John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I now ask for a second reading and, in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the 800-pound gorilla in the room that people don't want to talk about, and that is our broken mental health treatment system in this country. Years ago, we made the mistake of institutionalizing people with mental illness, and then we made the mistake of deinstitutionalizing people with mental illness, with nowhere to go and no access to treatment. But I have introduced legislation that I hope will help begin this conversation anew, one that we will have a hearing on next week in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The legislation is called, simply, the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act. It has two overarching goals. First, it will help those suffering from mental illness and their families to find a way forward and to get the support that they need. Second, it will equip law enforcement, teachers, judges, and people with the knowledge and skill sets to spot the early signs of mental illness and give them the means by which to respond effectively. Sadly, we know that mental illness is a common thread through many senseless acts of violence that we have witnessed across the country. But this problem is more than about just that. I know some of our colleagues say they don't want to talk about how to improve access to mental health treatment if it is going to involve any discussion of guns, but I don't think we can talk about this topic without talking about these incidents of mass violence. But I want to make sure I am very clear and to say it is much more than just that. It is time for Congress to respond with proven solutions that actually work. The President, as is his habit, has offered controversial proposals that actually violate the Constitution and threaten our rights without solving the problem. To me that is one of the reasons why people get so frustrated with Washington, when people stand up and say that here is something we ought to do, when it really is symbolic in nature and it doesn't actually solve the problem they claim to be addressing. And that is true of the President's Executive actions on guns. Indeed, the AP's headline, when the President made this announcement, read: ``Obama measures wouldn't have kept guns from mass shooters.'' In other words, the Associated Press makes the point that none of this would have solved the actual problem. But the legislation I have introduced has a good chance to begin the effort to do that. So since the President won't act responsibly and work with Congress, Congress must act by itself--first, to build consensus and offer solutions, and not just engage in symbolic gestures and more political talking points. It is time we focus our efforts on, first and foremost, providing support to the mentally ill and their families to make sure, first of all, that they are less likely to be a danger to themselves, and, secondly, that they won't be a danger to the communities in which they live. Next Tuesday, we will have that hearing I mentioned at the outset in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we will look at some of the successful models that have proven to be successful in places such as Bexar County, San Antonio, TX. Like many of our colleagues, I have had the occasion to visit the sheriffs, police chiefs, and the jails in our major metropolitan areas. Virtually all of them have told me that our jails have become warehouses for people with mental illness. When they get out, unless their underlying symptoms are treated and unless they are on an enforceable treatment plan, compliant with their medication, and following the doctor's orders, they are going to end up right back where they were. In the absence of effective treatment of their mental illness, we know many people with mental illness will self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, compounding their problems and becoming what a young man in Houston called a ``frequent flyer,'' when referring to himself. In other words, he would keep coming back again and again and again and again. But there are some successful models we can look at, and the results are really impressive. Through the reform measures instituted in places such as Bexar County, overcrowded jails have been reduced in size, taxpayer dollars have been saved, and many lives have been changed for the better. The secret is these jurisdictions have realized that we have to focus on treating the mentally ill, not just warehousing them in our prisons and jails. Criminologists and mental health experts will tell you that locking up a mentally ill person without treatment will make them even more dangerous to themselves and increase the risk to the community. Experts will also agree that if we identify those with mental illness and divert them to treatment, many of them can be restored to mental health, saving lives, increasing public safety, and reducing costs to taxpayers. There is a great book called ``Crazy,'' written by a gentleman by the name of Pete Earley. Pete is a journalist. Unfortunately, he and his wife had a son that exhibited mental illness symptoms. It was as a result of their dealing with his illness and trying to help him get back onto a productive path in life that they encountered the broken mental health system that I have described a little bit about. The good news is Pete's son is doing well. But it is because he is taking his medications, and he recognizes that when he goes off of his medications he gets into trouble. Pete will be testifying at our hearing next week, and I think he will bring home in a very real way how mental illness affects so many lives around the country, and what we can do to actually equip those families with additional tools to help them help their loved ones. The truth is, this all takes cooperation. Indeed, in the criminal justice context, it takes collaboration between Federal, State, and local law enforcement. It also takes judges, doctors, and families. But the good news is there are some models for success. We need to make this a priority because so many of the people we encounter today on our streets--the homeless--are people who are suffering from mental illness of some form or another that could be helped. So many people who are jailed for minor criminal offenses are people with mental illness that could be helped. I think it behooves all of us to do what we can to learn from what actually has proven to work in some of our cities around the country, and to try to implement this on a national level. In addition to Mr. Earley, we are going to be hearing from Sheriff Susan Pamerleau, who has been a champion of mental health reform in the San Antonio area. But even as the committee begins to consider long overdue mental health legislation, I have to confess that I have been disappointed at some of the responses by some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, because they say: We don't want to talk about the whole problem; we just want to talk about the part of the problem that we want to talk about. So if this involves anything related to Second Amendment rights or guns, then they don't want to have that conversation. But you can't circumscribe the debate or the discussion by carving that out. That has to be a part of it. It will be a part of it, whether we like it or not. Some of these colleagues on the other side of the aisle have cited a provision of my bill that would actually strengthen and clarify the definitions regarding the uploading of mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Why would anybody disagree with making sure that adjudication of mental illness be uploaded