John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the 114th Congress is just a little over 100 days old now, but we have actually seen what used to be called the world's greatest deliberative body actually get back to work and be producing results for the American people. Just a few months into this session, we have passed important legislation, from a budget--we will perhaps, as early as Tuesday, pass the first budget since 2009. We repaired something called the doc fix, which maybe is inelegantly named but basically fixed a problem that had been lurking since 1977, when somehow we got the idea that we would be able to save money by cutting the reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals. Then we were shocked, absolutely shocked, that some doctors would not see Medicare patients and some hospitals could not afford to build or expand in rural areas and the like. Well, we got that off the table as well. Then, I am glad to say, last week we were able to pass some major antitrafficking legislation which, of course, dealt with the victims of human trafficking, the profile of which is about a 12- to 14-year-old girl who is literally in human bondage. So we have done some, I think, good work. There is a lot more we need to do. Of course, the present legislation that enjoys broad bipartisan support is the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015. I, too, commend the chairman and the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. I know this can be a frustrating process because other Members of the Senate now have ideas they want to offer by way of amendment. We are working through this. I think this will test their patience and ours in the process. But this Chamber is poised to continue in the spirit of bipartisanship on other important issues as well: trade promotion authority, which, to me, is the essential link between us and the ability to pass important trade agreements. Texas, as the Presiding Officer knows, is the leading export State in the Nation. We benefit from that because we understand that when you have markets for the things we grow or the livestock we raise or the manufactured goods we make, it is good for our economy, it is good for job creation. Well, trade promotion authority will be good for hard- working Texas families and families all across the country. But there is another area that may not seem of great significance but I think is important, where I think we have another opportunity. That has to do with patent reform and particularly lawsuit abuse reform. Now, patents do not just affect the technology sector. They just do not affect the financial sector and Wall Street. It literally is a Main Street problem because you have restaurants now, you have real estate agents, you have hotels, motels, you have construction companies that have been sued by patent trolls, people who do not make anything, merely they hold a license to a patent and use that to file-- frequently--frivolous litigation in order to literally shake down the defendant. Many times it is people who cannot adequately defend themselves. Maybe they are a startup business, an innovator who has come up with a new idea or a better idea and they are thinly capitalized. Can you imagine what happens when they get sued by the patent trolls? Well, it is a sad and short story. Either they have to capitulate and pay the ransom or they go out of business entirely. But patent reform is an issue whose time has come again. It is one I have been involved in for a number of years in the Senate. In 2011, after years of negotiations, Congress passed something called the America Invents Act. This is the first major patent reform in decades. This is something that makes America unique. You know, in Texas we believe in property rights. Well, what we are talking about is intellectual property rights. But when somebody smart or creative or innovative comes up with a better idea, our Constitution and our laws provide a means to protect that against people who would take it or steal it or infringe upon it. That is why patent law is so important. But one of the issues left unaddressed was this rising tide of lawsuits and the threat of litigation, of which a wider and wider swath of stakeholders are now complaining loudly--again, not just the big technology firms but restaurants, hotels, motels, builders, real estate agents, and the like. So, in 2013, a number of Members of Congress began working on this legislation to address those frivolous claims, which really kill jobs because it kills innovation in the process. Bills were introduced in the House and the Senate targeting the various aspects of this problem but focusing primarily on lawsuit abuse, lawsuits brought not to vindicate a legitimate claim by somebody who actually has lost something of value but merely somebody who is a holder of a license to sue, in essence, and uses it to shake down these small startup companies and innovators. Well, we were able to see the passage, in December of 2013, of something called the Innovation Act in the House of Representatives. That legislation passed overwhelmingly, 325 to 91, with almost all Republicans and the bulk of Democrats supporting the bill. Here is the other thing. This is not just a Democratic or Republican issue. This is something the administration wholeheartedly supports. In fact, this is one of the stories I told last year as I was traveling around Texas and elsewhere as evidence of the dysfunction, because, I asked: If Republicans are for something and Democrats are for something, if the majority of Congress is for it and the White House is for it, why is it we can't get it done? Well, the obstacle to getting it done was eliminated with the new majority in the Senate. So I think we are poised to take good action here very soon. We are in a new Congress with a new leadership and a new majority. That is everything when it comes to reforming our broken patent system. Today, we had a broad bipartisan group of people, from the ranking member and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the former chairman, Senator