Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I see my distinguished friend the Senator from Iowa on the floor. I am here, very simply, to say that we are about to vote on the Child Care and Development Block Grant, a piece of legislation that would provide childcare to 1.5 million children so that their mothers can work or continue their education or training. I have repeated on this floor several times the story of a young woman in Memphis, TN, who attended LeMoyne-Owen College and received about $500 a month to pay for childcare for her child so she could get her degree. She then graduated from LeMoyne-Owen with a business degree and was able to work her way up to the position of assistant manager at a local Walmart. The block grant helped her be able to continue her education and obtain a good job so that she can now pay for the childcare costs of her second child on her own. This bill has strong support on both sides of the aisle, but we Republicans especially like it because it is a block grant to the States. The grant gives States flexibility with minimal Federal rules. It also encourages the use of vouchers allowing that young mother I just mentioned to choose among her various options for childcare. It doesn't mandate from Washington, it enables from Washington. It recognizes that leaders in States have very good judgment, and what might work in Hawaii might not in Tennessee or Iowa. Different programs may work better in different jurisdictions, and that mothers themselves ought to be able to make the judgment of where their child receives care. I wish to thank Senator Harkin, who is retiring this year, and who is chairman of the committee that has produced this bill. He and Senator Mikulski and Senator Burr have worked for years on this piece of legislation. It received a lot of consideration in the Senate and in the House. We all would like to see the Senate function better, and it did function better for this bill. When we first brought this to the Senate floor in March, the majority leader didn't fill the tree or file cloture. We considered 50 amendments and adopted 18 of them. Fourteen of them we agreed to adopt by voice vote, four of them received roll call votes, and then we passed the bill 96 to 2. The House made a few minor changes in it. They did it while consulting with Senator Harkin and me and others who did work on the bill, and we have come to this point today. This is a very important piece of legislation, helping 900,000 families, 1.5 million children across the country. In Tennessee alone, 21,000 families will be helped by this. In our society today, worksite daycare is not available to every single mother or father who has a child, and this helps with that. I thank the Senate for its consideration of this very important bill. I thank the House for working with the Senate and I congratulate Senator Harkin. I imagine he has mentioned it, but if he hasn't, this will be the 21st piece of legislation the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has produced this year that will become law under his leadership. As Senator Harkin goes back to Des Moines, IA, and rocks on his front porch and pursues the next chapter of his life, he can say that in the Senate, which didn't always work that well in this Congress, his committee did, and it has benefited lots of families and lots of children. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the bill, and I am glad to see it as a good example of what I hope to see more of as we move into the new year. Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor. Recognizing Homeless Children and Families in the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act

Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence fo a quorum.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I will have about 20 minutes.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I applaud the Senators from Pennsylvania and from West Virginia for their concern. Of course, every single Senator would like, as the Senator from West Virginia said, to make sure every single child is safe in every single school. The question in my mind is, How does one do that? My mind goes back to a particularly horrific shooting in a school in the early 1990s and the country was revulsed by it and Congress acted. We are going to make every single school safe. So Congress passed the Gun-Free School Zones Act in about 1990, and the Supreme Court in a few years held it unconstitutional under the commerce clause, which isn't a problem here, but I opposed that then--I was U.S. Education Secretary then--because the way to make every child and every school safe is not the job of the U.S. Senate and U.S. Department of Education. That is not the way to do it. We have 40 million children, right. We have 100,000 schools, correct. We have 14,000 school boards. We have 100,000 principals. What this proposal would do is to put the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Congress--which currently has about a 10-percent approval rating-- in charge of making every single child in every single school safer than the local school board can, than the local legislator can, than the local Governor can, than the local community can, than the parents can. If we want safe schools, that is the job of parents, communities, school boards, and States. It is not a duty to be bucked upstairs to the Senate and the Department of Education. That doesn't make Sam Houston Elementary School in Lebanon, TN, any safer. I don't think many parents would go home feeling better tonight in my hometown if they knew it was the Senate they were counting on to make their child safe in their school. Of course this is the right goal, but there is a better way to do that. There is a better way to do that. The reason the Senator from Iowa and I offered to the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from West Virginia an opportunity to have a hearing and a markup on this bill in September was we think we have a better idea, and that was simply to take the very well-meaning impulse that they have and change the direction in a fundamental way, which was to say instead of making every one of our 100,000 schools do this, and telling them how to do it, we will enable them to do it by giving them access to all the Federal registries by allowing them to use Federal title II money to do it, to use title II money for training. We thought we had a better way to get to the same goal, which is to make every single child safe. All of us are horrified by these stories. So the question is, What is the best way to deal with it. Some people say let Washington do it. I just went through a little reelection campaign in Tennessee. I don't think I had one person come up to me and say: Why don't you let Washington tell us what to do about the employment practices in our local schools. I don't think I had a single person come up and say: I think you guys in the Senate care more and know more about how to make every single child in every Tennessee school safer by your actions in Washington. They know better than that. In fact, they came up to me and said: Tell Washington to stop telling us what to do about our academic standards, Common Core. This is Common Core for employment practices. Stop Washington from telling us what to do and about what the curriculum ought to be. Stop Washington from telling us what to do about training our teachers, about evaluating our teachers, about how long our class sessions ought to be, about how large our classes ought to be. We have proposals that come through this same committee. The President has one involving preschool that would create a national school board for preschool education. Class size, teacher salaries, length of school days, all those things would be decided by people with wisdom in Washington. I reject that. I would particularly object to that when I was Governor of Tennessee, which I was for 8 years. If there were a horrific case in Tennessee of sexual predation in one of the schools, I wouldn't have phoned Washington to find out what to do about it. I would have called the legislature into session and done something about it. If I were to have found that I didn't have access to the Federal registries or any central registries, I would then have said to my U.S. Senator: Why don't you give us these tools to do it-- which is what I would propose to do. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a summary of a proposal I would make that would help every one of our 100,000 schools to do a better job of dealing with employment practices and criminal background checks.

Mr. ALEXANDER. This is a surprising development for me. I understand the terrible nature of the problem, but I think it is so important that we not lead the American people into thinking we could solve these community problems by asking Washington to do it. If we have an obstacle here, if there is no access to a registry, let's change that. I would love to have a Toomey-Manchin bill with their names on it to give every single school board, 100,000 schools the tools they need to do the job. But they should be accountable for it, not the Senator from Tennessee. They should be accountable for it. ADM Hyman Rickover was the leader and inventor, really, of our nuclear Navy, and our nuclear Navy has never had a problem--never had a death I should say--from the reactors on our nuclear submarines. I think the reason is because Admiral Rickover hired every one of the captains. He told them: You have two responsibilities, one is the ship and one is the reactor. If something happens to the reactor, your career is over. I think putting the captain on the flagpole and making it clear whose job it is to be accountable for safe schools is a big part of it. If we make it look as though somehow the Senate takes care of making a school in Pennsylvania or West Virginia or Tennessee safe because we passed some bill and wrote some regulation and caused everybody to fill out a lot of forms in the 46 States that already have criminal background checks of their own, then I think we have done a disservice. I think we have done a disservice. We had a recent example on legislation in our committee on compounding pharmacies. We had a terrible situation where a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts, acting like a manufacturer, produced sterile products that weren't sterile, and as a result in Tennessee and many other States people were injected with unsterile drugs and they caught meningitis and they died. It was an awful disease and a terrible thing to happen. Part of the problem was who was on the flagpole, who was in charge. Was it the Food and Drug Administration or was it the State Control Board in Massachusetts? Our legislation sought to clean that up and to make it clear that someone was accountable. I think the persons accountable for safe schools are the principal of the school, the local school board, the parents, and the students in that community. The rest of us can give them tools and remove obstacles and get out of the way. But the idea that we should pass a law, tell them how to do it, and inevitably write these complicated regulations that they have to fill out, that is not going to make every single child in every single school safer. As I said when I began, the Senator's passion is evident. I respect that, and I respect him as a Senator. We don't have two better Senators in our body than the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Pennsylvania. They know I feel that way. But I have a profound difference of opinion about this. I will say that if they wanted to consider this with the child care and development block grant, they have plenty of opportunity to do that. We have had a lot of complaining on our side of the aisle about the lack of what we call a regular order. We say we have not been allowed to offer amendments, and that has been true. There has been a record-low number of amendments in this session of Congress, and the distinguished Senator in the chair has been among those who have pointed that out. But in this case, this was a model of how we should consider legislation. It was considered in the committees in the House and the Senate. This amendment was not offered in the committees in the House and the Senate. It then passed the Senate committee and came to the floor. In March we had an open amendment process for anything that had to do with the bill. Fifty amendments were filed, and 18 amendments were considered and agreed to. There was no filling of the tree. There was no motion for cloture. There was simply an open amendment process and a vote. This amendment could have been offered then. Let's put that off to the side. I think the more important discussion we need to have is who is in charge of these schools? Who should create the academic standards? If the U.S. Department of Education should be responsible for determining what the employment practices are in 100,000 public schools, then there should be no objection to the U.S. Department of Education ordering every school in America to adopt the Common Core or ordering every school in America to have a class size of X or ordering every school in America to pay teachers this much or determining, as this current Department of Education tries to do, how you should evaluate teachers in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, or Tennessee. I don't think that is the way our country was set up. I don't think that respects our constitutional framework. I don't think it is consistent with the spirit, at least, of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. I do not think the American people--and I know Tennesseeans don't-- want Washington telling them how to run schools, and there is nothing more fundamental about running schools than telling 100,000 schools and their school boards and their Governors and their legislators and their parents what their employment practices ought to be. Plus, I don't think it will make the school safer. I think what will make it safer is a bill that has the courageous attention--as the Senator from Pennsylvania and West Virginia have given to the problem--that would give all those local organizations an opportunity to access the registries that are available, to deal with people who go across State lines, give them access to title II funding so they would have money for that and money for training. So it is a choice between mandating and enabling. I am on the side of local school boards, not a national school board. While I respect the effort of the Senators and I believe the subject is urgently important for our country, I would prefer to see this matter considered with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which will be the first order of business in the new session of Congress, and I am chairman of that committee. Let's have a discussion about the best way to do that. Do a majority of the Senators on the committee really think Washington can do a better job of making every single child and every single school safe by mandating and ordering and regulating or does a majority of the committee in the Senate think that the Senators have called to us an important need where we might step in and make it easier for local school boards and State departments of education to update their programs--46 States already have them--and use Federal dollars to implement those programs? I prefer the latter; these Senators prefer the former. That is well worth discussing in the committee, and I look forward to doing that. I came to the floor tonight to make clear that I see this as a fundamental difference of opinion, one that deserves attention, to show my respect for the Senators from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and to offer the framework for what I think is a better idea for making every single child in every single school safe. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Senator from Rhode Island is here, and it is his turn. I wish to make a few comments.