to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System? That is what happened with the Virginia Tech shooter, for example. He had been adjudicated mentally ill by Virginia authorities, but because the State didn't provide that information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System operated by the FBI, he was able to buy a firearm without being disqualified, which he should have been, based on that adjudication. My bill also reauthorizes and strengthens the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. This is something our colleagues across the aisle--and, indeed, all of us--have said we support--a background check system. It would work to clarify the scope of the mental health records that are required to be uploaded so that there is no longer mass confusion among State and local law enforcement as to what is required by Federal law. And, because we can't mandate that States do this, we need to provide incentives for them to encourage them to share these records, because these are a national resource. To me, this just makes common sense. Why wouldn't we want States to comply with current laws to keep the mental health background check records updated? I don't understand the controversy about that. I would like to make clear that if there are Members on the other side of the aisle willing to work with me on this legislation and willing to work with the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Alexander, and the ranking member, Senator Murray, and with Tim Murphy in the House--who has an important piece of legislation that is much more comprehensive in nature but certainly deals with this issue as well--and along with Dr. Bill Cassidy here in the Senate, there are many of us on a bicameral basis and on a bipartisan basis who have said we want to do something about this crisis in our country, and that is the mental health crisis. What we ought to do is roll up our sleeves, sit down at the table, and begin to work through this. I know at least five Democrats are cosponsoring legislation identical to mine in the House of Representatives, so it is up to us to start working to find consensus in the Senate. This is one of those issues where Republicans have said they would like to see something get done, where the Democrats say they would like to get something done, and presumably the White House would too. How do you explain our not doing what we can do? Even if we can't do everything some of us would like to do, why don't we do what we can do? I hope we can work together to deal with these reforms and to help make our communities safer. It is up to us to put our heads down and work diligently for the American people and come up with solutions for struggling families--families struggling with a loved one with mental illness and who don't know where to turn. I look forward to hearing more about some of the proposed solutions next week during this hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and working with all of our colleagues to try to come up with the best answers we can.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Friday, January 22, for a pro forma session only, with no business conducted; further, that when the Senate adjourns on Friday, January 22, it next convene on Tuesday, January 26, at 10 a.m.; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; finally, that following leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; that following morning business, the Senate then begin consideration of S. 2012, as under the previous order.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have vote ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of the senior Senator from Utah.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am glad I happened to come to the floor when the Senator from Virginia was speaking on this topic. I didn't come to speak on the topic, but I know how passionately he feels about it. I find myself agreeing with much of what he has to say about what our military deserves in terms of the support not only of the President but also of the Congress and thus, through Congress, the American people. Whenever we send our troops into harm's way, our men and women in uniform deserve to know they have the unified support of the U.S. Government and hopefully the American people. I wish to tell my friend from Virginia, who has been on this topic for some time, that I think there are some practical impediments to what the Senator is suggesting, and maybe we can find a way to work together to address them. First of all, there is the question of what is the strategy. I think Congress is reluctant to issue an additional authorization for the use of military force until we know what the President's strategy is, not just in Syria, in Iraq, but also with the travel and the movement of people back and forth from those war-torn countries to the United States or to other parts of the world, including the visa waiver countries--the 38 of them--people who can travel freely from that area to those visa waiver countries and then come to the United States. The third part of it, which we have been addressing and which the FBI Director has brought to our attention on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has to do with radicalization of people back here at home through the use of social media or the Internet. I would say to my friend that this is a serious problem, and I find myself in sympathy with what he is trying to do. But, again, the practical problem is the absence of a real strategy. I fear that with 1 year left for this President in office, one of the goals of some of the proponents--I am not casting aspersions; I am just saying I am concerned about this--one of the goals would be to issue an authorization for the use of military force that would actually tie the hands of future Presidents, because apparently this President thinks he has all the authority he needs. It is true, they just got a draft that they have sent over here for us to consider, but the President seems-- at least to me--to be suggesting by his actions and most of what he is doing that he thinks he has all the authority he needs. So I want to say to my friend that I don't doubt your sincerity, and I admire the point you are trying to make, but I do see those as practical problems: the absence of a strategy from the Commander in Chief and the proposal--one of the proposals; I think it came out of the Foreign Relations Committee--that would actually limit the options available to the next Commander in Chief were this to be passed. But those aren't insurmountable problems; those are things that, once identified, we can focus on and work a little bit more. I thank the Senator for his continued advocacy on this issue, and I admire his determination to see this through to a good conclusion. Mr. President, what I came to the floor to talk about is a bill we are going to be voting on this afternoon called the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act and also called the American SAFE Act. I wish he was still here. I know he just left, but I want to make one point on the chart the Senator from Virginia had where he suggested that some assert refugees are the enemy. That is not true. That is the opposite of true. The American people are the most generous people in the world when it comes to admitting refugees and naturalizing new American citizens. In the past few years--if my memory serves me correctly, we naturalize between 800,000 and 1 million new citizens a year. America is the most open, welcoming country in the world because we recognize this is a source of our great strength. The brains, the ambition, and the hard work that go together with people who are unhappy with their current circumstance and who are looking