Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, this morning I drove from Cleveland to Youngstown. I was in Youngstown, OH--Mahoning Valley--at Teamsters Local 377 talking to workers. There were maybe 200 of them in the room, mostly retirees who are in danger of having their pensions cut-- pensions they earned over a lifetime of hard work. To understand how that happens, when workers are at the bargaining table, whether it is Teamsters, electricians, Steelworkers or SCIU, they so often are willing to give up wages today in order to have a secure retirement in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. That is what these workers chose to do. They chose to give up wages. Whether they worked for Schwebel's in Youngstown, whether they worked for Roadway, over the road, whether they were working for any number of companies, they were willing, at the bargaining table, to give up higher wages today to have money to set aside that was then invested often in Wall Street. We will get to that in a minute. It is bad enough Wall Street squandered those workers' money. It is worse that the government that is supposed to look out for these workers simply isn't doing it. One of the retired workers, Ed Barker, told us: We did our part. Now it is time for Members of Congress to cross party lines and do theirs. We talk a good game in this body about how we respect workers and respect their work, but I am not sure we always live that. If we really value a hard day's work in this country, we start by keeping our promise to these hard-working Ohioans, Virginians, Montanans, and all over this country. We keep our promise to those hard-working people in our country, but we can't end there. That is just the beginning of what we need to do to ensure that hard work pays off for ordinary Americans. During his campaign, Candidate Trump made a lot of big promises to workers in Ohio. He ran some of his big rallies across our State. He made big promises to workers in Ohio and across the country. He told them he would put American workers first. Well, the White House today looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives, and many of the people the President has put in charge have a record of doing the opposite of putting American workers first. That is certainly true of Peter Robb, the nominee to serve as the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. Mr. Robb has spent his career working to strip workers of their rights, defend corporations accused of mistreating workers, and he has tried to undermine the watchdog agency he is now seeking to join. He will be working at the National Labor Relations Board, which is supposed to strike a balance and advocate only for American workers. The President's nominee is someone who received a very high salary building his career defending corporations accused of mistreating workers, working to strip workers of their rights, and trying to undermine the NLRB's effort to get a fair shake and build a level playing field for workers. Someone who views unions and collective bargaining as a threat to be dealt with was primarily the story of Mr. Robb's career, instead of helping to protect the central rights for workers. A person like that has no business serving as the top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board. His nomination is just the latest in a long line of evidence that work simply isn't valued in this country the way it used to be. People in Ohio and around the country work harder. They work more days, more hours, longer hours, harder than ever before, and they have less to show for it. Over the past 40 years, GDP has gone up, corporate profits have gone up, and executive compensation has gone up--all because of the productivity of the American worker, but, fundamentally, the workers haven't shared in the wealth they have created. Again, GDP goes up, profits go up, executive salaries go up, productivity goes up, but workers' wages are stagnant or worse. We know that. We also know people in this body rarely side with workers in that equation. One major reason the economic growth has not brought higher wages to workers is Americans are less likely to have a union card to protect them. When Americans reminisce about the good jobs that disappeared, I am willing to bet most of those jobs were union. As manufacturing employment declined, the share of workforce represented by unions declined with it--only more rapidly. I can accept that the workforce is changing, but what we can't accept is more and more of our workers are paid less in wages, have fewer benefits, and have little economic security. It is no coincidence that over the same timeframe, economic growth in this country has been shared among fewer and fewer Americans. Keep in mind, as the 1 percent gets richer, they take more and more of the profits, they take more of the productivity gains, and workers are left further behind. We know what will happen with this so-called tax reform that is being considered in the House. They are then going to negotiate it right down the hall here in the majority leader's office the same way they did healthcare. They will be right down the hall in the majority leader's office with lots of lobbyists but no light shone, no public, and no media coverage. We know what happens. We know what happens with tax reform like that. The rich get richer and the middle class shrinks. That is the story of those Teamsters in Youngstown today. As I walked with the crowd of Teamsters, I spoke with a number of them on the way in and the way out. I asked how long they had driven a truck. Most had driven 30, some 40, and a few 45 years. They worked that hard. They gave up wages today so they would have a pension in the future. Yet, right now, because of Wall Street misfeasance and malfeasance, in large part, and because government, the people in this body don't have the guts to stand up for these workers, we know what has happened to their pensions, and we know what will happen to their pensions if we don't step in and do the right thing come December this year. We know what will happen with the tax reform bill, again, written down the hall in the majority leader's office--the same thing. The wealthiest 1 percent get richer. The rich get richer and the powerful get more power and what happens is, the middle class shrinks. We know that. Last week, I was on the floor with many of my colleagues talking about a case before the Supreme Court--Janus v. AFSCME. The case is part of a decades-long attempt to chip away at workers' power in the workplace. Mr. Robb has been part of that effort. The nominee to be the top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board has been part of the effort to chip away at workers' rights, to continue the demeaning and diminishing role of workers in this country, to suppress wages in this country. He is the person the President of the United States wants to serve as the top lawyer on the National Labor Relations Board. What is wrong with that picture? He defended corporations accused of discrimination of not paying their workers the paychecks they earned. Imagine, he represented the corporations that tried to keep these workers from getting the paychecks they earned. He worked for an energy company that was working to defeat workers' organizing effort. His own law firm's website brags about how they delayed the election 2 more years. You know how it works. My colleagues know this. These workers signed a petition. They signed a card, if you will, saying they would like to have a union election. A majority of these workers--probably a majority of 60, 70 percent--signed a card saying they wanted to have a union election. It is a right in this country. It is a right since the 1930s. When President Roosevelt pushed through the National Labor Relations Act, workers received the right to vote on a union. Mr. Robb's company was bragging. They were bragging that they were able to delay the election for 2 years. So maybe they couldn't defeat the workers, but do you know what you do then? You delay the election because you have really good, high-priced lawyers who know how to do this for management, for the corporation. If you delay the election for a week, for a month, for a quarter, for half a year, for a year, for 2 years, you know what happens. Many of those workers who signed that petition who thought they might have a shot at the union, some of them got fired, some just left, some of them were ready to retire, maybe some of them died. So by the time the election is held, you have pretty much defeated the organizing effort. That is why people like Mr. Robb don't belong at the National Labor Relations Board. We need someone in this job who wakes up every day ready to defend American workers, not oppress them, not shut them down, not depress their wages. You don't want somebody who has spent his career trying to bring these workers down. What Mr. Robb doesn't seem to understand is, it is not corporations that drive the economy, it is workers. We grow the economy from the middle class out. I know you are going to hear a number of my colleagues who support this huge tax break in this tax bill. It is all about cutting the corporate tax so corporations make more money, have higher profits, have higher executive salaries. It will not have anything to do with wages. It never does. No matter how profitable the companies are, they are not willingly giving higher wages to its workers. You are going to hear from these companies. You are going to hear the defenders of these companies come to this body, and they are going to talk about how corporations are driving the economy; that if you give tax breaks to the richest people in the country, it will trickle down and create jobs and increase wages. Well, it hasn't worked that way in the past. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton grew the economy. He focused the tax breaks in the tax bills on the middle-class workers and grew the economy out from the middle. Twenty-two million net private sector jobs increased during the Clinton years. The next 8 years, under President Bush 2, the tax cuts all went to the rich, two major tax cuts--not entirely to the rich but overwhelmingly to the rich. For trickle down, zero net increase of private sector jobs. There were 22 million during the Clinton years because he focused on the middle class. There was zero job growth during the Bush years because it was trickle-down economics. What is going on in the back room in the majority leader's, Senator McConnell's, back office? It is another tax cut for the rich, trickle down, see what happens. The rich get richer, and the middle class shrinks. What Mr. Robb doesn't understand is, it is not corporations that drive the economy, it is workers. When the workers are doing better, they are buying more things, they are creating more demand, companies sell more products, the economy grows. If work isn't valued, if corporations shortchange workers with the help of lawyers like Mr. Robb, then Americans can't earn their way to a better life for their families no matter how hard they work. We all know, workers are working harder than ever before. They are working longer hours than ever before. They are more productive. Profits are up. Executive compensation is up. Wages have been flat. What is fair about that? What should we do about that? What we should do about that is not to put people on the National Labor Relations Board who want to do more of the same. Whenever we face another attack on American workers and their freedom to organize, I think of the words of Pope Francis. He said: ``There is no good society without a good union, and there is no good union that is not reborn every day in the peripheries--that does not transform the disregarded stones of the economy into cornerstones.'' We need laws that reflect the dignity of every discarded stone, of every American working too many hours for too little pay. The last thing we need is another nominee who doesn't value work, another nominee who doesn't respect the Americans who do it, another nominee who always lines up on the side of the richest people in the country and always is working to take rights away from workers, to take wages away from workers, and to take benefits away from workers. That is the story of Mr. Robb's work history in the private sector. Is that the kind of person you want representing workers and representing the American economy at the National Labor Relations Board? I think not. I urge my colleagues to listen a little bit more. Go to the Teamsters' hall in Youngstown like I did today. Listen a little more to the Americans we serve. Listen a little less at the country club, to the big corporations trying to squeeze every last penny out of these workers' hands, to squeeze every last penny out of these workers. Reject Mr. Robb's nomination. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleagues for joining me on the floor today to stand with American workers. We organized a group of close to a dozen Senators who have heartfelt and strong views about the dignity of work, who understand so well that workers are working harder and smarter but earn less and less money, in spite of their hard work, in spite of their commitment. I have been joined on the floor already by Senator Schumer from New York, Senator Murray from Washington State, Senator Duckworth from Illinois, Senator Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Casey from Pennsylvania, and Senator Peters from Michigan, and speaking after I speak will be Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Senator Merkley of Oregon and Senator Durbin of Illinois. I thank them for standing up for American workers. People in Ohio and around the country, as I said, work harder, and they work longer than ever, but they have less and less to show for it. Over the last 40 years, GDP has gone up, corporate profits have gone up, executives' salaries have gone up all because of the productivity of American workers. Again, GDP goes up, corporate profits go up, executive salaries explode upward. Workers are more productive, but workers have not shared in the economic growth they have created. Hard work just doesn't pay off like it did a generation ago. It is no coincidence that over that same timeframe, we have seen attack after attack after attack on the labor movement. Corporate special interests have spent decades stripping workers of their freedom to organize for fair wages and for benefits. The case the Supreme Court just agreed to take up, Janus v. AFSCME, is yet another attempt to chip away at workers' power in the workplace. These are public service workers. These are public schoolteachers, librarians, police officers, school nurses, firefighters, and postal workers. They are not looking to get rich in these jobs. They are just looking to be paid what they earn, the same as any other worker in this country. Make no mistake, an attack on public sector unions is an attack on all unions. An attack on unions is an attack on all workers, whether they belong to a union or not, and I mean all workers, whether you punch a timeclock or whether you fill out a timesheet or swipe a badge, whether you make a salary or earn tips, whether you are on payroll, a contract worker, a temp, working behind a desk, cutting hair, working on a factory floor, or working behind a restaurant counter. I mean all workers. The fact is, all workers across this country--as profits go up, as GDP goes up, as executive compensation goes up, as workers get more productive, all workers across this country are feeling squeezed. Work doesn't pay off the way it used to. We have seen what happens when workers have no power in the workplace. Increasingly, corporations view American workers as a cost to be minimized instead of a valuable asset in which to invest. Look at the news we got last month. This piece of news, when I mention this to some of my colleagues, when I mention it around the State of Ohio, peoples' mouths drop. The Bank of America, Merrill Lynch downgraded the fast food restaurant Chipotle because the company pays its workers too much. Remember what happened with American Airlines a few months ago. American Airlines announced it was doing a companywide pay increase, and the stock market punished them by knocking their stock down. Imagine that. So when a company wants to do the right thing, Wall Street says: No, you are not going to do the right thing. Wall Street is saying: We want all the money. Don't give any of this money to workers--workers making $10 or $12 or $15 an hour. Think about that. Wall Street and Merrill Lynch didn't say they paid their workers too little, they paid their workers too much. That is why the labor movement matters. Pope Francis spoke about how unions perform ``an essential role for the common good.'' He said that the labor movement ``gives voice to those who have none . . . unmasks the powerful who trample on the rights of the most vulnerable workers, defends the cause of the foreigner, the least, the discarded.'' I just had the pleasure, for the last few minutes in my office, to speak with Bishop Murry of Youngstown, OH, and we were talking about the Pope and about steelworkers in Youngstown and about the struggles of workers and wages and layoffs and all the things that have happened to--where the winds of globalization have buffeted the workers in that community. Bishop Murry, as does Pope Francis, understands what too many in this town don't; that workers feel invisible, entire communities feel invisible. They feel like they are getting used and abused and some other words I can't say on the Senate floor. What, exactly, is the point of creating economic growth if workers don't share in it, if ordinary families still can't get ahead? Everybody here loves to talk about tax reform and bring the corporate rate down, but nobody is talking about paying workers more or giving workers more job security or what we should be doing--in working with companies and creating good jobs. My legislation, the Patriot Corporation Act, says if corporations do the right thing--if they pay their workers well, if they pay benefits, if they do the kinds of things American corporations should do--then they get a lower tax rate because they have earned it. We seem to have forgotten that all work has dignity. We have forgotten, as the Pope said, that ``the person thrives in work. Labour is the most common form of cooperation that humanity has generated in its history.'' Think about that. ``Labour is the most common form of cooperation that humanity has generated in its history.'' What Washington and Wall Street don't seem to understand is that workers drive our economy, not corporations. You focus on the middle class, you grow the economy from the middle out, not cut taxes on the richest people and expect the money to trickle down into more money in workers' pockets and more people are hired. You grow the economy by treating workers well, by investing in workers. That is why we need unions to ensure that we spread economic growth to the people creating it, to the people working too many hours for too little pay. I think about workers like Stephanie in Columbus. She has worked for 25 years as a childcare attendant for students with special needs. She wrote, saying: ``Every day I wake up before the sun rises to prepare for three daily shifts aiding students with special needs on their way to and from school.'' That is the person whom--because she belongs to a union, that is the person whom corporate America, that the rightwing of the Republican Party wants to attack? That is the kind of person--Stephanie in Columbus--they want to attack? She worries that cases like this that undermine her union ``could severely limit our voice on the job and hurt our ability to best serve the children we care so much about.'' She said: ``Unions provide a pathway to the middle class for all people.'' Think about a janitor I met in Cincinnati. I was speaking at a dinner. There was a table down front with seven middle-age women--a