew up to Maine. I remember sitting on that plane, wondering what to say to him, what to ask of him. I didn't know President Bush; I didn't know Barbara.

I remember, at the end of the day, resolving that I wasn't going to ask for anything other than, simply, his advice, to say: Mr. President, you are an elder statesman who has spent decades in public service. What advice would you give to someone running his very first campaign for public office? What path should I endeavor to follow? I had assumed that the meeting would be a 10-, 20-minute meeting, a perfunctory meeting. It was very kind of him to take it, but I didn't expect much from the meeting.

When I sat down, I was amazed, first of all, that he knew everything about the race--all of the potential players who might be running for that position. He knew a great deal about my background, which had me utterly flabbergasted because we didn't know each other. It was obvious he was briefed and prepared before the meeting. He had put in that time.

After about 20 minutes, he asked me: Ted, when is your flight back?

I said: Well, it is in a couple of hours. I am flying out of Boston.

He said: Can you, maybe, stay and go out on the boat with Barbara and me?

I laughed. I said: Mr. President, plane reservations can be easily changed. I will stay here as long as you would like me to.

He looked at me--I was wearing a suit--and he said: Well, that is, clearly, not going to do.

We had been meeting in an office, which was in a separate building. So he took me to a golf cart, and we drove in the golf cart to the residence. He took me back to his and Barbara's bedroom. He opened his closet. He pulled out a pair of jeans; he pulled out a shirt; he pulled out a belt with a buckle that read ``President of the United States.'' It was his buckle.

He said: Here, Ted. Put this on.

So I dressed in the President's clothes, and we went out on the boat.

Now, it is worth remembering that President Bush was a former naval aviator. He drove the boat and drove it full speed--with the throttle pushed as far as it would go. It was a beautiful, cool summer's day along the Maine shore, with waves splashing in the air. There was a light rain in the mist. Barbara sat at the front of the boat, with rain pelting her face, and she was smiling and glowing.

At the time, we were in the midst of the so-called Green Revolution in Iran. So I remember asking ``Mr. President, what do you think about what is happening in Iran? What do you think about the changes?'' and just marveling, What on Earth am I doing on this boat, crashing through the waves, listening to President George Herbert Walker Bush give me his thoughts on national security and the interests of the United States? We had, by the way, Secret Service agents in Zodiac boats who were following as fast as they could and were having trouble keeping up with the President.

So I ended up having lunch with President Bush and Barbara. We went to a little restaurant where we had some Maine lobster. I ended up spending 4\1/2\ hours with them. When I was getting ready to leave, I was walking to the door, and I was thanking him for spending so much time. He reached in his pocket, and he pulled out a check--a check for $1,000 to my attorney general campaign. You could have knocked me over with a stick. I am not someone who is known for being at a loss for words, and I, simply, stared at him and stammered. I think I barely got out the words ``thank you,'' but I was so astonished. The check, simply, read ``from George and Barbara Bush.''

I got in the rental car and began driving back to the airport. I called Heidi, and I said: Heidi, I just had the most magical, unbelievable day.

He didn't have to do any of that. He didn't have to give me the time of day. Yet he poured his heart into the people around him, into his family, into his public service, and into his Nation.

That was just one, small illustration of the graciousness, the generosity, the humility of spirit that characterized his entire 94 years on this planet. President Bush was the last of the ``greatest generation'' to sit in the Oval Office, but his resolve will not be lost to the past; it will triumph onward.

In his words:

The old ideas are new again because they are not old; they

are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a patriotism

that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in.

The 91st Psalm is sometimes called the soldier's or the warrior's psalm because it asks the Lord for protection against a litany of foes, and it promises a refuge and a fortress in Him. It ends with the two most important gifts that can be bestowed on the faithful warrior: ``I shall satisfy him with a long life and grant him to see my salvation.''

In having enjoyed that first gift, an incredible life of 94 years of making a difference, may President Bush now enjoy the second, bestowed upon a good and faithful servant. Now George and his beloved Barbara are together at last, with their daughter Robin, and they are enjoying a well-deserved rest from their labors. Now his spirit has joined a thousand points of light with his Creator, by whose brilliance may all our works be illuminated and inspired.

President George Herbert Walker Bush leaves behind 6 children, 17 grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren. He and Barbara were married for 73 years--the longest Presidential marriage in the history of the United States.

God bless the memory of President George Herbert Walker Bush. God bless the legacy of service that he and Barbara instilled in generation after generation of the Bush family. Texas and America are far better for having known and loved him.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the impending confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. It now appears that tomorrow, Judge Brett Kavanaugh will become Justice Brett Kavanaugh, an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court.