Hatch, to Senator Schumer, who is in the leadership of the Democrats in the Senate, Senator Klobuchar, and Senator Lee. All of us announced this broad, bipartisan support for a new piece of patent reform legislation designed to attack this problem of lawsuit abuse and the shakedown of America's innovators and job creators and technology creators. So Republicans and Democrats alike have come to realize that under the status quo, too many of our most promising innovators, not to mention other businesses, are wasting time and money in frivolous, costly litigation. This legislation takes a number of commonsense steps that ends the exploitation of these so-called patent trolls. Many of those are not particularly earth-shaking, but the culmination of them, I think, will have a real positive impact on this problem. First, it would require plaintiff's in patent cases to simply explain the substance of their claim when filing the initial lawsuit. What frequently happens is a lawsuit will be filed with no real detail as to the nature of the claim or the infringement of the patent. Then there would ensue costly and time-consuming discovery, until finally the plaintiff would figure out some claim they could make to hang their hat on. Well, we eliminate that by requiring upfront specific notice of what the infringement is in the nature of the claim. Second, it would stay cases against the end users, including restaurants, motels, hotels, construction companies, and the like, and would give the party with the major incentive to defend the case the opportunity to do so. So the person who is actually responsible for the manufacture of a product--let's say a Wi-Fi device--the manufacturer would defend that case and not the hotel or motel that happened to deploy that Wi-Fi device in their hotel or their motel. Third, the bill would bring greater fairness to the discovery process by limiting discovery until the court resolves threshold motions in the case. This is important because the court is going to have to make a decision whether this is a legitimate case that could go on and thus authorize the expensive and time-consuming discovery. If it is not a legitimate case, then that is the time for the court to address it by a motion to dismiss or some other legal device. Fourth, it would curb the practice of sending abusive demand letters. What I have learned is that in patent litigation these days, there would be demand letters which literally would carpet bomb the people who were using some of this innovation, in an effort to shake them down. It causes a lot of expense, delay, and other consternation. Fifth--and this is perhaps one of the most critical elements--it would allow courts to shift responsibility for the cost of patent litigation more often to the losing party when the court finds that the claim was not a reasonable claim to be brought. In other words, it was a privileged claim. So no longer can you file a lawsuit and pursue it, even though it is a bogus case, without any fear of actually having to pay the costs of the other side that prevails in a case involving an unreasonable use of the legal process. So I believe, as many of my colleagues do, that these are sensible reforms, and it is one way we can take a step to protect better the access to justice for plaintiffs with legitimate claims of infringement and to deter those who simply abuse the system. This is another promising area where I think the 114th Congress can distinguish itself from the 113th and previous Congresses by showing we can actually work together to try to solve real problems in a bipartisan way that hopefully will improve life just a little bit for the people we represent. Entrepreneurs in Texas and throughout the country need this legislation to protect them from abuse of patent litigation practices that have burdened America's private sector for far too long. The last point I would make is that I saw this morning the news that, basically, America's economy did not grow in the last quarter. Basically, the gross domestic product was, I think, a 0.2 percent increase. That is simply too slow of an economic growth to create the jobs we need for the population increases we are seeing. So if we are going to get our economy growing again, which is the best way to raise the wages of hard-working American families, we are going to need to do a number of things, such as reform our tax system. We are going to need to rein in overreaching regulation, which is a wet blanket on the private sector and on job creation, and we are going to need to do efforts such as patent reform, as in this litigation reform legislation I have just been talking about. That will unleash this sleeping giant of the great American economy for the benefit of all Americans once again. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, today and for the next few days we will have the opportunity to consider a very important piece of legislation, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015--a piece of legislation that, like all the legislation we consider here, is important, but this particular legislation is important to our national security and, indeed, it is important to the peace and security of our allies around the world. This bill represents a good, bipartisan effort. It passed unanimously out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a vote of 19 to 0 earlier this month. The reason this legislation is so important is because it would guarantee Congress the opportunity and the time necessary to scrutinize any agreement reached between the Obama administration and the P5+1 nations that are currently negotiating on the Iranian nuclear capacity. It would also prohibit the President from lifting sanctions on Iran during this period of review. This is not important because we are U.S. Senators; this is important because we represent the American people, and the American people need to understand what is in this agreement and what it means to their safety and security and to that of future generations. I think it is critical that Congress have this opportunity to understand