John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, after years of hard work the Senate yesterday passed legislation that will help keep the personal information of people safer, whether that personal information is in the hands of your bank or your credit card holder or whomever. As we know, the threat of cyber attacks is all too real. Twenty-one million Americans lost their personal information and sensitive background information at the Office of Personnel Management just this last summer--21 million. As a matter of fact, the suggestion has been made that many of those people were individuals who filed extensive questionnaires--or responses to extensive questionnaires--in order to obtain a security clearance. So you can imagine the sensitivity of that information. That followed on a breach at the Internal Revenue Service in which the data of more than 100,000 taxpayers was stolen. It is a felony to divulge Federal income tax information of a taxpayer. It is a felony. Yet somehow, some way, this cyber attack at the IRS was able to get data on more than 100,000 taxpayers. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act is legislation that has been long overdue, and we are, frankly, behind the curve here. But this bill garnered wide bipartisan support in the Senate. Now we have the opportunity to work with our House colleagues, who have, I believe, a couple of cyber security bills, and to try to reconcile those differences in a conference committee, which is typically the way we reconcile those differences and competing ideas. But suffice it to say that this legislation, once enacted into law and signed by the President, will help deter future cyber attacks and equip the public and private sector with the tools they need to be more nimble. Specifically, what it will do is allow companies and individuals to share information with the government without concern about losing a competitive advantage. Right now, when you are attacked in your company, obviously it is not something you particularly want to brag about, but you do need to let the people whose information has been stolen know so they can protect themselves. But what there will be is more information sharing, along with some legal protections for people who cooperate on a voluntary basis. As Senator Burr, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee said time and again, there is nothing compulsory about this system. Nobody is forced to participate. But I think, over the long run, businesses and individuals will find it in their best interest to share this information and to receive information in a way that will help protect our personal data. The passage of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act was, rightly, a major priority for the Senate. As I said, I am hopeful-- along with our House colleagues--that we can get a bill to the President's desk for signature soon. But this is just one more example--the latest example, really--of the productivity of this new majority in Congress that was elected just last November. We have worked hard. Without sacrificing our principles, we have worked hard to find common ground, working on a bipartisan basis to move legislation across the floor and to get it enacted into law that serves the best interests of the American people, such as the passage of the bill to help victims of human trafficking, which passed 99 to 0 in the Senate and now is the law of the land. It was the first major effort to help the victims of human trafficking we have undertaken here in 25 years. We have also passed out of the Senate--and we are working on differences with the House--the Every Child Achieves Act. As Chairman Alexander of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee points out, this is a fix to No Child Left Behind. This legislation will devolve power from Washington, DC, back to parents and local communities so they can have a greater say in their children's education. Once again we have learned the lesson, perhaps painfully, that a one- size-fits-all solution does not work for everyone. We are a big, diverse country. A lot of communities are better equipped--certainly they are more nimble, more flexible, and more adaptive--to change circumstances than the Federal Government. Even though we had the best of intentions with No Child Left Behind, we needed to make this necessary fix and again devolve power back from the Federal Government down to parents and local communities for their children's education while maintaining high standards at the same time. We have also passed a multiyear highway bill. I think there were more than 30 different temporary patches of our highway bill because of the inadequacy of the highway trust fund. When you buy a gallon of gasoline, I think about 18 cents goes into the highway trust fund out of that gallon of gasoline. Unfortunately, though, our demands have exceeded the amount of money in that fund. For States such as mine, we are a donor State. So we send a buck to Washington, DC, and we get 92 cents back. A friend of mine in the Texas Legislature called that Federal money laundering, and I think he is right. But we have stepped up--the voters in Texas last year, actually--by passing a supplemental appropriations for highway and infrastructure out of our rainy-day fund. Actually, on November 7, we will have another referendum in Texas to try to fill that gap between what the Federal Government is doing and what the State government can and must do in order to meet our transportation needs. By passing a multiyear highway bill, the Senate has now prompted our House colleagues to, in turn, pass their own multiyear highway bill, and now, perhaps later today, we will pass another short extension to November 20 and then work to reconcile those two differences and then get that to the President's desk. That is not particularly sexy work, but it is very important. It is sort of what we are supposed to do in the Congress, which is to perform the task of governing and helping to address the issues that confront everyday working American families. Then just last week the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 15 to 5 to pass, on a broad bipartisan basis, the first criminal justice reform that we have done since the 