It is worth pausing for a moment to reflect why that is of such great consequence for our country. In recent decades, the courts have seized more and more policymaking authority, have intruded into the authority of the democratically elected legislature, and have taken policy issue after policy issue from the hands of the American people and usurped it instead into the hands of five unelected judges.

Given those stakes, the 2016 election in a very real sense was waged over what direction the Supreme Court would go, and there was a markedly different vision, a markedly different promise that was made by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump promised to nominate constitutionalists who would defend the Constitution and who would defend the Bill of Rights. That is what the people of Texas want, and I believe that is what the American people want--judges who will follow the law, who will be faithful to the Constitution, who will uphold our fundamental liberties--free speech, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, the 10th Amendment--the fundamental liberties protective of every American in the U.S. Constitution.

The stakes here are high, particularly with this seat--the seat that was held by Justice Kennedy, a Justice who has been the swing vote for three decades now.

Even though the stakes are high, what we have witnessed the last several weeks is unprecedented in the annals of confirmation battles. We saw initially a confirmation hearing that was relatively straightforward. It was marred by protests, coordinated with Democratic Senators, according to media reports. On the first day of the hearing, 70 individuals were arrested for protesting and disrupting the hearing.

But at the end of that opening week of hearings, not a single Senator on the committee had made the argument that Justice Kavanaugh was not qualified to be a Justice--by any measure, he is one of the most respected Federal appellate judges in the country--nor did any of the Senators on the Judiciary Committee make any meaningful argument that raised serious concerns about Judge Kavanaugh's jurisprudence. He has been a court of appeals judge for over a decade.

It appeared at that point that the confirmation was a forgone conclusion and that indeed Judge Kavanaugh was

likely to get a substantially bipartisan confirmation. Then, on the eve of the vote, it was leaked in the press that there were allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual assault. Those allegations sadly had been in the possession of the ranking Democratic member of the committee since July 30 in the form of a written letter that had been submitted by Dr. Ford on July 30 detailing the allegations. The allegations were serious. The allegations deserved to be treated with respect.

In that letter, Dr. Ford requested to stay confidential. She did not want her name thrust into the national news. The Judiciary Committee has a process for handling allegations. As nominations go forward, there are all sorts of allegations that are raised, and the ordinary process would be for the ranking member to refer that letter to the full committee, to the chairman, refer it to the FBI for an investigation, and then the committee has a standing process to engage in a confidential hearing--a closed hearing--where the allegations raised by Dr. Ford could have been considered without dragging her name into the public.

That would have been the right way to do that. That would have been the Senate operating the way it is supposed to operate, but sadly it didn't operate that way. Instead, it appears the Democratic Members of Congress made the decision to leak the letter to the press and to drag Dr. Ford unwillingly into the public square. That did enormous damage to Dr. Ford and her family, and it did enormous damage to Judge Kavanaugh and his family.

When that happened, the Judiciary Committee--the Republican members of the committee met, and I urged my colleagues, once these allegations were made public, that there needed to be a public hearing and that Dr. Ford deserved a full and fair opportunity to tell her story; that she needed to be treated with respect. That, I am glad to say, is exactly what happened.

I also believed Judge Kavanaugh deserved a full and fair opportunity to defend himself and that he, too, should be treated with respect. That, sadly, is not what happened. The hearing we had last week featured one Democratic member of the committee after another dragging Judge Kavanaugh and his family through the mud, raising smear after smear after smear--not just the allegations that Dr. Ford had raised but other, more farfetched and in some cases absurd allegations. Apparently, the threshold for dragging a man's character and besmirching his family in Washington is nonexistent.

At that Thursday hearing, we heard powerful testimony from two witnesses--Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh. It was clear that both were hurting. It was clear that both had been done enormous damage by the politicized way in which Democratic Members of this body launched these allegations in the media. But even though we were seeing political games, that didn't relieve any Members of this body from the solemn obligation we have to advise and consent, the obligation we have to have a fair process, to consider the allegations, and to make the best judgment we can.

After two witnesses presented powerful testimony, it became clear that their testimony was directly contradictory, so we were called to assess the evidence before us. Typically in a court of law, when you have conflicting testimony, the way a court of law will assess that is to look to other corroborating evidence--what other evidence is there that indicates whether particular allegations are true.

In this instance, Dr. Ford had identified three fact witnesses--three named fact witnesses--all of whom gave statements to the Judiciary Committee under penalty of perjury. All three of the named fact witnesses--not only did they not corroborate the allegations, but they affirmatively refuted the allegations. They did so on penalty of perjury, meaning if they were lying, they could face up to 5 years in prison.

