Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, last year our country celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most important pieces of legislation that was passed in the 20th century. It opened the door for millions of Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote. But this year will mark the first Presidential election in half a century without the full protections guaranteed by that landmark law. One of the worst decisions this corporate-dominated Supreme Court made was Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down a key part of the law, taking the teeth out of provisions that protect voters from suppression laws. Since that misguided decision, States across the country have passed new voting restrictions that would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Americans. At least 17 States have passed new voting restrictions since the Shelby County restriction. We know who is hurt most by these laws--African Americans, Latinos, young people, and seniors. In North Carolina, before enacting one of these laws, the State legislature specifically asked for data on voting patterns by race. Once they had this data, they decided to eliminate or limit the voting methods used by African-American voters. Thankfully, the Fourth Circuit Court struck down this blatant attempt to disenfranchise one group of voters, writing: ``The new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision.'' In my State of Ohio, the courts have shamefully allowed laws such as these to stay on the books. Last week we were dealt multiple blows. First, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on the Sixth Circuit's decision ending ``Golden Week''--created by a Republican legislature a decade ago--when voters can register and vote on the same day during the 1 week early-voting period. In May, Judge Watson--a George W. Bush appointee in the Southern District in Columbus--found that the laws limiting early voting and registration would disproportionately impact African Americans. Judge Watson did the right thing, but the ultraconservative Sixth Circuit ruled to overturn that ruling, ending ``Golden Week.'' Last week the Supreme Court nodded 4 to 4 because the Republican majority leader won't let the Senate do its job to have hearings and confirmation on Judge Garland. The Supreme Court declined to intervene. Then the Sixth Circuit overturned a lower court ruling that had thrown out new Ohio laws imposing stricter requirements on absentee and provisional voters. Judge Damon Keith's dissent in this case captured what these restrictions are really all about. He notes that during the committee debate over the law, one legislator asked: ``Should we really be making it easier for those people who take the bus after church on Sunday to vote?''--making it crystal clear exactly what they were targeting and whom they were targeting. Judge Keith continues: Democracies die behind closed doors. Voting is the ultimate expression of self-government. Instead of making it easier for all persons, unrestrained and unfettered, to exercise this fundamental right to vote, legislators are making it harder. States are audaciously nullifying a right for which our ancestors relentlessly fought and--in some instances--even tragically died. I would point out that only about a decade ago, this body and the House overwhelmingly, bipartisanly renewed the Voting Rights Act that the Court struck down. Now one political party is digging in in opposition to that. It is no secret what these laws are about. State legislators have made it perfectly clear. In 2008, African Americans voted early in person at a rate more than 20 times greater than White voters. We all remember the scenes from Cuyahoga County, Cleveland, in 2004 when some voters waited as long as 7 hours to vote. For hourly workers, college students who work a third shift, parents who have to drop their children off at school, and many others, early voting ensures that their voices will be heard. In 2012, 10 percent of the electorate--600,000 people--voted early in my State. That is 600,000 voices that might not have been heard were it not for early voting. But some judges who dress in suits and lead very privileged lives with generous benefits from taxpayers have decided these voices aren't worth hearing. As Judge Keith said, democracies die behind closed doors. This body refuses to hold a hearing on the nominee who would have allowed the Supreme Court to hear the appeal on the ``Golden Week'' issue and issue a real decision. This body refuses to bring to the floor the bipartisan Voting Rights Advancement Act. In 1981, when signing an extension to the Voting Rights Act, President Reagan called the right to vote ``the crown jewel of American liberties.'' Ronald Reagan would have seen his political party today going in exactly the opposite direction, and that is sad.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to honor Seaman 1st Class William W. Welch, a native of Springfield, OH--an American hero who laid down his life for our country during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Seaman Welch was known to his family as Billy. He enlisted in the Navy, as so many did in those days, at 17. He left during his senior year at Springfield Catholic Central High School, so determined was he to serve his country. On December 7, 1941, Welch was stationed on the USS Oklahoma, docked at the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. The Oklahoma was the first to be hit that fateful morning by the Japanese. Of the more than 1,300 crew aboard, 429 perished that day--a loss of life second only to the better known USS Arizona. The ship capsized, and Billy Welch was among the first of so many Americans to make the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation during World War II. Billy's grieving family was dealt an additional blow when their son's remains were not returned to them, and they were unable to give him a burial befitting his sacrifice. It wasn't until 1943 that the Navy was able to right the Oklahoma and began trying to identify the remains. By then, with the technology available in the 1940s, it was too late for most sailors. Billy and his fellow sailors were buried as ``unknowns,'' and they had rested in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu until last year. In 2014, Billy Welch's nephew, Michael, contacted my office. He was fighting--for want of a better term--with the Department of Defense, begging them to try to identify his uncle's remains with the new technology available in 2014. He was part of a movement of families and veterans trying to piece together where their loved ones were buried and get them returned home. In 2015, the Pentagon announced plans to exhume and attempt to identify the fallen sailors and soldiers buried in the Pacific. DOD began removing caskets and using dental records and DNA to identify the remains and return those fallen heroes to their families. Billy Welch was identified. Now, with the help of dedicated staff in my office, next month he will finally be returned to Springfield and buried with full military honors in his hometown. It will be my honor to stand with Seaman Welch's family at Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Springfield and witness this hero be shown the honor and appreciation he deserves and his family has been denied for so long. Billy and his fellow sailors may not have known the contribution they were making that day on the USS Oklahoma to future generations at home and around the world as the first to sacrifice their lives fighting tyranny during the Second World War. That makes their actions all the more heroic. There is a reason we call them the ``greatest generation.'' We are losing more and more of that generation with each passing day. Less than 700,000 World War II veterans remain with us. We lose some 430 of those heroes each day. My father, a World War II veteran stationed in New Zealand and Iran--what he always called Persia World War II--passed away back in the year 2000. Projects like this one are all the more important and more timely. We need to identify these sailors and soldiers now, while their loved ones are still with us and still able to pay their proper respects. We owe William Welch and all those who gave their lives for our country a burial and, equally important, a tribute that befits their service and their sacrifice. I will be honored to take part in that tribute for Seaman Welch next month. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, yesterday I joined Senator Manchin, Senator Warner, Senator Capito, and others about the mine workers' pension. I come to the floor again today as I just cannot believe that my colleagues are going to go home. Some wanted to go today and make this the last day of session. Others are saying next week. I think there is no excuse for this Senate to leave without taking care of the longtime--starting with Harry Truman--agreement we have made with the people who go down into coal mines and do their work. They powered this country and have for decades. It is one of the most difficult, least safe jobs in the country. On my lapel I wear a depiction of a canary in a bird cage that was given to me at a workers' Memorial Day rally. The mine workers stuck a canary down in the mines. One hundred years ago they had no union to protect them. They had no government that cared enough to protect them and their safety. They relied on this canary. If the canary died, they got out of the mines. They were on their own. We know this proud history of mine workers in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Western Pennsylvania, and Southwest Virginia. We have an obligation--the anti-labor sentiment in this body, particularly in Republican leadership--to these mine workers. When they negotiated their wages at the bargaining table, they gave up wages 20 years ago, 30 years ago, or 40 years ago. They gave up wages then so they would have pension and health care later. They were some of the most patriotic people--and have been. When we had our rally the other day outside of the Capitol to at least push Senator McConnell to do his job, to push this Senate to do its job. This is a Senate that has been out of session more than any Senate in the last 60 years. They simply don't want to do their job. Even forgetting about nominating, confirming, or at least having hearings on a Supreme Court nominee, forgetting about the Zika virus for a moment--this Senate simply isn't doing its job, and it starts down the hall in the majority leader's office. They are simply refusing to bring to a vote this very simple bill to protect miners' pensions and health care. It doesn't cost taxpayer dollars. It is moving money from the abandoned mine fund into this UMWA pension and health care fund. It is a betrayal of those workers. It is simply saying we don't care about those workers. I can't believe that this body doesn't seem to care much about workers, doesn't seem to care much about people who work with their hands, doesn't seem to care much about the safety of workers, doesn't seem to care much about the air they breathe and the conditions they work in. This is finally a chance for this body to go on record saying: Yes, we actually think mine workers have dedicated their lives to working some of the most difficult jobs in our country, and we should live up to our obligation. Other than that, it is a betrayal of those workers, and it is coming straight out of the majority leader's office. It is shameful that this Senate is thinking about going home without doing its work. I again ask the leader to schedule this bill so we can move forward. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia, and I thank our colleague Senator Capito. Last week I joined Senator Manchin, Senator Capito, and others to speak to hundreds of coal miners rallying on the lawn right outside the Capitol. It was an oppressively hot day, yet the heat and humidity seemed to bother them not at all. They are used to working in mines and working in some of the hardest and least safe conditions in this country. One of the things that most impressed me at the beginning of this rally was when President Cecil Roberts, the president of the UMWA, stood up and asked at the beginning of his remarks: How many of you are veterans? A huge number of miners put their hands up. He then asked about family members and World War II veterans. We think about these mine workers. Some stayed in the mines and continued to mine coal, to win our wars and to power our defense plants and to power our homes and our commercial establishments and everything else. So many of them went off to war. As if we don't owe them for the work they have done in the mines and the promises that Senator Manchin mentioned, we also owe so many of them for serving our country the way they did. This is about retirement security. In my State alone, 6,800 Ohioans are covered and will be betrayed if we don't do our work, if the Senate doesn't do its job. If Congress fails to act, thousands of retired miners could lose their health care this year, and the pension plans could fail as early as 2017. This is retirement security that miners worked for, security they fought for, security that many of them sacrificed their own health for. One of the things that Senator Manchin and Senator Capito and I understand--and that, frankly, a whole lot of Senators don't--is that when unions bargain and sit down at the bargaining table, they often-- almost always--give up raises today for retirement security in the future. We call these legacy costs. During the auto rescue, I heard a number of my colleagues complain about the legacy costs that afflicted, in their words, the United Auto Workers. It is the same thing here. These are workers who rather than take more pay now they said: We will forgo some of these raises, and we will put this money toward guaranteeing and ensuring our futures. So then they aren't wards of the State. They are not living off taxpayers. They are living off their own wealth that they created and invested so they would have health insurance and so they would have pensions when they retire. That is good for the country, not bad for the country. But a number of anti- union Members in this Senate--and I would say in the House, where Senator Capito and I used to serve--don't really understand that they have earned this health care and they have earned these retirement payments that have been promised to them. These workers have more than held up their end of the bargain. I want to tell a couple of stories and then turn it over to Senator Capito. As do the two West Virginia Senators--they have more mine workers in their State than I do, but it is a major part of our State and a major part of the southeast quadrant of Ohio. I have talked to some of these workers, Ohioans like Norm Skinner, Dave Dilly, and Babe Erdos. I first met Norm in March. I have known Babe Erdos for years. I appreciate the work Senator Warner has done. He is joining us now as well. Norm is a veteran who started working as a miner for what became Peabody Coal 40 years ago. He worked 22 years. He retired in September of 1994. For every one of those years he earned and he contributed to his retiree health care plan and his pension plan. Sixty percent of his colleagues, he told me, at the mine have died of cancer because of the chemicals. Norm has been lucky. But after putting in decades in that mine, he is in danger of losing that health care that he worked for. We know how to fix this. This block, if you will, seems to be down at the end of the hall in the majority leader's office. Because of the work of Senator Capito, Senator Manchin, Senator Warner, and others, we would get a strong majority of Members of the Senate to pass this if we could get it up for a floor vote. We must mark this bill up in the committee that Senator Warner and I sit on--the Finance Committee. We were supposed to vote this week. For whatever reason, it was pushed back to next week. Senator Manchin and I have talked about how we hope this isn't a slow walk to delay it through the end of the year. The Senate has not been in session much this year, and we are not doing the work we should. This is absolutely mandatory. The Senate Finance Committee should move on it next week. Senator Casey is on that committee. He is also supporting it. It is time we do it. I thank Senator Manchin, Senator Capito, and Senator Warner for their work on such an important issue for our country.