to live the American dream and what they have to do in order to come here to America to be a part of that through a legal system of immigration I think is something to be applauded and celebrated. But this bill is about something else. This is about our national security. This is not an anti-refugee bill. That is immediately where the President went and where some of the other folks on the President's side of the aisle went, was suggesting that somehow, by being concerned about our own national security, we were somehow anti-refugee. That is demonstrably false. All we are asking for and all this legislation provides for--passed by a bipartisan vote of the House of Representatives--is to enhance the screening of refugees so that this system cannot be exploited by terrorists--a tactic ISIS has encouraged. Our adversaries, particularly the Islamic State, recognize the fact that they can't exploit our system to advance their cause, which is to kill innocent men, women, and children in this country. This legislation doesn't close the door to refugees or go back on America's great traditions and who we are as a people. All it does is add safeguards to our refugee admissions process and updates it in light of the threats we currently face. The distinguished Presiding Officer was probably in the same hearings I was in or the briefings with Jeh Johnson, the Director of Homeland Security, who said that following some of these threats, the administration unilaterally enhanced some of their screening mechanisms. I applaud them for that. That is important to do. But they can't sit here and tell us with all seriousness that Congress can't weigh in or we can't have a debate and we can't have an amendment process on legislation which is designed to do what they themselves said they are trying to accomplish, which is to protect public safety by enhancing some of the screening process. All we are trying to do--and it is not a small thing; it is our No. 1 responsibility as part of the Federal Government--is protect our national security. Our chief goal in this legislation is pretty simple. It is to make sure we are doing everything we can to prevent terrorists from entering the country. Why would our friends across the aisle want to filibuster this legislation by voting no this afternoon at 2:30 and deny us an opportunity to actually debate the legislation? Under the rules of the Senate, they are free to offer suggestions, by way of amendment, about how we can improve the legislation. I have heard a number of them, including from the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, among others, who said that what she would like to see us do is to beef up our protections to prevent people from exploiting the visa waiver system and coming into the United States without going through an adequate screening mechanism. I think there would be a lot of support on this side of the aisle and on a bipartisan basis to modify this legislation to include some of her ideas. At least we ought to have that debate. We shouldn't shut it down by a filibuster on the other side. This bill would ensure that the FBI and other national security intelligence agencies have actually certified to the security of the refugee screening program. It is called accountability--something that people don't think we have enough of here in Washington, DC. Something bad happens, and there is some nameless, faceless bureaucrat who is blamed. What this would do is put the responsibility and accountability where it belongs. There is no doubt that we live in turbulent times. Our national security experts tell us that they have never seen a more diverse, a more complex array of threats around the world. Our Refugee Admissions Program should be examined and updated to respond to those threats, and that is what this legislation attempts to do. Unfortunately, we don't have to look very far to see examples of why this legislation is necessary. Earlier this year in Houston, a man born in Iraq entered the country as a refugee and was later charged with providing material support to ISIS. That is one example. I am sure it is not the only example of why this legislation is important. We are still learning more about that particular case, but what we already know is alarming. According to media reports, he was associated with members and sympathizers of ISIS. We know that investigators found an ISIS flag at his home in Houston, TX. Just last week it was reported that his plans included setting off bombs at two popular malls in Houston, TX. Houston is one of our most populous metropolitan areas--certainly in Texas--in the country. Can you imagine what kind of carnage two bombs going off at shopping malls could wreak? According to reports, this individual was communicating with another man, also born in Iraq, who entered the United States in 2012 as a refugee and who had ties to terrorist groups and fought twice in Syria and allegedly was trying to go back to Syria to fight alongside Islamic militants. This individual was communicating with another person with terrorist ties, and it certainly should raise all of our suspicion and concern. Both of those men were refugees from Iraq. That doesn't mean the refugee program should be dismantled or abandoned entirely. What it should tell us is that we better be darned sure that whoever comes in through the refugee system has been adequately vetted to protect innocent potential victims here in the United States. Fortunately, in this instance, our law enforcement officers acted effectively and quickly to prevent a tragedy, but they can't be right 100 percent of the time. If they are right only 99 percent of the time and innocent people are hurt or killed, if we don't do everything in our power to stop it, then I think we are partially responsible. This is not a theoretical problem, and Congress has the opportunity to act to try to enhance public safety. So knowing all of this, it is baffling to hear the discussion among our Democratic colleagues that they may not even allow us to get on the bill this afternoon. I have seen some news reports suggesting that the Democratic leader is saying: Well, if there is some sort of an amendment process that could be agreed to, then maybe they would allow us to do that. I would encourage those discussions to go forward, but we shouldn't just say: Well, you get three or four amendments on your side and we get four or five on our side. We ought to invite and welcome all constructive legislation to make this as good as it can be. We don't need a backroom deal to do that. We need to bring it to the floor and allow an open amendment process under the rules of the Senate. This is a debate worth having, and this is one our constituents deserve to hear. I hope the latest news reports are some reason for encouragement that our Democratic colleagues are going to allow us to get on the legislation. Again, this is not a partisan issue--or it shouldn't be. Last fall several Obama administration officials testified about their concerns about radicalized individuals and what threat they could pose, as a refugee, if they gain entry into the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson testified before the Senate and House Homeland Security Committees and said: ``I am concerned that we do the proper security vetting for refugees we bring into the country.'' I agree with him. That is what this legislation addresses. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. CORNYN. He went on to say: ``It is true that we are not going to know a whole lot of the Syrians that come forth in this process, just given the nature of the situation.'' That is understandable. Syria has been engaged in a civil war over the last few years, and it is hard to imagine that we know a lot about those who want to come here as refugees. It doesn't mean they shouldn't come here, but we do need to enhance the security screening and make sure we are confident that the ones who do come will not be a threat to the public. The Director of the FBI also shared his concerns by saying: ``We see a risk there.'' So if you have the FBI Director and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security saying there are risks and concerns about refugees coming from Syria to the United States, I would say we ought to listen to them. I hope our colleagues across the aisle will reconsider their purported plans to block this legislation. We vote on it at 2:30 p.m., so there is plenty of time to talk more about it and have discussions about how there is maybe a path forward. If, in fact, there is ultimately a filibuster and our friends across the aisle decide to block the American SAFE Act--and, again, I hope they don't do that--I don't think we are doing our job or doing everything in our power to enhance the public safety. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I condemn the recent terrorist attack on the Indian Pathankot Air Force Station, which took the lives of seven Indian security force personnel, as well as the attack on the Indian Consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. These deplorable acts of aggression threaten to undermine India's security and also its peaceful activities in Afghanistan, which are in the interests of both nations, as well as the United States. It is my understanding that a Pakistan-based terrorist group is likely responsible for the attack, and it is imperative that these terrorists be brought to justice. The United States must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with India in facing this common security threat. As violent, Islamic extremism emanating from Pakistan continues to threaten the long-term stability of the region, it is increasingly important that Pakistan reject such aggression and do everything in its power to root out and eliminate these terrorists.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 12, 2016, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 12, 2016, at 2:30 p.m., in room S-216 of the Capitol.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 12, 2016, at 10 a.m., in room SD- 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 12, 2016, at 10 a.m.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Coats) and the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, tonight the President of the United States will offer his last State of the Union speech and one that I know we will all be listening carefully to. I couldn't help but reflect on the first speech he gave to a joint session of Congress back in 2009, shortly after his inauguration. It was a hopeful speech, it was an optimistic speech--one that appealed to the better angels of Republicans and Democrats and the whole Nation alike. He said we needed to pull together and boldly confront the challenges we face, but somewhere along the way he seems to have forgotten the benefit of finding common ground where folks can agree. It seems we have seen the Obama administration more involved in dividing the American people when facing opposition and then preferring to go it alone rather than to work with Congress under the constitutional scheme created by our Founding Fathers. Tonight in his final address on his priorities as President, I am sure President Obama will want to talk about what his legacy looks like once he leaves office, and that will invariably include times when he has simply done an end run around Congress. We have seen it time and time again. It is a mistake. It is shortsighted, but it is his method of governing and presumably being able to tell people: Well, I have gotten my way and I haven't had to do the hard work of working with people of different points of view to find the areas where we agree. I have said it before, but I think it is worth noting the comment by the senior Senator from Wyoming, when I said to him: You are on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions with Teddy Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, whom I served with for a while before he unfortunately passed away. How is it that you are able to work with somebody whose world view is so opposite from yours and you are still able to actually get things done? To this he replied: It is simple. It is the 80-20 rule. We look at the 80 percent of things we can agree upon, and we do those and forget the 20 percent we can't agree on. I fear that our country and the Congress has become a Congress that looks at the 20 percent we can't agree on and as a result can't do the 80 percent that we do agree on because we disagree on the 20 percent, and that is a mistake. It is also not the scheme of government that was created by America and our Constitution, and it would be a mistake to do nothing because we can't agree on the 20 percent when we can agree on the 80 percent. I know there are some areas where we are going to have a fundamental disagreement, and we are going to continue to fight and oppose each other's points of view, but I have been around here long enough to know that there are people of goodwill on both sides of the aisle, some of whom I disagree with strenuously, but by working together, we can find ways to solve problems and help move the country's agenda forward. But somewhere along the way, the President forgot that, and so I suspect he will be talking about some of his Executive orders, which have been a terrible mistake. First of all, on his Executive order for immigration, there was a lawsuit. A Federal judge issued an injunction, which has been upheld so far. It bars implementation of his Executive order. So what did the President accomplish other than to enrage and polarize people and poison the well when it comes to actually trying to begin the process of solving and fixing some of our broken immigration system? The President has poisoned the well and made it virtually impossible for us to work with him on solving or fixing our broken immigration system because of what? Because of an Executive order that was subsequently enjoined by a Federal court. So he wasn't able to accomplish his goal, but he was able to kill meaningful immigration reform debate in the Senate. Of course, as we have on the Iranian nuclear negotiation, the President seems content not to engage in a treaty process, which is actually binding on his successor. It is simply a political document which is not even in writing. It tries to freeze out the American people, whom we represent, and the sort of educational and consensus- building process that is good for our country. I mean, that is how we have become unified as a country--by looking at the things we can work together on and not just focusing on our differences. If we are just going to focus on our differences, we are never going to get anything done. There are some people who may be OK with that, but, frankly, I think the American people voted for Republicans and a new leadership in the last election not because they didn't want to get anything done, but because they wanted to give us the responsibility for setting the agenda and doing the things that were their priorities, which doesn't entail doing nothing. That entails doing those things that reflect the priorities of the American people and by working together where we can. Nobody here is a dictator, not even the President of the United States. It is shortsighted. It is a mistake, and it is in contravention of the whole constitutional framework that was set up 230-something years ago. We saw it most recently on the President's announcement on gun