pretty diverse group. There was one empty seat at the table. It was told to me by some others that this group of women were janitors, custodians in downtown Cincinnati, southwest Ohio, and these women had signed their first union contract with downtown Cincinnati business owners. So there were 1,200 janitors working in these downtown businesses--in these big buildings downtown--and they had signed their first union contract. I asked if I could sit at their table, and they said yes. I said to the woman next to me: What is it like to have a union? She said: I am 51 years old, and this is the first time I will have a 1-week paid vacation in my life. Think about that. We don't think--I am guessing that most of my colleagues think: Well, you know, people have paid vacations and people have paid sick leave. Well, much of the country doesn't, No. 1; and No. 2, those who do often have that because they had a strong union--a union that negotiated sick leave pay for them, a union that negotiated vacation days for them, a union that negotiated family leave for them, and then, when those workers at a company get it, the other nonunionized workers and companies get it, and then those companies compete with other companies. So the fact is--there is a bumper sticker that says: ``If you enjoy your weekend, thank a labor union.'' Labor unions brought to this country things like weekends and more leisure time and decent pay and all that. That is why unions matter. That is why this decision in the Supreme Court matters. If the Supreme Court rules against AFSCME, it will starve the union for resources they use to organize and grow and advocate for more workers. At the risk of being disrespectful, it would be nice if those nine members of the Supreme Court would follow the admonishment of Pope Francis, the words of Pope Francis, who admonished his parish priests to go out and smell like the flock. Find out where people live and work. Find out what people do. Find out the living conditions of people. Abraham Lincoln in the White House one day was talking to his staff. His staff said: You have to stay here in the White House. You have to win the war. You have to free the slaves. You have to preserve the Union. Lincoln said: No, I have to go out and get my public opinion baths. It could be important if the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court--who has an Ivy league education, went to the best colleges and the best law schools, grew up in a wealthy family, has done very well as a professional, and is a very smart man--if he would go out and smell like the flock, if he would go out and get his public opinion bath, maybe he would hear some stories, as I have heard in my time in the Senate. He would hear stories from people who talk about how important it is that Stephanie has union protection. He probably has never really thought much about the fact that janitors, who have worked 30 years as janitors--35 years for some of those women--but never had a paid day off, never had a paid vacation. He might learn something from them and think a little differently about this. If the Supreme Court rules against AFSCME, it is the opposite of what we need. We should be making it easier, not harder, for workers to come together and negotiate. That is why, this week, I am introducing legislation to strengthen the National Labor Relations Act, to make it harder for employers to deny workers the freedom to collectively bargain by playing games with their job titles and classifications. Instead of stacking the deck even further in favor of corporate CEOs, we need to make it easier for workers to organize. That is how we make hard work pay off. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor Ohioan Dawna DiAngelis for 30 years of service to the Canton Repository. Unlike many others in the news industry whom I have honored on the Senate floor before, you will not see Dawna's name in a byline or anywhere else in the paper, but make no mistake, the folks in Stark County can count on their news each day because of Dawna and her team in the production room. The ``Canton Repository'' has kept Stark County residents informed since 1815, but it wasn't until 172 years later, in 1987, that the paper hired its first woman for the Rep's composing room. Dawna became the first woman in the male-dominated pre-press department, the department responsible for the layout and look of every single page of the paper. Dawna didn't stop there. She went on to earn the position of department head--again, the first woman to do so in the history of the paper. For the last 30 years, she has served behind the scenes to produce thousands of editions of the Repository. Dawna and her husband, J.D., have both served the Canton community--Dawna at the Rep and J.D. at WHBC radio. Dawna's work in the composing room has guaranteed that Canton residents get to read their news each day, and while doing her day job, she paved the way for other women in the news industry to follow. I join the entire Canton community and Dawna's colleagues at the Rep in congratulating her for her 30-year anniversary at the Repository.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, healthcare for our Nation's children is something we ought to be able to all come together on, but this Congress, which has not done much of anything, is always able to find a way to help Wall Street. Think about the middle-of-the-night vote last night, where the Vice President of the United States came to the rescue of Equifax and the rescue of Wells Fargo and the rescue of Wall Street overall. Think of the celebrations last night on Wall Street because of that tie vote, which stripped consumers of their days in court. It stripped consumers of their consumer rights. This Congress, when it came to the Children's Health Insurance Program, allowed it to expire at the end of last month. It left millions of families afraid they will lose healthcare for their kids. Think about what this uncertainty means for parents. Trying to make sure your children are safe and healthy is enough to worry about. Families shouldn't have to fear losing coverage for their kids because of some politicians in Washington. All of us have taxpayer- funded health insurance. Some politicians in Washington don't seem to care much about these kids. In my State, more than 200,000-plus children have insurance under CHIP. So even if something happens to their parents--even if they lose their job or their insurance--those 200,000-plus children in Ohio have insurance because of CHIP. But it expired on September 30. Governor Kasich is a Republican. I am a Democrat. We stand together on this, as we stand together protecting Medicaid and as we stand together protecting the Affordable Care Act. He tells us that there is still a little bit of money left over in Ohio to get us through these next few weeks until Congress does its job. But that doesn't mean parents don't worry about their children possibly losing their health insurance. Kids on CHIP are a little more likely to have asthma or a little bit more likely to have an illness, in part because they are low-income kids and they may live near a bus line and the air they breathe may not quite be so good. Or they live in Appalachia, where they might not be able to get to the doctor quickly. Those kids are more at risk, and those parents are worried, even though Governor Kasich assures them and I assure them we are going to do this. Congress worked into the middle of the night last night and debated for hours on a giveaway to Wall Street. They debated for hours on helping Equifax, which abused the public trust of 145 million people--5 million in my State. They bailed out Wells Fargo, which fraudulently attacked, for want of a better term, 3.5 million customers. Congress can bail them out, but it can't pass the Children's Health Insurance Program? Because of CHIP, 209,000--I said more than 200,000 before; more precisely, 209,000 Ohio children have access to affordable healthcare today--healthcare they may not have received otherwise. That is the importance of this program. It used to be bipartisan until this Congress, always in its rush to help Wall Street, forgot about these children. This program provides peace of mind for parents. Regardless of income, when a parent knows that a daughter or a son has health insurance, it provides peace of mind. They know if their child has a sore throat or earache, they don't have to wait until the child is so sick they take her to the emergency room. They won't have to hesitate or wonder if they can afford the doctor visit or antibiotic. They get the care their kids need. Most of us in this body are parents. Most of us in this body have insurance provided by taxpayers. Wouldn't you think that this would be important enough to Leader McConnell and the leaders of this body and to President Trump and to Speaker Ryan? Wouldn't you think it would be important enough? We all talk about loving our kids. We talk about grandchildren. Most of us are at the age where many of us have grandchildren. We don't care enough about these children as we get insurance from taxpayers. We don't care enough about these kids to do this? It has already been 3 weeks now since CHIP expired. CHIP means a child in Cincinnati or Dayton or Portsmouth or Akron or Youngstown or Mansfield can see a family doctor when they need it, preventing a costly ambulance ride and emergency room visit. CHIP means getting vaccines and shots. It means having dental coverage. We know what happens to low-income kids who don't get good dental care. The State of Ohio probably has enough money to help protect CHIP kids through the end of the year, but Congress needs to act now. I have met with CHIP families across Ohio. Let me tell you some stories. Josh, whom I met in Cleveland--his children were covered by CHIP when he was laid off from his job. He said, ``The ability to take health insurance out of the equation, feeling confident that my family will continue to get the same quality of care they had