Mr. ALEXANDER. There are a couple of differences. Under the Parliamentarian's ruling, this amendment is not under the block grant bill. No. 2, all the funding for the vouchers that go to mothers who may use the block grants for daycare while they go to work, which is what our bill is about, all comes from the Federal Government. The whole principle of that bill--it is a pretty good Republican bill, in my view--is that there is a lot of flexibility. In fact, we had a pretty good debate about the criminal background checks in our bill. I would have preferred to have given the States more flexibility for the reasons I have stated, but I agreed to what was done. It has 100 percent Federal funding, whereas the Federal Government only funds 10 percent of our schools. The penalties for not taking the Federal orders for what your personnel practices ought to be are much more severe in the bill from the Senator from Pennsylvania. He would cause you to lose 10 percent of your school funding. Under the childcare block grant, you would lose 5 percent of the Federal funding. But the issue remains the same, and it is a good issue. I hear it on our committee. The Senator from Rhode Island is on that committee. He has heard Senator Harkin and me argue about this. You can make a very good argument to say that we provide some money, therefore we ought to write some rules. So we are going to write the rules for personnel practices; we are going to write the rules for academic standards--also called Common Core; we are going to write the rules for qualifying how teachers should be evaluated. Even in our preschool programs, we are going to say what the rules are for class size and the length of the school day. That sounds very good, but when you operate a school, you say: Who are these people? They might give me some tools, which we could do--and I would propose we do--or they might allow us to use some Federal money so we can have a better personnel practice, but we really don't think it works. We don't think that every time there is a horrific problem in our community, the Federal Government should step in and tell us how to fix it. That is a really big difference, and it is particularly a big difference with schools, and it is a debate that will likely go on for some time. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his patience.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Presiding Officer and the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Tomorrow at 2:15 we will have a vote on the Child Care and Development Block Grant of 2014. I want to take a few minutes and explain why it is important to end the debate on the Child Care and Development Block Grant and vote on whether we want to turn it into a law. When I talk about why it is important, I think of a young woman from Memphis who attended LeMoyne College. This woman had a young child and was able to qualify for a child care voucher from the State of Tennessee. There are about 900,000 families across the country that take advantage of this Federal voucher program. She was able to get $500 or $600 a month in order to provide daycare for her child while she pursued a business degree from LeMoyne-Owen College. With the help of this program she graduated with her degree and earned a position as an assistant manager at Walmart. With her new position, she is now able to pay for the child care for her second child without help from the Federal Government. This is exactly the kind of legislating we should be doing at the Federal level. What is the appropriate role of the Federal Government on an issue such as childcare? The answer this bill gives is that we should enable this young mother and 21,000 other families in Tennessee to take a Federal voucher, choose their own childcare center, and help them to financial independence through work or continued education or training programs. It has been an enormously successful program. The program has worked for over 20 years and was inaugurated in the administration of George H.W. Bush and was a bipartisan product of Congress. It follows the example of other successful Federal programs by enabling American families to help themselves. We follow the same model when we deal with Federal Pell grants and loans that help students pay for college. Last year the Presiding Officer will remember we had an agreement in this body on huge changes to the student loan program. President Obama became involved and Secretary Arne Duncan led a bipartisan working group to develop a solution. The Republican House of Representatives came along, and we created new rules for the $100 billion of loans the Federal Government makes to students every year. The result was a market-based system that is revenue-neutral for the taxpayers, and lowered the interest rates on student loans to undergraduates by about one-half that year. We first used the idea of Federal vouchers for education with the passage of the GI bill in 1944. Recipients can take a voucher and then choose among educational institutions of their choice, such as the University of Notre Dame, University of New Mexico, University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt University, Yeshiva College, or whichever accredited college they so choose. This idea has worked very well and the GI bill may be the most successful piece of social legislation ever passed. The Child Care and Development Block Grant is a good example of the government working as an enabler rather than simply prescribing mandates. The program provides $5.3 billion for childcare services for children under the age of 13, with plenty of flexibility. While it has broad bipartisan support, Republican particularly appreciate the flexibility the act provides to States through block grants. States are then able to provide parents with vouchers so that they can select a provider that best meets their needs. It is a model that has proven successful since 1944 and one I hope we continue. Now we have the chance to move this bill forward by voting to end debate. The cloture vote that we will have tomorrow will reflect that we debated the bill fully and that at least 60 of us believe it is time to move forward and vote yes or no. Have we all had our say? I believe so. Senator Harkin, Senator Mikulski, and Senator Burr, have worked on this for several years as well as several others of us. It was approved 1 year ago by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on a bipartisan basis. Then in March of this year, 2014, the bill was debated and discussed in this very chamber over a 2-day period. We have had a lot of discussion in the Senate about whether we get to offer amendments. That concern has come from the Senator who is presiding today, that concern has come from me, it has come from the Senator from Oklahoma, who is here. It is not easy to be elected to the Senate and it is not easy to stay in office. And once elected, senators want their voices to be heard, whether it is on the Keystone Pipeline or the Child Care and Development Block Grant. The Child Care and Development Block Grant went through a model process that began with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, then to the Senate floor on March 12 through unanimous consent. There was no motion for cloture, no filling of the tree, and anyone who offered a relevant amendment was able to share and debate that amendment. Senators offered 50 different amendments. Then we considered and agreed to 18 of those amendments. This body approved 4 by recorded vote and 14 by voice vote. Senators Enzi, Landrieu, Franken, Coburn, Boxer, Lee, Portman, Tester, Scott, Thune, Bennet, Warren, Vitter, and Sanders all had amendments to this bill. They were allowed to offer them, speak on them, and they were either voted on or accepted, and then the bill was passed by the Senate. The bill then went to the House of Representatives, was amended and approved and then sent back to us. Again, here we have an example of a good process. I think part of the reason for the quality of the process is the bipartisan appreciation for early childhood education. I think it is time to stop talking and vote on the Child Care and Development Block Grant. I ask our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for it. I think all of us can support the idea of early childhood education. I am the product of one of the first early learning programs in the State of Tennessee. When I was a child, my mother started one of the two early preschool education programs in our county. She held class in a converted garage in our back yard with 24 3-year-olds in the morning and 25 5-year-olds in the afternoon. It is hard to imagine a single mother dealing with that many children all at one time, but she did. As her son, I was able to experience kindergarten for 5 years. I may be the only U.S. Senator who can say that. I had an appreciation for early childhood education instilled in me by both my mother and father. Many of us in this chamber have a very similar appreciation. We may have different ways of trying to get to that goal, but this legislation, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, provides $5.3 billion to families across the country, namely mothers, who are going to school so they can get a job, or who are working so like the young woman in Memphis I mentioned earlier, can stand on their own two feet. This program helps them get started. It is an important bill. I congratulate Senators Harkin and Burr and Mikulski for their hard work on this. I urge my colleagues tomorrow afternoon to vote yes on ending debate on cloture for the Child Care and Development Block Grant. I yield the floor.