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, while my colleagues and I were back home in Ohio, Michigan, Arizona or Florida over the last number of weeks, this country lost one of the heroes in the fight to eradicate smallpox: Lakewood, OH, native and Oberlin College graduate Dr. Donald Henderson. Dr. Henderson passed away at age 87 on August 19. He left behind perhaps the most important public health legacy of anyone in the 20th century. Along with Dr. William Foege, who is still alive and still very active, Dr. Henderson helped lead the war on humankind's most feared diseases and achieved one of the greatest public health victories ever--very arguably maybe the most important public health victory--the eradication of smallpox. Most Americans are too young to remember the fear that smallpox struck in the hearts of people around the globe. Because of the work of literally 150,000 workers--paid workers and volunteers, thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of public health workers--fewer and fewer of us bear the scars on our upper arms that serve as a reminder of the danger this disease once posed. In the 20th Century, it is estimated that more than 300 million people died of smallpox. Think of that. More than 300 million people died of smallpox--at least. Some estimates are as high as 500 million. The numbers aren't particularly precise, putting it mildly, because of where the deaths occurred and how they occurred and what people were dying of in addition to smallpox. Because of the serious investment our country and the world made in stamping out this disease, we no longer live in fear. I think there are some lessons here. I just listened to the Senator from Florida talk about the fact his party seems to want to load up the Zika virus funding with all kinds of political statements or wants to take the money from some other public health fund and move it into the Zika virus, which is different from what we did as a nation to combat smallpox. What we did as a nation to combat smallpox had nothing to do with political parties; it was all about making sure that we came together as a nation and around the world. It was an expensive and serious investment. It was a massive international effort. It mobilized epidemiologists--well-paid epidemiologists and laboratories and low-paid health care workers in India and South Asia and parts of Africa across the globe. Dr. Foege wrote an amazing account of this campaign in his 2011 book called ``House on Fire.'' The smallpox vaccine had existed since the late 18th century. Dr. Edward Jenner developed the first successful vaccine in fighting cowpox. We all learned that in high school. But having the science wasn't enough to actually get people vaccinated to allay people's fears of what a vaccination could mean. Injecting a virus into somebody's arm obviously was a bit counterintuitive: That is going to make me well rather than sick? But to deal with the outbreaks would take action and coordination on a scale never before seen. The title of the book ``House on Fire'' refers to the way a young Indian doctor described the approach to the vaccination campaign: You pour water on the house that is burning. When an outbreak happened, that village and the ones immediately surrounding it needed to be vaccinated. That fire line--or ring of vaccination is what doctors will sometimes call that-- around the virus would stop an epidemic. Mass vaccinations were highly expensive, and reaching into every village and doing what needed to be done was hard. It was hard to transport vaccines, keeping them active, if you will, and just the scale of the whole world--at least the whole developing world--meant they needed to do something different. That is the reason for the ring of vaccines or the fire line. Nonetheless, it still required significant investments from governments around the globe. Senators and Congressmen in those days hadn't taken pledges that they would never raise taxes or never close a tax loophole. We came up with the money because we knew public health counted for more than almost anything else. We needed funding for surveillance, for global partnerships, and for developing newer and more effective techniques. It took a huge amount of manpower and health care workers, local workers in India and Africa going from village to village identifying and stamping out outbreaks. The investment paid off. The last smallpox case appeared in the United States--keep in mind, 300 million people at least died between 1900 and the late 1970s--300 million people. The last case in the United States appeared in 1949. A little more than 30 years later, after a 10-year campaign with Dr. Foege and Dr. Henderson and thousands and thousands of unnamed workers around the world, the last known case was found in Somalia in 1977. Smallpox is the only infectious disease for humans--the only infectious disease--to be declared eradicated by the World Health Assembly. We still have polio, we still have diphtheria, and we still have cholera. We have made huge progress in polio, thanks in part to the Rotary Club, thanks in part to international efforts by governments, by communities, by doctors, by researchers, by nurses, by health workers, and by so many other people. But smallpox is the only one that has totally been eradicated. That is how we should do partnerships. We know in health care that upfront public investment is the most effect way to take on the biggest, most important projects. Private charity works, surely. Look what Rotary did on polio. But you have to have the public dollars, the public investment. People in this body think government doesn't do anything right or government can't be trusted to do anything, to accomplish anything or there is no role of government. Well, think about the 300 million people dying from smallpox and now that is eradicated in every place in the world because governments worked together with local communities, with local researchers, with local doctors, and with all of that. These investments aren't just about helping individual people who are sick or at risk. Whether in our back yard or a world away, when you save one life, you help so many others. Dr. Henderson understood that, and so did many thousands of others whose names we don't celebrate but who risked their lives to end the scourge of smallpox. Today's world is more connected than ever. Think of the challenge we face with the spread of the Zika virus. Think how pathetic this Congress's response is to the Zika virus. We can't even fund the Zika virus out of this body because people want to make it about Planned Parenthood or about taking money from the Ebola virus effort instead of straightforward funding for the Zika virus. We did it with smallpox, where 300 million people died, and yet we can't stand up to get funding for the Zika virus. We are going to have to work together and commit to public investment to make this a better country and a better world for our children, just like Dr. Henderson and Dr. Foege. And Dr. Henderson, whom we honor today--an Ohio native and Oberlin College graduate--ran the campaign that ended the scourge of smallpox, which was a huge victory for humankind. I yield to Senator McCain.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I know everyone is squeezed for time, but I thank Senator Manchin for his leadership, the Presiding Officer, the other Senator from West Virginia, Mrs. Capito, and Senator Portman, my friend from Cincinnati. We all know how serious this is. We are all willing in this body to do--at least the four of us and I know also Senator Casey and Senator Warner--whatever it takes to get this fixed. We know we can do this for our Nation's retired coal miners who are on the brink of losing their health care and retirement savings. This Congress can pull them back from that. The UMW health care and pension plan covers 100,000 workers, 6,800 people in Senator Portman's and my State. The plans were almost completely funded before the financial collapse of almost a decade ago, but the industry's pension funds were devastated by the recession. We know if Congress fails to act, thousands of retired miners could lose their health care this year and the entire plan would fall as early as 2017. For every one of those years where mine workers worked for decades and decades in the mines, they earned and contributed to their retiree health care plans and their pension plans--benefits they fought for. Their situation is similar to Senator Manchin and I, prior to--we remember what it was like here during the auto rescue, the benefits they fought for, benefits they gave up raises for, benefits they have earned, putting money aside, and now they have been betrayed, frankly, and that is why this is so important. We just had a meeting of a group of Senators, and Senator Reid played a film of what is happening in West Virginia--the flooding--and much of that flooding is in miners' country, most of it is. There were mine workers' homes--Senator Capito knows this too--mine workers' homes that were under water, as were other residents in these communities, proud communities that have done everything right, where people worked hard and played by the rules. They paid their taxes. They helped their community. They have lost so much, and this is the last thing they just simply should not lose. My contention in the Finance Committee--and I know it is the contention of my colleague from Ohio too--is that committee should not do anything until we fix the miners' pension. Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, seems to be the only one who doesn't want to move on this. All the rest of us do. The point a lot of us are making is, we shouldn't allow this body--as important as I think Puerto Rico is and as much as I want to help them--we shouldn't be voting on restructuring Puerto Rico's debt without lifting a finger to help our retired miners. I don't want to delay Puerto Rico. I want Senator McConnell to commit to us: OK. We will move to Puerto Rico but promise a date for a vote so we can do what we need to do to move this money from the abandoned mine fund to the UMWA pension fund in a way that works for these miners, that works for the widows of miners, that works for people who are sick from working in the mines, and works for people who were injured working in the mines. As many of my colleagues know, I wear on my lapel a depiction of a canary in a birdcage. All of us know in mining country, the mine workers used to take the canaries down into the mines. They had no unions in the old days to help them. They had no government that cared enough to help them. It is up to us to provide that. The canary in the mine has been tweeting mercilessly, and it is time for us to step up and do what we were hired to do in these jobs. I thank Senator Manchin.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today, the Supreme Court, despite lacking an important ninth Justice--my Republican colleagues refuse to do their jobs. That is the first time that anybody can remember, maybe in history--certainly in recent history--where a Supreme Court nominee has been sent to the Senate by a President, and the Senate has refused to do either hearings or certainly refuse to bring that Justice up for a vote. If this continues, if Senator McConnell and his Republican colleagues continue their course, this will be the first time in 150 years where a Supreme Court vacancy has stayed open for an entire year. Why 150 years? Because we were in the middle of the Civil War, and there were all kinds of things going on as southerners, who had seceded, left the Supreme Court with lots of vacancies, and the Senate didn't do its job then. But that was the Civil War; this is a political war waged by one side in a refusal to do its job. Today the Supreme Court, despite not having nine members, reaffirmed that women, not politicians, should be the ones making their own health care decisions. In a 5-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt that the Texas law at issue places an undue burden on a woman's ability to access safe and legal health care. The law's arbitrary, medically unnecessary--medically unnecessary-- restrictions caused dozen of clinics to close across the State of Texas. The same thing has happened in other States with similar laws, including my State of Ohio with 11 million people. These clinics are often the only places that women, and also many men, have to turn to for basic health services. Today's decision is a victory for health care in Texas and, ultimately, for State after State across the country. Millions of women rely on Planned Parenthood and other clinics like it for lifesaving screenings, testing, preventive care, and treatment. In Ohio, Planned Parenthood centers provide health care services to almost 100,000 men and women each year. A hundred thousand men and women depend on Planned Parenthood for things like screenings, testing, preventive care, and treatment. Many of these men and women have nowhere else to turn. They either can't afford care anywhere else or they live too far away from another health center to have real access to basic health care--screenings, testing, preventive care, counseling, treatment, and all those things. Today's decision sets an important precedent that no politician should come between a woman and the health care she needs. We know that laws like this are part of a sustained, coordinated attack on a women's right to make personal, private health care decisions for themselves. We have seen it in Ohio, and we have seen it in so many other States across the country. Politicians claim these harmful restrictions are all about protecting women's health. Nothing could be further from the truth. These talking points are a sham, and today's majority decision by a generally conservative Supreme Court shows the Court saw right through those arguments. Ohio and other States with so-called TRAP laws should repeal them immediately. If they wait, they will only be struck down by the Court, just like the Texas law--again, a Court where most of those Justices, or at least half of those Justices were appointed by conservative Presidents. We need to work to get these laws off the books quickly and to fight the attacks women continue to face on their right to make their own health care decisions. Earlier this year, Ohio passed a new law to strip Federal funding not only from Planned Parenthood but any health care facility that could be perceived as ``promoting'' safe and legal abortions. This includes health clinics that simply work with other providers to refer women to other facilities so women can make decisions that should be between them and their doctors. This is far, far more sweeping than just defunding Planned Parenthood, which is a political talking point for Republicans across this country now. Health officials in Ohio are scared that the new law could take funding away from local health departments--as if we don't have enough problems in our State. Let's be clear. This isn't about defunding abortion. The Federal government does not provide funding for abortion, period. It hasn't provided funding for abortion for decades. This Ohio law explicitly targets critical health and health education services for women, including HIV testing and cancer prevention services. Today's 5-to-3 decision by the Supreme Court is a victory for all of us who want to improve the lives and health of women around the country, but it will do nothing to stop laws like this in Ohio. That is why our work goes on. These laws that have passed in Texas and Ohio that the Court struck down are not about health or safety. The Supreme Court confirmed that today. They are about politicians thinking they know better than women and their doctors, and it is happening every day in this country. If these laws continue to chip away--or in the case of Ohio's new law, carve away--women's access to care, we will see more undiagnosed cancers, more untreated illnesses, and more unintended pregnancies. My State, shamefully, is 50th in the Nation in Black infant mortality. We are 47th in the Nation overall in infant mortality. It is laws like these that legislators passed--laws defunding public health services, laws cutting money for local communities so they can put it into health care and education. It is the behavior of this legislature and some of its predecessor legislatures that have attacked young mothers and young women who may or may not be pregnant. And when you do that, there is simply not the emphasis on well-baby care, there is not the emphasis on preventive care, there is not the emphasis on the health of the mother, and there is not the emphasis on giving women choices. It is time for politicians in my State and across the country to follow the guidance of the Supreme Court today and to stay out of decisions that should be confidentially between a woman and her doctor. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Natalie Kirilichin and Elizabeth Wagner, fellows with the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee be granted floor privileges through the end of next month, July 2016.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I appreciate the always good insight from the senior Senator from Oregon, my colleague on the Finance Committee. I say thank you to Senator Wyden.