1990s. I have cosponsored that legislation and was proud to do so. A lot of what this bill contains--particularly something called the CORRECTIONS Act--was based on a successful experiment in Texas and other States where they realized that you could lock people up for committing crimes but someday they are going to get out. When they do, we have an interest in making sure, for those who are willing, that they are prepared for life on the outside or otherwise they end up becoming what a young man in Houston just last week or so told me. He called himself a ``frequent flier'' in the criminal justice system. We know what that means. That means the turnstile just kept turning. He would get out and go right back in because he was woefully unprepared for life outside. So whether it is education, whether it is mental illness issues, drug and alcohol issues or just employable skills, it is in our interest to provide incentives to people in prison so they are better prepared when they get out. I am not suggesting that this is some sort of panacea and that all of a sudden our prisons will be emptied and people won't commit crimes anymore. That is not true. But for those who can be saved, for people who want a helping hand and are willing to take responsibility for their own rehabilitation, I think this legislation is very important. So while we still have a lot to do, I think we can take some satisfaction in the productivity that we have had--notwithstanding the very challenging political environment and the polarization of our politics in America today. This week Members from both parties, as well as the White House, have been talking about legislation to deal with our budget and ensure our country meets its financial responsibilities. Indeed, there has been an announced deal, negotiated by the leadership in the House, the Senate, and the White House, which the House of Representatives will be voting on at about 5 p.m. today. I think it is worth reminding everybody how we got to this point. Starting in June, our colleagues from across the aisle started what they advertised as a filibuster summer--in other words, a strategy to block any and all of the appropriations bills that come across the Senate floor. There are 12 of those appropriations bills. If we were doing things the way we should be, we would take them up individually. The American people could read them, understand them, and we could debate them, hopefully improve them, and then pass them into law to fund some of the basic functions of our government, such as the Defense Department, for example. It is ironic that many of these appropriations bills sailed through the Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan basis. Well, for the first time in 6 years, the Committee on Appropriations had voted out all 12 of those bills. The reason they were able to do so is because under this new majority, we were able to actually pass a new budget, which gave the top capped spending lines to the Appropriations Committee so they could do their job to consider those spending bills, to rearrange priorities, and hopefully gain greater efficiency and economize on the spending. So even though many of our Democratic friends voted for those bills in the Appropriations Committee, they came to the floor and voted against them to create this huge cliff that we knew was coming on November 3 and, indeed, on December 11. Senate Democrats carried this strategy of filibuster summer into the fall and continued to block appropriations bills, turning noncontroversial funding priorities, such as our Nation's military and support for our veterans, into partisan games. That is what created this so-called shutdown narrative and drama. It wasn't an accident; it was a premeditated plan by our Democratic friends in the minority. So, as a result, Congress was once again staring down several major deadlines with little time to waste. I have to say that if your attitude in Congress is ``I want 100 percent of what I want or I am not going to settle for anything,'' you are not going to get anything. It is just that simple. It is just a simple fact of life that the only kind of negotiated outcomes we have here are imperfect; they are flawed. While this budget agreement isn't perfect--it is flawed--it does contain several important priorities. First of all, the Budget Act of 2015 doesn't raise taxes. That is important to me and certainly important to my constituents. They think this administration has raised their taxes more than enough already. This agreement lays the foundation to fund the government through 2017 without a tax increase. Importantly, the legislation repeals a section of ObamaCare. We will have more to say about that in this coming weeks, but it repeals a major section of ObamaCare that required large employers to automatically enroll their employees in the ObamaCare health plans. That is a pretty big deal for a law that has been on the books since 2010. Rolling back ObamaCare, I believe, is essential to helping the American people meet their basic needs--to get the health care they want at a price they can afford, and not based on some sort of mandate from the Federal Government. It is also necessary for the health of our Nation's economy. Perhaps from my standpoint, and I suspect the Presiding Officer's standpoint, the single most important part of this legislation is it will fund our military and make sure our military has the resources it needs to protect us here at home and our allies around the world. As part of the artificial drama that was created over this deal, the President of the United States vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act. This is the fundamental law by which Congress says to our men and women in uniform: We are going to make sure you have the resources you need in order to do the job you volunteered to do. And oh, by the way, we are also going to take care of our families because in the military today, with an all-volunteer military, our military families are vitally important too. But in an incredibly cynical move, the President vetoed the Defense authorization bill in order to gain leverage in this negotiated budget deal. It truly is shameful. It is inexcusable for the Commander in Chief to hold our men and women in uniform hostage by doing something like that. We all know we are living in a world marked by insecurity at every corner, from rampant instability in the Middle East to a newly aggressive Russia in Eastern Europe and in the Arctic, and a rising China that continues to--Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.