completely and thoroughly any deal that is cut between this administration and Iran and, of course, its implications, particularly on a matter that is so vital to our national security. If the Congress can have a voice on ongoing trade negotiations--which we do--with many of our allies, how much more so should Congress have, at the very least, a review of the final negotiated deal with one of our stated adversaries? As I have made clear before, I have serious reservations about the framework that has been announced with Iran. This framework, as it is called, is right now very vague, and it strikes me as somewhat convoluted. It also represents a significant departure from longstanding U.S. policy to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon and instead puts us on a path--a feeble path, at that--to try to contain an Iranian nuclear weapon. Such an outcome is irresponsible, unacceptable, and dangerous. We simply cannot trust the Iranian leadership with threshold nuclear capabilities, which is exactly what the President's framework would do at this point. The concept of good-faith negotiations between us and Iran is a fantasy. Iran is a rogue regime and the world's foremost sponsor of international terrorism, and to trust them--to trust them--would be laughable and also reckless. Iran and its proxies have been attacking and killing Americans and attempting to undermine our national security interests for at least the last three decades. Unfortunately, Iran's proxy war throughout the Middle East is well documented. Right at this moment, Iran's regional adventurism continues to destabilize areas where American interests are at stake, including war-torn Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. Even more worrisome, Iranian officials have publicly stated that even during this period of ``understanding,'' while the details are being worked out, Iran has made clear that its true intentions are to destroy one of the United States' most stalwart allies, Israel, and to further Iran's aspiration as a regional hegemon and Iranian empire. This is the kind of country--a country that has been on our own State Department's sponsors of terrorism list since 1984. This is the administration that is being negotiated with by the Secretary of State and the Obama administration's representatives. That is why this bill is so important, because we need a congressional backstop against an Iranian regime that is well known for being deceptive and, frankly, lying to international institutions and inspectors. One thing this legislation does do, which I applaud, is it guarantees Congress the time and the opportunity for us to scrutinize, debate, and judge this deal if it is made by the summer. Many of our Senate colleagues have ideas about how to further improve the bill, which is admittedly not perfect. No piece of legislation ever is. I look forward to a lively and healthy debate on the Senate floor. This will be an important debate on a serious matter of national security and one that has a clear ramification for generations yet to come. That is what the United States--the Founders of our country-- designed the Senate for. I expect the Senate will be doing what only it can do--having a lively debate, having a fulsome review of this legislation, and then voting on the outcome. But I am thankful to those who produced this bipartisan piece of legislation, and I am glad that we are united in our strong belief that robust congressional review of any potential Iranian deal is an absolute necessity. On behalf of the American people, America's elected representatives should be able to get any and every detail on this emerging deal. We should have the time and the space to review it and make sure we understand its terms and its implications. We need to be able in this debate to voice our concerns and ultimately have a timely opportunity to prevent this deal from being implemented if we conclude in the end that it is not in America's best interests. Going forward, I hope the spirit of bipartisanship that has brought us this far, so far, is evidenced in this Chamber over the debate that will ensue. I look forward to discussing this legislation and providing a clear path for congressional review of any potential deal President Obama may make with Iran. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Cotton), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am happy to stand here today knowing that the Senate has had a pretty good week of getting its work done--or I should say the people's work done--and overwhelmingly passing important legislation that will actually help, first of all, victims of human trafficking, but generally speaking, help make the lives of our constituents, the American people, just a little bit better. I am talking about the antitrafficking legislation in particular--something I am particularly excited about--the unanimous, 99-to-0 vote yesterday. We passed this piece of legislation after a hard-fought few weeks of debate. The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act was a bill we all agree was worth fighting for. Why? Is this important to the rich and powerful, the people who have a lot of influence here in Washington and around the country? No. We thought it was worth fighting for because it would help the people who, frankly, need a voice. They need somebody to speak up for them because they can't speak for themselves. This antitrafficking bill, the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, protects the most vulnerable people in our country. I thank the majority leader for his tireless help and commitment to making sure we got this job done to fight this monstrous crime and punish those who seek to hold our children in what has been appropriately called nothing less than modern-day slavery. As the majority leader said yesterday, today is a new day. Under his leadership, the Senate is now in a new era of bipartisanship and functioning. If there is one thing I heard last year as I was campaigning for reelection in Texas or traveling around the country--I am sure the Presiding Officer