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I would be remiss if I didn't first say that I am pleased to see in the Presiding Officer's chair a fellow Eagle Scout from Wyoming who is as good to the Scouts as a middle-aged man--close enough--as the Scouts were to him as a young man. So it is an honor to speak on the floor with Senator Enzi being in the Presiding Officer's chair. This has been a great week for my State, the State of Ohio. Yesterday, I was on this floor joining my colleague from Cincinnati to speak about the Cleveland Cavaliers' historic NBA championship victory. Cleveland had not had a winning sports team--winning meaning a championship team--since I was 12 years old, when Jim Brown ran for the Cleveland Browns. In those days, we expected the Cleveland Indians to win every year. They never did. The Cavaliers didn't even exist in 1964. So this was a particularly exciting week for the Cleveland Cavaliers and for my city of Cleveland. My wife joined literally a million people on the streets of downtown Cleveland to celebrate yesterday. This is in a county of 1.2 million. So either everybody who lives in the county was there or people from all over Northeast Ohio came to join them. The second great thing for my State this week is that this afternoon Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is in the capital, Columbus--one of our other major cities and the largest city in the State--in the Linden neighborhood, on the sort of east-northeast side of town, to announce our city as winner of the Smart City Challenge. Secretary Foxx created this competition to define what it means to be a ``smart city'' in the 21st century. It was a challenge for our cities to integrate new technologies--from self-driving vehicles to electric vehicles, to smart sensors--into this transportation network. Just as importantly, Secretary Foxx challenged applicants to think beyond adopting new technology for its own sake. Applicants were encouraged to offer a vision for how that new technology can make a difference for all Americans--from connecting low-income neighborhoods to jobs and opportunity to reducing congestion; to making streets safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, and children to get, certainly, to work, but to get to the doctor or the grocery store; to all things that a modern big-city transportation system could be. Earlier this year, 78 cities from across the Nation submitted applications. In March, the Department selected from those 78 just 7 finalists to compete for today's award. The competition was tough. Cities such as Portland, OR, Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Austin were all finalists, joining the city of Columbus. Columbus' win was all the more impressive as a result. Our city would not have won without, first of all, Mayor Andy Ginther's leadership. The mayor didn't do this alone, although he played such a prominent role. The Central Ohio community united to develop innovative solutions to our city's challenges, and that made all the difference in the world. So $40 million in grant funding from DOT will be matched by an additional $10 million from Vulcan, Inc., and $90 million of matching funds will come from the community of Columbus. This investment will allow the city to deploy some very impressive technology. Columbus will expand the use of electric vehicles. It will be testing a range of sensors, connected vehicles, and smartphone applications. At Easton, a major commercial hub, a small fleet of driverless vehicles will link the Easton Transit Center with nearby employers. This will expand horizons for bus riders from lower income neighborhoods, such as Linden, who will be able to more easily travel to jobs not near the busline or the transit center. I am particularly excited that Columbus will focus on the way the transportation systems affect the city's health. In some neighborhoods, the infant mortality rate is four times the national average. My State, shamefully, is 47th in the Nation in infant mortality and 50th in the Nation in Black infant mortality. It is shameful, and it is for a lot of reasons, one of which is that we have a State government that has never really invested in public health in the way they should. We can't think about problems like this in a vacuum. It isn't just a health care problem. It is a public works problem, and that includes transportation. The ``Smart Columbus'' plan will measure missed prenatal and pediatric visits so we can align our transportation system with the goal of reducing infant mortality by 40 percent and cutting in half the racial health disparity. I would add that Mayor Ginther, as council president prior to his job as mayor this year, led the charge citywide on reducing infant mortality. The Greater Columbus Infant Mortality Task Force's Celebrate One Program has made impressive progress in building a coalition and setting aggressive goals to tackle this issue. These new transit options will build on this work. This is what becoming a smart city should be about--expanding how we think about infrastructure and public works, harnessing technology to ensure a transportation system that benefits everyone, making it a truly public work. Today's award wouldn't have happened without a very long list of regional partners. I can't name them all, but the Ohio State University, the Columbus Partnership, Columbus 2020, Battelle, Nationwide, Honda, American Electric Power, and many, many more came together to build the application, and they will be working side by side with the city to roll out this vision. I want to thank Secretary Foxx and Administrator Flowers, with whom I spent part of an afternoon just a couple of weeks ago in Columbus as she was announcing something else we were doing along the CMAX corridor, along the east-northeast Cleveland Avenue part of Columbus. Our Nation's transportation system is undergoing radical transformation. A decade from now, my children, who live in Columbus, and my grandchildren, who live in Columbus, will travel in different ways than we do today. The Secretary's vision for this program was bold, and I am so excited for cities--for Columbus, specifically, but I also know that other cities will see what the smart city of Columbus has done with this grant, with this new technology in transportation, and they will work with Columbus, mimic Columbus, and turn it into a success for our whole Nation.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I withdraw my suggestion.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, nothing is more fundamental for a democracy than the right to vote. Last year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important pieces of legislation we passed in the 20th century. It opened the door to millions--literally millions--of Americans to exercise their constitutional right. This year will mark the first Presidential election in half a century without the full protections guaranteed by the Voting Rights Act. Three years ago this week, the Supreme Court gutted a key part of the law, taking the teeth out of provisions that protect voters from suppression laws, with its decision in Shelby County v. Holder. Since that misguided decision, States across the country have passed new voting restrictions that would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Americans. Unfortunately, Ohio is ground zero in these efforts to restrict voting rights. These laws, passed by an ultraconservative State legislature in Columbus, include cutting early voting and eliminating Golden Week--created by a more moderate Republican legislature of a decade earlier--when voters can register and vote on the same day. In other words, early voting starts a week before registration closes, so during that week a new voter can register and vote in the same trip to the board of elections. This May, a Federal court did the right thing and struck down that law and reinstated Golden Week and early voting--proving once again that these State legislators went too far. Judge Watson, a George Bush appointee in the Southern District of Ohio, found the laws limiting early voting and registration would disproportionately impact African Americans. Think about this: A decade ago, a more moderate Republican legislature created Golden Week and passed pretty open voter registration laws. This very far-right legislature chipped away, rolled back, and weakened these laws. A George Bush appointee to the court-- apparently also more of a moderate, open-minded Republican whom we saw 10 years ago in the legislature--reinstated much of what these legislatures had done in the early 2000s. Earlier