Mr. CORNYN. In addition to instability in the Middle East and an aggressive Russia in Eastern Europe and in the Arctic, a rising China is trying to expand its own territory at the expense of our allies and friends in the Pacific. I am glad to see the U.S. Navy challenge the phony claims of China in the South China Sea that jeopardize those important sea lanes that are so critical to our security and to our commerce. So this deal, as flawed as it is, finally provides the military and our military families with the resources they need in order to do the incredibly important job we ask them to do. If you think about all the areas that the Federal Government is involved in, this is the No. 1 priority. There is no ``Yellow Pages'' where you can look to outsource national security. It is the Federal Government's responsibility, and it is about time we provided our men and women in uniform with the resources they need in order to get the job done. In conclusion, this bill actually takes significant steps in reforming, in a fiscally responsible manner, our Social Security disability system. It will provide long-term savings from changes to Social Security. In fact, this will represent the first bipartisan reform we have had since the early 1980s. I look forward to continuing to discuss this legislation with our colleagues and finding a way to move forward as we face the big challenges still ahead of us in the Senate. The only alternative to this negotiated deal would be a clean debt ceiling increase and a continuing resolution at current spending levels, which would have a devastating impact on our military and our national security.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 8 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein and with the time equally divided in the usual form; further, that all time during quorum calls be charged equally between both sides.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Cotton), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it is easy for the public and the press to focus on the issues that divide us in Washington, DC, and around the country. In fact, in Washington, DC, that is a world-class sport-- focusing on division, the things that separate us, the things where we clearly can't agree, on occasion--but today I am happy to highlight an area marked by broad consensus and true bipartisan spirit. In my time in the Senate I have learned that neither political party can get what they want done if they try to do it alone. The only way things happen are when consensus is achieved, and that takes a lot of hard work, a lot of cooperation, and a lot of collaboration. If your goal is 100 percent of what you want or nothing, my experience is you get nothing here. I know ``compromise'' sometimes is a dirty word in today's lexicon. I was just rereading a quote from Ronald Reagan, somebody conservatives look to as an example of the iconic conservative leader. He was pretty clear that if he could get 75 to 80 percent of what he wanted to achieve, he would say: I will take it, and I will fight about the rest of it another day. But the good news is we have found a way, amidst a lot of the division and polarization here, to achieve a bipartisan coalition on some important criminal justice reforms. Last week I stood with a bipartisan group and introduced the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. This has literally been years in the making, and it was a proud and consequential moment for the Senate. This week we have kept that momentum going. Senator Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, held a hearing Monday to discuss the new bill with various stakeholders, and tomorrow the Judiciary Committee will vote on sending the bill to the full Senate for consideration. This legislation is long overdue and a major step forward for the country. Similar to other successful efforts--and particularly those that inform my actions in the Senate--I look to experiences in the State and what has been tried, tested, and found to work and how it might apply to our job here at the national level. Back in 2007, in Austin, legislators were confronting a big problem. They had a major budget shortfall, an overcrowded prison system, and high rates of recidivism--repeat criminals--or as one former inmate referred to himself in Houston the other day at a roundtable I held, he called himself a frequent flier in the criminal justice system. I think we all know what he meant. But instead of building more prisons and hoping that would somehow fix the problem, these leaders in Austin decided to try a different approach. They scrapped the blueprints for more prisons, and they went to work developing reforms to help low- and medium-risk offenders who were willing to take the opportunity to turn around their lives and become productive members of society. I think we would have to be pretty naive to say that every criminal offender who ends up in prison is going to take advantage of these opportunities. They will not--not all of them will, but some of them will. Some of them will be remorseful. Some of them will see how they wasted their life, the damage they have done to their families, including their children, and they will actually look for an opportunity to turn around their lives after having made a major mistake and ending up in our prisons. In my State, we have a pretty well-deserved reputation for being tough on crime. I don't think anybody questions that, but we also realize we need to be smart on crime, and we need to look at how we achieve the best outcomes for the taxpayers and for the lives which can be salvaged and made productive through their hard work and the opportunity we have provided to them. We also realized that even though incarceration does work--I don't think anybody can dispute the fact that when somebody is in prison, they are not committing crimes in our communities and across the country--but