Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Vermont. Mr. President, I have sent to the desk an amendment entitled the Stop Sexual Abuse by School Personnel Act of 2015. It is sponsored by me and Mr. Kirk, the Senator from Illinois. In summary, what the amendment does is the following: It requires States to have a criminal background check for all school employees. It allows States and local school districts to use Federal funding authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to establish, implement, or improve policies and procedures on background checks for school employees. Our amendment accomplishes this through the following: providing States with the flexibility and resources to conduct searches of State and Federal criminal registries as determined by the State; empowering States to establish, implement, or improve policies and procedures concerning the timely disclosure, notice, and appeal of background check results; supporting the development, implementation, or improvement of mechanisms for assisting in the identification of and response to incidents of child abuse, including by providing training and development for school personnel; and any other activities determined by the State to protect student safety. In addition, the Alexander-Kirk amendment adopts the 2014 General Accountability Office report which recommended establishing the U.S. Department of Education as the lead agency to inform States of best practices. It also authorizes the U.S. Education Secretary to make reporting of student sexual abuse by school personnel a part of the annual Secretary's report card. Finally, it protects schools and school districts from being sued if they are in compliance with State regulations and requirements. This is an enormously important subject and one of interest to every single Member of the United States Senate. There is at least one other amendment on the subject by the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from West Virginia. I expect there may be more amendments on the same subject. They all have the same goal--preventing sexual abuse of the 50 million children in our 100,000 public schools by school personnel. These amendments are all under the jurisdiction of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, of which I am the chair. As chair of that committee, I believe there is a right way and a wrong way to reach this laudable goal. The right way is for the Federal Government to enable States and local governments to do a better job. The wrong way is for the Federal Government to set itself up as a national school board or as a human resources department to override State laws and dictate how to hire and fire six million teachers or other school personnel. We have 6 million school personnel that could be affected by background check proposals. The question is, Can the local school board or can Washington, DC, do a better job of helping make children safe in Utah, in Iowa, in Tennessee, or in Vermont? Senators Toomey and Manchin deserve our thanks and great credit for putting the spotlight on this issue that every single Senator cares about. But, I am afraid their solution for background checks will try to accomplish this purpose the wrong way. It would override State laws in at least 46 States to dictate policies and procedures for 100,000 public schools. Their approach and their amendment, if enacted, would be the most extensive Federal takeover of local school personnel decisions in our country's history. Let me say that once more. Their amendment, if enacted, would be the most extensive Federal takeover of local school personnel decisions in our country's history. Now, I see on the floor the Senator from Iowa. I have spent some time in Iowa over the years and I know what a good education system they have in Iowa. In fact, Iowans are very particular about their education system. I don't know of a State that was more upset with No Child Left Behind than Iowa when it passed because it dictated education policies from Washington. Iowans asked, ``Does Washington cherish the children of Iowa more than we do in Des Moines or in any other community in Iowa? Why do the people in Washington think they can tell us what to do about how to educate our children better than we do?'' That is the issue here: whether it is Washington imposing academic standards such as Common Core or deciding whether schools and teachers are succeeding or failing, or mandating a one-size-fits-all approach to employee background checks on 6 million school personnel in 100,000 schools. I believe the American people are tired of this Washington-knows-best attitude toward local schools. Senator Kirk and I have the Stop Sexual Abuse By School Personnel Act of 2015--which offers an approach toward this laudable goal in the correct way. Let me explain why I say it is the correct way. First, it requires every state to have background checks for its 6 million employees who have access to children, but it doesn't dictate to them how to do the checks. Repeatedly we have found that when Congress tells the U.S. Department of Education to do something, it then proceeds to write a lot of regulations about exactly how to do it. I will give you an example. In No Child Left Behind, there are requirements about improving low- performing schools. The law says there are six ways you must fix them. I put in the law last year a seventh way to fix schools: allowing the Governor of the State to come up with his or her own way to do this. Then, the U.S. Department of Education Secretary can approve or disapprove that approach. The Department, in its well-intentioned activities, defined what a Governor of Tennessee or Utah or Iowa could say about his or her own idea about fixing low-performing schools. That happens all the time. It happens all the time. Over the last several years we have created, in effect, a national school board in Washington, DC, by substituting the judgment of Washington for local schools. Achieving the laudable goal of stopping sexual abuse by school personnel in the way suggested by the Senators from Pennsylvania and West Virginia would only make that national school board bigger. In the words of one teacher I spoke with, their proposal would only make the