this month, another Southern District Judge, Judge Marbley, struck down another one of these restrictions. He ruled that Ohio's rollback of access to absentee and provisional balloting would also disproportionately disenfranchise African-American voters. In 2008, African-American voters voted early in person at a rate more than 20 times greater than White voters. In many communities, African- American leaders and activists try to encourage church members and people in the community to vote early in person--totally legal. Often, some people plan to vote on election day, and then they either get sick or they have to stay longer at work and they lose that vote. That is why early voting is so important. We remember the scenes from Cuyahoga County in 2004, when some voters waited as long as 7 hours to vote. I remember standing at Oberlin College, where people had to wait 7 or 8 hours. In Kenyon College, students waited sometimes longer than that--9, 10 hours--to vote. For hourly workers, for college students who work the third shift, for parents who have to drop their children off at school, early voting ensures their vote will be heard. Maybe college students can stand in line a little longer because professors are pretty good if they miss class because they were voting, but a parent who stops at the polling booth at 5:30, after work, needs to vote quickly and pick up their child. If they have to stand in line for an hour and a half, they are maybe not going to likely vote in the end. That is why early voting is so important. In 2012, 600,000 people voted early. That was 10 percent of the electorate. That is 600,000 voters' voices that might not have been heard if we hadn't had early voting. Ohio's law may have been struck down, but too many other States have passed harsher laws that we know will keep voters--often voters of color--from the polls. Seventeen States have passed new voting restrictions since the Shelby County decision. It is almost like they were waiting for their Supreme Court--their very conservative, anti- voting rights Supreme Court--to make a move, and then, in their State legislatures, they quickly moved to restrict voting rights. In Texas, a new photo ID law is under court review. A Federal judge called it an unconstitutional poll tax that could disenfranchise up to 600,000 mostly Black and Latino voters. In North Carolina, the legislature and Governor have gone even further with a whole package of restrictions, including ID laws, reductions in early voting, and elimination of same-day-registration voting. We are the only advanced democracy in the world where there are actually efforts to restrict access to the ballot box. We know who gets hurt the most. It is African Americans, it is seniors, it is young voters, and it is Latinos. These restrictions were made possible primarily because the Shelby County decision undermined and gutted the Voting Rights Act. There is a solution. Congress can pass the bipartisan Voting Rights Advancement Act today. We have done these with overwhelming votes in the past. Congress almost unanimously reauthorized the Voting Rights Act not that many years ago, but then the court struck it down, as if the court is wiser than an almost unanimous Congress. We could restore the full protections guaranteed by the Voting Rights Act. In 1981, when signing an extension to the Voting Rights Act, President Reagan called the right to vote ``the crown jewel of American liberties.'' This remains true today. There are few rights more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote. We must continue to do everything in our power to defend it. With elections at every level of government only 5 months away, it is more important than ever that we push to restore the most sacred of rights--the right to have a voice in our democracy. Mr. President, 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, I yield to my friend from Ohio, Senator Portman.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I know I will be joined in a few moments by my colleague from Ohio, Senator Portman. I rise to make some remarks on a resolution Senator Portman has submitted with me. Mr. President, journalists and sports fans like to describe victories as ``historic,'' and often that is a bit of hyperbole. But in the case of the Cleveland Cavaliers' NBA championship win on Sunday, the word ``historic'' is warranted. Today, several hundred thousand people gathered in downtown Cleveland. Senator Portman and I talked about how we would have liked to have joined in. But we have these day jobs, and we just figured we couldn't really go back. Today, literally hundreds of thousands of people are in downtown Cleveland. Some estimates were as high as almost all the adult population of Cuyahoga County. The numbers are pretty spectacular. The word ``historic'' is warranted in this Cavaliers victory on Sunday night. No other team in NBA history has come from a 3-to-1 series deficit in the finals, until now. No other major American city has gone so long as Cleveland has without winning a major league sports championship. It is fitting for my city--my wife and I call Cleveland home--that this championship came down to game 7. The series played out like a metaphor for what this means in Cleveland--ever the underdog, down 3 games to 1. To understand what this victory means for our Midwestern city on the lake, think about the last time we won a championship in a major sport. None of the pages sitting here were born. In fact, some of their parents might not have yet been born. It was 1964. Lyndon Johnson was President. Martin Luther King, Jr., was in the middle of a very successful civil rights campaign. Robert Kennedy, who sat at this desk on the Senate floor, was still alive, campaigning for civil rights and economic justice. America was beginning to hear more and more about Vietnam on the evening news. We had no idea of the nightmare that it would become. The Beatles had just come to America. We had three TV channels in Cleveland--channels 3, 5, and 8. The most popular shows were ``Bonanza'' and ``Bewitched.'' As a boy growing up in Mansfield--not far from Cleveland, about 70 miles--I watched with pride a little more than 2 years before that when Ohio's John Glenn orbited the Earth in Friendship 7. The moon was still a distant dream, and none of us had heard of astronaut Neil Armstrong. The Cleveland Browns with Jim Brown brought home the NFL championship for us that December. It wasn't even called the Super Bowl back then. That is how long ago this was. It was called the NFL championship. Little did any of us know that we wouldn't see another trophy for another half century. I was 12 years old at the time. The Cleveland Cavaliers did not exist. The NBA was much smaller. Three years earlier, the Indians had traded the beloved outfielder, the hero of all young fans. Rocco Colavito was traded away to Detroit. The Indians were in the midst of losing season after losing season. Within a year or 2, they put together a top-line four-person starting pitching staff--Sonny Siebert, Luis Tiant, Sam McDowell, Steve Hargan--but still the Cleveland Indians didn't win. As a 10-year-old, a 12-year-old, and a 15-year-old, my dad would take us up old U.S. 42, often to see a double-header, back when they played those kinds of double-headers on Sunday. My dad would never take us to see the New York Yankees, a team he despised, because he knew that 15 or 20 cents of our ticket price would go to Mickey Mantle or Roger Maris and Yogi Berra and other Yankees. Every year I was naive to think the Indians would win the pennant. Never in those years would they even get close. By July, or certainly by August, it was clear even to this 12-year-old boy that the Indians were not going to win the pennant. For the next 52 years after the 1964 Browns championship, we were challenged in the city of Cleveland. The manufacturing economy that sustained Northeast Ohio eroded with decades of policy choices that closed factories and shipped jobs overseas. Too often there was bad trade policy and bad tax policy. The population of the city shrank to almost half its population from my boyhood, from my early years. Beginning in 1995, Ohio had 14 years of consecutive foreclosure increases, each year more than the year before. But today, downtown Cleveland is coming back, not just because hundreds of thousands of people are in downtown Cleveland celebrating this first NBA championship, but it is coming back. My wife and I moved into the city 3 years