here is the rub: One day almost all of them will be released from prison. The question then is, Will they be prepared to live a productive life or will they be that frequent flier who ends up back in prison through the turnstile of a criminal life? So in Texas we improved and increased programs designed to help men and women to take responsibility for their crimes and to prepare them for reentry into society. The results were pretty startling. Between 2007 and 2012, our overall rate of incarceration fell by 9.4 percent-- almost 10 percent--the crime rate dropped by 16 percent, and we saved more than $2 billion worth of taxpayer money and we were able to shutter three prison facilities in the process. I wish to return briefly to the crime rate. Former Attorney General Mukasey, a longtime Federal judge in New York, made the point that it is not the incarceration rate that measures the success of our sentencing practices, it is actually the crime rate. I know there are many people who feel we have overincarcerated, but I think we need to keep our eye on the ball; that is, on the crime rate. As a result of these reforms in Texas, our total crime rate dropped by 16 percent, something worth paying attention to, but even more impressive than these statistics are the stories I have heard from former inmates who have actually taken advantage of this opportunity to turn around their lives. They paint a powerful picture of how these reforms can be used and the potential impact of this legislation across the country. Again, nobody is naive enough to think everybody is going to have a turnaround story and experience like this, but last week I had the chance to visit with a number of faith-based and nonprofit groups in Houston this time, as well as some of the former inmates they have supported--all of whom are helping inmates prepare to reenter society set up for success rather than failure. I was particularly struck by the story of one young man by the name of Emilio Parker. By the time he was 33, Emilio had spent almost half of his life in prison, including several years in solitary confinement. He started using drugs at a very early age, and after he became addicted he found more and more opportunities for crime to feed his addiction. Spending so much time in prison leaves little chance to acquire skills to succeed once you are outside, but fortunately for Emilio he found the support needed in a group called SER-Jobs for Progress in Houston. SER stands for Service Employment Redevelopment. A strange acronym, SER, but it is a community group whose mission is to equip people such as Emilio for the workforce. Their organization has helped turn around many lives in astounding ways, and Emilio was no exception. When he started the job readiness program SER offered, he didn't know how to turn on a computer, but with their help he graduated with the program, and it helped put him on a new direction in life--one that did not include prison. His success represents the tremendous opportunity we have before us to enact similar reforms on the Federal level in order to offer rehabilitation to inmates, reduce crime, and save taxpayers' hard- earned money. Part of this legislation is to focus on the people most likely to take advantage of these opportunities, low- and medium-risk inmates. Indeed, what we offer them is credit, if they participate in these programs, to lesser confinement; for example, a halfway house or the like. These are the folks we believe are most likely to have learned from their experience in prison and will take advantage of the opportunity and turn around their lives. High-risk criminals who have made a life of crime I think are the least likely to take advantage of these programs and will not be available under this legislation. If it is successful, we might want to reconsider that and see whether it can be expanded. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act truly represents how the Senate was meant to function: in a bipartisan manner that can effect long-lasting change for the benefit of the American people. I thank Chairman Grassley for his leadership--this would not have happened without him--and his commitment to bring us together to develop a bill that provides needed reforms to our criminal justice system. This is an extraordinary moment, where we have people on differing ends of the political spectrum coming together and finding a place where we can reach consensus. I am particularly pleased, as I have indicated, that the CORRECTIONS Act, authored by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and me, is such a key part of this package. Pretty much everyone agrees our prisons are dangerously overcrowded and that recidivism rates--when offenders land back in prison--are too high. The hard part is coming up with a solution that addresses these problems and yet breaks the cycle of reincarceration without jeopardizing public safety. And nothing we are doing will jeopardize public safety. That should be the litmus test of anything we do. I do believe this legislation strikes that balance by building on our experience in Texas and other States across the country and focusing on rehabilitation for low-level offenders and tough sentences for hardened criminals. I know the Presiding Officer, who was attorney general of his State of Alaska, has had a lot of experience in this area. I remember in law school one of the things we learned is that one of the goals of our criminal justice system is to rehabilitate people--to help them turn around their lives--but over the years we have almost forgotten that. I think what we have demonstrated by the Texas experience--and other experience--is that through faith-based volunteers, through job training, through helping people deal with their drug and alcohol addiction--which oftentimes exacerbates their problems and puts them behind bars, like Emilio--we can literally offer a helping hand for those who will take advantage of it. For those who are truly nonviolent and low-level offenders, this bill does represent a second chance. This bill also reforms and improves law enforcement tools, such as mandatory minimum sentences, without eliminating them or reducing them across the board. This was a tough negotiation because, in