U.S. Department of Education more of a human resources department for 6 million local school personnel. Last year, the Government Accountability Office found that 46 States require background checks for all public school employees. My amendment require all states to do them. It would also ensure background checks for contractors who have unsupervised contact or interaction with children. It would also let schools and school districts use Federal funding to expand access to more registries since the cost of conducting the checks sometimes keep them from doing so. My amendment takes this broader approach because the Government Accountability Office report in 2014 that background checks alone are not enough to prevent child abuse by school personnel. Background checks are only as good as the databases used to conduct them. I understand sometimes those databases can have inaccurate or incomplete information. One report estimated that 1.8 million workers a year are subject to FBI background checks that include faulty or incomplete information such as the final result of the case. GAO's report also highlights that those charged with child abuse are only a fraction of those who abuse children. For example, a risk management company told GAO that few child abusers are caught the first time they abuse, and many abuse children multiple times before they are caught. Therefore, background checks alone are not enough to help protect children from abuse. Experts say, according to the GAO report, that training to prevent child abuse is a key tool to help school employees recognize early warning signs of abuse and they recommend that schools integrate training into their child abuse prevention efforts. Yet, because of cost constraints, GAO found that only 18 States required training. The amendment Senator Kirk and I are offering would help more States with schools that offer training by allowing States and school districts to use Federal funding to do it. Third, the Alexander-Kirk amendment would establish the Department of Education as a resource for States. The Department of Education is not supposed to be the school board for Utah or Tennessee or Iowa; it is supposed to be, if anything, an enabling resource. So another important way to prevent child abuse is to ensure schools are aware of information and resources that are already available to them by the Federal Government. According to GAO, again: ``The Federal Government, through its existing resources and expertise, is well positioned to assist States and localities and to help strengthen their prevention and response efforts.'' Yet, last year, more than 30 States surveyed by GAO were not aware of Federal resources available to schools to help address sexual abuse because no single agency was leading this effort, and coordination among the Federal agencies is limited. In one baffling example, a lead official who coordinates interagency meetings to talk about child maltreatment said none of the meetings had focused on sexual abuse by school personnel. States are looking for help. Twenty-nine States said additional guidance and technical assistance could be useful, such as guidance on developing professional standards and codes of conduct, examples of training models, and materials, and opportunities for grants. That is why the Alexander-Kirk amendment adopts GAO's recommendation to instruct the Secretary of Education to lead an effort, in coordination with other agencies, to develop and disseminate best practices that States, districts, and schools can take to prevent and respond to sexual abuse by school personnel. Fourth, the amendment would recommend that the Secretary of Education pull together a dependable set of data on abuse by school personnel for the Secretary's report card. GAO reported that several Federal agencies collect data related to violence against children and students, but none systematically identify the extent of sexual abuse by school personnel. Therefore, my amendment also adopts the GAO recommendation that the Secretary of Education work to identify ways to better track and analyze the prevalence of child abuse by school personnel and report on it in the Secretary's report card. This is an approach to solving the problem that respects the idea that in my hometown, and in each Senator's hometown in 100,000 schools, there are school boards, parents, and communities that cherish their children and they don't believe that Washington cherishes them more. This proposal would give those parents, communities, teachers, and principals the tools they need to prevent child abuse. It would enable them to do a better job of stopping sexual abuse of children by school personnel. In a meeting I attended earlier today, it was said that the Senate has already passed the Toomey-Manchin amendment because we passed the child care and development block grant. Let me talk about that a minute. The child care and development block grant went through the committee I now chair. There are three things wrong with the argument that the Toomey-Manchin amendment has already passed. First, the child care development block grant is funded 100 percent by the Federal Government. It affects 1.5 million children. It affects a little more than 1 million children. The Federal Government funds about 10 percent of elementary and secondary education. So if we fund 100 percent of a program, the argument is strong that we can also write the rules for it. If we fund 10 of a program, the people who fund 90 percent might say, ``What gave you the right to tell us what to do?'' Second, the argument was made that the child care and development block grant contains basically the same set of background checks as the Toomey-Manchin. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Toomey- Manchin amendment is significantly different from the background check provisions in the child care and development block grant. It is different in terms of its scope, privacy provisions, mitigating factors in an appeals process, potential lawsuits against a school district, and materiality. Let me focus on these differences for a minute. First, in terms of scope, the child care and development block grant applies to about 1.5 million children who receive vouchers to for childcare. The Toomey-Manchin bill applies to all elementary and secondary schools in States that receive funding under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. That is 100,000 public elementary and secondary schools, 14,000 local school districts, and 50 State education agencies. Second, in terms of privacy, the child care and development block grant ensures that the only information employers receive is whether the prospective employee passed or failed the background check. The Toomey-Manchin amendment has no similar protections and allows employers to share the results of background checks with other prospective employers. That is a privacy concern. Third, it differs in terms of what we call mitigating factors: The child care and development block grant permits States to create a review process through which disqualified employees can become eligible for employment due to mitigating factors such as the length of time since they committed a crime. The Toomey-Manchin bill doesn't permit States to conduct such reviews. My bill allows states to do a review. Fourth, private right of action provisions: The child care and development block grant expressly does not create a private right of action if the childcare provider is in compliance with all State regulations. The Toomey-Manchin bill does not contain similar language, potentially exposing schools to litigation. The Alexander amendment does include that. Finally, materiality. The child care and development block grant precludes hiring an employee if they make a material false statement on a background check. The Toomey-Manchin bill has no such materiality requirement. I ask unanimous consent to include, following my remarks, these differences between the background check requirements in the child care and development block grant bill and the Toomey-Manchin amendment. Finally, I am glad we are discussing the topic of protecting students from sexual abuse. I congratulate the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from West Virginia for putting the spotlight on this issue. I have worked with them to suggest changes to their bill. We have fundamental differences in our approaches. I think, when it comes to local schools, the limit of Washington's responsibility is to enable communities and schools to do a better job of educating our children. Most of the discussion we are having in the Senate education committee today is reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The discussion is about who determines whether schools and teachers are succeeding or failing, local communities or Washington? The theory is that local control of these decisions allows for more innovation. This respects the fact that parents, communities, teachers, and principals cherish their own children. It certainly would be wrong for us to say Washington cherishes their children more than they do. I spend a lot of my time arguing with people--they are often Democrats--who want to say: I have got a good idea. Now, let's impose it on all schools. For example, Common Core--we have 42 States operating under waivers from the U.S. Department of Education. In order to get that waiver, which they need to keep their schools from being deemed as failing, states have to, in effect, adopt Common Core. This requirement has created a general uprising in Tennessee; I imagine it has in North Carolina; I suspect it has in Iowa, not so much because of what the standards are but because the very idea that Washington would be telling local school districts it knows better than their state capital and local school boards what their academic standards ought to be. The same thing with teacher evaluation. When I was the Governor of Tennessee in the 1980s, we became the first State to pay teachers more for teaching well. I had a year-and-a- half brawl with the National Education Association. When we defeated them, and 10,000 teachers were gradually able to move up the career ladder. When I came to Washington, people thought I would require every State do that. I said, absolutely not. That is not the way our constitutional federalism works. States have a right to be right, and have a right to be wrong on teacher evaluation and Common Core. Those are tremendously important issues, but it is hard enough to fairly evaluate a teacher without Washington trying to tell you how to do it. Take the business of whether a school is succeeding or failing, whether a school has made adequate yearly progress, or whether a teacher is highly qualified. We have had a 12-year experiment with trying to make all these decisions at the U.S. Department of Education. One teacher said it had become a human resources department for 100,000 local schools. It hasn't worked. It does help to know how the children are doing on their tests. It does help to aggregate the results so we know whether children are falling behind. It does help for States to have the results from the national assessment of educational progress so we can compare North Carolina to Tennessee. But it does not help to have well-meaning people in Washington say: I know exactly how to make your children safe, how to tell them what to learn, how to evaluate teachers, how to tell them whether schools are succeeding or failing, and how to fix them. One other example. What about guns? Sexual abuse of children is a terrible tragedy. That is why we have at least two amendments on it, and maybe we will have a third. So are guns in schools. We have had some terrible tragedies there. What did the U.S. Congress do about that 20 years ago? They passed something called the Gun-Free School Zones Act. They whipped it right through Congress as if that was going to fix the problem of guns in every school in America. There were two things wrong with it. The Supreme Court of the United States struck the bill down as unconstitutional, as a Federal overreach into local affairs. But the main thing wrong with it was that is not how you make schools safe. You don't make schools safe by passing a law in Washington and pretending you have made 50 million children safe in 100,000 schools. This would suggest that if there is a problem with school safety in my hometown in Maryville, TN, it is up to the U.S. Senate to fix that problem, to make the schools