For me, the fact that all of the corroborating evidence contradicted the allegations and the fact that Judge Kavanaugh has a many-decades- long record as a distinguished public servant with no allegations whatsoever prior to the eleventh-hour political allegations that were launched by the Democrats--the balance of that, I believe, leads a fair decision maker to make the decision that I have made and that this body is preparing to make, which is to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.

Even so, at the insistence of a number of Senators, the Judiciary Committee went further: Last week, it asked the FBI to conduct a supplemental background investigation, investigate these allegations. The instructions to the FBI were to investigate all current, credible allegations.

The FBI did 10 interviews. I flew back to DC from Texas last night. At 10 o'clock last night, I came to the Capitol and in a classified setting read all 10 of those 302s--the reports the FBI agents prepare coming out of those interviews. Having read every single one of those reports, not a one of them provides additional corroborating evidence for Dr. Ford's allegations. Indeed, the key fact witnesses who had previously given statements--unsurprisingly, their statements are very much the same. They are more detailed, and they are more extensive because the FBI agents questioned them at greater length, but at the end of the day, all three named fact witnesses still continue to refute the allegations. That means that this body, if we are to be fair and impartial, I believe, should confirm Judge Kavanaugh.

That does not mean, as some have seen in this deeply politicized time in our country, that allegations of sexual assault should not be taken seriously--to the contrary. The fact that we had an extensive public hearing to hear those allegations, to treat Dr. Ford with the utmost respect, that the FBI investigated those allegations, sought out the fact witnesses, looked for corroborating evidence--all of that demonstrates the seriousness with which those charges should be taken.

Sexual assault is a growing problem in our Nation. It is a pervasive problem in our Nation. The #MeToo movement--we have seen powerful men in Hollywood, powerful men in journalism, powerful men in politics, and powerful men in business abusing their position of power and harassing or assaulting women. That is unacceptable.

I am glad to have worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in passing legislation through this body ensuring that there are tough standards and that we end the process of secret taxpayer settlements if a Member of Congress is guilty of harassment or assault. We should have no tolerance for that sort of misconduct.

So anyone at home who is watching these proceedings, it would be a mistake to take the politicized charge of Democrats who wanted to defeat Judge Kavanaugh before these charges came along--virtually every Democrat who is voting no was going to vote no before any allegation had been made. Indeed, a great many of the Democratic Senators announced their opposition to Judge Kavanaugh within minutes or hours of his being named. Every Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee announced their opposition to Judge Kavanaugh before the opening minutes of the confirmation hearing, before hearing a word Judge Kavanaugh had to say.

The circus we saw last week was a whole lot of political theater. It featured some Democratic Senators, I believe, vying for the 2020 Presidential nomination and seeing who could be more extreme and put on a bigger spectacle. But the American people expect this body to be fair. The American people expect this body to respect the law and the rule of law. We have been through a process that I believe has been fair, has heard out these claims.

It is my hope that, coming out of this, the anger and rage that have been stoked dissipates. It is my hope that Members on both sides of this aisle and, more importantly, Americans on both sides of the political aisle across the country can remember who we are, can remember how to disagree, to disagree passionately. We can have passionate arguments about whether taxes should be higher or lower. We can have passionate arguments about immigration policy or any other policy matter. But I hope that we can remember how to disagree without being disagreeable, to disagree while being civil, to disagree while respecting each other, while respecting each other's humanity.

It would have been wrong to vilify and demonize Dr. Ford, and I am glad the Judiciary Committee did not go down that road, but it is equally wrong

for Democratic Senators to demonize and vilify Judge Kavanaugh based on a lone accusation without corroborating evidence. That is not fair, and that is not right. It is empty politics. And if we continue down this politics of personal destruction, we are going to find fewer and fewer people willing to step forward and serve, fewer and fewer people willing to serve on the Federal judiciary, willing to serve in the Cabinet.

There was a time when this body was called the world's greatest deliberative body. That was a long time ago, but I do think it is possible for us to get back to that, for us to keep disagreements focused on substance and issues and remember the fundamental humanity even of those who disagree with us.

The American people--certainly the people of Texas--I think a great many were horrified by what they saw last week. Some in the media have characterized that women should necessarily oppose Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation because they are women. I don't think that is right--that is certainly not true from the women I have heard from the State of Texas--because women, like men, want the Constitution followed faithfully, want the Bill of Rights protected, and want our fundamental liberties upheld. Women, like men, want a system of rule of law and a presumption of innocence that is fair. Yes, if there is serious, credible evidence of sexual assault, it should be dealt with seriously. But women and men are mothers and fathers, are husbands and wives, are sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters. Every parent of sons should want a system where due process is protected and where one lone and uncorroborated allegation is not enough to end the career and reputation of their son. And every parent of daughters--and I am the parent of two daughters--should want a regime where your daughters are protected and their lives can't be ruined with an uncorroborated allegation either. But if, God forbid, they face assault or harassment, there is a system of accountability, and the wrongdoers are held accountable.