had the same experience--it is that people would tell me how frustrated they were with Washington and the fact that no one seemed to be working together to try to solve the problems that were making their lives more difficult. ``Dysfunction'' was the word most commonly used. But now, after this first 100 days of a new Congress, I think we are demonstrating that we are capable of functioning and working together in the best interest of the American people. Does that mean we are sacrificing our principles? People are Republicans or Democrats for good reason: They have a different point of view. But what is inexcusable is for Republicans and Democrats to refuse to work together and get nothing done. We have a colleague, a very conservative colleague who years ago told me, while working with a very liberal colleague--I asked him: How is it that somebody who really represents the book ends in terms of ideology--Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative--how is it that you actually are able to get things done? He said to me: Well, it is easy. It is the 80-20 rule. We take the 80 percent we can agree on and we leave the 20 percent we can't agree on for another day and another fight. As we are celebrating, in a sense, a new era of bipartisanship and functioning here in the Senate, it is clear we can't rest on our laurels. We still have a lot of work to do, and I would like to spend a couple minutes talking about that. Our upcoming agenda will include some very important and weighty matters, including the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which will give Congress the ability and time to scrutinize any agreement reached between the Obama administration and the P5+1 nations, while also prohibiting the President from lifting sanctions on Iran during this period of review. This commonsense bill was unanimously reported out last week by the Foreign Relations Committee. I think that is a little bit of a surprise to many given the fact that the President initially said that if Congress were to pass this sort of legislation giving the American people a voice in this nuclear agreement, he would veto it. Well, when this came roaring out of the Foreign Relations Committee with unanimous support and when it became clear that enough Democrats were going to join together with Republicans to pass this legislation and prevent a veto by having enough votes to override a veto, then the President very commonsensically said: Well, I think I will sign it. I will agree to go along with that. So the President finally agreed with Republicans and Democrats in the Senate that congressional oversight was warranted and admitted last week that he would not stand in the way of this legislation. We are here not to guard our own prerogatives or privileges as individual Senators. That means essentially nothing. What we are here for is to stand in the shoes of our constituents--the 26.9 million people whom I represent in Texas, the people of Arkansas whom the Presiding Officer represents--and it is absolutely critical that we, as the representatives of the American people, have the opportunity to review this Iran deal and to consider its implications, to debate it, and to make that entirely transparent to the American people because this is about not just the national security of the nation of Israel, this is about our national security as well as that of our other allies. We will spend much of the next few days and perhaps through next week discussing this bill, so I won't belabor my thoughts on that at this time, but I did want to express a few concerns on the current state of the proposed framework with Iran. On April 2, President Obama announced not a deal with Iran but a ``historic understanding with Iran.'' Well, people naturally asked: What does that understanding look like? What does it consist of? Where can I get a copy of it so I can read it? To our surprise, there wasn't a deal. Nothing was written. It was somehow a historic understanding that--even the parties who negotiated it disagreed about the details. So it should come as no surprise that the President and the P5+1 countries have not been able to secure an actual deal with Iran, which is our biggest threat and most dangerous adversary in the Middle East. After all, let's think about whom we are talking to and with--the nation of Iran. This is the No. 1 state sponsor of international terrorism, a country that has repeatedly lied to and deceived inspectors in the past as a matter of standard operating procedure. As Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel reminded us just last month, for more than 30 years Iran has been hostile to America and her allies. In fact, Iran first killed Americans back in the early 1980s and has subsequently killed Americans mainly through proxies since that time until the present time. This is the same regime that has continued to target the United States since 1979. It is the same regime that has been on the State Department's terrorism blacklist since 1984 following an Iran-backed terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of American servicemen, including many from my State. Given this track record, does anybody really wonder what Iran would do with a nuclear weapon? As these important negotiations continue for the next months, there remain a lot of question marks about Iran's true intentions and about whether the deal--once it is done--the Obama administration is finalizing will essentially cement Iran's status as a nuclear threshold nation. I remember Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking to a joint meeting of the Congress. He said the framework he has seen doesn't prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. What he said is that essentially the framework paves the way or paves the path to a nuclear weapon, which, of course, would represent a tremendous change in American policy. Our policy has been--the administration's policy has been, as stated, no nukes for Iran, none. But at least according to the framework that has been leaked, there appears to be more of the nature of