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 yesterday be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, next Tuesday, September 23, is an important day in my hometown of Maryville, TN. It is the 90th birthday of Dean Stone. It would be hard to imagine Blount County without Dean Stone. For most of his 90 years, he has been our historian-in-chief, our storyteller-in-chief, and our editor-in-chief. His photographs of the Great Smoky Mountains and his eight books about our county's history line the libraries of most of Blount Countians. In fact, taken altogether they constitute a library of their own. Dean is a longtime journalist and native of Maryville, TN, where he served as editor of the Maryville-Alcoa Daily Times and still serves as opinion editor today. In each Sunday's edition, he writes his ``Bits of Stone'' about the history and happenings around Blount County. Dean earned his degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma in 1949 after serving in World War II, where he originated the idea of raising the American flag over Yugoslavia. After college, he decided to return to Maryville and began his career with the Maryville-Alcoa Daily Times as a Sunday editor. Dean became managing editor of the newspaper--known now as the Daily Times--later that year and has been employed with the newspaper for the last 66 years. His journalistic skills and energy have helped to make the Daily Times one of the best smaller daily newspapers in our country. Under his direction, the Daily Times has received more than 30 first-place awards from Tennessee journalism associations. In 2013, Dean was inducted into the Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame. Dean is known for his contributions to tourism in Maryville and Blount County, including founding the Times Townsend Traveler in the early 1950s, a tourism journal that was one of the first publications of its type in the Nation. He has received numerous awards in recognition of his service to tourism in the area, including recognition as the ``one person in Blount County and Townsend who has contributed the most to tourism during the 20th century'' at the Tennessee Governor's Conference on Tourism. He also served as president of the Blount County Chamber of Commerce, on numerous education and school boards, Leadership Blount, the Maryville-Alcoa Jaycees, the Alcoa Kiwanis, and the United Way of Blount County. Dean is a longtime supporter of our national parks and for many years has served on and chaired the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Commission. He was instrumental in founding Beautiful Blount, which still seeks to preserve the beauty in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. He also started Stonecraft in 1954, a postcard company he founded to share the beauty of the Smokies. Gregg Jones, current president of Blount County Publishers, said: For the past several decades it has been Dean Stone's joy to reveal in word and picture every dimension of his beloved Blount County. As he has done so over the years, it has become apparent that Dean, himself, is one of Blount County's greatest treasures. I am honored to claim Dean as my colleague and friend, and wish him the very best on this special day and every day to come. Another colleague of Dean's, Carl Esposito, current publisher of the Daily Times, said, ``Dean Stone is not only the elder statesman of the Daily Times, but a virtual repository of Blount County history and knowledge. It is a pleasure and privilege to work alongside him.'' Many Blount Countians have their own stories about Dean's impact on their lives, and I have mine. Other than lawn mowing and paper routes, Dean gave me my first real job. When I was a student at Maryville High School during the 1950s, Dean began a feature in the Daily Times reporting the news in Blount County high schools. He named me the school page editor for Maryville High. As I remember, the pay was one penny for each inch of copy that I wrote. I remember turning in so many inches of copy that after the first edition, Dean limited the number of words each school editor could write. Ever since, Dean Stone and his family have been close friends of the Alexander family. There is no one from whom I have learned more about my home county than Dean Stone. So Dean, from one of your many students, admirers, former employees and fellow Blount Countians, Happy 90th Birthday, and thank you for all you have done to celebrate the beautiful place we call home.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I am introducing the NLRB Reform Act with Senator McConnell. Our legislation is very simple. It will change the NLRB from an advocate to an umpire. That is the role the National Labor Relations Board was always supposed to have. The Board was created 79 years ago to act as an impartial umpire in labor disputes that threaten the free flow of commerce. The Board's decisions affect millions of private sector workers. But over time the Board has become an advocate for one interest group or the other, changing positions with each new administration. There are three significant problems the Board faces today: No. 1, the biggest problem is partisan advocacy. Today the majority of the five-member Board is made up of appointees who follow President Obama's political leanings. President Obama has appointed three labor union leaders to the Board. No. 2, the Board also has a freewheeling advocate for its general counsel. The Board's most recent general counsels have been exceeding their statutory authority and bringing questionable cases that threaten American jobs and threaten sending overseas manufacturing jobs that we need to keep here. No. 3, the National Labor Relations Board has been slow to resolve disputes. Last year 109 cases--that is 30 percent of the Board's caseload--were pending for more than a year. Occasionally someone will say to me: If Republicans were to win the Senate, what would Republicans do? What we would do is try to come up with sensible proposals that lead us in the right direction, proposals that have so much commonsense that they attract the support of enough Democrats and the House of Representatives and the President to become law. This is one such proposal. Our bill provides three solutions to the problems I identified: No. 1, it would end partisan advocacy on the National Labor Relations Board. The Board would become a six-member board of three Republicans and three Democrats, and a required majority of four will force both sides to find a middle ground. No. 2, it reins in the general counsel. Businesses and unions would be able to challenge complaints filed by the general counsel by taking them to the Federal district court, and they will have greater transparency about the basis and legal reasoning for the charges brought by the general counsel. No. 3, our legislation would encourage timely decisions. First, either party in a case before the Board may appeal to a Federal court of appeals if the Board fails to reach a decision in 1 year. Second, funding for the entire NLRB would be reduced by 20 percent if the Board is not able to decide 90 percent of its cases within 1 year over the first 2-year period following reform. Our bill would offer these solutions without taking away one single right, one single remedy from any employee, business, or union. With each new administration, the pendulum at the NLRB has swung further from the middle, further away from being an umpire. The result is that labor policy whipsaws back and forth, taking employees and employers for a wild ride. This has happened under most administrations, but it has been worse under the current administration. The minority leader mentioned several of those examples. Under the partisan advocacy of today's National Labor Relations Board, workers are losing their right to privacy. The Board is embarking on a regulatory effort to expand requirements that employers give employees' names and addresses to union organizers. The Board wants more personal information about these employees to be given to the organizing union, including telephone numbers, email addresses, the employee's work location, the employee's shift, the job classifications. They propose doing everything but attaching a GPS to the lapel of each employee. In my State of Tennessee, for example, we have had an ongoing organizing effort in the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. In a secret ballot election last February, employees at the Volkswagen plant said: We don't want a union; we don't need a union. So 712 to 626 they rejected the United Auto Workers' bid to unionize the plant. Imagine if you were one of those 712 employees who voted against unionizing. Now organizers can get your private email address and all of this other personal information. Here is another example. Factions of employees within single stores now have a path to forming their own unions. In 2011 the Board suddenly adopted a new way to define what makes a local union bargaining unit. The Board changed the law so that any group of employees with an overwhelming community of interest could become a bargaining unit and therefore a union. At the same time, the Board is moving a regulation to limit the employer's ability to question which employees should be in a bargaining unit. This allows a union to cherry-pick employees who will be most likely to support forming a union. How has this worked in the real world? Here is an example. The Board just approved a bargaining unit for cosmetic and fragrance employees in a Macy's department store--not the shoe salespeople, not the lady's fashion employees, not the junior's department, just cosmetic and fragrance. Imagine if every department of Macy's decided to form a union. The employer would have dozens of different groups to negotiate with, and the different unions would be fighting each other over who got the better raises and break rooms in terms of employment. During this administration the NLRB has ruled that common employment policies are unfair labor practices, such as--and Senator Scott brought this up at a hearing the other day--the NLRB has said that an employer may not have a policy that requires employees to be courteous to customers and fellow employees, or prohibiting employees from making negative comments about the business that employs them on social media or selecting arbitration for employment disputes. Our solution: Senator McConnell and I would solve this by requiring a six-member board of three Republicans and three Democrats. Like the Federal Election Commission, a majority of four will require both sides to find a middle ground. Here is the second problem. The Board's general counsel is acting like a freewheeling advocate, stretching labor law to its limits and sometimes beyond its limits. For example, in 2011 the general counsel moved to stop Boeing from building new airplanes at a nonunion plant in South Carolina. The general counsel to the NLRB jeopardized a $1 billion factory and hundreds of jobs with this move, but even worse, he tried to make the case that a unionized American company can't expand its operations into one of the 24 States, such as Tennessee, with right-to-work laws which protect a worker's right to join or not to join a union. The general counsel eventually withdrew this outrageous complaint against Boeing, but if it had set a precedent, jobs would have fled overseas as manufacturers look to find a competitive environment in which to make and sell cars around the world. We want to make sure manufacturers such as Boeing, Nissan, and General Motors can have a competitive environment in the United States in which they can make airplanes and cars and other goods and sell them around the world. We do not want them making them in Mexico or Japan