safe. It is not. That is not how you do it. In my hometown, they make that school safe because the community is involved. They win the football games, they have good academic scores, and they have safe schools. Someone asked the principal when they won the football game why they did so well? The principal said, it is because we are a community school. When something happens here, the community shows up. If we want to fix the problem of abuse of children in schools, there is a right way to do it and there is a wrong way to do it. The right way is to recognize the problem, require States to have background checks, and enable them to do a better job at using Federal funds to access data registries and provide training for employees. In addition, the U.S. Department of Education can be designated as the lead agency to provide best practices to local schools and to include data on the prevalence of child abuse by school personnel on Secretary's report card. The wrong way to do it is to take over the personnel decisions for 6 million employees in 100,000 schools and pretend that schools will be safer. There is a fundamental difference of opinion by Senators who agree on a laudable goal. I believe it is more appropriate under our constitutional system of federalism for Congress to limit itself to enabling schools to do a better job of their essential responsibilities rather than creating, in effect, a national school board that tries to run our schools and hire and fire those personnel. I ask unanimous consent to include following my remarks a summary of the Alexander-Kirk amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I sent an amendment to the desk.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I did not.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Iowa. Mr. President, I come to the floor to offer an amendment to the legislation, which I send to the desk.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of my remarks at the Hoover Institution.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of my remarks to the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, pursuant to the provisions of the Congressional Review Act, I move to proceed to S.J. Res. 8, a joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval of the rule submitted by the National Labor Relations Board relating to representation case procedures, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have come to the floor today to discuss the Congressional Review Act resolution that Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, Senator Enzi, the Senator from Wyoming, and I have filed to stop a new National Labor Relations Board rule. Last December, the National Labor Relations Board issued a final rule that shortened the time between when pro-union organizers ask an employer for a secret ballot election and when that election actually takes place. I refer to this as the ``ambush election rule,'' because it forces a union election before an employer has the chance to figure out what is going on. Even worse, it jeopardizes employees' privacy by requiring employers to turn over employees' personal information, including email addresses, phone numbers, shift hours, and locations to union organizers. This action by the National Labor Relations Board, which increasingly has become a union advocate instead of umpiring disputes between employees and employers, has attracted enormous attention across this country. I have letters from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, the National Council of Chain Restaurants, the National Retail Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, Associated Builders and Contractors, the American Lodging and Hotel Association, HR Policy Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Society for Human Resource Management, the Associated General Contractors of America--173 total organizations that have registered their deep concern about this ambush election rule. Senator Enzi is already on the floor. He has for many years fought this battle. We want the American people to understand why the ambush election rule is such a bad idea, why it is so unfair to employers, forcing them to have a union election before they can figure out what is going on. For the same reason, it is unfair to employees. Employees have to vote in a union election before they have a chance to hear both sides. Here is how the procedure will work. If a majority of the Senate approves this resolution, it will then go to the House for a vote. If it passes both chambers, the President can veto the resolution. It will take two-thirds of the Senate to override that veto. If the NLRB's new rule is disapproved, the Board cannot issue a substantially similar rule without congressional approval. The question I would ask is: What is the rush? What is the problem here? Today, more than 95 percent of union elections occur within 56 days of the petition filing. But under this new rule, elections could take place in as few as 11 days. This rule will harm employers and employees alike. If you are an employer that is ambushed by that 11-day election, here is how it works. On day 1, you get a faxed copy of an election petition that has been filed at your local NLRB regional office stating that 30 percent of your employees support a union. The union may have already been quietly trying to organize for months without your knowledge. Your employees have only been able to hear the union's point of view. By day 2 or 3, you must publicly post an election notice in your workplace. If you communicate to your employees electronically, you have to publish the notice online as well. By noon on day 7 you must file with the NLRB what is called a statement of position. This is a comprehensive document in which an employer sets out legal positions and claims in writing. Under the NLRB's new rule, you waive your rights to use any legal arguments not raised in this document. So it should be pretty obvious that by day 7 you will have to have a lawyer on hand. You probably need that lawyer on hand on day 2, and hopefully on day 1, because if you make any mistakes in the lead-up to the election, the NLRB might set aside the result and order a rerun election. Worse, if a bigger mistake is made, it