particular, some of our Senators were focused on sentence reduction, but I have to say I have been very aware that we can't handle this on an across-the- board basis. Sentences have to be appropriate for the individual behavior and misconduct of the defendant themselves, not just some across-the-board panacea. By targeting those who are most likely to reoffend and teaching them how to succeed in the real world, we can not only reduce the crime rate--as our experience has shown in Texas--but help people turn around their lives and save billions of dollars. So at a time when the news likes to report the divisions and polarizations here in Washington--and there are plenty of important fights, and I am not opposed to fighting for principles, but there are a lot of areas like this where we can continue to work together productively. In fact, as I said earlier, the whole system of our Constitution was designed to force consensus before big decisions such as this are made. That is the way it should be because any time a minority or even one political party can force their will on the other party--as we have seen happen before--it doesn't end well. When our system works the way it should, by people of good faith coming together, seeing a problem, trying to come up with a solution, and working together on a bipartisan basis, our system works very well. I believe this is a good example. I look forward to working with all of our colleagues once this bill is voted out of the Judiciary Committee--which I believe it will be on Thursday--as we anticipate action here on the floor. Perhaps other Senators have other ideas that will actually improve the legislation we have crafted so far, but I do believe the President is amenable to considering a bill in this area. He has said so publicly. Again, this is another of those rare opportunities we can have to work together with the President to try to solve a problem, help save money, and help people turn around their lives. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, a few moments ago the Senate refused to move forward on an important piece of legislation, sometimes called the sanctuary cities bill. I want to explain for whoever may be listening and particularly for my colleagues what a terrible mistake our Democratic colleagues made--with the exception of two--by voting to block consideration of this piece of legislation. What this bill would do is withhold Federal funds from jurisdictions that basically violate current law--that violate the information- sharing requirement in immigration law, Section 642 of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Secondly, it would withhold Federal funds from those jurisdictions that refuse to honor the lawful, legal process known as the detainer, or request to notify Federal authorities if local law enforcement decides to release an illegal immigrant who happens to have been arrested for some other unrelated reason. This is a truly important issue. As we have seen from the news, Kate Steinle out in California was killed by somebody who had repeatedly violated our laws not only by entering the country illegally but also by committing offenses against the persons and property of American citizens. Essentially what happens is when local jurisdictions give up and refuse to honor the detainers or give notice to Federal authorities before they release individuals, then people are going to get hurt. The Kate Steinles of the world will get killed. In my State of Texas, we have had Houston police officers and other law enforcement personnel killed by illegal immigrants who have routinely broken our laws and have terrible criminal records. But if we can't get the cooperation of local law enforcement authorities to work with the Federal authorities, then unfortunately public safety will be harmed. I am going to pull back a little bit and ask my colleagues to look at this perhaps from 30,000 feet. There is a reason at the time our Constitution was written that article VI, clause 2 simply said the Federal law is the supreme law of the land. In other words, Federal laws trump State laws and local laws. If we think about it, as James Madison said, if we didn't have Federal law as the supreme law of the land, essentially the authority of the whole country--the elected officials, the President, the Congress, those serving in the Federal Government--the laws of the country would be made subordinate to the parts of the country--the cities, the counties, the States--that essentially defy Federal law, and our system would be in chaos. Indeed, what our colleagues across the aisle appear to have ratified here is not one Nation under the law, but a confederation of different jurisdictions that can pick and choose what laws they want to comply with. That is a recipe for chaos. One of the reasons I think the American people are so angry with what they see happening in Washington these days--indeed, I think they have moved beyond anger to fear. They are fearful for the future of our country. When we see individual cities and States effectively nullify Federal law by refusing to cooperate or saying: We don't care what the Federal Government says; we are going to impose our own will, this is a recipe for chaos and for the very fabric of our country to unravel. At different points in our Nation's history we have had States which said: We aren't going to respect Federal law; we are going to nullify it, in effect. That is what these cities that defy the Federal authorities and the supremacy of Federal law are doing. They are saying we don't have to comply with the law, and so the American people--I think out of apprehension over what they see happening here when States, cities, and other jurisdictions decide to pick and choose which laws will apply--realize this is a recipe for disunity and, in this case, for danger. The people whom we are fighting for are families and communities that want to live in peace and safety in their local communities. That is what this legislation is about. This legislation, of course, is called Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act. All it does, simply stated, is to restore law and order across the country and to hold certain cities that want to defy Federal law accountable. It