while I was working, was a huge weight lifted.'' Think about that. This father, knowing that he has insurance--he had plenty of things to worry about. He lost his job. Who knows what that means about their home and their lifestyle and their family? But at least he knew he could rely on insurance--until now. Look what this Congress has failed to do. Think about Noble from Columbus, who came to my office earlier this year with his mom to talk about how important CHIP is. Noble relies on CHIP for coverage for the five pediatric specialists he sees at one of America's great hospitals, Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus. My colleagues need to think about Josh and his kids in Cleveland and Noble and his mom in Columbus. We need to think about the mother of a son with diabetes, worrying about whether her son will be able to see the same doctor next year or about a father with a daughter with asthma, praying she doesn't lose her inhaler on the playground because in a few months they might not have insurance to pay for that inhaler. My wife has asthma, and I know what that means. She had a father who had health insurance through his union plan with the Illuminating Company in Northeast Ohio. He worked maintenance. It was a good blue- collar job. It didn't pay enough to send her to college, but it did pay enough with good insurance that it gave them a decent lifestyle. They didn't have CHIP back then. More people had union plans. More people were protected. We used to have CHIP until September 30, when this Congress didn't care enough to provide it. We should not be playing politics with families' lives. Two years ago, I led the fight in this body to protect CHIP. Because of that work, with the support of advocates all across Ohio--and there are so many of them across the country--we extended funding for CHIP for 2 years. Again, this was with bipartisan support, back when Congress operated that way. We have already come a long way this year. We passed a 5-year extension of CHIP out of the Senate Finance Committee. It had every vote in that Committee, with the exception of one. I thank Senator Hatch and Senator Wyden and my colleague from Ohio, Senator Portman, and so many of our colleagues for their help with that. But this process is taking too long. Josh and Noble and the 209,000 Ohioans and 9 million children across the country are in a situation in which their parents are unsure of whether they will have insurance through the end of the year and next year and the year after. It is time for us to come together to ensure that the families we work for have the healthcare they need for their children. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Radhika Gharpure, who is currently serving as a legislative fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks of no more than 2 minutes, Senator Franken follow me, and then Senator Blumenthal.

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, what Congress is trying to do today, this evening, as long as it takes, as long as the arms are twisted, is frankly outrageous. Our job is to look out for the people whom we serve, not to look out for Wells Fargo, not to look out for Equifax, not to look out for Wall Street banks, not to look out for corporations who scam consumers. Forced arbitration, pure and simple, takes power away from ordinary people. It gives it to the big banks, it gives it to Equifax, it gives it to Wells Fargo, it gives it to Wall Street companies that already have an unfair advantage. We know the White House increasingly looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives. I would hope the Senate wouldn't follow suit. Look at Equifax. In early September, we learned it compromised the personal data of more than 145 million Americans'--5 million in my State, probably twice that in the Presiding Officer's State--names, dates of birth, addresses, Social Security numbers, driver's licenses, more than half the adult population of the United States of America. So how did Equifax respond? By immediately trying to trick customers--their consumers, their customers--into signing away their rights to access the court system in exchange for credit monitoring. So here is what Equifax did in simple terms. Equifax said: Oh, we will give you a free year of credit monitoring; sign right here. Oh, yeah, when you sign right here, the fine print says: but you can't ever sue us. You have to go through this forced arbitration, which of course almost nobody does, almost nobody understands, and almost no consumer ever wins. Only after Senators and consumer groups led a public outcry did they back down. We sat in the Banking Committee and listened to the just-retired CEO of Equifax and then the next week listened to the trade association where the CEO of the trade association, who wasn't paid the tens of millions of dollars, I assume, that the retired CEO of Equifax was--the recently retired because he didn't do his job, even though he was getting all kinds of compensation. There is more on that later. They backed down from this idea of forced arbitration because the public said: You basically have to be kidding. You are going to defraud 145 million people, and then they are going to sign something and the fine print says: Sorry, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you can't sue us. So they backed down. Great. Then he said he was going to give up his bonus. That was really generous when he made in 2016 and 2017--as Senator Crapo and I in the Banking Committee talked about today--he made about $140 million in those 2 years, which is not real difficult math. There were 145 million people scammed, and the CEO, not doing his job, made $140 million, so that is about a dollar per ``scamee.'' I know that is not a word, but it sort of fits. You would think after public shaming, Equifax would have learned its lesson. So last week Equifax again was just abusing the public trust. You wonder why people are cynical or people are skeptical. People are so frustrated about Wall Street and about financial services in this country because you have these multigazillionaires--again, in 2 years, he made $140 million. Well, you have these very wealthy executives who think they are doing us a favor because they are giving back their bonus. They already have $100 million in their pocket, and that is just in the last 2 years. Who knows how far it goes back. So they sent a representative to testify in front of the Banking Committee. Do you know what he said when we asked him--I asked him and others asked him--he still thinks it is appropriate for Equifax and the other credit bureaus to use forced arbitration clauses that prevent Americans they have hurt from having their day in court. He seemed to learn nothing from this. Even after the huge harm Equifax has caused 145 million Americans, 5 million Ohioans, they still defend their use of forced arbitration clauses. Why do they like them so much? Why are they willing to stand strong and to hold on to their right to forced arbitration? Because they make so much money from forced arbitration because it keeps that power relationship. When Wall Street has all the power and 145 million consumers have almost no power--that is why they like forced arbitration and that is why they are turning the heat up on all of my colleagues here to stand strong for the banks, for Wall Street, for Equifax, for Wells Fargo, for forced arbitration. That is Equifax. Let's take a look at Wells Fargo. In 2013, they used a forced arbitration clause to silence a customer who had accused the company of opening fake accounts in his name. OK. I will say that again. They used a forced arbitration clause to silence a customer who had accused the company of opening fake accounts in his name. Well, it turns out this customer was not just right, but we found out Wells Fargo opened 3.5 million of these fake accounts. Think about that. You have a relationship with a bank, and it happens to be Wells Fargo, which used to have a really good reputation as one of America's largest Wall Street banks--and neighborhood banks too. There are 6 million, if I am right, 6 million community banks, as they like to say. There are 6 million little branch offices in everybody's neighborhood. So this bank took relationships they had with their customers, and they opened accounts pretty much for 3.5 million of their customers-- accounts they never approved. Say you had a checking account with them. They went and opened another checking account in your name and didn't tell you. That is what they did. So then they subjected their employees who opened those accounts to harsh sales goals. That is what they did--harsh sales goals. They threatened to fire anyone who didn't keep up. Here is the forced arbitration. Because Wells Fargo had the power of the forced arbitration clause, they were able to sweep this 2013 lawsuit under the rug, allowing the scandal to continue for years. So go back to that. In 2013, if that customer didn't have that forced arbitration--which that customer didn't even know he or she signed. When they wanted to sue, they found out they couldn't sue because they had signed, in the really small print that almost nobody reads--I am not a lawyer, and I don't know if I could understand that small print. I know many Americans can't. So that person couldn't sue. Imagine if that person had been able to sue in an open court and then in discovery they had found out: Oh, my gosh. Wells Fargo opened 3.5 million of these accounts. Maybe we ought to do something about it. Instead, because of forced arbitration, the public didn't find out about what Wells Fargo had done until about 3 years later. So think of the damage. Maybe it wasn't 3.5 million cases--maybe they didn't open 3.5 million in 2013. Maybe it was only a million there, but every month they opened more and more and more fake accounts, false accounts, because nobody could sue because they were forced into arbitration, and arbitration always happens in a back room somewhere. Nobody really knows