We want a fair system. We want a just system. We want a system that recognizes the rule of law. There are many countries that are ruled by mob, ruled by accusation, and ruled by insinuation. But we need a process. In this case, we have gone through a process that was designed to be fair. And given the evidence, the right decision, I believe, is the decision this body will make tomorrow to confirm Judge Kavanaugh as Justice Kavanaugh, the newest Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to recognize the first anniversary of Hurricane Harvey's destruction along the Texas gulf coast. This Saturday, August 25, marks 1 year since the most destructive storm in Texas history made landfall.

Hurricane Harvey is now considered the second most costly hurricane in U.S. history, second only to Hurricane Katrina, but more importantly and more tragically, Hurricane Harvey took many, many precious lives. Harvey started out as a category 4 storm hitting South Texas, making landfall at Corpus Christi, Victoria, Port Aransas, Rockport, Aransas Pass, and Refugio, doing devastating damages with 135-mile-an-hour winds.

It took down powerlines. It stopped fresh water. It clogged sewage systems. It devastated people's homes and people's businesses.

I visited each of those communities many, many times in the weeks and months that followed Hurricane Harvey, and I have seen the transition those communities have undergone in dealing with the disaster and then rebuilding.

But Harvey wasn't done after making landfall. Then, it moved north and east, parking over the city of Houston and just sitting there. Over a 6-day period, Harvey dumped 27 trillion gallons of rain over Texas and Louisiana, causing historic flooding--flooding that is not a 100- year flood, not a 500-year flood, but a 1,000-year flood.

In southeastern Texas, Hurricane Harvey dropped rainfall of more than 60 inches, which exceeds the annual rainfall on average for that region. Over 300,000 structures were flooded in southeast Texas, and a half million cars. More than 200,000 single family homes were flooded across the State, many of which were not in flood plains and not deemed to be at risk of floods.

But we don't mark this anniversary in a spirit of tragedy--rather, in a spirit of triumph. There were many bright lights that cut through the darkness of the storm. There were the police and first responders who led thousands of families to safety. Some, like Sergeant Perez of the Houston Police Department, made the ultimate sacrifice while protecting his community.

There were over 17,000 national guardsmen who answered the call from Texas and from all around the country.

The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 11,022 people and 1,384 pets during the storm. There were countless acts of heroism from folks next door, from church basements offering shelter to neighbors, people making human chains, plucking one another out of the flood waters, and from our countrymen in the Cajun Navy, who boldly answered the call with memories of Katrina still fresh and vivid, to business owners like my friend Mattress Mack, who threw open the doors to give entire communities shelter, warmth, and comfort.

I have never been prouder to be a Texan than I was in the days during and after Hurricane Harvey, when you saw ordinary Texans risking their lives to save each other. There were no party lines. There were no Republicans and Democrats. There wasn't Black, White, Hispanic, or Asian. We were simply Texans helping Texans, standing as one, united. We were lifted up by prayers from millions across Texas, across the country, and across the world.

I remember one gentleman I met. It was at the George R. Brown Convention Center, which had been stood up as a shelter for the many who had lost their homes. I was there one morning volunteering, serving oatmeal. Next to me, someone else was volunteering, serving oatmeal as well, and I said to him, as I tried to say to many, many people throughout that tragedy: Thank you. Thank you for the difference you are making. Thank you for helping out your fellow Texans. Thank you for being here.

I remember he laughed, and he said: Well, I have to be here. My home is underwater. I don't have another place to sleep.

Even though he had gone to seek shelter, once he got there, he wasn't content simply to receive aid and assistance. He wanted to help out. That was the spirit and the community that we saw all up and down the gulf coast.

I remember visiting with two young boys. They were 8 and 10 years old. They were in their home when water rose to waist level, and they had to be rescued by boat. I remember visiting with these boys and saying: Was that scary? How are you doing?

Both boys started laughing, and they said: Are you kidding? We got to swim in our living room.

That kind of joy suffused dealing with the tragedy.

Since the flood waters have receded, many, many families have returned home. Some bravely made a home in new surroundings, and the long, important work of rebuilding has continued.

One year ago, you could take a boat through city streets. I still remember riding on a boat down Clay Road, a road in northwest Houston. I became a Christian at Clay Road Baptist Church. Clay Road was under 8 to 10 feet of water, and I remember taking a boat over cars, over trucks, going right down the middle of Clay Road.

Today, our communities are coming back stronger than ever. Our businesses are once more a part of the Texas booming economy. Our neighborhoods ring with laughter, lawnmowers, and barbecue grills.