would limit Federal funding for State and local governments that refuse to cooperate. Basically, the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act encourages compliance with Federal law, as I said a moment ago, and uses the power of the purse to withhold Federal funds from those jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with the Federal law. The goal, as I said, is to protect our communities from those who would pose a danger to our society. It does not target legal immigrants who seek to live a law-abiding and productive life here. Frankly, I do not understand the Democrats'--with the exception of two who voted to get on this legislation and offer amendments and constructive suggestions--refusal to move this legislation forward, because it harms the public safety and it causes our country to become a confederation of different jurisdictions that can pick and choose which laws they want to enforce. I mentioned one terrible incident over the summer, the murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant with a known and lengthy criminal record. This is just one example. This sad story poignantly demonstrates the consequences of the administration's abject failure when it comes to enforcing our immigration laws. People get hurt. People get killed. This legislation would address the root cause of this tragedy by targeting criminal aliens and those local entities that refuse to do anything to help the Kate Steinles of the world, and it would specifically serve to counter the policies of those city governments, such as San Francisco, that are known to shield criminal aliens from deportation. They openly defy the 1996 Federal law that requires information sharing. They openly refuse to cooperate with Federal orders and detainers and to notify the Federal Government when people are released from their jail sentence even though they know there is an outstanding deportation order pending. This bill also extends the mandatory minimum sentence for those who attempt to reenter the country after being removed for breaking our laws. Time and again we are met with the tragic news of some other American citizen who was killed, injured or assaulted by somebody who has reentered the country, after being removed for violating our laws, and keeps coming back and committing other criminal acts. We need to send a clear signal to those who attempt to enter our country illegally and violate and ignore our laws that they will have to answer for them and certainly will not be allowed to come back. Some have rightly noted that this bill is not about immigration reform, and I agree. This bill is simply about enforcing our current law and holding those jurisdictions that refuse to comply with current law accountable by withholding Federal funds. This legislation underscores the concept that, unbelievably, has been lost among municipalities across the country. Despite what the current administration might have us think, upholding the Federal law is not a suggestion. It is a legal requirement for all of us. We can't, in good faith, ask the American people to trust us when it comes to reforming our broken immigration system until they see us willing to stand up and enforce the laws that are currently on the books and hold those jurisdictions, municipalities, States, and other local entities that refuse to comply with Federal law accountable. That is why organizations such as the National Sheriffs' Association and the National Association of Police Organizations have voiced their support for this legislation. To sum up, the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act really serves as a confidence-building exercise for Congress. If the American people don't see us actually stepping up and demanding that local jurisdictions enforce current law, how can they expect us to pass complex immigration reform legislation to address our broken immigration system? Unfortunately, in this confidence-building exercise, the Senate, led by our colleagues across the aisle, has failed in that confidence-building exercise. What they have done is to reinforce the belief that there are Members of the Senate who believe that local jurisdictions can openly defy Federal law and there will be no recourse and no accountability. Frankly, it is hard for me to understand how our Democratic colleagues can, in good conscience, block this legislation, given some of the horrific crimes that have occurred, such as the crime that was committed against Kate Steinle in San Francisco. There are many, many, many tragic examples of this happening over and over in our country. This was our opportunity to do something about it, but unfortunately, for reasons unbeknownst to me, our Democratic colleagues will not even allow us to pass a bill which will hold jurisdictions that refuse to enforce current Federal law accountable. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, following the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 2028 on Thursday, October 8, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 123, 266, 267, 300, 325 through 328, 330, 331, and 335; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate; that following disposition of the nominations, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nominations; that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. CORNYN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I know the President is traveling to Oregon tomorrow. There is a lot of focus, and appropriately so, on the tragedy that occurred last Thursday afternoon in Oregon. I want to start out my remarks this morning by offering, again, our deepest condolences and heartfelt prayers to the families and friends who suffered so much in what seems like a senseless act of violence. Perhaps stating the obvious, that it is terrible for our Nation to experience yet another tragedy like this, what I hope is that we don't become numb to hearing these reports so we end up being frozen into inaction or dysfunction but that we actually look for ways to try to work together to try to make some progress to deal with the root causes of incidents like this. For the family and friends of those who lost loved ones last week-- like so many others who have lost children, their friends, and