issues where he, again, ignored Congress and said: Well, I am going to do it my way. Maybe he is impatient. Maybe he doesn't believe in consensus building. Maybe he just doesn't like his job very much. Sometimes I think that is true. Temperamentally, I think the President may not be suited for the kind of consensus building and legislative process that is necessary to actually get important things done. I was thinking, as we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act a short time back, do you actually think we could do something like that, given this polarized political environment and a President unwilling to work with Congress? I would say Lyndon Baines Johnson was a lot of things, but he knew how to get things done. He was the antithesis of this President when it came to rolling up his sleeves and working with Congress and people with different points of view and actually trying to find the possible and the doable--not to focus on failure but to focus on where we can make progress. Unfortunately, as a result, I think the President's legacy is going to be discussed in a way that he probably isn't going to fully appreciate. I was reading the Wall Street Journal this morning and was reminded of how his political legacy will be remembered. Since President Obama took office, his party has lost 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, 910 State legislative seats, and has lost majority party status in 30 State legislatures. Those are amazing statistics, given that the President came out of the starting gate so strong. Unfortunately, he used his political capital by passing legislation like ObamaCare with just Democratic votes. That is not a way to build durable or sustainable policy or to build consensus. That is a way of jamming it down the throat of the minority party and then saying: Well, you are just going to have to live with it. Well, that is not the case. As we reflected on the recent vote we had on appealing ObamaCare, which the President vetoed, we have the political will and votes to change that ill-considered and misguided health care law and to replace it with something that makes more sense, is more affordable, and suits the needs of individual Americans. What we do need is a new President, and I think we have demonstrated that. If you look at item after item and our struggling economy--after the terrible events of 2008, I admit the President had a tough hand because America's economy cratered, and we went into a recession. Typically what economists will tell us--and I take some of my economic advice from former Senator Phil Gramm who is a Ph.D. economist. He wrote in the Wall Street Journal, or maybe it was the Washington Post, that following recessions, typically what you have is a v-shaped bounce of the economy. But what we have had under this President's policy-- because of overregulation and political uncertainty, just because of his unwillingness to work to build consensus to get things done, we have seen an economy struggling to recover with stagnant wages and slow economic growth. Then there is the issue of foreign policy. I just had the privilege of meeting with a group of people, including the King of Jordan, where we talked about the battle against the Islamic State and Syria, which is right outside the King's back door, and the work they have been doing with us to try and deal with the Russians that are taking advantage of the chaos. There is a lack of a master strategy or plan to deal with this threat. It is not just a threat over there, as we have learned; it is a threat over here because of the use of social media and the ability to radicalize people who live in the United States and convince them to commit acts of violence right here in our country. So we have a mess in Syria and no real strategy to fight ISIL. I mentioned ObamaCare just a few moments ago because I can't help but remember when the President was selling ObamaCare and jammed it through on a purely partisan vote. I remember he said: If you like what you have, you can keep it. Well, that was not true. I was a former attorney general in Texas. We had a consumer protection division that sued people for consumer fraud. When people are lied to about what it is they are going to get in exchange for their hard-earned money and they don't get it because they have been deceived, that usually ends up in court, and you end up getting sued. Well, we know that premiums didn't come down an average of $2,500 for a family of four. Instead, they skyrocketed. And we have been reading stories in the press which show that a lot of younger people who need to be part of the pool in order to keep rates down--because, frankly, you need young, healthy people as part of that insurance pool to hold down rates for the whole country-- didn't buy it because they don't think it suits their needs, and it is it too expensive. They are being forced to buy coverage that they can't use. I say all of this because I think in some ways the President has squandered his mandate when he was elected. I remember in 2008 when the President talked about hope and change. I wasn't quite sure what he meant, but we all agree that hope is a good thing, and frequently change is a good thing. We were hopeful for the new President--the first African-American President elected in American history. It was a very positive thing for so many of us. It represented a huge transition for a country that unfortunately committed the original sin of treating African-Americans as less than fully human, and we paid a terrible price for it, and we continue to pay a terrible price. But I was hopeful, like many others were, that he would actually use his position as President to bring people together and work with us. I will tell you that I am an optimistic person, and so despite the last 7 years, I hope the President talks tonight about what he plans to do in his last year in office. He still has one full year left in his two terms, or 8 years, in office. He has a choice to make, just as we all have choices to make. The President can decide to double down on his go-it-alone strategy, which has proved to be a disaster. It doesn't work. It is not enduring, and it polarizes the political parties and the American people. I think, actually, the way this President has chosen to govern is more responsible for the polarization we see among the American people when it comes to politics and some of the sorts of craziness of our current political process, which we all talk about privately. I think he is actually largely responsible for that--maybe not entirely, but largely. The President can decide whether he actually wants to do something during his last year in office. He can actually want to try to work with Congress. I will suggest an area where we can find common ground and work together, and that is by reforming our criminal justice system. Actually, I have been involved for several years, as have many Members on the Democratic and Republican side, on looking at our criminal justice system and saying: How can we do better? For example, for too long we have treated our prison system at the State and Federal levels as a warehouse for people, and we have forgotten some of the basic tenets of the goals of the criminal justice system, which is to rehabilitate people. You can't rehabilitate everybody. You have to have a willing heart, and you have to have people willing to change and take advantage of an opportunity to turn their lives around. There are people like that, and we have demonstrated that in many of our State penal systems, such as Texas, where we have seen that if you provide the right incentives, people will take advantage of opportunities to turn their lives around and deal with their addictions, lack