I am humbled and grateful to say that the amazing success of recovery has been helped by the willingness of Congress to recognize the extraordinary crisis caused by Harvey and to step up in a bipartisan manner to address it. Since Harvey made landfall, Congress has appropriated over $140 billion in emergency funding to respond to the 2017 hurricane season and to the California wildfires. Over three separate bills, we came together and made it possible to clean debris, to open schools, to rebuild homes for families, and to give entire towns a new start.

My colleague Senator Cornyn and I have worked hand in hand on each of these relief bills in the Senate, increasing the funds available to hurricane victims from those that originally had come over from the House, increasing the overall amount of funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for flood prevention projects, as well as for funding other mitigation activities under the Community Development Block Grant Program and the Disaster Recovery Program.

Last month, as part of this funding, the Army Corps announced that Texas would receive nearly $5 billion for projects in the State as part of its disaster supplemental funding plan--projects dealing with long- term flood mitigation to prevent this sort of tragedy from occurring again and to rebuild in a way that is stronger and more resilient and that protects homes and businesses and families. This means that roughly half of the relevant Army Corps construction funds will go to projects in Texas intended to help to prevent future flooding events.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded over $10 billion in community development block grant disaster recovery funds to Texas. These crucial funds will go a long way and already have to meet the needs of Texans who are continuing to repair and to rebuild from Harvey.

We also joined together to pass an emergency tax relief bill. I joined with Senator Cornyn and Senator Rubio, and together the Cruz- Cornyn-Rubio bill granted over $5 billion in emergency tax relief to those who had been impacted by these hurricanes, allowing people who had lost their homes or had seen devastating damage to their homes to deduct those damages from their taxes and allowing people to take money from their retirement savings--their IRAs and their 401(k)s--and to use those savings to rebuild their homes without paying the ordinary 10 percent early withdrawal fee. It also gave a tax credit to employers-- the many, many small businesses who kept the paychecks coming even as the businesses may have been underwater and even as the employees couldn't come into work because their homes and cars were flooded.

Until recently, houses of worship had been excluded from Federal disaster assistance just for being faith based. That policy was wrong. It was discriminatory. Many religious institutions were badly damaged or destroyed during Hurricane Harvey.

I remember visiting a synagogue in Meyerland, a neighborhood of Houston, that had been flooded repeatedly and badly. I went to work with my colleagues, introducing legislation to fix this problem. A few months later, FEMA announced a critical reversal in their policy so that houses of worship

would no longer be discriminated against and would be eligible for the same relief funds as everybody else. Then, in February, our legislation codified FEMA's decision into law, ensuring that religious institutions were not discriminated against. We protected the First Amendment rights of our churches, our temples, and our synagogues, which had suffered so greatly in Harvey and contributed so much to the relief efforts.

That was one of the striking things--how many people who were helping themselves had been damaged.

Just over a week ago, I visited Ellington Base, meeting with the Coast Guardsmen, the swimmers and pilots who had gone into harm's way. For many of them, their own homes were underwater. I visited with one Coast Guard pilot who had to walk through waist-high water to get to a parking lot where a helicopter could go and pick them up so they could fly and save others.

That story, over and over, was the story of Harvey.

One year after Harvey's devastation, the work continues. The Texas gulf coast continues to recover, and it will take years for the rebuilding to be complete, but as the Lone Star State rebuilds stronger than ever, we will keep moving forward.

May we never forget the tragic days that Harvey hit our shores, but may we always remember the heroes who triumphed in the midst of the darkness, the brave men and women who were a light to their country. They are the best of America. They are the best of Texas. God bless them all, and may God continue to bless the great State of Texas.

I field the floor.

Madam President, one of the most significant victories for the American people that was in the tax cut legislation we passed last year was that this body and the Congress came together and repealed the ObamaCare individual mandate.

The individual mandate is one of the cruelest and most unfair aspects of ObamaCare. Every year, the IRS fined about 6.5 million Americans because they couldn't afford health insurance. Sadly, the reaction of Democratic politicians in the District of Columbia is to reimpose those fines on the poorest residents in DC. My assumption is that many, if not all, of our Democratic colleagues will vote to do exactly that right now, but let me point out that in DC in 2015, 7,150 people were fined by the IRS and that of those, 75 percent made less than $50,000 a year in income and 33 percent made less than $25,000 a year in income. So if you vote to table this amendment, you are voting to raise taxes on low-income DC residents who are struggling to make ends meet.