a pathway toward a nuclear weapon as opposed to a prohibition. I look forward to continuing the discussion in the coming days, but Iran is only one issue we will be turning to as the Senate continues to work on bipartisan legislation to get work done for the American people. We will be working on the very important issue of trade. Trade is important to my State, and it is important to the United States. Anytime we can open new markets to the things we grow in our agricultural sector or the livestock we raise--the beef, pork, poultry sector--anytime we can create and open new markets to the things we manufacture and we make in the United States, it strikes me it is a good thing, because while we occupy only 5 percent of the world's territory, we constitute 20 percent of the purchasing power in the world. That means 95 percent of the population--80 percent of the purchasing power in the world--lies beyond our shores. It just makes sense to me that we would want to open our markets, our goods that we make and grow and raise to markets overseas; in this case, primarily to Asia. But once we take up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, once it is negotiated, then at some future point we will turn to Europe and the so-called TTIP negotiation. Last night, I am glad to report that the Finance Committee reported out the trade promotion authority piece of this legislation. This is something that has been a little bit misunderstood and, frankly, it is a little confusing. People have asked, Why in the world would you want to give the President authority to negotiate this Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiation? The simple answer is this trade promotion authority is not just for President Obama and his administration--he is only going to be there for the next 20 months. This will last for 6 years and go into the next Presidential administration. The fact is, you can't negotiate something as complex as a trade deal like the Trans-Pacific Partnership with 535 negotiators; in other words, all the Members of the Senate and all the Members of the House. But what this does provide is that once a deal is reached, it has to be laid before the Congress and it has to be laid before the American people so they can read it and understand it. After about 6 months, then there will be a debate in the Senate, and we will have an up-or-down vote. If we do not think it serves the interests of the United States, of our citizens and of our country, we can vote it down. But conversely, if we think this does improve trade and the economic prospects, jobs and wages for the American people, then we can vote to approve it. This bill will open American goods and services to global markets, which is good for our economy, good for jobs, and good for better wages, something that has been under a lot of negative pressure over the last few years. To sum up this week, we passed legislation that will help thousands of victims of modern-day slavery--typically, a girl between the ages of 12 and 14--who are routinely sex trafficked in our own backyards. This will provide real resources. It will not only help rescue them but begin to help them heal and to begin the path to restoration. I think this should be a proud accomplishment for the Senate. But the bottom line is, we still have a lot of work to do, and I look forward to more accomplishments with my colleagues and for the new spirit of bipartisanship to continue as we tackle real problems for the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. 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 Texas (Mr. Cruz).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment No. 1127.

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

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if I could just say in the next 30 seconds or so that the first amendment we will vote on reauthorizes the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, which is something that we all support, which permits treatment of victims of human trafficking without discrimination. It also happens to be paid for, something that the Leahy amendment is not. Right now, most faith-based organizations, such as Catholic Charities, treat all victims of human trafficking without regard to sexual orientation, gender issues, and the like--as I am proud to say they should. But there is nothing--we have been told that the various faith-based organizations worry that the Federal Government is basically going to intervene and tell them whom they can hire and what their administration and implementation practices must be. That is why almost uniformly, faith-based organizations that would be eligible for the grants to help the victims of human trafficking say that this would render this administration of this victims trafficking fund legislation unworkable. I ask my colleagues to support the Cornyn amendment, to vote against the Leahy amendment, and let's get this done. I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz).

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

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

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

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to say very briefly--I know the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee is on the floor to speak on an important matter--I would like to express my gratitude to the majority leader for his determination to see this Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act come to completion in the Senate, which it will this afternoon. It would not have happened without his determination to make it happen. Amendment No. 1120 Withdrawn

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I withdraw my amendment No. 1120.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I offer amendment No. 1124.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. Finally, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that H.R. 710 be discharged from the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and be referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.