of education, and lack of skills so they no longer have to live a life--as one person in Houston told me. He called himself a frequent flier in the criminal justice system. Every time he got out, he ended up coming back, until he finally took advantage of the opportunity to turn his life around. So we do have legislation that passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee 15 to 5. There are some things we still need to continue to work on with our colleagues. But I think it represents a great opportunity--something the President himself has said he wants to see us do--and I think it could be a genuine legacy item for him and something that offers hope to people without much hope. It is also good for the taxpayers. We have actually been able to shutter three different penitentiaries in Texas and save the taxpayers billions of dollars, so it strikes me that it is a win across the board. So I think reforming our criminal justice system is a great opportunity. I also believe, as I mentioned yesterday when I spoke on the floor, that addressing our broken mental health system is another area that we could deal with productively on a bipartisan basis and that could be a legacy of this President and certainly of this Congress. We know our mental health delivery system is broken. All we have to do is look at people living on our streets, homeless people. These people frequent our emergency rooms because they have various medical conditions, but because of their mental illness, they never get the treatment they need, so they go in and out of that turnstile. We also know that some people tragically become a danger not only to themselves but to their loved ones and the communities where they live. I know it is a simple fact borne out by public opinion polls that most people understand that some of the acts--not all but some of the acts-- in fact, public opinion in the polling I have seen said that 70 percent of respondents in public opinion polls said that mental illness is a factor in incidents of mass violence, including shootings in places such as Sandy Hook; Aurora, CO; Charleston; and others. We can name those incidents and those tragic circumstances, but until we get serious about working together to try to improve access to mental health services and give families the additional tools they need in order to get their loved ones compliant with their doctor's orders and their medication, we are never going to be able to make progress in this area. I think about Adam Lanza, the shooter at Sandy Hook, who stole his mother's own gun, killed her with it, and then went on to that elementary school and killed those poor, innocent children--a horrific tragedy. But Adam Lanza's mother knew he was sick. She knew he was basically living downstairs and descending into his mental illness and getting sicker and sicker. She didn't have much in the way of options, so she tried to find common ground with him and work with him, but obviously that wasn't enough to overcome his mental illness. If we could just do some simple things, such as provide outpatient, court- ordered mental health treatment--that is something that is included in a piece of legislation on which we will be having a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. That will provide families additional tools other than involuntary commitment, which is just temporary and doesn't serve the long-term problems. One of the biggest problems, I have learned, with our mental health system is that so often people who need treatment refuse treatment. In other words, frequently they don't take their medication. As long as it is purely a voluntary matter, particularly for people who are a threat to their own safety as well as the community's safety, then we are going to continue to see repetitions of this and more and more tragedies, more families torn apart by mental illness, when we could actually offer them some help and some hope. There is a gentleman named Pete Earley who is an award-winning journalist who wrote a book called ``Crazy.'' This is not about his son, although his son did suffer from mental illness; this is about our broken mental health system. He called it ``Crazy.'' He wrote a book, which I would commend to anybody, about his own family's experience dealing with a mentally ill son and how hard it was to get him to comply with his doctor's orders and take his medication and the like. I hope Pete Earley will come testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee later this month, along with some really innovative programs like those in San Antonio, TX, where they found a way to not just warehouse the mentally ill in our jails but to actually divert them for treatment and to get them in a better place and out of this turnstile of the criminal justice system. So those are just a couple of ideas about what this President could do, and I hope they are areas he will perhaps address tonight that he would be willing to work with us on: criminal justice reform and mental health reform. I think if he were willing to do that, he would find Republicans and Democrats alike willing to work with him to try to build that common-ground consensus, and actually that would be one of the lasting legacies of his final year of his administration. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Coats), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, the main reason I come to the floor today is to talk about the President's most recent Executive action, this time implementing gun control measures that won't actually solve any of the problems they purport to fix and that purposely go around Congress and ignore the will of the American people. To my mind, this is one of the most aggravating things about Washington, DC, and about how business is done here. People make symbolic acts claiming that we have to ``do something'' but don't actually focus on a solution that actually helps make the problem better. None of the President's proposals actually would reduce any of the horrific incidents of gun violence we have seen, and that is a shame because there are bipartisan proposals that have been made that actually would help. But it is only when the President works with the Congress, as the Constitution requires, before a bill can become law. In his eagerness to go it alone, of course, the President has forsaken the constitutional process and bypassed the electorate in trying to make new policy. He presumably is doing this as a hallmark of his tenure, and it will somehow be a legacy of his time as President. But the fact of the matter is Executive action signed by this President will not survive his own Presidency unless it is actually made into law, and then, of course, it would require another act of Congress to overcome it. That is something this President doesn't seem to recognize. When he gets frustrated with the pace at which Congress takes up legislation--for example, the immigration issue--he decides to unilaterally issue an Executive action--which does what? Well, he offers Executive actions as a solution to a problem. But, in fact, what it does is it buys a lawsuit and it gets caught up in litigation, which is going to take years to resolve and ultimately doesn't provide any relief to the very people the President claims to want to help. So as a result of the President's impatience and his eagerness to go it alone, he is actually forsaking the constitutional process that builds consensus and actually creates durable policies that will survive this President's own administration. This isn't just an isolated event, as I mentioned a moment ago. According to one media report, the Obama administration aims to push almost 4,000 new regulations during his last year as President. But with