Madam President, I rise today to give tribute to the spirit of the Cuban people--the people of my forefathers, who still live under a corrupt and violent Communist regime--and to honor the memory of Oswaldo Paya. Oswaldo was a champion for freedom. He died 6 years ago this Sunday, on July 22, 2012, in a car crash that is widely believed to have been orchestrated by the Castro regime.

The plight of the brave people of Cuba has been marked by terrible suffering under both the Castro regime and the brutal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista before it. The Castros and their revolutionary terrorist lackeys, like Che Guevara, are responsible for the suffering and murder of countless innocent Cubans. It is because of these oppressors that my family fled their beloved home in Cuba for a better life in the United States.

My father, born and raised in Cuba, fought in the revolution, initially believing that the principles of freedom were what the revolution was all about. He fought against Batista, a cruel dictator, and he was imprisoned and tortured by Batista's thugs.

Then my aunt, his younger sister, my tia Sonia--who was there after the revolution succeeded, who discovered along with the rest of the world that Fidel Castro was a Communist, who saw the torture and the murder--my aunt fought in the counterrevolution against Fidel Castro, and she, too, like her brother, was imprisoned and tortured, except this time by Castro's thugs.

Both my father and my aunt were kids. They were kids who believed they were fighting for freedom, and they discovered they went from one tyrant to an even worse tyrant, a Communist dictator who would line up dissidents and shoot them.

The betrayal, the brutality, and the violence experienced by my father and by my aunt were all too typical of the millions of Cubans who have suffered under the Castro regime of the last six decades. Fidel may be dead, Raul may be retired, but the evil of the Castros persists. It still molds the Cuban regime's fundamental opposition to truth, to freedom, and to human rights.

But the malice and menace of communism cannot break down the will of the Cuban people. Instead, it has strengthened their resolve. It has further united them to fight for freedom and build a better future for their country, to establish a free Cuba--a Cuba not streaked by the ashes of dissident literature or littered with the corpses of defenseless teenagers; a Cuba built on human decency and individual liberty, where citizens are heard, not murdered, and speech is protected, not silenced. It is the Cuba envisioned by Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, his Christian Liberation Movement, and their fellow activists who continue to stand against the Castro regime. It is the Cuba of the young bloggers who expose the regime's crimes and corruption at the risk of arrest, deportation, torture, or worse.

With time, the oppressions of the Castro regime gave rise to remarkable leaders like Oswaldo Paya, whose life's work was the peaceful overthrow of communism and whose legacy we honor today. Oswaldo dedicated his life to promoting democratic freedoms and human rights in Cuba. His memory continues to inspire dissidents in Cuba and in other countries under tyrannical rule, countries like Venezuela, where Nicolas Maduro routinely imprisons and murders those who dare speak out against him, or Nicaragua, where the corrupt Ortega regime desperately clings to power by persecuting journalists and violently putting down protesters.

Last year, I introduced legislation to commemorate Oswaldo's legacy by naming the street in front of the Embassy of Cuba, located right here in Washington, as ``Oswaldo Paya Way.'' It would send a powerful statement that here in the United States of America, we stand with freedom fighters

like Oswaldo Paya who are working to bring hope and liberty to oppressed nations, who are working to make a better Cuba, free of the horrors of Communist rule.

I have never been to my father's homeland. I have never been to Cuba. My father has not returned to Cuba in over 60 years. I look forward to one day visiting Cuba, hopefully with my dad, with my tia Sonia, my cousin Bibi, with my whole family, my two girls, and seeing a free Cuba--where people can live according to their beliefs without fear of imprisonment, violence, or oppression, but today is not that day.

There are many, like Oswaldo, who have fought for this vision for a free Cuba, who are no longer with us, but their struggle will endure, and their spirits will shine a light through the darkest nights. We will never forget them, nor cease fighting to bring about the free Cuba they died for. Today, and on July 22, and each day thereafter, they will be remembered, ``Viva Cuba libre.''

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise to speak to the integrity of the character and the career of Andy Oldham, the President's nominee to be a circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Andy represents the best of what Texas's legal community has to offer to our Federal courts. Andy Oldham was born to high school sweethearts. His parents, like his grandparents before them, knew struggles and knew hard work.

Andy's father was raised in a trailer with four other siblings, and Andy's grandfather spent years away from his family, first fighting in World War II and then in Korea. His mother was raised by her divorced mother, and Andy's mother helped manage the household starting at age 8.

Growing up in these humble beginnings taught both of Andy's parents the value of hard work. His father drove a cement truck and cleaned deep fryers in restaurants to pay his way through college. His mother was one of

the first women to attend the University of Virginia. Together, both enrolled in the Medical College of Virginia, where his father became a doctor and his mother became a dentist.

Andy's parents had enormous student debts to pay, and so Andy learned what it was like to grow up with little as well, but he likewise learned the value of an education from his parents.