ago. We wanted to be a part of this renaissance, and we have seen the city beginning to return to its glory. Nothing has embodied the hope and the determination and the grit of our city like this team. We know that sports teams are far more than the sum of their parts. They are a point of connection for people in every walk of life in the city. There is a reason we have begun to call it Believeland. On Monday, a native Clevelander who had to move away from his hometown posted this on Facebook: We draw so much from our teams. It's wound up in our identity--a token of the pride we have for the local tribe from which we came. My wife Connie reposted the man's words that night, and hundreds chimed in to explain the connection they felt to the Cavaliers and their fellow Clevelanders. One woman said Cleveland sports were her connection to her family--her grandfather, her parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, some of whom have scattered across the State and across the country. Our faith had been tested for decades. For the past decade, the hopes of this city--at least in sports--rested on the shoulders of one talented young man. I watched LeBron James play in high school. His best friend's mother worked with me in Akron. LeBron played for St. Vincent-St. Mary, a Catholic school. I saw him at the University of Akron arena, where the team played its home games because LeBron was so in demand that people all over Northeast Ohio came to see him in high school. I saw him play at Barberton High School in the State tournament. We knew he was a star. You didn't have to know much about basketball to know that. We were heartbroken when he went to Miami. But like families do, we welcomed him back with opened arms in 2014, and pretty much forgot that he had ever left--once an Ohioan, always an Ohioan. For the next 2 years, he carried the weight of our city's championship dreams. He was all in, his city was all in, and this year, he and his team delivered. King James will go down in the history books as perhaps the NBA's greatest basketball player. I will debate that, if anybody would like. Certainly, he is one of the greatest athletes of all time. He was unanimously named the 2016 NBA Finals MVP. He led all players in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots. Nobody has ever come close to doing that in any championship series. His leadership was important, but the victory was surely was a team effort. Kyrie Irving scored 26 points in the final game and scored a crucial 3-pointer with less than 1 minute left. It was decisive. Coach Tyronn Lue and his coaching staff worked to put the team in a position to win. With the hopes and dreams of a city riding on them, win is what they did, ending that 52-year championship drought and restoring faith to Cleveland. I wish I could have been on East 9th Street this morning for the parade. My wife left home at 7 a.m. for what normally should only have been a 20-minute drive to downtown. We live in the city, only 5 miles from downtown. She knew it would take at least an hour because of the crowds gathered. I am heading back to my office in a few moments to meet my colleague from the Golden State, Senator Boxer. She owes Ohioans some beer. We bet Cleveland-brewed beer against Bay Area-brewed beer. She will be sporting a LeBron James jersey to make the delivery. I had to do that last year. Turnaround is fair play. On behalf of my colleague Senator Portman, who attended a number of the games and is as excited as I am about this, congratulations to the Cavaliers, congratulations to the city of Cleveland, and congratulations to the fans scattered far and wide across this country who never gave up, and now, on to next season. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 509, submitted earlier today.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleagues from the Veterans Affairs' Committee for their work on the Veterans First Act. I just left the committee, where Senator Isakson and Senator Blumenthal are in their typical bipartisan way working together with the VA to improve veterans' health care. I am appreciative of that. They will be on the floor later this afternoon to urge the Senate to move quickly on this important legislation for our Nation's heroes. This comprehensive, bipartisan bill will grant vets and their families expanded benefits that will ensure that the VA has resources to provide veterans with the highest quality of care. No veteran should face exploitation by for-profit colleges, inadequate care, or life on the street. We address all these issues with this bill. This bill will expand educational opportunities for veterans and their families, including my constituent, Melissa Twine. Ms. Twine is an Air Force veteran from Batavia, east of Cincinnati, in Clermont County. Her husband Philip Twine died serving our country in the Air Force. The Fry Scholarship provides GI bill benefits to surviving spouses and children of servicemembers who have died in the line of duty since 9/11. However, when Congress extended the benefit to spouses in the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014, a 15-year limitation was put on these benefits. Captain Twine passed away in 2002, meaning that now, as his wife tries to go back to school to pursue her master's degree, she and so many other surviving spouses don't have the time to use this benefit. This bill will fix that and give veterans' families the opportunity to further their education. In addition to expanding the Fry Scholarship, the bill will expand the VA's Yellow Ribbon Program to help students with out-of-pocket tuition and fees and to include all spouses and children of servicemembers who gave their lives fighting for our country. The bill also incorporates legislation I helped to introduce to restore GI benefits of veterans who lost credit or training time because their school permanently closed. We have heard too many stories of shady, for-profit colleges that close abruptly, leaving students and many veterans in limbo. This ensures the veterans don't lose their GI benefits. We know that, shamefully, too many veterans don't have a roof over their heads or a place to call home. The legislation incorporates elements of the Veteran Housing Stability Act, which would increase veterans' access to permanent housing options. This is an issue that we have been working on for years. Last year, I visited organizations around Ohio that are doing terrific work to give veterans the support they need to get back on their feet and find permanent homes. With this bill we will give veterans the support they need. Even one veteran on the streets means Congress isn't doing nearly enough to tackle this problem. The legislation also helps ensure whistleblowers at the VA can disclose concerns relating to veterans care without fearing retaliation. It expands a critical program to support veteran caregivers. As a country, we made a promise to care for veterans in return for their service to this country. Far too often people in this body are willing to vote billions of dollars for defense but then not do what we should with veterans. This bill helps to change that. Right now, 9/11 veterans and their families already take advantage of this critical support. This bill will make the same support available to families and veterans of all generations. I urge my colleagues to move quickly in this important legislation to protect and honor our Nation's heroes.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. To my friend from Connecticut, thank you. I so admire that when you came to the Senate, it was right after perhaps the most tragic 2 hours in our Nation's recent existence with what happened to those kids--those young children in your congressional district. I say to Senator Murphy, how do we go home--I just hear this--I watched what happened at Sandy Hook, I watched what happened in Colorado, and I watched what happened in California. Now we see what happened in Orlando to those 49 mostly young men and women, mostly of Hispanic descent--mostly gay, we think--what happened to them. How do we go home and face people when this body fails year after year after year to do the right thing? I admire so much what Senator Murphy did when he came here and just got in the face of so many Members of the Senate and said: You have to do the right thing. My question for Senator Murphy is, How do we go home, look people in the eye, and say we failed again? I think this body should stay in session until we do a number of things, from confirming a Supreme Court Justice, to taking care of the mineworkers' pension, to this legislation. How do I go back to Cleveland and say: Well, we tried it again. We didn't do it. It is not that big a deal. If people can't fly on an airplane, they still ought to be able to get a gun. How do we possibly look people in the eye and answer that question?