could require an employer to automatically bargain with the union. Now think about the real world. At our hearing before the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, a representative of the National Federation of Independent Businesses testified. She said there are 350,000 independent business owners in the NFIB, with an average of 10 employees. So you have small businesses all over America. They do not sit around with labor lawyers; they do not have money to hire labor lawyers. They are expected to know in a day or two exactly what to do about a complicated petition before the NLRB because of this ambush election rule that could cause the election to happen within 11 days. On day 7, you must also present the union and the NLRB with a list of prospective voters as well as their job classifications, shifts, and work locations. Now if you are a business with five, six, seven, eight employees, you are going to be spending your time working on this union matter. Your customers might want your services. They might want on-time deliveries. All of a sudden, you are running around trying to find a labor lawyer, trying to avoid making mistakes, so you can deal with this ambush election. On day 8, a pre-election hearing is held at the NLRB regional office and an election day is set. By day 10, the employer must present the union with a list of employee names, personal email addresses, personal cell phone numbers, and home addresses. You have to hand this information over, even if the employees object. Day 11 is the earliest day on which the NLRB can conduct the election under the new rule. The union has the power to postpone an election by an additional 10 days, but the employer has no corresponding power. The union has ambushed the employer and has the power to postpone the election, but the employer has no similar right. Under this new NLRB rule, before the hearing on day 8, an employer will have less than 1 week to do the following things: Figure out what an election petition is. For most of those hundreds of thousands of small businesses with five, six, eight employees, they might have no idea what it is. Find legal representation. Finding a lawyer is not just a matter of looking in a phone book, it is a matter of finding a lawyer with whom you are comfortable, whom you trust, and whom you know has some ability. That may take a while, particularly if you are not a large company and you are not accustomed to labor relations litigation. Determine legal positions on the relevant issues--learning what statements and actions the law permits and prohibits. Communicate with employees about the decision they are making. Correct any misstatements and falsehoods that employees may be hearing from union organizers. As I mentioned earlier, making even the slightest mistake in the lead-up to an election can result in the NLRB setting aside the results and ordering a rerun election, or worse, when a bigger mistake is made, the Board could require an employer to automatically bargain with the union. But it is the employees who stand to lose the most under the new rule. First, some of the employees may know what is going on before the union files its notice of an election. But all of the employees do not have a chance to hear both sides of the issue in an ambush election. Second, because of the ambush, employees may have only heard half the story. Only 4.3 percent of union elections occur more than 56 days after the petition is filed. The current median number of days between the filing of an election is 38 days. These figures are well within the NLRB's own goals for timely elections. The unions won 64 percent of elections in 2013. In recent years the union win rate has actually been going up. What is the rush? Why is 38 days too long? It is well within the NLRB's own goals and unions are winning more elections than they lose. Let's turn to 1959, when a former Member of this body, Senator John F. Kennedy, warned against rushing employees into elections in a debate over amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. This is what he said: There should be at least a 30-day interval between the request for an election and the holding of the election in which both parties can present their viewpoints. Senator John F. Kennedy, April 21, 1959. If Senator Kennedy thought 30 days was approximately right, if 38 days is the mean today, and if that is within the NLRB's own goals, why the rush? Why the push for an ambush election? Why have an election that can be set in 11 days before employers and employees know what is going on? When a workplace is unionized, especially in a State that has no right-to- work law, employees have dues money taken out of every paycheck whether they like it or not. They lose the ability to deal directly with their employers to address concerns or ask for a promotion or a raise. Instead, employees have to work through the union. Important considerations, such as which of their fellow employees will be included in a bargaining unit, will no longer be determined before the election. As the two dissenting members of the NLRB put it when this rule was decided: Employees will be asked to ``vote now, understand later.'' I wish to emphasize what the employees are losing, in addition to the opportunity to fully understand the election before them. Employees are losing their privacy, because the rule requires employers to hand over employees' personal email addresses, cell phone numbers, shift hours and locations, job classifications, even if the employees have made clear they do not want to be contacted by union organizers. Some on the other side say: It is the modern age. But I would say that in the modern age our privacy is assaulted from every side. We should be even more careful about rushing an election and releasing personal information. Employers should not have to hand over employees' personal email address, cell phone numbers, shift locations, and job classifications just because a petition is filed by 30 percent of the employees. Many employees may have no interest in creating a union. This rule appears to be a solution in search of a problem. It is clear to see it is wrong, and that is why Senators Enzi, McConnell, and I are asking the Senate to disapprove