his announcement last week, President Obama made clear he has little interest in working with Congress. That is actually his job--to work with Congress, to work with us to try to find consensus and to build durable solutions to the problems that confront our Nation. It also demonstrates his lack of regard for fundamental constitutional rights as spelled out in the Constitution itself. Of course, I am talking about the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I found his rhetoric particularly perplexing. First, he blamed the Congress for inaction. He said: ``Congress still needs to act.'' Well, actually, if what he was doing was going to solve the problem, why would Congress still need to act? So to me it is an admission that he knows that this is mere symbolism and it doesn't actually solve the problem that he says exists. So he said Congress still needs to act on gun control measures, and he claimed that this legislative body--the Congress--is simply not being responsive to the will of the American people. He even said that he feels compelled to act without consulting Congress because America doesn't ``have a Congress that is in line with the majority of Americans.'' In other words, the President said the people of this country are demanding more symbolic gun control laws, not less. But that is not what the polling shows, the best indicator of what people are actually thinking--other than what the Presiding Officer hears from her constituents in Iowa and I hear from my constituents in Texas. Those are the best ways to know what people are thinking. In a poll done by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News this fall, more than half of the respondents said that the President's party's position on gun control was ``outside the mainstream.'' Only 38 percent said that it was ``within the mainstream.'' It is also critical to point out that, as many media reports have indicated, the President's measures would not have stopped any of the mass violence incidents that have tragically struck American communities over the last few years. So my response to the President is this: If he is actually serious about trying to solve problems rather than just issue symbolic proclamations, he needs to roll up his sleeves and he needs to work with us to move legislation forward that focuses on the commonsense thread found in many of these mass incidents, and that has to do with the mental health issue. This is the 800-pound gorilla in the room that the President doesn't want to talk about. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Grassley, has made it quite clear that this is the one issue where we could actually find consensus and help provide assistance to families and communities to help people from becoming a danger to themselves as well as the communities in which they live. We know from the facts of the cases that many times the mental health of the shooter has played a role in many of these tragedies, and it must be addressed. Many Americans, of course, agree. I think, for example, of Adam Lanza, who was the shooter at Sandy Hook in Connecticut. He was so mentally ill that he was a recluse in his own home, and the only thing his mother found she could engage him in was going out to a shooting range. Yet he basically stole his mother's own weapons, killed her, and then tragically went to Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed a number of innocent children. If he and she had been able to get some additional help--gotten him to a doctor and gotten him on medications that could have helped him from this increasing mental illness--then perhaps things would have turned out differently. That is speculation on all our parts, but perhaps treating the mental illness will actually reduce the likelihood that people will succumb to an impulse to do harm to themselves and to their communities. According to a poll released just last week, more than 70 percent of Americans said they believe that better access to mental health treatment and screening would reduce these incidents of violence. I am part of that 70 percent. I firmly believe that time and again we are confronted with mental illness crises that go untreated and turn into tragic headlines. We can't responsibly stand by any longer and watch this pattern repeat itself. That is why last year I introduced a piece of legislation that was my effort to try to begin this conversation and this discussion here in the Senate. There are other ideas. The chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Alexander, and the ranking member, Senator Murray, are working on some mental health reform legislation. Congressman Tim Murphy in the House has worked on a comprehensive bill, and in the Senate Dr. Bill Cassidy is working on that legislation. My legislation, hopefully, will help contribute to the conversation and help us build that consensus that is so important. The legislation I have introduced would improve treatment and preventive screenings and crisis response for individuals with mental illness. It would also strengthen the existing background check system, something the President says he wants to do. However, the fact of the matter is that many States, such as the State of Virginia in the case of the Virginia Tech shooter just a short time ago, don't even upload existing mental health adjudications into the background check system, which would have precluded the purchase of a firearm by somebody with that sort of record. So the National Instant Criminal Background Check System isn't even a comprehensive system when it comes to identifying people who under current law should not be able to purchase a firearm. This legislation I have offered is a step forward that will help those with mental illness get the support they need while also equipping our Nation's law enforcement officers to help keep our communities safe. It has been endorsed by a diverse group of organizations, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Association of Police Organizations, and the National Association of Social Workers. I think the thing that has perhaps offended some of our Democratic colleagues is that we have actually been able to build a consensus, where none other has existed on this topic, by getting organizations such as the ones I mentioned, along with the National Rifle Association, to endorse the legislation I have introduced. The fact of the matter is this legislation was aided by solutions borrowed from what is happening in Texas and particularly Bexar County and San Antonio, where I once served as a district judge. I firmly believe that the best way we can legislate here is to learn what works at the local and State level and then to scale them up here at the national level, rather than to do what the President seems to prefer, which is a national experiment and a one-size-fits-all approach in a country that is simply too diverse on issues that are so complex that we can't really solve them with the wave of a magic wand or on a national basis. So let's look at what works locally and in our States and then bring those experiences here and scale them up for the benefit of the rest of the country. The fact of the matter is that Bexar County's and San Antonio's mental health program is now touted as the national standard for how to think strategically about those suffering from mental illness in the criminal justice system. Sheriff Pamerleau of Bexar County told me that a substantial portion of the jail population in San Antonio is people suffering from mental illness. Many times they go untreated and, thus, they try to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, just making their condition that much worse. But the underlying cause of their problem is never