or Europe or somewhere else because we have undermined right-to-work laws. Our solution would allow employers and unions to challenge complaints filed against them by the general counsel in Federal court and give employers and unions new rights to learn the basis and legal reasoning of charges filed against them by the general counsel. Finally, the NLRB is taking too long to resolve cases. For example, one case has been pending at the Board for more than 7 years. The case involves the question of whether an employer has to allow labor union organizers access to private property. Our solution--Senator McConnell and I encourage a timely resolution of cases, first, by allowing either party to appeal to a Federal court of appeals for a de novo, or fresh, review if the Board fails to reach a decision on the case within 1 year. To further incentivize timely resolution, we include the threat of a 20-percent budget cut with the Board if 90 percent of the cases are not decided within a year. In conclusion, while the increasing partisanship of the Board has appeared in Republican administrations as well as Democratic administrations, it has reached a climax in this administration. Three of this President's recent nominees came from major labor unions' leadership. One law professor at a major university said she can't use the most recent labor law textbook. The decisions changing the law are coming out so rapidly and the NLRB is venturing into new territory with these efforts at rulemaking. This is no way to maintain a national labor law policy. Our plan, the NLRB Reform Act, will, first, end partisan advocacy; second, rein in the general counsel; third, it will encourage timely decisions. Our bill would offer these solutions without taking away one right or one remedy from one employee, one business, or one union. I hope my colleagues will carefully review this proposal and consider cosponsoring the NLRB Reform Act.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, before discussing the legislation involving the National Labor Relations Board which the Republican leader mentioned, I wish to align myself with his comments on the Ebola epidemic. In my view, he is right to support the President's effort for a more urgent response to this epidemic. I am not given to making overstatements--I think that would be a fair reputation in this body--but I believe we should treat the Ebola epidemic as seriously as we treat the danger of ISIS. Why would I say that? Because the head of the Centers for Disease Control and our United Nations Ambassador, who is working with other countries to get them involved, say this: This is one of the most deadly, explosive epidemics in modern times. It moves rapidly. There is no vaccine, and there is no cure. One sick person can fairly quickly infect 20 other persons within a family in these West African countries where it is now a problem. One can see how quickly this could spread and become hundreds of thousands of cases or even millions of cases. This is a case where Samantha Power said to me: We should be running toward burning flames with our fireproof suits on. In other words, we know how to control it. We know how to identify sick people and isolate them and treat them. Even though half of them die, we know how to do that. But the rate of growth of this epidemic is so rapid that we need to have a response that is as urgent as the problem. I congratulate the Republican leader for supporting the President's effort today to call attention to this. So much is happening in the world, and there is a possibility that we would treat the Ebola epidemic as an important issue but not a major issue. As I said, I believe we must take the deadly, dangerous threat of Ebola as seriously as we take the threat of ISIS. I support the administration's recommendation to spend $30 million in the continuing resolution to upgrade the public health efforts there. I support the reprogramming of $500 million to involve the military in a way to deal with this. I support the effort to spend $58 million, which would be to fast track efforts to develop a treatment and cure, as well as vaccines to prevent it. NLRB Reform Mr. President, the Republican leader spoke about legislation he and I are introducing today which we call the National Labor Relations Board Reform Act. (The remarks of Senator Alexander pertaining to the introduction of S. 2814 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I am introducing the NLRB Reform Act with Senator McConnell. Our legislation is very simple. It will change the NLRB from an advocate to an umpire. That is the role the National Labor Relations Board was always supposed to have. The Board was created 79 years ago to act as an impartial umpire in labor disputes that threaten the free flow of commerce. The Board's decisions affect millions of private sector workers. But over time the Board has become an advocate for one interest group or the other, changing positions with each new administration. There are three significant problems the Board faces today: No. 1, the biggest problem is partisan advocacy. Today the majority of the five-member Board is made up of appointees who follow President Obama's political leanings. President Obama has appointed three labor union leaders to the Board. No. 2, the Board also has a freewheeling advocate for its general counsel. The Board's most recent general counsels have been exceeding their statutory authority and bringing questionable cases that threaten American jobs and threaten sending overseas manufacturing jobs that we need to keep here. No. 3, the National Labor Relations Board has been slow to resolve disputes. Last year 109 cases--that is 30 percent of the Board's caseload--were pending for more than a year. Occasionally someone will say to me: If Republicans were to win the Senate, what would Republicans do? What we would do is try to come up with sensible proposals that lead us in the right direction, proposals that have so much commonsense that they attract the support of enough Democrats and the House of Representatives and the President to become law. This is one such proposal. Our bill provides three solutions to the problems I identified: No. 1, it would end partisan advocacy on the National Labor Relations Board. The Board would become a six-member board of three Republicans and three Democrats, and a required majority of four will force both sides to find a middle ground. No. 2, it reins in the general counsel. Businesses and unions would be able to challenge complaints filed by the general counsel by taking them to the Federal district court, and they will have greater transparency about the basis and legal reasoning for the charges brought by the general counsel. No. 3, our legislation would encourage timely decisions. First, either party in a case before the Board may appeal to a Federal court of appeals if the Board fails to reach a decision in 1 year. Second, funding for the entire NLRB would be reduced by 20 percent if the Board is not able to decide 90 percent of its cases within 1 year over the first 2-year period following reform. Our bill would offer these solutions without taking away one single right, one single remedy from any employee, business, or union. With each new administration, the pendulum at the NLRB has swung further from the middle, further away from being an umpire. The result is that labor policy whipsaws back and forth, taking employees and employers for a wild ride. This has happened under most administrations, but it has been worse under the current administration. The minority leader mentioned several of those examples. Under the partisan advocacy of today's National Labor Relations Board, workers are losing their right to privacy. The Board is embarking on a regulatory effort to expand requirements that employers give employees' names and addresses to union organizers. The Board wants more personal information about these employees to be given to the organizing union, including telephone numbers, email addresses, the employee's work location, the employee's shift, the job classifications. They propose doing everything but attaching a GPS to the lapel of each employee. In my State of Tennessee, for example, we have had an ongoing organizing effort in the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. In a secret ballot election last February, employees at the Volkswagen plant said: We don't want a union; we don't need a union. So 712 to 626 they rejected the United Auto Workers' bid to unionize the plant. Imagine if you were one of those 712 employees who voted against unionizing. Now organizers can get your private email address and all of this other personal information. Here is another example. Factions of employees within single stores now have a path to forming their own unions. In 2011 the Board suddenly adopted a new way to define what makes a local union bargaining unit. The Board changed the law so that any group of employees with an overwhelming community of interest could become a bargaining unit and therefore a union. At the same time, the Board is moving a regulation to limit the employer's ability to question which employees should be in a bargaining unit. This allows a union to cherry-pick employees who will be most likely to support forming a union. How has this worked in the real world? Here is an example. The Board just approved a bargaining unit for cosmetic and fragrance employees in a Macy's department store--not the shoe salespeople, not the lady's fashion employees, not the junior's department, just cosmetic and fragrance. Imagine if every department of Macy's decided to form a union. The employer would have dozens of different groups to negotiate with, and the different unions would be fighting each other over who got the better raises and break rooms in terms of employment. During this administration the NLRB has ruled that common employment policies are unfair labor practices, such as--and Senator Scott brought this up at a hearing the other day--the NLRB has said that an employer may not have a policy that requires employees to be courteous to customers and fellow employees, or prohibiting employees from making negative comments about the business that employs them on social media or selecting arbitration for employment disputes. Our solution: Senator McConnell and I would solve this by requiring a six-member board of three Republicans and three Democrats. Like the Federal Election Commission, a majority of four will require both sides to find a middle ground. Here is the second problem. The Board's general counsel is acting like a freewheeling advocate, stretching labor law to its limits and sometimes beyond its limits. For example, in 2011 the general counsel moved to stop Boeing from building new airplanes at a nonunion plant in South Carolina. The general counsel to the NLRB jeopardized a $1 billion factory and hundreds of jobs with this move, but even worse, he tried to make the case that a unionized American company can't expand its operations into one of the 24 States, such as Tennessee, with right-to-work laws which protect a worker's right to join or not to join a union. The general counsel eventually withdrew this outrageous complaint against Boeing, but if it had set a precedent, jobs would have fled overseas as manufacturers look to find a competitive environment in which to make and sell cars around the world. We want to make sure manufacturers such as Boeing, Nissan, and General Motors can have a competitive environment in the United States in which they can make airplanes and cars and other goods and sell them around the world. We do not want them making them in Mexico or Japan or Europe or somewhere else because we have undermined right-to-work laws. Our solution would allow employers and