it today and prohibit the NLRB from issuing any similar rule. I will come back to the floor during our debate time to talk about how this rule is part of the National Labor Relations Board's attempt to become more advocate than umpire. That is the reason Senator McConnell and I have introduced legislation that would change the National Labor Relations Board back from an advocate to an umpire by doing three things. First, it would end partisan advocacy by creating a six-member board of three Republicans and three Democrats where a majority would require both sides to find middle ground. Second, the legislation would rein in the general counsel. Businesses and unions would be able to challenge complaints filed by the general counsel in Federal district court. Third, it would encourage timely decisions. Either party in a case before the Board may appeal to the Federal court of appeals if the Board fails to reach a decision within 1 year. When I come back to the floor I will also talk about the joint employer standard and the NLRB's decision to destroy more than 700,000 American franchise businesses. These men and women operate health clubs, barbershops, auto parts shops, childcare centers, neighborhood restaurants, music stores, cleaning services, and much more. Combine the attack on franchises with the ambush election rule and an NLRB decision allowing micro-unions--where unions target small units in a large company--and we see there is a consistent trend by unions and their friends in the NLRB to tip the balance in ways never intended by the creators of the National Labor Relations Act. The National Labor Relations Board is supposed to be an umpire, not an advocate. If there ever was an example of unfairness and tipping the balance in a single direction, it would be the ambush election rule. The rule allows union organizers to ambush an unsuspecting company and force an election in 11 days--before the employer and its employees have time to figure out what is going on. In conclusion, I think Senator Kennedy's advice is good advice to follow. Much has changed since 1959, but fairness, balance, and giving everyone a chance to have an opportunity to know what is going on have not. Senator Kennedy thought 30 days was about right, and 38 days is the mean today. This ambush election rule would reduce it to 11. That is the wrong thing to do, and I hope the majority in the Senate agrees with me on that. I hope the House agrees with us on that. I hope the President will agree with us on that. If he vetoes it, as he has said today he will, then I hope a majority of both parties will speak up for employers and employees in the United States and say no ambush elections for us. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I know we are in Democratic time right now. So if a Member of the other side shows up, I will sit down. I appreciate the courtesy of my colleagues on the other side allowing me to continue my remarks. I will not take more than 7 or 8 minutes. My good friend from New York just spoke. We have worked together on a number of things. He talked about the middle class. I think he is right to talk about the middle class and the effect of the National Labor Relations Board on the middle class. Let me give a little bit different perspective on it. My problem with this NLRB is that it is not acting like an umpire between employers and employees, it is acting like an advocate for the unions. It did so in 2011 with the micro-union decision. It is doing so with the ambush elections rule, going against the advice of Senator John F. Kennedy in 1959, who said 30 days seemed like a fair time to give employees to consider whether to have a union. They are ambushing employers--it's like riding through a canyon and suddenly people start shooting at you. In just 11 days--we have hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the country that are trying to work, sell their goods, make a living, improve their status. That is the middle class we talked about. Say you have five employees, say you are down in Maryville, TN, or Wichita, KS, the last thing on your mind is a labor lawyer. Here comes an election in 11 days. Suddenly small businesses have to find and pay a labor lawyer. They need legal advice at every step because in as few as 11 days they might have an election. There is no need to rush into an election that rapidly other than to give union organizers an opportunity to force a union election before the employer and its employees know what is going on. Let me give one more example of the assault on the middle class that I see from this NLRB and our friends on the other side. In every community in America, there are lots of franchisees. These are the men and women who operate health clubs, barber shops, auto parts shops, childcare centers, neighborhood restaurants, music stores, cleaning services, and much more. We had some franchisees testify before the labor committee the other day. These franchisees could have worked for a big corporation, but they said: I would like to run my own business. Franchisees can own a Ruby Tuesday's, a Rainbow Station, or an auto parts franchise. They own that business. They run that business. They use that brand name to help it succeed. They use brand names like Planet Fitness, Merry Maids, or Panera Bread. They might work 12 hours a day serving customers, meeting a payroll, or cleaning. This is hard work, but 700,000 Americans do it because it is their way up the economic ladder. It is their way to say: I have my own business. I do not work for the big guys. I am a little guy working my way up. Successful franchisees are one of the most important ways to climb the economic ladder of success. Yet this NLRB, the same one that wants to have ambush elections, has a pending decision that would threaten franchisees' very way of life. It is called the joint employer standard, which since 1984 has required a business to hold direct control over the terms and conditions of a worker's employment. Through broad language, the NLRB is saying to McDonald's or Ruby Tuesday's that they are part of the parent company, and anything they do at their store has to be accepted by the parent company. What are the consequences if that happens? The parent companies are