it is going on. Again, think how much damage could have been prevented if that customer was allowed to take Wells Fargo to open court 4 years ago. When the scandal was finally brought to light, customers found out that forced arbitration was such a powerful tool for Wells Fargo and others and that it was all without their consent. The Economic Policy Institute studied people who went into arbitration with Wells Fargo. They found out, on average--now, most people don't even try with arbitration. They just give up because it is only a few dollars, but those courageous souls or angry customers who actually went into arbitration, ended up--they didn't just lose and not win any money from Wells Fargo, they, on the average, had to pay Wells Fargo--maybe we would call it, in layman's terms, a countersuit in some sense--they had to pay Wells Fargo an average of $11,000. So they can't sue under Federal law. They have lost their day in court, under Federal law, because of this forced arbitration law. So they went to arbitration, and Wells Fargo, with their very smart, very well-paid lawyer--keep in mind, their CEO made about $20 million. Their really well-paid legal team does very well. So that well-paid legal team went to work, and the average customer, who had no legal team on her side or on his side, ended up paying Wells Fargo, on the average, $11,000. No wonder they love this forced arbitration law. You heard that right, the customers ended up paying the bank. So the same bank that cheated customers into opening false accounts--they cheated, they deceived into opening false accounts and that doesn't even talk about the car insurance they made them buy down the road. That is another story. The same bank that cheated customers into opening false accounts, the customers ended up having to pay Wells Fargo for the privilege of getting scammed. Congratulations. No wonder people don't trust Wall Street. No wonder people are mad at Wells Fargo and Equifax and these companies that scam the public and these banks that--I live in Cleveland, OH, in ZIP Code 44105. My ZIP Code had more foreclosures in 2007 than any ZIP Code in the United States of America, and I see what these banks did to my neighborhood, and I see what they do to Wells Fargo accountholders, and I see what they are doing to the 145 million whom Equifax has scammed. Studies show that Wall Street and other big companies win 93 percent of the time in arbitration. Ninety-three percent of the time in arbitration the companies win. No wonder they are fighting like hell. No wonder they have lobbied this place like we have never seen. No wonder every Wall Street firm is down here begging their Senators to stand strong with Wall Street and pass this CRA, pass this resolution to undo the rule stopping forced arbitration. So Wells Fargo's multidecamillionaire CEO came and testified in front of the Banking Committee early this month on an entirely new scandal. This is another Wells Fargo scandal, a scandal the last CEO in front of us didn't disclose. There was a new scandal he knew about and didn't tell us about. He said that Wells Fargo plans to keep using forced arbitration. It is amazing that bank that has hurt so many Americans would continue to crusade against consumers' right to a day in court. This vote is all about a consumer's right to a day in court, pure and simple. These forced arbitration clauses are powerful. They are everywhere. They are in student loans. They are in credit card agreements. They are in nursing home agreements, even in employment contracts. Gretchen Carlson, the well-known FOX News anchor, was prevented from suing her employer for sexual harassment by a forced arbitration clause in her employment contract. She has been urging Senators today to vote against the repeal of the consumer bureau's rule. In her words, forced arbitration ``has silenced millions of women who otherwise may have come forward.'' With all the other things about forced arbitration, think about what she said. She says forced arbitration ``has silenced millions of women who otherwise may have come forward.'' Forced arbitration is about the biggest companies in the country, the biggest Wall Street firms and silencing customers, silencing victims. It is about giving more power to corporations. If you ask Americans if they think corporations have too much power, resoundingly, they say yes. This gives more power to those corporations that already have too much power in the lives of working Americans. Let me tell you a story about an Ohioan. I will use only his first name, George. George is from Mentor, OH, a community east of Cleveland in Lake County. George's wife suffered physical and mental abuse in a nursing home. Guess what. The nursing home had an arbitration clause. It denied him and his family their day in court. This nursing home could physically and mentally abuse his wife, who was helpless in this nursing home. She couldn't really fight back. She couldn't really do much herself to stop it. They couldn't go to court because they had signed a forced arbitration clause. George didn't know what a forced arbitration clause was, I assume, until that happened. Forced arbitration clauses were so powerful and so effective that when George went to a lawyer, his lawyer said: You don't stand a chance fighting against it because they are going to put you into forced arbitration. They are not going to give you a free day in court. Veterans and servicemembers have a lot of experience with this issue. A big Wall Street bank called Santander was illegally repossessing cars from servicemembers all over the country several years ago. When servicemembers spoke up about their rights--special protections they earned by serving our country--Santander used forced arbitration to keep them out of court. We talk a good game about veterans here. We are always saying how we are on the side of veterans. I have served in the Veterans' Affairs Committee longer than any Ohio Senator ever. I pay a lot of attention to these issues, and I hear all of my colleagues mouth wonderful words about how we love veterans and ought to take care of veterans. The American Legion held its national convention in August and adopted a resolution supporting the consumer bureau's rule and opposing today's attempt to repeal it. The assistant director of the American Legion's veterans employment and education division said: ``Our membership has stated unequivocally that we will not accept a future where our military veterans' financial protections are chipped away to increase the margins of the financial sector.'' These arbitration rules go after families of people in nursing homes. They go after customers who they get to sign up for things they didn't know they were signing up for. They go after people whose credit has been hacked and whose credit rating has been dinged, and they go after soldiers, airmen, sailors, and Coast Guard members. How will Members of this body look those servicemembers in the eye and explain that they chose to stand with Wall Street over our military members? Forced arbitration hurts the 3.5 million people who had bank accounts fraudulently opened by Wells Fargo. Forced arbitration hurts the 145 million Americans who had their personal data put at risk by Equifax. It hurts employees who have been hurt by their employers. It hurts students who have been cheated by for-profit colleges. It hurts family members in nursing homes. It hurts America's veterans. Forced arbitration hurts millions of Americans with student loan debt and credit cards. Damn near everybody in the country is potentially vulnerable to forced arbitration. Who does forced arbitration help? We know that it is Wall Street banks and huge corporations that never pay the price for cheating working people. Those CEOs who make $20 million and, then, generously give up their bonuses, will not give up forced arbitration because they know that will help their bottom line. That will help their stock bounce back. That will help their dividend. That will help their compensation. I urge my friends on the other side to ask themselves: Whose side are we on--the people we serve who get hurt by forced arbitration or Wall Street CEOs who cash in? I ask my colleagues: Choose to side with the people we serve. Vote against repeal of the consumer bureau's rule. Give some power back to regular Americans. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I just want to make an observation after listening to the words of my friend Senator Duckworth, who speaks, as Holly Petraeus and so many others have spoken, about the importance of this rule to veterans in this country. It is not just consumers. It is not just women who have been abused in the workplace. It is not just people who sign up for credit cards. It is veterans in this country who are the losers if this vote passes tonight. I would first like to read the number of Democrats who have been on the floor in opposition to this motion in support of the rule. I started, then Senator Merkley, Senator Warren, Senator Hirono, Senator Durbin, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Van Hollen, Senator Udall, Senator Duckworth, soon after, Senator Franken, and Senator Blumenthal. On the other side there has been one Senator. Senator Crapo is a good friend of mine. He is chairman of the committee. I am the ranking member. He is doing his duty and defending his position well. But no other Republican Senator, no supporter of this resolution--nobody wants to come down here and speak. Why? Because they don't want to be seen as defenders of Wall Street. They don't want to be seen as defenders of the most powerful people in this country. So they stay back in their offices quietly. They will come down here meekly on the floor, and they will vote yes, and they will go home and hope nobody knows about it. But they are not willing--again, Senator Crapo, whom I admire and respect greatly, knows those aren't just words. I mean it. He is doing his duty as chairman of the Banking Committee. None of the rest of them want to join him. I think that tells you a whole lot. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the Vice President of the United States is here. Looks like Equifax and Wall Street and Wells Fargo will win again. The Vice President only shows up in this body when the rich and the powerful need him. It is pretty clear tonight that Wall Street needs him. This vote will make the rich richer. It will make the powerful more powerful. Forced arbitration hurts the 3.5 million people who were defrauded by Wells Fargo. Forced arbitration hurts the 145 million Americans who were wronged by Equifax, 5 million in Ohio alone. It hurts employees who have been hurt by their employers. It hurts students who have been cheated by for-profit colleges. It hurts family members in nursing homes. It hurts the millions of Americans with student loan debt and credit cards. I will close with this. I want every voting Member of the Senate to look into the eyes of the American Legion veterans who say a vote to overturn the CFPB arbitration rule is a vote against our military and against our veterans. Vote no. I yield back the time on our side.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, we yield back the time.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask for support of the Patriot Corporation Act amendment. It is all pretty simple. Over the years, we have seen companies shut down production in Mansfield, OH, or Dayton, OH, and move to Tijuana, Mexico, or Hunan, China, and then sell their production back in the United States. Under this simple idea, the Patriot Corporation Act, companies that do the right thing--companies that pay their workers decent wages; companies that do the right thing by their workers in terms of benefits, healthcare, and pensions; companies that make their products and keep their production in the United States--will get a tax break. They will pay a lower tax rate. Yesterday at the White House, about 15 Senators met with President Trump. I talked to him about the Patriot Corporation Act. He said he likes the idea. It is about time that U.S. companies that do the right thing should be rewarded instead of those companies that shut down production and move overseas and sell their products back. It is the right thing to do. It is a simple idea. Its time has come, Mr. President.

Mr. BROWN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the addiction epidemic is a national emergency that takes far too many lives and destroys too many families across the country. Unfortunately, my State, in some ways, leads the way. Four thousand Ohioans died from drug overdoses last year, more than any State in the United States. Four thousand families lost a mother, a father, a daughter, a son, a sister, or brother. We need to treat this epidemic like the public health emergency it is. We asked the President to proclaim it a public health emergency. He talked about it but still hasn't done it. That is the same reason I can't support Representative Tom Marino's nomination to head our country's drug control policy. First of all, fundamentally, I don't want an elected official, a politician, in that position. I want somebody from the treatment community. Congressman Marino is a nominee who, in his time in Congress, showed he was too cozy with the drug companies that helped create this epidemic. Earlier today, President Trump responded to reports about Congressman Marino and said he is looking at those reports very closely. I hope he does. I hope he withdraws that nomination. Make no mistake, Congressman Marino does not want to take us in the right direction in this fight. Today I was in Austintown--a township on the edge of Youngstown, in Mahoning County--talking to Officer Toth and Chief Gavalier at the Austintown Police Department about the opioid crisis. It is coming up on Drug Take Back Day, where on Saturday all over the country, the DEA is asking police departments to allow people to bring their unused drugs in to get them out of the medicine cabinets. We were talking about much more than that. We were talking about how State governments and the Federal Government haven't stepped up the way we should to partner on prevention and education in medication-assisted therapy treatment and all the things we should be doing. Mr. Marino seems to think we arrest our way out of this problem, but that is not what law enforcement officials across this country are saying. Detective Toth and I didn't talk about arresting people's children and arresting parents. We talked about how to promote the Department's Drug Take Back Day. Addiction isn't an individual problem or a character flaw; it is a chronic disease. We need someone running our drug policy who understands that, not someone who simply wants to pull patients out of treatment in the middle of an epidemic. We know what that was about when on this floor, not much more than a month ago, only by one vote were we able to preserve the treatment that so many opioid-addicted people are getting. Right now, in my State, 200,000 Ohioans are getting opioid treatment because they have insurance under the Affordable Care Act. We need the enforcement piece. That is why I have introduced the bipartisan INTERDICT Act and why I have worked with Senator Portman on this to make sure we have resources for Customs and Border Protection agents to screen packages effectively and safely before they reach our neighborhood. It has been more than 8 weeks since President Trump promised a national disaster declaration. We have yet to see a strategy from the White House. Other than a nominee who thinks one locks people up to defeat the opioid epidemic, we have seen no strategy from the White House to deal with the epidemic. Ohio families cannot afford to wait. Let me close with this. A few months ago, I was in Cincinnati, at the Talbert House, and I met with a father who was there with his 30-year- old daughter. He told me that his daughter would not be there right now, that she would not still be alive, if it were not for Medicaid and the treatment for addiction that she received because of it. We know what we have to do to deal with this epidemic. I ask the President to do the right thing, and I ask the Senate to do the right thing and move forward. It is the biggest public health emergency in our lifetimes. We need the people who are in charge of our drug control policy to treat it that way. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island be recognized.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor Mr. Ronald K. Lorentzen, a dedicated public servant who has spent his career advocating for American workers and businesses. Mr. Lorentzen retired on June 30, 2017, after more than three decades of government service. Born in the blue-collar town of Ashtabula, OH--a great hometown, as my wife Connie can attest--Mr. Lorentzen's roots are evident in his life's work. Too often, especially in trade policy, representatives and policymakers fail to live up to the promises they have made to working families, but not Mr. Lorentzen. He never forgot where he came from, and he never forgot the workers who are too often left behind by our trade policy. In his roles at the International Trade Administration, he has been a leader in our government's efforts to combat unfair trade practices and hold countries that cheat the rules accountable. He served as lead negotiator for the U.S. and chairman of the Steel Committee at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, where he worked to address steel overcapacity within the U.S. Market. While we know we have a lot more work to do to create a truly level playing field for our steel industry, his work helped shape a more fair international steel market for American companies. In addition, Mr. Lorentzen led U.S. delegations before the North American Steel Trade Committee, NASTC. He helped ensure the NASTC fulfilled its mission as a forum for NAFTA steel countries to build consensus and develop united positions on areas of common concern. A firm grasp of the facts and diplomatic skill made him a strong and effective advocate for U.S. manufacturers. Through his many roles in government, Mr. Lorentzen has served this country and its working families. He has stood up for workers in my State, and his efforts have helped save jobs. When we enforce our trade policies and hold accountable those who cheat the international trade system, we are ensuring our workers and businesses have access to a level playing field. Mr. Lorentzen has been a leader in that fight. Mr. Lorentzen will be remembered for his compassion, work ethic, and integrity. I ask my Senate colleges to join me in thanking him for his service and wishing him all the best on his retirement.