unions to challenge complaints filed against them by the general counsel in Federal court and give employers and unions new rights to learn the basis and legal reasoning of charges filed against them by the general counsel. Finally, the NLRB is taking too long to resolve cases. For example, one case has been pending at the Board for more than 7 years. The case involves the question of whether an employer has to allow labor union organizers access to private property. Our solution--Senator McConnell and I encourage a timely resolution of cases, first, by allowing either party to appeal to a Federal court of appeals for a de novo, or fresh, review if the Board fails to reach a decision on the case within 1 year. To further incentivize timely resolution, we include the threat of a 20-percent budget cut with the Board if 90 percent of the cases are not decided within a year. In conclusion, while the increasing partisanship of the Board has appeared in Republican administrations as well as Democratic administrations, it has reached a climax in this administration. Three of this President's recent nominees came from major labor unions' leadership. One law professor at a major university said she can't use the most recent labor law textbook. The decisions changing the law are coming out so rapidly and the NLRB is venturing into new territory with these efforts at rulemaking. This is no way to maintain a national labor law policy. Our plan, the NLRB Reform Act, will, first, end partisan advocacy; second, rein in the general counsel; third, it will encourage timely decisions. Our bill would offer these solutions without taking away one right or one remedy from one employee, one business, or one union. I hope my colleagues will carefully review this proposal and consider cosponsoring the NLRB Reform Act.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am glad I had the opportunity to be on the floor today to hear the remarks of the Senator from Virginia. All of us look forward to the President's remarks tomorrow night. I am going to reserve my comments because of the seriousness of the subject and out of respect for the Office of the President until after the President addresses the Nation. But I would say this. Having heard the Senator from Virginia, I hope the President and his advisers listened carefully to what the Senator from Virginia said. None of us want to see another military adventure in the Middle East. As in Virginia and West Virginia and Tennessee, we have had thousands--tens of thousands of Tennesseans who have been in Iraq and Afghanistan three, four, five, or six times on tours of duty. But this ISIS threat is a different kind of threat to civilization, and very well could be a threat to the United States. It requires a response. It requires the President's leadership. He is the Commander in Chief, and it is his job to lay out for us a firm and clear strategy for, in the words of his administration, how we will defeat and destroy this new movement. In thinking about whether to come to the Congress, I think it is useful for the President to think back to the first President Bush and the decision he had to make. I was in his cabinet. I came just about that time and the idea of a ground war in the Middle East was a shocking thought. We had not had something like that in this country for a while, and the President was reluctant at first to come to the Congress to seek approval for that, but he did it. And he said after he had done it that in retrospect he was glad he did. What did he gain? Even though it was a contentious debate and the margin of the vote wasn't large, it gave a clear signal to the world that we were united as a country against the threat at that time. It gave a clear signal to the country that regardless of party we were united with the President of the United States on what he saw as an urgent mission for our country. As a result of that, he had an enormously successful operation. It was well planned, funded by other countries, primarily, and had a limited objective. They got to the gates of Baghdad, the objective was realized, and we came home. I think the fact that the President sought the advice of Congress was a part of that. In this case I think this President would find in this body careful listeners to what he has to say, a willingness on both sides of the aisle to consider his strategy, and a willingness to support a carefully crafted plan to meet his objectives. This is not Libya, this is not Grenada, and this is not Panama. This is at least 2 or 3 years. Any time our country is expected to have a military action especially in the Middle East again, it needs to have the full support of the American people, and that starts here. So I will wait until Wednesday night to hear what the President has to say, but the Senator from Virginia has given some very careful and reasonable advice, and I hope the President and his advisers will consider that very carefully. I am here today to speak on another subject. I am here today because Senate Democrats want to amend the Bill of Rights--at least 48 of them do. Forty-eight of them want to say: Let's amend the United States Constitution and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. Let's amend the guarantee of free speech. That is an extraordinary development. If passed, Senate Joint Resolution 19, which is the subject on the floor today, would give Congress and State governments the power to decide which Americans can speak in elections, what they can say, when they can say it, and how they say it. This measure would gut the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. It is a shocking proposal--a shocking proposal made even more so by the fact that it is supported by 48 Democratic Senators and President Obama. I wonder if any of them have taken the time to see the writing on the wall of the Newseum down the street. In big bold letters carved into the concrete it says: ``Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . '' That is in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Our Founders passed the Constitution, and they said, well, we forgot to do the Bill of Rights. So they came back with the Bill of Rights, and this is in the First Amendment. Free speech is one of the defining characteristics of liberal democracies worldwide. No country has embraced free speech and protected it as much as has the United States of America. Other countries look to us as a model for this remarkable freedom. So why would anyone attempt to amend the Constitution, amend the Bill of Rights, and change the free speech clause in the First Amendment? When we look at the Democratic leadership in the Senate we see a pattern of using a gag rule to silence Senators who were sent here on behalf of the people who elected them to represent their views. The majority leader has prevented Tennesseans, for example, from having their say through their Senators, their elected officials, for years now, by using the gag rule in this body to keep amendments from being considered and voted on. Senators have listened to their constituents and proposed amendments on ObamaCare, taxes, the National Labor Relations Board, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, etc., and they are told by the Democratic leadership that they won't get votes. I have said on this floor many times, it is like being invited to join the Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing. But the consequences are much more serious than that. It is not just my amendment or my colleague Senator Corker's amendment, and it is not just Tennesseans' amendments. It is the voters of every State who sent us here to have a say on their behalf. Senator Barrasso from Wyoming has counted that since July of 2013, last year, only 14 Republican amendments and 9 Democratic amendments have received votes. That is an astounding number. There are 100 Senators here representing more than 300 million Americans. This is said to be the world's greatest deliberative body. The new book ``The American Senate'' describes this body, saying: ``This is the one authentic touch of genius in the American political system.'' What makes it ``the one authentic touch of genius in the American political system'' then? It is that you take a difficult message or a difficult bill, you put it on the floor, and you talk about it and you talk about it, and you debate it, and you amend it, until finally you say that is enough and 60 of us say it is time to cut off debate. Let's vote and have a result. Yet in a year's time there have only been 23 amendments to legislation that have received votes. Some Members of this body who are running for re-election and have never had a vote on any amendment they offered on the Senate floor. Someone might well ask, well, what have you been doing? Then this summer the Democrats extended the gag rule from the Senate floor to the Senate committee rooms. The bills of some members of the Appropriations Committee, on which I serve, were indefinitely postponed because the Senate leadership wanted to avoid difficult votes on those amendments--no vote on clean water, no vote on energy, no vote because it was a difficult vote. Now in this provision Democrats and the President are trying to extend the gag rule to the free speech clause of the First Amendment. What this proposal would do is give Congress the power to silence the groups or organizations that threaten their reelection. For example, the government could tell a gun owner in Johnson City, TN, that he or she cannot spend money to advocate in defense of Second Amendment rights if that speech falls too close to an election and threatens to influence the campaign of incumbents. Or similarly, Congress might tell Tennessee Right to Life: You cannot advertise to protect the rights of the unborn. Congress could decide that such speech should be restricted or prohibited because incumbents fear it is really an endorsement of a candidate for political office. Also incumbents could seek to stop new political movements like the tea party by placing unachievable conditions on their ability to raise and spend funds on behalf of candidates they support. They can do this under the guise of protecting donors by saying you can't receive donations unless you've been successful in a previous election or you have a real chance of being successful in the future. The decision of whether a new political movement is politically viable would of course be made by their political competitors. Or Congress might criminalize expenditures by organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who might oppose a plan by Senate Democrats to increase the minimum wage on the grounds that the funds spent by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are the equivalent of attack ads against Democratic candidates in tight reelection races. Who might be exempt from this gag rule on free speech? Well, freedom of the press--that is mentioned in the amendment. And who would freedom of the press be? Who might this be? Well, it would be billionaires who could buy television stations, billionaires who could buy a newspaper and buy any form of this new media that we see around us. So ordinary Americans could have their ability to advocate their views restricted, but billionaires could buy TV stations or buy a newspaper or buy any form of media and say whatever they think. Those are the people exempt from the gag rule proposed by the Democrats. What about millionaire candidates? It has been considered by the Supreme Court and by all who looked at it that while Congress might put rules on raising from others that it could never place on spending your own money. So we have candidates running for President, running for the Senate, who spend their own money. So we might not be limiting the millionaire