going to say: We are not going to take that risk. We are going to own all of our stores. So we will own all of the Rainbow Stations. The parent company will own all of the McDonald's stores, or all of the Ruby Tuesday's. What will that do? That might protect the parent company because it can hire a team of labor lawyers. It can instruct its employees what to do and what not to do to avoid problems. But it takes away the middle- class opportunity of moving up the economic ladder from these 700,000 franchisees. That is what this NLRB is doing. The ambush election rule is nothing more than speeding up the time that it takes between when pro-union organizers ask an employer for a secret ballot election, and when that election actually takes place. Every step you take has to be perfect according or else you might have to have a rerun election or be ordered to negotiate with the union. That jeopardizes the fairness in our system. The National Labor Relations Act was intended to create an environment of balance and fairness among employers and employees. Senator Kennedy said in 1959 that 30 days would be a reasonable amount of time between when a union organizer files a petition and when an election is held. Senator McConnell and I have another bill to restore the balance in the National Labor Relations Board. It is absolutely fair. The Board would be three Democrats, three Republicans. If the general counsel's complaint is outside the law, the aggrieved party can take it to Federal court. If the NLRB takes longer than 1 year to decide a case, either party can take it to Federal court. That is fair. That is the kind of umpire we need in labor relations today. So this is about the middle class. This is about moving up the economic ladder. This is about the kind of actions that give 700,000 Americans their franchise business. This is about the hundreds of thousands of Americans, with 4, 5, 6, 10, 15 employees, who do not need to be ambushed as they try to earn a living, pay their bills, sweep the floor, make a profit, pay employees, and create the American dream. The stakes are high. We are right to say let's return the National Labor Relations Board to an umpire. Let us hope the House agrees. Let us hope the President agrees. It's time to return fairness and balance to labor-management relations in this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet during the session of the Senate on March 5, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled. ``America's Health IT Transformation: Translating the Promise of Electronic Health Records Into Better Care.'' For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Jamie Garden of the committee staff on (202) 224-1409.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet during the session of the Senate on March 10, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled. ``Continuing America's Leadership in Medical Innovation for Patients.'' For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Jamie Garden of the committee staff on (202) 224-1409.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2015, at 2:15 p.m., in the President's Room of the Capitol.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2015, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2015, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Federal Reserve Accountability and Reform.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2015, at 9 a.m., in room SR-253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Examining the FY 2016 Budget Requests for the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Transportation.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2015, at 9 a.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Fairness in Taxation.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 3, 2015, at 4 p.m., to conduct a classified brief entitled ``Update on the Campaign against ISIS.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on March 3, 2015, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Ensuring Agency Priorities Comply with the Law.''

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of my remarks at the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Michigan has made an eloquent speech about the importance of fully funding the Department of Homeland Security. What is astonishing to me is that she didn't listen to her own speech the first time the Republican majority leader brought up the House-passed bill to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security and the Democrats blocked it; and why she didn't listen to that speech the second time the Republican majority leader brought up the House-passed bill to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security and the Democrats blocked it; and why she didn't listen to that speech the third time the Republican majority leader brought up the House-passed proposal to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security and the Democrats blocked it; and why not the fourth time the Republican leader brought up a bill passed by the House of Representatives to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security and the Democrats blocked it. This is the fifth vote to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, which we want to do, and which we voted to do four times. So let us not confuse the issue here. I am amazed that Senate Democrats come up with this stuff on the other side. One would think they were living in a different world than we are. The House has passed legislation to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. Senate Republicans have brought up a bill to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security four times. The Presiding Officer knows that. Four times we voted yes and four times they voted no. This is the fifth opportunity they will have to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, and I hope we can do that. But let us not recreate events that never happened. Let us recognize the fact that for 2 weeks Senate Republicans have been prepared to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security and the Democrats themselves have blocked it not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. Higher Education Now, Mr. President, if I