siblings in one of these shootings--we know the emotions are still raw and real. So it is with great deference to those who have suffered this loss that I wish to discuss what I believe to be one of the major contributing factors to these seemingly senseless acts of violence that have occurred across the country, and I will talk a little bit about some legislation which I have introduced which I think will actually help us address one of those root causes. The legislation I have introduced is called the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act. I believe it would bring real change to our Nation and provide help to those struggling with mental illness. This bill would empower families with more options for their loved ones. I think about the mother of Adam Lanza, the shooter at Sandy Hook, and how she knew her son was suffering from mental illness, but basically she didn't have any options other than to let him continue to descend and become sicker and sicker or to go to court and seek an involuntary commitment for a temporary period of time. So to make sure that families like Adam Lanza's and like the mother of the Oregon shooter--she said her son seemed to be doing fine as long as he took his medication, but when he quit taking his medication, he would become a real problem because he would get sicker and act out. The legislation I have introduced attempts to strengthen the safety of our communities by providing families with more options when it comes to treating people with mental illness and treating them different from common criminals. We know the majority of inmates at our jails in America are people with mental illness. They may have committed some petty crime because of their mental illness, and frequently, because of their attempts to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, they get in trouble with the law. But rather than just lock them up, wouldn't it be so much better if we could get at the root causes of their mental illness and the reason they show up there in the first place? That is actually the goal of some very innovative programs I will mention in just a moment, but the goal of my bill that I introduced in August is to support families before it is too late and to provide a path to recovery and healing for the mentally ill. Proactively treating those with mental problems is a vital component to reducing the risk of violence in towns and cities across the country. This bill would help the whole community, including families, as I mentioned, and schools. Certainly teachers and administrators at schools are privy to information and know things or suspect things that could be very helpful in providing assistance to families and those suffering from mental illness. It would also help law enforcement, providing them the training to spot the warning signs of individuals who could become a danger to themselves and others. Many of the provisions of this legislation are based on policies that have been proven effective in State and local jurisdictions around the country. Recently, I was in San Antonio--my hometown and where I served as a district judge. In August I had an opportunity to visit with those in the San Antonio area who have taken a leading role in coming up with new and innovative ways to approach this issue, including one of the leaders of that effort, Sheriff Susan Pamerleau. She championed those reforms, made our community safer, and provided families with alternatives to an endless cycle of incarceration for people with mental illness who don't actually get their symptoms and the cause of their problems treated. The mental health program in Bexar County, which is the county where San Antonio is located, is now touted as the national standard for how to think strategically about those suffering from mental illness in our criminal justice system. The legislation I have introduced will help institute some of these best practices at the national level. This legislation would empower families who struggle to find help for their mentally ill loved ones and encourage the development of mental health awareness programs in schools to help educators identify students with mental illness and provide them with the resources and treatment they need. It also includes specialized training for those on the frontlines, such as law enforcement. I heard in San Antonio recently that because of the training law enforcement receives, they have been able to reduce, if not almost completely eliminate, the violence that occurs when a police officer arrives at a call and encounters someone who is mentally ill. By providing the specialized training, you can deescalate the violence and allow the officer to direct the person to a place where they can actually get some help. This legislation would also encourage State and local governments to create pretrial screening and assessment programs to identify mentally ill offenders, provide need-based treatment, and develop post-release supervision plans so they don't become a danger to themselves and others. This bill also strengthens the current background check system by incentivizing information sharing among the States so that law enforcement has appropriate information regarding individuals with adjudicated mental illness in the criminal justice system. One example that is pretty close to Washington, DC, is the Virginia Tech shooter, who actually had been adjudicated mentally ill, but the State of Virginia had not uploaded that information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System maintained by the FBI. So when he purchased a firearm, it did not show that he was disqualified, as he would have been if that information had been uploaded to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Trying to make it easier for the States to put information into the system is one of the goals of this legislation. I hope my colleagues will view this as a commonsense attempt to try to make a significant step forward that will help not only those with mental illness get the help they need but also equip our Nation's law enforcement officers to perform their jobs. Last week, more than 20 mental health organizations sent a letter to Members of the House advocating for mental health reform, calling the