candidates to the Senate and their right to free speech. We might not be limiting the billionaire owners of television stations and newspapers and their right to free speech, but ordinary Americans would have a gag rule. So the gag rule that began on the Senate floor and went to the Senate hearing rooms would now be applied by Congress to the ordinary Americans across this country. The Founders would never have imagined that. They passed the First Amendment to protect against this very concern--that government censors would tell ordinary Americans what they can and cannot say. President Harry Truman, who liked to exercise a lot of free speech himself, warned about this in a message to Congress on August 8, 1950. He said: Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures until it becomes a source of terror to all of its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. That is President Harry Truman. That is not a description of this country. That is not a description of America. That is a description of our enemies. Look through our history. How would this law apply in our history? What about Harriet Beecher Stowe before the Civil War, writing ``Uncle Tom's Cabin?'' Maybe she would want to buy an ad in the local newspaper saying: Mr. Lincoln is a nice man. Read my book. The State might not like that. They might like holding slaves. They might not like what she says and what she wants to advertise. What about Thomas Payne at the beginning of our country's history writing ``Common Sense''? Would a law such as this apply to his tract-- the 1 he published or if he published 10 or if he published 20? Taken to its logical conclusion, this proposal could be used by a Congress or a State to ban books, to ban writings. It is shocking that we are standing here today and debating such a proposal. It is not surprising that so few from the other side of the aisle are streaming through the door and standing on the floor--as the Senator from Utah mentioned--to defend this proposal. Every American ought to be concerned about this proposal to amend the Bill of Rights and the free speech clause in the First Amendment. They should be deeply concerned that the Senate majority leader and his gag rule have effectively silenced their elected representatives here in the Senate, and now he wants to silence them. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Georgia on his remarks. As usual, they are eloquent and elucidate the issue beautifully. I am glad I had a chance to hear them. I come to the floor to speak about an effort to expand regulations that will have a damaging effect on thousands of Americans. For those who are concerned this administration is trying to take away our guns, this regulation could actually do that. If this regulation is approved, when you decide to sell a gun, to sell a guitar or anything else that contains African elephant ivory, the government would actually take them away, even if you inherited the item or bought the item at a time when the sale of ivory was not illegal. In February the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a plan to prohibit the interstate commerce of African elephant ivory. This was part of President Obama's National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trade. The plan is intended to stop the poaching of African elephants and to help preserve that species. But the impact will be something very different. The impact of this plan will be to change a policy that has been in place since 1990, which prevents the importation of ivory for commercial purposes, with the exception of antiques. But it did not restrict interstate or intrastate commerce of legal ivory. Now, let me be clear. I support stopping poachers. I support the preservation of these magnificent, regal animals, the elephant. I strongly support stopping the trade of illegal ivory. But what I do not support is treating Tennessee musicians, Tennessee antique shops, and Tennessee firearms sellers like illegal ivory smugglers for selling legal ivory products, many of which are decades old, if not over 100 years old. Banning the buying and selling of products with ivory found in legally produced guitars, legally produced pianos, legally produced firearms, could prohibit musicians from buying or selling instruments that contain ivory, prevent firearms and family heirlooms containing ivory from being sold, and pose a significant threat to antique businesses. Even though the ban has not yet gone into effect, the confusion and uncertainty created by the Fish and Wildlife Service's action to ban the interstate commerce of ivory and any item that contains ivory are already having a significant impact on businesses and families alike. Let me give you the example of John Case, who owns and operates a small antique family business with four employees in Knoxville, TN, near my home. He says he could see his business devastated by this proposed regulation. This is what John Case says: The impact of President Obama's Executive Order expanding the buying and selling of antique ivory and other endangered species has been significant on our auction and appraisal business. If one looks at the number of antique objects we have sold and are selling at auction just for 2014, the total exceeds $156,000. This amount is more than 11 percent of our revenues for 2013 and does not include the number of antique objects we turned away from selling because of these new regulations and the loss of appraisals of those objects. John Case continues: This would easily total an additional $25,000 in revenues. This total loss in revenues of $181,000 equates to one full time salaried employee in addition to hours for part time employees. Here is one more example of a new regulation, which on a small business will equate to the loss of a job of one full-time salaried employee, in addition to hours for part-time employees. We wonder why the economic recovery has been worse than the great recession? You cannot be pro-jobs if you are antibusiness and if you keep dumping this big wet blanket of regulations on every effort an entrepreneur has to create a new job. Americans who create jobs--one told me the other day in Tennessee: I'm sorry to say that I'm beginning to look at a new employee as a liability instead of an asset. He said: I hate that. I want the employee to be an asset. But when I look at the employee, I think about what new costs does that employee bring to my business because of government regulations, because of ObamaCare, because of this or that. Now, in John Case's case, it is about legal ivory. Mr. Case goes on to say: Further, the loss of revenues for our business is significant, as it encompasses a wide range of antique objects, including 18th and 19th century American portraits on ivory, music boxes and furniture with ivory inlay, silver tea services with ivory insulators, weapons with ivory grips and inlay. If these new regulations go into full effect, I anticipate the reduction of staff and intern programs. That is fewer jobs. The impact of these new regulations has a significant impact on our customers as well. According to Mr. Case: I just fielded calls this past week of two local consignors who had holdings of antique ivory with values exceeding $200,000. For one of those consignors, his antique ivory was by far the most available personal property he owned. It had been inherited from his grandfather. For many of my consignors such as these gentlemen, they will see a complete devaluing of one of their greatest personal assets. Mr. Case is not alone. The music industry--and we have a lot of that in Tennessee, in Nashville and in Memphis and East Tennessee as well-- is concerned. The National Association of Music Manufacturers, whose mission is to promote the pleasures and benefits of making music, says, of the proposed regulation: [The] Problem with the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan is many post-1914 instruments containing ivory are still in use. Many famous artists perform with vintage guitars, violin bows or pianos which contain small amounts of ivory. It is worth noting that the music products industry had generally stopped using ivory by the mid-1970s. A ban on the interstate sale of items containing ivory would prohibit musicians from buying or selling instruments. Replacing ivory with other materials could adversely affect the total quality of those instruments. Instruments are not bought because they contain ivory but because of their playing characteristics. The proposed ban has already resulted in anecdotal reports of Fish and Wildlife Service agents investigating piano transportation companies to see if any instruments are containing ivory--even though these companies do not own the instruments. Here is another example from the National Rifle Association about the proposed ban of legal ivory: The effects of the ivory ban would be disastrous for American firearms owners and sportsmen, as well as anyone else who currently owns ivory. This means that shotguns that have an ivory bead or inlay, handguns with ivory grips, or even cleaning tools containing ivory, would be illegal to sell. My office has heard from businesses and individuals from all different sectors of our economy. The examples go on and on about this misguided policy. Let me repeat. I support stopping poachers. I support preserving these magnificent, regal animals, the elephant. I strongly support stopping the trade of illegal ivory. What I do not support is treating Tennessee musicians, antique owners, and gun owners like illegal ivory smugglers if they sell products that contain legal ivory. I call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to abandon their current efforts and take a more commonsense approach, an approach that will preserve elephants, while not turning law-abiding citizens and businesses into criminals. In the absence of a more commonsense approach, I have introduced legislation, S. 2587, the Lawful Ivory Protection Act of 2014, to stop this misguided policy from going forward. My bill simply stops the Fish and Wildlife Service from continuing down this unwise path. It keeps in place the same regulation that prohibited the illegal ivory trade regulation before February 25, which is the date the Fish and Wildlife Service began rolling out new regulations to ban the interstate commerce of ivory and any item that contains ivory. I urge my colleagues to take a look at this issue, and cosponsor my bill, S. 2587, the Lawful Ivory Protection Act of 2014, to stop the administration from taking away our legal guns, from taking away our legal guitars, and from taking away our legal items which contain legal ivory if we try to sell them. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown.) The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, while the Senator from Washington is on the floor, I think it is appropriate to note and congratulate her for her work on the Workforce Investment Act. She and Senator Isakson of Georgia led the effort of Senator Harkin, me, and others in the Senate. Senator Scott of South Carolina was the principal sponsor of the House-passed SKILLS Act. Senator Enzi of Wyoming had worked for a long time--and as the Republican leader said, that bill is being signed today by the President of the United States. It goes directly to the issue that most Americans care about. It is too hard to find a job. What this process showed was that Republicans and Democrats were able to take the nearly $10 billion that we currently spend on job training to give Governors the flexibility to help people develop skills and match job seekers with good jobs in their communities. I remember our former Democratic Governor from Tennessee told me that when he came into office, he threw up his hands when he found out about the $145 million that came to Tennessee through the Workforce Investment Act because it was too complicated. Senator Murray, Senator Isakson, and others have worked together with Chairman Kline in the House, and they produced a law that will be signed today. The Senate is far from functioning the way it ought to. There is too much talent in the Senate and too many pressing problems in the country for us to be anywhere close to satisfied with the result we are getting. But the committee upon which the Senator from Washington and I serve has done a pretty good job in this Congress. We reported to the Senate 20 pieces of legislation; 18 of them have passed the Senate, and 14 of them have been signed into law. That may be more than the entire Senate put together. The point is, those are big pieces of legislation. One is the jobs bill. That is the issue we care about more than any other. Another was the track-and-trace legislation which makes medicines safer for 4 billion prescriptions. Senator Burr and Senator Mikulski worked on that. Another was on compounding pharmacies. It was a terrible problem where we had tainted, sterile injections not being sterile and causing people to catch meningitis and die. Last year another was the student loan program, where we took all the new loans--that is $100 billion a year--and put a market-pricing system on top and took it out of the political football stunt category. All of that has happened on a committee which has, on its left, 12 Democrats, and on its right, 10 Republicans. We don't agree on everything by a long shot. But on these issues we came to a result, did the job, and the Senator from Washington has been a conspicuous example of looking for opportunities for us to get a result. People expect us to come to the Senate, stand on our principles, but not stop there--not stop there--and then put our principles together where we can combine those and get a result for the American people. I am pleased to be a part of that action and I congratulate her for it. Human Rights Today I am here to say the world is watching Venezuela. The Senate especially is watching human rights abuse in Venezuela. I especially am watching the case of Leopoldo Lopez, who has been in prison for 5 months. For what? For leading a political party and exercising his constitutional rights. Senator Menendez, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has spoken out about human rights abuse in Venezuela. Senator Corker, the ranking Republican on Foreign Relations has spoken out about human rights abuse in Venezuela. Yesterday, Senator Cruz of Texas gave an impassioned speech about Leopoldo Lopez in Venezuela and that conspicuous example of human rights abuse. Senator Rubio of Florida has been at the forefront of this discussion with his leadership on the Foreign Relations Committee. Today, I wish to speak about human rights abuse in Venezuela and to say to President Maduro in Venezuela that the world is watching. The world is watching him and his efforts to imprison his principal political opponent, Leopoldo Lopez. Mr. President, many of us have visited Robben Island off South Africa's coast. When my family and I did that a few years ago, there was no moment that impressed me more in that visit than when some of those who were imprisoned there with Nelson Mandela still give tours of Robben Island, about where he lived and where he exercised and how he conducted himself in the 27 years he was there before he came back and was freed and became one of the most important persons in our world history. It seems to me President Maduro of Venezuela is determined to turn Leopoldo Lopez into the Nelson Mandela of Venezuela by his unconscionable imprisonment of him principally because Leopoldo has spoken out and has expressed his political views about the country he loves. Leopoldo was born in Venezuela and comes from a patriotic Venezuelan family, but he was educated in the United States which is where I met him. I met him when he was a student at Kenyon College. In fact, I made the graduation speech, when I was Secretary of Education, to the class in which he graduated, and he was a friend of my son who was also a student. I watched him over the years. He went on to Harvard and obtained a master's degree at the Kennedy School. He could have stayed in the United States and had a very successful career, but he chose instead to return to the country he loved, Venezuela. He was elected mayor of a municipality at the age of 28 in an important area outside of Caracas. Four years later he was reelected with 81 percent of the vote. He is a rising star in Venezuela. There is no brighter star rising in the skies of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez's government knew that someone like Leopoldo, who is well educated, charismatic, purposeful, and honest, with a desire to help his fellow Venezuelans, would do nothing but cause problems for their socialist government, so they barred him from running for public office and accused him of misusing public funds. I suppose a lot of us would like to bar our principal opponents from running against us. The Senator from New Jersey and I are both in elections this year, but it hasn't occurred to us that in the United States we could actually do that. Elections are the lifeblood of our political system and the lifeblood of this country and the lifeblood of our liberty and freedom, but in Venezuela if you don't like your opponent, you just say they cannot run for office. That is what they did to Leopoldo. Leopoldo fought back, taking his case all the way to the Inter- American Court for Human Rights and he won. I had an opportunity to see him in 2011 when he did that. I knew he would win his case. Anyone who listened to it believed that. He then stayed in Venezuela. He faced assassination attempts, harassment, threats, but never wavered in his call for the Venezuelan people to take action against the oppressive regime of Hugo Chavez and more recently Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela is a rich country and has lots of money, but people cannot get toothpaste, people cannot get tissues. The inflation there is more than 50 percent. You would expect there to be a leader demanding change from the government, someone who could express the views of the people. Leopoldo is that person, but he has been in jail for 5 months. He has been barred from running for public office because he is that leader. He is a husband. He is the father of two young children. He chose to turn himself in to face trial. He could have come to the United States or some other country and said, ``I am in exile. I am a popular Venezuelan and I'll take the brave act of going into exile.'' No, he didn't do that. He turned himself in, with a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people behind him, because he is in the tradition of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, and others is focusing his resistance in a nonviolent and a constitutional way. That is his lesson to the people of Venezuela. However, he is in jail and has been for 5 months, and President Maduro keeps him there to silence the opposition. Or so the President thinks. Leopoldo's trial starts tomorrow. I say trial, although it is not a trial that we would recognize. The distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee is on the floor today. He has been a leading spokesman for human rights across the country. He, too, is interested in human rights abuse in Venezuela. He would not recognize this trial. The defense team of Leopoldo has attempted to bring forward 60 witnesses plus other experts to testify on their client's behalf. However, during a preliminary hearing every single witness for the defense was disqualified. There is the distinguished lawyer, the Senator from Massachusetts, on the other side of the aisle. She knows what a trial is. She recognizes human abuse when she sees it, just as all of us do. So I think it is important for President Maduro, the people of Venezuela and the people in Venezuela who have been subjected to human rights abuse to know that is not going unnoticed in the United States of America, that there are Senators on the Democratic side and on the Republican side of the aisle who are paying close attention to this; that our State Department is reviewing this very carefully; that this sort of human rights abuse in Venezuela--a country badly in need of political discourse and leadership--is something we should not ignore. We should say to President Maduro: Free Leopoldo Lopez. By locking him up for 5 months you are not silencing him. You are helping to make him the Nelson Mandela of Venezuela. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, whenever any Americans' religious liberty is infringed, every American should be concerned. Religious liberty is a part of the American character. Before our Constitution was adopted, religious freedom was a part of the American character. It was the reason the first Europeans settled on our shores. It was a great source of the American Revolution. My Scotch-Irish Presbyterian ancestors came here to escape religious persecution from two churches, and when they came here they objected to paying taxes to support another church. So our very foundation as a country has in it the guarantees of religious freedom. That is why after the States created our Constitution, the people came back and said: Wait a minute. You forgot something. You forgot the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights begins with guarantees of religious liberty. They are emblazoned on the wall at the Newseum at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th, the guarantees of liberty. They were spoken by President Roosevelt when he talked about World War II and why we were fighting that great war. So whenever any American's religious liberty is trampled upon, every American should be concerned. That is why I am so disappointed that Senate Democrats are proposing to carve a giant hole out of America's religious freedom. This is very different than what has consistently been the attitude in this body. Twenty-one years ago Congress voted to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, an act which reflects the American character as well as any other act that Congress has passed. It created a very high hurdle for government to burden a person's religious beliefs. That legislation says that if the government is going to take an action that creates a burden on a person's faith, the government must prove there is a compelling national interest and that burden must be as light as possible. That bill passed nearly unanimously. It became law nearly unanimously, with support from many in the Senate today, many on the other side of the aisle who are supporting this carve-out for religious freedom. When he signed the bill into law, President Bill Clinton was eloquent and said: We all have a shared desire here to protect perhaps the most precious of all American liberties, religious freedom. President Clinton continues: Usually the signing of legislation by a President is a ministerial act, often a quiet ending to a turbulent legislative process. Today this event assumes a more majestic quality because of our ability together to affirm the historic role that people of faith have played in the history of this country and the constitutional protections those who profess and express their faith have always demanded and cherished. But here we are debating a Democratic proposal to gut the law President Clinton was describing and require Americans who own businesses to provide insurance coverage for any health care item or service that is required by Federal law or regulation, whether or not it violates the employer's sincere religious beliefs. So what has changed? On June 