may switch gears, I came to the floor to talk on another subject which fortunately has bipartisan support. I am glad to speak about something like that because I think the people of this country gave us and the Republican majority an opportunity this year to come to Washington and shake things up, but also get things done. In the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, we are working hard to do just that with Senator Murray, the ranking Democrat on the committee, and just as I worked with Senator Harkin in the last Congress when our committee reported out 25 different pieces of legislation which became law. So we got things done in the last Congress, and I am fully confident that Senator Murray and I and the other members of our committee can do that in this Congress. That doesn't mean we agree on everything. We don't agree on a lot of things. If you had to pick a group of liberals and a group of conservatives and line them up, our committee would probably have as much difference as any committee in the Congress. But we also have about 30 percent of the jurisdiction in the Congress. That is what Senator Ted Kennedy used to say when he was in the Senate. And we know it is our responsibility to get things done. We are working hard on fixing No Child Left Behind. We are working with Secretary Burwell and the President on finding ways to move discoveries and devices through the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration into the medicine cabinets. I see the Senator from Maryland on the floor. Yesterday we worked together to receive a report that Senator Mikulski from Maryland and I, Senator Bennet from Colorado, and Senator Burr from North Carolina, asked for 2 years ago to take a look at all the Federal regulations governing our 6,000 colleges and universities and give us an assessment of how much they cost, and how much confusion and duplication there is since the eight different times we have reauthorized the Higher Education Act of 1965. We asked how often we failed to weed the garden, how often we instead just dumped new laws and regulations on top of old ones, and to tell us exactly what to do. Chancellor Zeppos of Vanderbilt University and Chancellor Kirwan of the University System of Maryland gave us this report. Senator Mikulski was there, I was there, and Senator Murray, Senator Burr, and Senator Bennet were there. It was a very impressive report. I won't speak for long about it because I see the Senator from Maryland would like to speak, but I wish to take 5 minutes and say these things. It is sometimes best to tell a story to underscore a point, and here is the first story. Vanderbilt University hired the Boston Consulting Group to tell the university how much it spent complying with Federal rules and regulations for higher education in a single year. According to the Boston Consulting Group, Vanderbilt University spent $150 million complying with Federal rules and regulations last year. That is 11 percent of Vanderbilt's non-hospital expenditures. That adds up to about $11,000 of the tuition for each one of the 12,000 students at the university. It is absolutely absurd that somehow or another that could happen. A second example is the student aid form 20 million families fill out every year. It is 108 questions long. Our committee has been told that two questions would provide all the necessary information for 95 percent of families: What is your income from two years ago and what is your family size? A bipartisan group of Senators have introduced a bill to do just that. This would save millions of hours and dollars across the country. Here is a third example. Surveys conducted by the National Academy of Sciences found that 42 percent of a principal investigator's time on a research project is spent on administrative tasks instead of research. I asked the head of the National Academy of Sciences what would be a reasonable time? He said about 10 percent. We spend 30 billion in taxpayer dollars a year on research and development at colleges and universities. If we could save $1 billion of that $30 billion by reducing that 42 percent to closer to 10 percent, then we could fund a 1,000 more multiyear grants to investigate cancer research, Ebola research, and vaccines, and we should do that. This is an enormously promising report. Ten years ago the Senator from Maryland and I worked on a report called ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm.'' We asked a group of distinguished Americans to tell us the 20 things that we might do in Congress to help make our country more competitive in the world. They gave us the 20 things, which formed a blueprint, and we passed most of them and eventually funded most of them. So I think this report we received yesterday has the opportunity to be as important as ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' which later helped establish the America COMPETES Act. It is a blueprint for how we can reduce overregulation, simplify rules, save money, make consumer protection clear, keep tuition down, find more money for research, and let colleges and universities spend their time and money educating students instead of filling out forms. I thank Senator Mikulski from Maryland, Senator Bennet from Colorado, Senator Burr from North Carolina, and my partner Senator Murray on the HELP Committee. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my opening statement from yesterday's hearing, followed by pages 1 through 6 of the report presented to us yesterday, be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland for her comments and her leadership. I would say to the Senator from Maryland that I will need to sit down and talk to the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, which we plan to do in March. My hope would be that in April we could begin five or six hearings aligned with the recommendations in the report, and on other matters such as accreditation, form working groups within our committee, and then by the fall move ahead with the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act and complete it by the end of the year.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing earlier this week be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield back all time.