Andy went to the University of Virginia on a full academic scholarship, graduating with a perfect 4.0 GPA and at the top of his class. He then became a Truman Scholar and went on to attend Harvard Law School.

Andy graduated from Harvard Law magna cum laude and clerked for Judge David Sentelle on the DC Circuit, one of the most respected Federal appellate judges in the country, and then clerked for Justice Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court of the United States.

He then worked as an attorney advisor for 2 years in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice under the George W. Bush administration.

Andy then went into private practice at Kellogg Hansen here in Washington, DC. From there, Andy went to the Texas solicitor general's office to serve as the deputy solicitor general of Texas. I can state that office is usually a pretty tight ship.

After that, he joined Governor Abbott to serve as his legal counsel. He is now the general counsel for the Governor and has spent all but 3 years of his career in public service.

If I may say, it shows a depth of character and a devotion to his country that Andy would stay in public service for so long, so dutifully, while forgoing the great rewards that come with private practice. He is devoted to the practice of law, and over the years, Andy has displayed a keen understanding of the Constitution and how it applies and guides us to this very day.

I am confident Andy will not substitute his own policy preferences, his own opinions for the rule of law, but he will instead serve the people of Texas and the American people by respecting the law as written--as written in the Constitution and as written in Federal law-- passed by this Congress and signed by the President. Our courts and our country are well-served by judges with this dedication, wisdom, and forbearance.

In his career, Andy has argued across the country in State and Federal courts. He has appeared and argued numerous times before the Fifth Circuit, and he has argued twice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

He has earned widespread praise from both Democrats and Republicans, and he was recommended to the Judiciary Committee by esteemed legal voices from both the left and right. Andy is respected across the political spectrum. I know my colleagues in the Senate will return the same respect when they vote today to confirm Andy Oldham as a circuit judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Andy will be the fifth judge we have confirmed for the Fifth Circuit, one of the finest courts in the country--a court I have been privileged to argue before many times. Andy will be the third Texan and fifth circuit judge in the last year and a half, and that, I think, is one of the greatest legacies of President Trump and this Republican Senate; namely, the confirmation of principled constitutionalists to the Federal court; judges who will be faithful to the Constitution and Bill of Rights, who will stand steadfastly to protect our fundamental liberties, to protect free speech and religious liberty, to protect the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, to protect the Tenth Amendment, the fundamental liberties of the people against ever- expanding Federal power.

This is a legacy that was front and center as to why the American people elected this majority, and it is a legacy that will benefit Texans and Americans for generations to come.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the brave men and women of our Immigration Customs Enforcement agency. These are law enforcement officers who risk their lives every day to keep this country safe.

Rising in support of law enforcement used to be a bipartisan issue. It used to be an issue that brought us together, that unified us. Sadly, as we have seen in the preceding minutes, that is no longer the case.

I rise today to urge my Democratic colleagues to say no to the reckless and radical voices within their party that are pulling their party so far out of the mainstream and so far out of touch with the American people that it is barely recognizable. For a long time, when Democrats were debating immigration issues, they used to say ``Well, of course, we support enforcing the laws,'' almost as an obligatory throwaway. Instead, we are here today, debating the abolishing of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the exact antithesis of where most congressional Democrats claimed they were. All of this started because a few weeks ago, a longtime Democratic incumbent, a Member of the House, found himself beaten in a primary in New York State by an avowed socialist. As a result, many of my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle are suddenly terrified of their left flank. Because her campaign focused on abolishing ICE--abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, more incumbent Democrats have said that they, too, are open to abolishing ICE.

I call on this body to pull back from the abyss. On immigration there are areas of good-faith disagreement that this body has debated and will continue to debate. I have long characterized my views on immigration as being able to be summed up in four words: legal, good; illegal, bad. I think the vast majority of Texans and the vast majority of Americans agree with that. There

are a host of immigration policies that ought to be commonsense bipartisan policies.

The Presiding Officer has shown great leadership in fighting against sanctuary cities, fighting against jurisdictions that defy Federal immigration law and that release violent criminals without being willing to turn them over to immigration officials. Those violent criminals, in turn, go on far too often to commit even more violent crimes.

I am the author of Kate's Law, a commonsense proposal which says that aggravated felons who repeatedly enter the country illegally should face a mandatory minimum prison sentence. It was named for Kate Steinle, a beautiful young woman, 28 years old, murdered on a California pier by an illegal immigrant who had been deported over and over and over again and had been in and out of jail over and over and over again and had multiple felony convictions. Yet, because San Francisco is a sanctuary city, they released him yet again, and he committed murder.