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I say to the Presiding Officer--and the Senator who is about to become the Presiding Officer--I appreciated the work of you two together, in tandem, today for two nominees in front of the Agriculture Committee. I thank you. (Mr. SASSE assumed the Chair.) Mr. President, I rise to talk for a moment about a hearing yesterday, which the Presiding Officer sat through, too, with the outgoing CEO of Equifax. We know what happened with Equifax, yet we really don't know entirely what happened. We know there was a breach of Equifax's information, and 145 million Americans--more than half of the adult population in our country--had their data breached. Criminals will now have access to the data of far too many Americans. I am hopeful because I and Senator Crapo, the chairman of the committee, and others on the committee were pretty unhappy--not to speak for others, certainly, but we were pretty unhappy with Equifax's performance yesterday because we didn't get a lot of answers to a number of our questions. When you think about what we do with medical language, with our personal medical information, we have laws to say that our personal medical information belongs to us. We, of course, can share it with a hospital or a doctor or whomever we want, but our doctor can't share it with other doctors without our permission. Our hospital can't share it with other hospitals without our permission. But our personal financial data doesn't fall into those categories. We know how this happens. Equifax is a company that many have rarely thought about. A lot of people have never thought much about it, and many have never really explored who they are. Equifax is a company in Atlanta. There are three data agencies like this. They get your data without your permission. They get it from a utility company or from a bank or from somebody else. They have two jobs: to collect your data and then to protect your data, your personal financial data. This company--this CEO has been paid $69 million over the last 3 years. The CEO we met with, who has retired, has been compensated very generously. Who knows if he will end up getting bonuses and golden parachutes and all? The American public has come to unfortunately expect that these CEOs will abuse the public trust. Look at what happened at Wells Fargo, creating all kinds of accounts for people who didn't even want those accounts, who didn't even know they were having those accounts opened. And look at Equifax. In far too many cases, these companies don't protect our information the way they have promised they would. It makes all of us, the 145 million, subject to some kind of criminal activity in all kinds of ways--to violate our privacy and to take advantage of us financially and all the identity theft and all the things that come with that. If you were a student at Bowling Green State University who graduated and you miss a student loan payment after you have graduated, you get your credit dinged by Equifax. If you are a homeowner in Mansfield, OH, or in Ravenna, OH, and you miss a monthly payment or a couple of monthly payments, you get your credit dinged. You are held accountable by Equifax, but Equifax hasn't really been held accountable much by anyone. The cynicism people in this country have toward our financial system, toward Wall Street--then we see Wells Fargo do what they have done; then we see Equifax do what they have done. It is time for Congress to push away these special interest groups that have far too much influence in this body. The White House has not been helpful. The White House looks like a retreat for Goldman Sachs executives, with all the people around the President who do the bidding of Wall Street and protect far too many of these Wall Street firms and Wells Fargo and the Equifaxes of the world. I am hopeful that we will sit down in a bipartisan way and begin to figure out what to do here. Maybe we do consider the protections we have for people's medical records--we ought to have the same protection for their financial records. It simply makes sense, and I am hopeful we can come to a solution. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today we are considering the nomination of Randal Quarles to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Since 1984, Mr. Quarles has revolved between the public and private sectors. He was most recently the director of the Carlyle Group from 2007 to 2013, and then founded Cynosure Group, an investment management company. I appreciate Mr. Quarles' willingness to serve the public once again, but I don't think he is the person we want in this important role at the Federal Reserve. The financial crisis devastated communities in my State and across the country--devastated in terms of lost jobs, foreclosed homes, and evaporated savings. We have made a lot of progress in the 7 years since we passed Wall Street reform. The Vice Chair of Supervision at the Federal Reserve, a position created in Dodd-Frank, is supposed to look out for our financial system and make sure that our financial system is sound. Mr. Quarles served as Treasury's Under Secretary for Domestic Finance in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. It was his job to coordinate oversight of the financial industry. Many of his statements, however, leading up to the crisis were far too credulous. He seemed to believe whatever the banks were telling him. They were far too credulous when it came to industry claims that we simply need not worry; the economy is in good shape and we don't have to worry about a credit bubble. In the early 2000s, while at the Treasury Department, Mr. Quarles espoused the following view of the role of regulators in financial markets. It is a long quote, and I will quote him directly: Markets are always ahead of the regulators, and frankly that's how it should be. It's analogous to the advice that my father provided me that ``if you don't miss at least two or three planes a year, you're spending too much time in airports.'' If the regulators aren't a little behind the market in a few areas at any given time, they would be stifling innovation and evolution. The regulators' task is to promote investor protection, while ensuring that prudential and supervisory activities do not stifle efficiency gains. For effective regulation, the regulators must work with the markets. I am not sure where to start on picking that apart. More importantly, it is showing that someone who says that shouldn't be in charge of financial regulation at the Federal Reserve. He said at his Senate nomination hearing: ``That is probably the most unfortunate use of language that I ever made, and I do not stand behind that statement.'' That is what he said when presented with these words at his confirmation hearing. He made other similarly unfortunate statements in the years leading up to the financial crisis. In 2006, as Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, he discussed the prospects for an impending financial crisis. This was before things looked really, really bad. He said: How would our current financial system stand up to this sort of canonical crisis? On the whole, I would say that the U.S. economy is well positioned to weather such a retrenchment in risk-taking. This was about a year and a half before the economy began to implode. He was in a high position in the Treasury Department, and he had access to all of the information he might possibly want, and he said that the ``economy is well positioned to weather such a retrenchment.'' In the same speech, on the potential harm posed by increases in mortgage payments for families with exotic mortgages he said: While that is certainly a large number, it represents only a small hit to aggregate personal income. Moreover, market reports indicate that borrowers using such non-traditional mortgages tend to be upper income individuals that can manage a sizable increase in their mortgage payment. He concluded by saying, again, in 2006: Fundamentally, the economy is strong, the financial sector is healthy, and our future looks bright. We will surely face challenges in the future, but we can take comfort in the knowledge that our economy and financial system have proven remarkably resilient to all manner of adverse shocks in the past. That was a lot of comfort to the millions of Americans afflicted by the financial crisis. My wife and I live in Cleveland, in ZIP Code 44105. The year after Mr. Quarles made that statement and the economy started to really tank, my ZIP Code had more foreclosures than any other ZIP Code in the United States. I know what that does to a neighborhood. I am not confident Mr. Quarles took to heart the costly lessons of the financial crisis. He seems far too ready to relax the rules for Wall Street and those who protect consumers. He is another example that this administration, which said it wants to drain the swamp, instead looks like a retreat for Goldman Sachs executives. The number of people on Wall Street who have influence on our government is just far and away worse than we have ever seen it. Putting Mr. Quarles--who should know better but apparently doesn't, from his statements--at the Federal Reserve, in charge of financial regulation, is just the wrong thing. In 2015, when asked about Dodd- Frank, he said: The macro issue is that the government should not be a player in the financial sector. It should be a referee. And the practice, and the policy, and the legislation that resulted from the financial crisis tended to make the government a player. They put it on the field as opposed to simply reffing the game. How could he think that, when he was part of the government when it didn't do its job and didn't do the job that regulators are supposed to do? In response to questions for the record at his nomination hearing, he stated: ``My approach to policy making, and particularly to regulation, has been that the discretion of policy makers, and particularly of regulators, should be as constrained as possible.'' He is really saying: Let Wall Street do what it wants to do; let Wall Street run the financial sector of our economy, and government regulators should sort of step aside. As vice chair for supervision and as a Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Mr. Quarles will be making decisions about risk- based capital, leverage and liquidity requirements, resolution plans, concentration limits, risk committees, stress tests, and other important safeguards put into place after the crisis for the Nation's largest banks. The crisis showed we need strong financial watchdogs, not, as he said, ``constrained'' ones. If confirmed, I am not sure who Mr. Quarles will be working for, taxpayers and working families or Wall Street. Let me close by reminding my colleagues that, last Congress, the Banking Committee refused to consider President Obama's nominees to the Federal Reserve Board. Mr. Quarles is the first nominee President Trump has chosen. There are currently three other vacancies. The term for Chair of the Federal Reserve expires early next year. Because of that, President Trump will likely fill at least five of the seven Federal Reserve Board seats, which are 14-year terms. Again, if the first one is someone who is so close to Wall Street, what does that tell you about who is in the White House? What does it tell you about the advisers in the White House? What does it tell you about that executive retreat for Goldman Sachs I talked about in the White House? If all the nominees to the Federal Reserve are like Mr. Quarles, average Americans may once again pay the price. We can't return to a time when financial watchdogs are asleep on the job. There seems to be a collective amnesia in this body, in the White House, and in the Banking Committee about what people in our country went through in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012, which was, in large part, because of the influence of Wall Street in our government. We can't let that happen. That is why I urge my colleagues to oppose the nomination of Mr. Quarles to the Federal Reserve. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, we have the recent fake accounts scandal at Wells Fargo and the massive data breach at Equifax. I don't think any of us can go home and not hear, certainly, about the Equifax scandal that we found out about just a couple of weeks ago. The massive data breach at Equifax and the fake accounts scandal at Wells Fargo drive home the fact that so-called forced arbitration clauses have become almost unavoidable in everyday life. Whether it is a credit card or a bank account, whether it is a student loan or a college enrollment, whether it is a nursing home contract, your phone service, or even--now far too often--your job, you have probably signed a contract that forced you to give up your right to a day in court, usually, without even realizing it. Forced arbitration is a tool that big corporations use to silence victims of corporate fraud and corporate abuse. These victims never get to tell their stories to a judge or a jury of their peers. Why? Because of the small print in these contracts. Victims are pushed into a secret process behind closed doors, where corporations win about 90 percent of the time. Over the past couple of weeks, I have had an opportunity to hear from some of these victims. Let me tell you about George from Mentor, OH. George's wife suffered physical and mental abuse in a nursing home, but George and his wife have been denied a day in court. He said the lawyers he reached out to for help turned him away because they didn't think he had a chance fighting against the forced arbitration clause in his family's nursing home admittance agreement. Any family who has been through the transition of admitting a loved one into a nursing home will tell you it is a difficult time in the best of circumstances. Forcing these families to sign away their rights is not only wrong. It is dangerous. Typically, because of all the trauma of moving a family member into a nursing home, you are not even aware that you have signed away your rights. After the Equifax breach, my office was flooded with calls from scared consumers seeking help. Let me tell you about another one. Bill is from Hamilton, OH, which is at the other end of the State from Mentor. He and his wife are retired, and they worked hard to pay their bills on time. He has had excellent credit, and this is the story of millions of Americans. That was all put at risk when Equifax allowed his family's personal information to be stolen, along with that of 143 million other Americans. It is pretty much half of the country. This breach was so huge and harmed so many people that the company's CEO, Richard Smith, retired suddenly today. Well, he will probably have a very comfortable retirement. His compensation was millions of dollars a year. The millions of people he has harmed will continue to struggle with the mess that he left behind. That is bad enough, but Equifax was also demanding that Bill in Hamilton, OH, give up his right to hold the company accountable in court if Bill signed up for their credit monitoring service. Do you remember, after the story broke--I believe it was in July when the executives found out about the 143 million Americans breached, or the 140- plus million Americans breached--that a couple of executives sold some of their stock. That is interesting. We will see what happens about that. Then it became public in September. So we know that. Now, we also know that Equifax, then, to make it up to their customers, said that they would give them a free year of credit monitoring. A year ago, I believe it was, when there was another situation like that of a data breech, Congress voted to protect Federal employees and to give them free credit monitoring for 10 years. But Equifax, generously--I believe some used that word, but they probably didn't--gave the 1 year, but they had a forced arbitration clause. It was only because of a staff person on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, that Cory saw that they had that provision in these contracts--this free year of credit monitoring--and Equifax decided to back off of that. These forced arbitration clauses are incredibly powerful. To understand them better, big companies use the small print not just against regular families back in Ohio but even against people who could afford top-notch legal teams. Gretchen Carlson, a well-known news anchor, endured sexual harassment at FOX but was prevented from suing her employer by a forced arbitration clause. She didn't really know that or hadn't thought much about that when she signed her contract. She wrote of forced arbitration: It is ``often argued to be a quicker and cheaper method of dispute resolution for employees'' but, ``instead [it] has silenced millions of women who otherwise may have come forward.'' The power of forced arbitration clauses to silence victims has allowed potentially millions of people to be harmed by big banks and other financial institutions. Let's take another one, Wells Fargo. In 2013, Wells Fargo used a forced arbitration clause to silence a customer who had accused the company of opening fake accounts in his name. You will remember that Wells Fargo opened as many as 3.5 million fake accounts, meaning they opened an account that the Senator from Texas or that I or others had not given permission to do so. They opened accounts in people's names. Obviously, I am not saying that personally of the Senator from Texas and me, but they opened 3 million fake accounts of customers who didn't even know these accounts had been opened. They subjected their employees to harsh sales goals. They threatened to fire anyone who didn't keep up. Think about how much damage could have been prevented if that customer was allowed to take Wells Fargo to open court 4 years ago, but they couldn't because of forced arbitration. Well, Equifax pulled back its use of forced arbitration clauses after the public shaming of what they did, but Wells Fargo seems to have no shame in continuing to hide behind arbitration following scandal after scandal. You will remember what Warren Buffet, who is a major stockholder in Wells Fargo, said: You rarely find just one cockroach in the kitchen. Well, with Wells Fargo, there was one case after they said: This is it. Then, there was another, and they said: Well, this is it. Then, there was another one. We don't know what is next. We know that many of the victims of Wells Fargo's scandal were servicemembers. In 2015, Santander Bank illegally repossessed cars from servicemembers and, then, used a forced arbitration clause to silence their claims. So they are willing to go against servicemembers, in the case of Santander. Wells Fargo is willing to do it against servicemembers. Wells Fargo is willing to do it against up to 3.5 million customers for whom they opened fake accounts. Servicemembers and all Americans deserve to be protected from this shady legal fine print. That is what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has done with its new rule on the issue of forced arbitration--a rule that some in this body want to overturn. It is despicable that Congress is trying to cover for big corporations looking to cheat consumers and overturn this rule. Make no mistake. Voting to overturn the CFPB rule about forced arbitration is simply saying that we support corporations' ability and efforts to cheat their consumers. They simply don't have their day in court. The American Legion adopted a resolution at its national conference last month opposing repeal of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's rule. They understand that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau did the right thing to protect servicemembers from forced arbitration. John Kamin, assistant director of the American Legion's veterans employment and education division, said: ``Our membership has stated unequivocally that we will not accept a future where our military veterans' financial protections are chipped away to increase the margins of the financial sector.'' Let me say that again: ``We will not accept a future''--this is from the American Legion--``where our military veterans' financial protections are chipped away to increase the margins of the financial sector.'' The right to have your day in court is enshrined in the Constitution that our servicemembers fight to uphold. The least we can do is to protect this right for the women and the men who protect our country-- to protect this right for the men and the women who protect our country. How can Members of this body, when this vote approaches, if they support the CRA to overturn the rule of the CFPB, look those servicemen and servicewomen in the eyes and explain that they chose to stand with Wall Street over these people who served their country and over their families and over hard-working people all across America? It is our job to protect the people we serve, not to protect Wall Street banks and corporations when they try to scam consumers. Big companies use small print to silence the hard-working Americans they have cheated. When a resolution to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's rule comes to this floor, I urge my colleagues to speak up for the people whom we serve. I suggest the absence of a quorum.