30, the Supreme Court of the United States found that the law meant what Congress and the President said it did when it was enacted. They held that the Federal Government could not order the owners of a closely held corporation to violate the basic tenets of their faith. The company in question in this case, Hobby Lobby--and having been a law student, I know that over time this will be known in law schools across the country as the great case of Hobby Lobby because of its importance and because of its name--is owned by the Green family, who make their faith central to their business. They close their stores on Sunday. They refuse to engage in profitable transactions that facilitate or promote alcohol use. They contribute profits to Christian missionaries and ministries. No one doubts those are sincerely held religious beliefs. The Green family offers health insurance which covers 16 of 20 forms of contraception. It does not cover four forms of contraception that prevent implantation of the embryo but employees are free to purchase those four forms themselves. The company in no way interferes with its employees' lives. It does not tell them what to do with their bodies. It does not tell them how to live their lives. It simply does not offer in the company's insurance plan, coverage for the four forms of contraception that violate the faith of the owners of the business. Obamacare regulations tried to mandate 20 forms of contraception, but recognizing this violated the beliefs of those who believe in life at conception, they created a carve-out for several organizations, Catholic hospitals for example. They could have created a similar carve-out for closely held companies, but they did not. Instead, the Green family and others were forced to defend their freedoms in court, which fortunately ruled that the family was entitled to protection from the government's mandates under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This ought to have been a victory for everyone if it is true in our country that when any American's religious freedom is upheld, all of us benefit. In 1993, the passage of the legislation was hailed as a momentous achievement of religious freedom. The New York Times editorialized in support of it. My friend Senator Reid from Nevada--now the majority leader--said: I am proud to be a cosponsor of this important legislation. I congratulate the authors and the committee for creating a fine bill. The distinguished Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer--then a Member of the House and the lead Democratic sponsor--said: ``This is a good moment for those of us who believe in the flower of religious freedom that so adorns America. . . . '' But here we are debating a bill that would fundamentally undermine that very act spoken of so eloquently by the Democratic leaders of Congress and by the Democratic President of the United States. What has changed? If they are successful, an American who opens a business in this country will know that he or she will forfeit their right to religious freedom. That is not consistent with the American character. That is not the American way. Why would Democrats who felt so strongly about this in 1993 feel so differently today? Why would they be willing to do such damage to the cause of religious freedom they so ardently proclaim? Because the Democrats ``believe they have a powerful campaign weapon'' in this issue, according to a report in Politico. The Democrats charge that under the Supreme Court decision, an employer's personal views can interfere with women's access to essential health care services. They say that under this decision corporations can limit their employees' health care options and restrict their freedoms. That is not true. It is patently false. It is absurd. It is wrong. In the words of the Washington Post's nonpartisan Fact Checker Glenn Kessler: Nothing in the ruling allows a company to stop a woman from getting or filling a prescription for contraceptives . . . Second, the Fact Checker says: Democrats need to be more careful in their language about the ruling. All too often, lawmakers leap to conclusions that are not warranted by the facts at hand. Simply put, the court ruling does not outlaw contraceptives, does not allow bosses to prevent women from seeking birth control and does not take away a person's religious freedom. Today, women have the same rights they did before Obamacare--at least in terms of religious freedom. The Supreme Court decision did nothing to change or alter a woman's ability to access birth control or other contraceptive care. Hobby Lobby's insurance today already covers 16 of 20 forms of contraception for the company's employees. A Hobby Lobby employee who wishes to use a drug or device not covered by the company's insurance is in no way prohibited from purchasing it. Nothing in the Hobby Lobby decision prevents a woman from making her own decisions about contraception. The only effect of the decision is that certain employers cannot be forced to include it in their insurance coverage against their religious objections. The Supreme Court decision covered certain closely held, for-profit companies--meaning they are controlled by five or fewer individuals-- where the owners have sincere religious beliefs. The Court's decision does not mean all Americans of faith who own businesses and ask for religious exemption from a general law will receive that exemption. The Court's decision does not mean employers will be able to use the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a reason to refuse to cover critical health services, such as vaccines, blood transfusions, and HIV treatment. In fact, such fears were raised by opponents of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act before it became law in 1993. The Democrats didn't believe those objections then, and they shouldn't believe them now because 21 years later these doomsday predictions have not come true. Courts are well-equipped to dispel spurious or frivolous claims. I think the Democrats know all of this. I think they are just trying to win an election. This Supreme Court decision was about individual freedoms that do not disappear if you decide to open a business. It was not about contraceptive rights. What is really happening is my friends on the other side of the aisle are trying to change the subject. They want to talk about health care, but they don't want to talk about Obamacare and what it is doing to the women of this country. Let me tell a story that gives an example of what it is that really concerns me. First, what concerns me is the destruction of anyone's religious freedom. While we are talking about women and health care, let me talk about Emilie of Lawrenceburg, TN. She is 39 years old. She came to see me. She has lupus. Under Tennessee's laws, she had an insurance policy granted by something called CoverTN. It was created by our then- Democratic Governor and Blue Cross. It gave her the policy she needed at a cost of about $50 a month. When Obamacare arrived, it canceled Emilie's policy. She went on the exchange to try to replace it, according to Washington's wisdom. This is Emilie. This is a real woman in Tennessee who is really hurt by the Obamacare law. We should be talking about her. This is what she wrote to me: I cannot keep my current plan because it doesn't meet the standards of coverage. This alone is a travesty. CoverTN has been a lifeline [for me]. . . . With the discontinuation of CoverTN, I am being forced to purchase a plan through the Exchange. . . . My insurance premiums alone will increase a staggering 410 percent. My out-of-pocket expenses will increase by more than $6,000 a year--that includes subsidies. Please help me understand how this is ``affordable.'' Here is an American woman who has been hurt by ObamaCare. She lost her policy--a policy that she could afford, that fit her health care needs and her budget--but all of the wise people in Washington said: This is the policy you need. So she got the policy Obamacare says she should have, and her insurance premiums went up to approximately $400 a month, and she got an insurance policy that does not fit her budget and does not fit her health care needs. She is the one who has been hurt. Unfortunately, Emilie is not the only one experiencing rate shock. Millions of Americans are losing their insurance plans. They are being forced to buy new plans, many of them with higher premiums, many with higher deductibles, many of them with coinsurance. Let me talk about a Tennessee woman whose name is Carol, a single mom with a son starting at Austin Peay University in the fall. She is an office administrator in an office that used to have CoverTN insurance that cost less than $100 a month in premiums and covered all of her health care needs. Carol said: Now, thanks to Obamacare, I must pay over $300 per month [compared to $100 a month] in insurance premiums for a policy that has a $2,500 deductible and a $4,000 out of pocket limit. If we want to talk about a war on women, let's talk about the war on Emilie and Carol in Tennessee and millions of other women who are hurt by ObamaCare. Carol earns too much to qualify for a subsidy, so now she puts a big chunk of her income toward her premiums--such a big chunk that now she can't afford to help pay for her son's education. These are the kinds of stories all of us hear from people who are being harmed by Obamacare. These are the kinds of stories our friends on the other side don't want repeated, so they even go so far as to bring up carving big chunks out of America's character by trampling on religious freedom--the freedom that is talked about in the First Amendment. We have proposals to help Americans like Carol and Americans like Emilie. We have offered them on the Senate floor repeatedly since 2010 when the ObamaCare law was passed. They would move our country in a different direction toward health care as rapidly and as responsibly as we could go--a direction toward more freedom, more choices, and lower costs for Emilie and Carol and for millions of women and millions of men and millions of younger people across this country. Our bills would allow Americans to keep more of their insurance plans, as the President promised. Our bills would allow people to buy insurance in another State if it fits their budget and fits their needs. Let's say Emilie, who has lupus, finds a policy regulated in Kentucky that fits her budget and fits her needs. We would allow Emilie to buy that. We would allow small business employers to combine purchasing power with other employers and offer their employees lower cost insurance. More freedom, more choices, lower costs. We would allow Americans to buy a major medical plan to insure themselves against a catastrophe--today, some Americans can, but under Obamacare all Americans cannot--buy a major medical plan to insure against catastrophe--that is what a lot Americans would like to do--and then open a health savings account that is expanded to pay for everyday health expenses. More freedom, more choices, lower costs. We would like to repair the damage Obamacare has done. We would like to prevent future damage. Republicans want to move in a different direction that provides more freedom, more choices, lower costs. We trust Americans to make decisions for themselves. That is the American way. That is what we believe in. Religious freedom and health care freedom--that is the American way. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the article from the Washington Post by the Fact Checker. In addition, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an excellent editorial today in the Wall Street Journal, an op-ed by two of my colleagues, the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Nebraska, Senators Ayotte and Fischer.