Kate Steinle would be alive if we could come together on Kate's Law, if we could come together on ending sanctuary cities. Yet it turns out that in today's hyperpolarized world, even that is not extreme enough for the modern Democratic Party. Multiple leaders of their party are advocating abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

What does ICE do? ICE men and women--I have met with a great many of them in my home State of Texas. I have met with a great many Border Patrol agents. I have joined them on their midnight muster. I have gone out on patrol with them as they risk their lives securing our border and risk their lives keeping us safe in the interior.

Criminal aliens arrested by ICE in fiscal year 2017 were responsible for more than 76,000 dangerous drug offenses; yet many Democrats are saying: Abolish their role. They were responsible for over 48,000 assault offenses. They were responsible for over 11,000 weapons offenses. They were responsible for over 5,000 sexual assault offenses. They were responsible for over 2,000 kidnapping offenses, and they were responsible for over 1,800 homicide offenses.

Yet the approach of the modern Democratic Party is not to find a reasonable, commonsense common ground. It is, instead, to say: Abolish the agency that has arrested criminals responsible for over 1,800 murders.

When it comes to drugs--the volume they are dealing with in fighting the narcotics traffickers--ICE in fiscal year 2017 seized more than 980,000 pounds of narcotics. ICE seized approximately 2,370 pounds of fentanyl, approximately 6,967 pounds of heroin. Yet, today, too many elected Democrats are afraid that they, too, might face a socialist primary and that their far left is so angry, hates President Trump so much, that their position is not that we should enforce the immigration laws; their position is not that they will stand with law enforcement. Their position has become to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the agency charged with enforcing our immigration laws.

This is not a reasonable position and a public policy debate upon which reasonable minds might differ. There are many of those in the immigration world. This is not one of them. This is a radical and reckless position.

Yet, this resolution--by the way, this resolution says not a word about the issue of family separation. We have heard some of the speeches from my Democratic colleagues focused on family separation. I can state that every Member of this body, Democrat and Republican, agrees that families should not be separated.

Indeed, I have introduced legislation to prohibit family separation, to ensure that children stay with their parents--the best place for a kid is with his or her mom or dad--but to do so in a way that also respects the rule of law, that doesn't return to the failed policy of catch-and-release that only encourages more and more illegal immigration, that only puts more and more children--little boys and girls--in a position of being physically and sexually assaulted by human traffickers.

No one who cares about humanity, no one who cares about compassion should want to incentivize putting little children in the control of global, transnational drug cartels and human traffickers.

For the past several weeks, I have been negotiating with Democratic Members of this body, trying to see if we could reach common ground to unite and say that we will not separate families, but at the same time, we will respect the rule of law and not return to catch-and-release in a way that incentivizes illegal immigration.

We will find out if any Democrats are willing to find common ground. All 100 could join together on ending family release and ending it today, but too many on the Democratic side want to condition ending family release on essentially mandating the release of every illegal alien in custody--those apprehended with children, mandating their release. That is not a reasonable position. That is not a position the American people support, and, critically, this resolution before the Senate says not a word about it.

This resolution does not address that question. Instead, this resolution says that those ICE agents--the ICE agents who right now may be kicking down the door on a meth house and facing violent drug lords, firing weapons at them, risking their lives to keep us safe--we stand with those law enforcement agencies, even if we may disagree on the parameters of illegal immigration.

I am one who believes we should welcome and embrace legal immigrants--those who follow the rules and wait in line like my father in 1957, when he came as an immigrant from Cuba seeking freedom. Those are debates we can have.

We ought to be coming together in the spirit of bipartisan agreement to stand with law enforcement. I call upon the responsible members of the Democratic Party--and, surely, there must be some left. Surely, in the Democratic Party, there are some voices that are willing to stand up to the reckless and radical left and say: No, we should not abolish the agency charged with enforcing our immigration laws, charged with protecting us from vicious and violent criminals.

The fact that Senate Democrats are today objecting to this resolution shows just how captive they are to the fury that rages against President Trump.

Everyone in this Chamber has, at one time or another, had something the President has said or done that we all disagreed with. That is part of the political process, but the rage and fury on the far left is a qualitatively different matter. It is a rage that is demanding Democrats to go after, to undercut, to attack law enforcement agents who keep us safe. That is a mistake. It is a disservice to this institution. It is a disservice to the legacy of many distinguished Senators and a disservice to the American people and the Constitution that we are sworn to protect.

I urge this body to pass this commonsense resolution, standing with law enforcement, enforcing our borders, and stopping violent criminals, murderers, kidnappers, and rapists that ICE arrests every year. Abolishing law enforcement puts all of us at peril. I call upon my Democratic colleagues to reject that radical and reckless position.

I yield the floor.