being treated, which is the underlying mental illness. I have heard the same story in Houston and Austin and other places. I have asked our law enforcement professionals--we simply are seeing more and more people with mental illnesses showing up in emergency rooms or living homeless on the street or ending up in our jails without their problems adequately being addressed. My legislation does try to take a crack at that. It may not be perfect. I know other people will have other ideas, but at least it is a constructive suggestion and will hopefully begin a conversation that we need to have and the President says he wants to have but so far has neglected to engage in. Congress has a role to play because we represent the American people and we represent the States where we are elected to serve. It is our responsibility to try to bring about successful reforms that we have seen work at the local and State levels. I am hopeful the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing soon. I understand we may well begin by the end of this month, and it is not a minute too soon. We need a President who is willing to get to work and do his job and not just to make speeches or issue Executive orders and say: Well, look, I have done my part, and the rest is up to everybody else. We need a President who is willing to work with us and alongside of us to tackle these important issues and hopefully help protect the individuals who are suffering from mental illness, to give families more choices when dealing with a mentally ill loved one, and also hopefully to avoid these incidents of mass violence. What we don't need is purporting to govern by Executive edict, which is what the President seems to like and prefer. I hope the President understands that Members on both sides of the aisle in both Chambers are ready, willing, and able in good faith to work to reform our mental health system and in doing so help prevent some of the tragedies that are occurring in our communities. What we don't need to do is to restrict the constitutional rights of law- abiding citizens, which will in no way make our communities safer but will infringe upon those constitutional rights in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Many of the bills proposed, including mine, go much further than what the President announced last week in dealing with mental illness. There is a lot of work that needs to be done, and we need a President who will work with us. If he is willing to abandon this go-it-alone attitude and commit to working with the elected representatives of the American people, I think we have the opportunity to accomplish a lot for our country. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 11, 2016, at 5 p.m., to conduct a classified briefing entitled ``Assessing the Recent North Korea Nuclear Event.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I understand that later today the House of Representatives will vote to pass a reform of the Freedom of Information Act, which is often referred to by its acronym, FOIA. I wish to say a few words about that legislation. I applaud the effort of the House. I have long believed that it is really important to make sure that the people who actually pay the bills and whom we serve know what government is doing on their behalf. Thus the name of the legislation signed by President Johnson many years ago is the Freedom of Information Act. Too often here in Washington, DC, the people in charge of the information seem to view it as proprietary, as if it were theirs. In a political culture where information is power, they don't want to share that information with the people who actually own it and are the ones who hold the elected officials accountable. An open government is really one of the first prerequisites to a free society, and that is because an open and accessible government is absolutely necessary for Americans to hold their elected officials accountable. Our Founding Fathers, of course, recognized that a truly democratic system depends on an informed citizenry, but Americans cannot do that without the information and transparency that these laws provide. Former Justice William Brandeis famously said that ``sunlight is the best disinfectant.'' I must say, as a person who is conservative, that I believe that rather than passing a bunch of new laws, one of the things we can do to change the behavior here in Washington is to shine a light on the actions of elected officials and the government. When elected officials know that the public is informed and watching, it changes the way people behave, and it usually changes it for the better. Congress has passed numerous pieces of legislation that promote this accountability and transparency of government since President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act into law so that good leadership and good governance can flourish. During my time in the Senate and previously when I was the attorney general of Texas, I made government transparency a priority. I pressed for more openness in the Federal Government through commonsense legislation. During the process, I found a partner in those efforts in the Senate. He is somebody who is my ideological opposite, and that is Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont. Senator Leahy and I both embrace the fact that most of the time elected officials and government officials want to trumpet their successes and they want to hide their failures. But the American people deserve to know the good, the bad, and the ugly, and to apply the correctives that are within their power, either in changing those officials or holding those officials accountable. So the legislation that is going to pass the House later today is similar to what we have already passed here in the Senate Judiciary Committee by voice vote in February. It requires Federal agencies to operate under a presumption of openness when considering the release of government information under the Freedom of Information Act. Texas law, for example, presumes that public information held by government is presumptively open. If there is some reason why it should not be disclosed--let's say classified materials or whatever--then it is incumbent upon the agency to raise those concerns and then to have those concerns decided in the process of administering those laws. But the idea is also to reduce the overuse of exemptions to withhold information from the public. I hope this Chamber will soon join our colleagues in the House to consider this important legislation. There may be some things we need to do to fine-tune it. I certainly understand that on national security, for example, or things involving proprietary information--trademark protections and property protections--there may be some areas where we have to make some slight changes. But, essentially, this presumption of openness is important to the functioning of our democratic form of government, and I look forward to our passing the law that will be passed by the House Chamber later today.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio) would have voted ``No.''

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, before the Senator from Tennessee leaves the floor, I wish to thank him. Among many other issues he has dealt with on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Banking Committee, he has done great work on this issue. He is absolutely right about the scourge of human trafficking and how we need to do more--not just here at home but internationally--to try to break it up and rescue some of these children. Often the typical profile of a trafficked person in the United States is a young girl 12 to 14 years old. It is a travesty. I thank him for his great work and congratulate him.