need ``urgent'' to ``improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans, their families, and our communities.'' We need to listen to them, and we need to act. I know from reports that some of our Democratic colleagues have said they are going to introduce some gun control legislation that we all know has been tried before and cannot pass this Chamber. What we need instead is a broad consensus to try to get something done that can bring people together, and I believe my legislation can do that by addressing the root cause of some of these horrific events--again, mental illness. So instead of calling each other names, as the minority leader did on the floor last week, I would invite our colleagues across the aisle to do something constructive and to work together on this legislation. The Mental Health and Safe Communities Act is a serious proposal and will take important steps toward preventing additional tragedies across the country. I think many of us understand that mental health reform, generally speaking, is long overdue, and this is an issue many groups in the mental health community support. I should point out that there are many other organizations that support this legislation as well. Just to make my point about this being consensus legislation, I will mention some of the organizations that are supporting the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act: the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Association of Police Organizations, the American Correctional Association, the American Jail Association, the Council of State Governments, the Treatment Advocacy Center, the National Association of Social Workers, and the National Rifle Association. Madam President, I daresay that you won't find a group like that coming together on many issues, but on this legislation, on which we worked very closely with them, they have actually been able to settle some of their differences and meet each other on common ground in a way that I think gives us hope that we can actually get some legislation passed and send it to the President. That will actually provide help to people like Adam Lanza's mother or the mother of the shooter in Oregon, who had nowhere else to turn, under the current state of the law, in order to get her son to comply with his doctor's orders to take his medication. Thanks to the miracle of modern medical science, there are miraculous medications that can help people suffering from mental illness lead productive and relatively normal lives. I encourage my colleagues to consider how we can move this conversation forward in a way that results in real, positive change for our country--above the polarizing rhetoric and political gamesmanship that tends to characterize too much of what we do here in Washington and certainly on this topic. Last week President Obama addressed the Nation after this horrific incident in Oregon. I believe his emotions were real, but unfortunately he didn't offer any concrete solutions to the problem. He said, among other things, that making our communities safer will require changing our laws. He went on to say that Congress needs to put forward such legislation, and that what is I have tried to do. I am pleased that the President indicated his interest and concerns, but the real question is, Will the President work with us on legislation that actually offers solutions or will it just be a matter of grandstanding? Will our Senate colleagues offer legislation that previously has shown it cannot move in the Senate and render us dysfunctional or will they work together in a bipartisan way to try to find common ground and real solutions? I think that is the question. I would ask our colleagues who are offering legislation--sort of relitigating some of these issues on which we haven't been able to find consensus--which of these proposals would have actually gone on to address the root causes of some of these incidents in the past? I think that is a very important question because if you are interested in demagoguing an issue, you can talk about that and offer purported solutions which can't pass and which actually would not have changed the outcome. What I have tried to do is figure a way that--OK, given our differences on this issue, how can we find that common ground and offer solutions? Through this legislation, we would give families a way to help their mentally ill family members. We would help schools appropriately identify and respond to someone with mental illness. We would improve the response of law enforcement and the criminal justice system to make sure that mentally ill individuals do not become dangerous to themselves and others. We would work to help the States fix the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. We would reduce the stigma associated with mental illness by protecting due process rights of the mentally ill. I was somewhat taken aback and disturbed when I saw a story this morning in Politico: ``Dems ready sweeping new guns bill.'' One of the statements in the article jumped out at me. It says: ``Democratic leaders are wary that their rank and file could defect and begin supporting the Cornyn bill.'' So actually, according to this article, what is occurring is, rather than looking to find consensus or to join together to support legislation that might actually help solve the problem, some in the Democratic leadership are actively lobbying their own Members not to get on legislation or support legislation that might actually pass and might actually work. That strikes me as incredibly cynical and doesn't demonstrate an interest in actually solving the problem but, rather, political grandstanding. I would encourage all of our colleagues, regardless of where you stand on this issue, let's try to figure out a way to move forward. We have a real opportunity to address the common element found in most of these mass shootings, and we don't have any time to waste. We can do better for the American people and get the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act done. Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2015, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Ensuring an Efficient and Effective Diplomatic Security Training Facility for the Twenty-first Century.''