Mr. BROWN. Through the Chair, if my friend from Connecticut will yield again, I was in a meeting yesterday with a group of Democratic Senators. I heard two of the youngest and most impressive Members of our caucus, Senator Booker and Senator Murphy, talk about the number of gun deaths in this country. My wife and I live in the city of Cleveland. We live in the ZIP Code in Cleveland that in 2007 had more foreclosures than any ZIP Code in the United States of America. We live in a nice neighborhood of about 250 homes. Most of the rest of the neighborhood has suffered--some in our neighborhood and many outside that neighborhood--foreclosure after foreclosure and urban blight. Many nights we heard gunshots, and then we heard police sirens. I know Senator Booker said--and I think my friend from Connecticut heard him talk about what he sees in Newark and what we see. Just 3 weeks ago, we had a terrible, terrible number of deaths in southern, very rural Appalachia, southern Ohio, where apparently one family member killed a whole bunch of others with a gun. I got a letter today or yesterday from a man in Toledo: I am a gay man living in Toledo, OH, and I have never been to a gay pride event. This year was going to be my year, and I am scared. Just as you talked about, the fear--I don't live in fear, but when I hear a gunshot and I hear sirens in my neighborhood--or not that far away from my direct neighborhood--I have grandchildren, and I have not heard those gunshots and police sirens when my daughters or grandchildren have been there, but you think about that. The question is, Why is it harder to obtain a driver's license than it is to buy a gun? Why do we not have the political courage to pass reasonable laws? I have been in public office a long time, and I have seen so many of my colleagues, mostly Republicans, just cower when the NRA calls or cower when they think about the whole idea of passing gun laws. Yesterday a reporter told me that Republican Senators will not talk to her right now about any issue because they are afraid they might ask about the NRA and the campaign dollars they have gotten from the NRA. What is it? Fundamentally, why is it harder to obtain a driver's license than it is to buy a gun?

Mr. BROWN. May I ask one more question and then I will turn it back to Senator Stabenow, who I know has some questions for Senator Murphy. I want to share a letter I received from a woman in Columbus: I'm devastated by the events this weekend in Orlando. Frankly, I have had to personally be retriggered with every mass shooting that's occurred in the past three years. My tragedy occurred 3 years ago this July. The love of my life, best friend and man I was going to marry was murdered. . . . He was shot to death by a prior felon--with a gun. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, at anytime, for any reason. Change is needed now. We can't keep waiting. . . . Please do something. Anything. Saving one person from feeling the hell I've felt these past three years is worth it. My heart hurts for the loved ones affected by this weekend, because I know this pain. I guess this is just a question, and maybe there is no answer. But why, when so many in our country have felt this pain--certainly, the pain is felt more among poorer people and people of color because they have been the victims far too often and, in the great majority of cases, are totally innocent, and far too many of them are children, whether it is Sandy Hook or a random shooting in Cleveland or Newark or Hartford or Detroit or New Haven. What do I tell this woman from Cincinnati or from Columbus who says to me: Can't you do something? Why should more people have the pain she has felt?

Mr. BROWN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BROWN. I will ask my question through the Chair. First of all, I so appreciate, as Senator Durbin said, the Senator being here this evening. I so appreciate the work that Senator Murphy has done. I appreciate so much the work he has done and the work Senator Booker and Senator Blumenthal have done. I welcome others of my colleagues to the floor. I heard the Senator from Maine, Mr. King, say something. We know what happened with this terrible shooting in Orlando with 49 innocent people killed. We know what happened in Sandy Hook. We heard Senator Kaine talking earlier today about what happened at Virginia Tech. We heard what happened in Denver when they shot the Planned Parenthood clinic. We know what happened in San Bernardino. We know what happened in southern Ohio, in a rural Appalachian area of my State where there were a number of people who were killed, and it didn't get quite as much attention. We know what happened to Tamir Rice in my city of Cleveland, a 12-year-old boy who was gunned down. What Senator King said was so interesting because we see these awful massacres of 5, 10, 20, or as many now as 49 people murdered in cold blood, but what he said was, on average, every hour a person is murdered in this country. Two or three people die from gun violence. Since the Orlando massacre, about 100 people have been killed by gunfire--twice as many as were killed in Orlando. We had an intelligence briefing from the FBI, as Senator Durbin said, about this mass killing. We all get together and talk about these mass killings, but we don't talk about the day-by-day gun violence. I think the American people know of the mass killings. They always write our offices and tell us to do something, and then interest tends to diminish as it becomes news that is 1, 2, 3, 4 days old. But what Senator King said was so important that this just happens every day. As Senator Booker says, it is often a poor kid who is murdered. I was on the floor earlier tonight, and I mentioned how my wife and I live in ZIP Code 44105 in Cleveland. In the first half of the year in 2007, that ZIP Code had more foreclosures than any ZIP Code in the United States of America. It is a ZIP Code where there is a lot of poverty. There is a lot of violence. The other night when I was in Washington, my wife heard gunshots and then heard a police siren. That has happened far too many times when I am home. If my grandchildren are there, you are alarmed. The gunshots are usually maybe a quarter mile away, half a mile away, but we know that each time it might be somebody who is badly injured or worse. We see what is happening. We see maybe the Members of the Senate who have been at the beck and call of the gun lobby, maybe they are listening now. My question is, How do we make sure we remind them and remind the American people because I don't think the American people think about what Senator King said. There is roughly one murder an hour on average in this country, 24 hours day, 7 days a week. There are two or three people who are victims of gunfire hour after hour, day after day. All we really read about, all we really react to are these terrible mass shootings but not the day-by-day violence. How do we bring that to people's attention so people in this body go home and do their job? This Senate is not doing its job in confirming a Supreme Court nominee. It is not doing its job for the mine workers whom Senator Donnelly, Senator Durbin, and I have in our States or the pensioners with the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. They are not doing their job there either. But on this one, until this Senate actually does the right thing, Senator Murphy, how do we keep attention on this issue when people's memories fade and we go back to work and do nothing? That is why you are standing on this floor hour after hour. You can understand, anybody who is watching--and I know we are not speaking to the country here, but this is a Senator from Connecticut who has not sat all day, has not been able to eat, just stands here and leads this debate and leads this filibuster, pleading to this Senate. Most of our colleagues are out for dinner or home by now, but Senator Murphy is here pleading for our colleagues to stand up and do the right thing. I give my friend so much credit for that. How do we sustain this until we get our colleagues here to finally do their job?