John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last week, Congress notched another bipartisan win for the American people. A bill I reintroduced earlier this year, along with Senator Markey from Massachusetts, was signed into law finally establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday. This bill was unanimously supported in the Senate and got an overwhelming vote in the House of Representatives. I was honored to be with President Biden at the White House when he signed it into law late last week. It was even more special to celebrate with my fellow Texans over the weekend. On Saturday, I was honored to spend the very first Juneteenth National Independence Day in Galveston, where Major General Gordon Granger and his troops declared that all slaves were ``forever free.'' This happened 2\1/2\ years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and just a couple of months after hostilities between the North and the South had ended, but communication being what it is across the huge country, particularly at that time, it took 2\1/2\ years for the message to get to the former slaves in Galveston, TX, where Juneteenth has been celebrated for many, many years. In my State alone, we celebrated Juneteenth for 40 years as a State holiday. I could not have been more happy to take a piece of history with me, a copy of the bipartisan bill that helped preserve the legacy of Juneteenth for generations to come. This is just one item in a significant list of bipartisan accomplishments we have made in an equally divided Senate, which we all know is no small thing. We passed legislation to confront the growing threats of China; to ensure more businesses can grab onto the lifeline of the Paycheck Protection Program, one of the most significant items of economic assistance that we were able to provide during the COVID-19 virus; we provided States with additional resources to upgrade their drinking water and wastewater infrastructure; and we passed legislation to combat hate crimes against Asian Americans. So the truth is, notwithstanding what it may look like in the news or on cable TV or on social media, every day, our colleagues here in the Senate continue to work across the aisle to find consensus and to craft legislation with bipartisan support where we can. I tell people that legislation is hard to pass by design, and our current rules require us to do the hard work of actually building consensus on a bipartisan basis before we can pass legislation, particularly in the Senate. We continue to do our work in other important areas like infrastructure, which has been the subject of so much attention and debate; to do police reform; to deal with the high price of prescription drugs. Republicans and Democrats continue to work together to address some of our most urgent problems. This week, unfortunately, the majority leader, the Senator from New York, has decided to take another tack. He has chosen to spend the Senate's time on partisan legislation that simply has no chance of becoming law. That is his choice. He gets to set the agenda, and our only role is to show up, debate the bill, and cast our ballot. Our Democratic colleagues have given the marquee treatment, a bill known as S. 1, with the symbolic numbering of the bill as the first, meaning the most important bill in their agenda. But rather than a bipartisan bill that will be good for the entire country, not just one political party or the other, the majority leader has chosen to tee up this massive Federal election takeover bill. This legislation first popped in 2019, when the newly elected Democratic majority in the House went on a messaging bill spree. A messaging bill is one that you really know will never become law, but it sends a message. Over the last 2 years, they tried out a range of different marketing strategies. That is really all it is. It is not about passing legislation. It is about sending a message, trying to gain partisan political advantage. They tried a range of marketing strategies to convince the American people that this overhaul to our election system is necessary. At one point, it was a matter of election security, then of voter confidence, then a way to remove obstacles that prevented people of color from voting. Well, I have some news for them. In 2020, we saw a record election turnout. Two-thirds of all eligible voters cast a ballot. That was the highest turnout in 120 years. It wasn't confined to any single racial or ethnic group; it was across the board. We saw African-American voter participation at virtually an alltime high--the same with Hispanics and every other ethnic and racial group. Notwithstanding the facts that people are turning out to vote in historic numbers, they had to come up with a new sales pitch. They had to attack the efforts in the States to pass their own election laws, which handle the time and manner in which State elections are run. And, to me, the consistent theme was making it easier to vote and harder to cheat. To me, that is the simple message I think we ought to be sending when it comes to our election laws. That is what our colleagues latched onto. But over the last few months, they twisted and turned and manipulated the facts beyond any recognition. They tried to frame new State voting laws as the impetus or the reason justifying this massive Federal takeover--unconstitutional, in my view--takeover of State voting laws. They painted an alarming picture of the assault on voter access. But if you actually take time to look at these so-called restrictions in voting, you will find they are more generous than the current law in many Democratic-controlled States. There is no better example than the Georgia law, which came under national scrutiny for enacting reforms that would give Georgia voters more time to vote than voters in a number of blue States. Here are the facts. In Georgia, the law that people claimed was racist and designed to prevent people of color from casting their ballot during the early voting season before in-day--election-day voting--the new Georgia law provides 17 days for in-person early voting. How about Massachusetts, which is currently represented by two Democratic Senators? Well, Massachusetts provides 11 days. Delaware, represented by two Democrats and the home State of our President, provides 10 days of early voting. New Jersey, also represented by two Democratic Senators, provides 9 days, almost half of what Georgia has provided for in its new election laws. But what you heard across the news media, cable TVs, social media, and the like was that somehow, some way, Georgia had conspired to restrict the rights of African Americans and other minority voters from casting their ballots. But the facts prove otherwise. This is the type of hypocrisy that we are seeing in this debate. As I said, New Jersey recently passed a law--just recently passed a law that expanded in-person voting to 9 days. Did anyone claim that this was somehow a Jim Crow relic or a racist act or violating the rights of African Americans and other minority voters? Of course not. Was New Jersey treated the same as Georgia was in the popular media, where it was suggested that somehow this was a racist effort to restrict minority access to voting? Of course not. But the New Jersey Governor took it a step further. He actually criticized Georgia for what he called ``restricting the rights of Georgians to vote,'' but his own State provides half the opportunity that the new Georgia law does to cast your ballot. Obviously, this is a bunch of political talk and an attempt to try to intimidate Congress and the American people into this Federal takeover of the State election laws. We heard similar attack lines from a number of our Democratic colleagues who will falsely try to brand this law as a form of voter suppression, even though it is more generous than current laws in a number of blue States. Here are some more facts. You heard a lot of talk about mail-in ballots. The Georgia law sets a deadline of 11 days before the election to request a mail-in ballot, but in the State of the majority leader, Senator Schumer--New York--voters only receive a week. So you have 7 days prior to the election to request a mail-in ballot in New York and 11 days in Georgia. And for some reason, our Democratic colleagues focus on Georgia and claim this is some sort of conspiracy to diminish and restrict minority voting, which is clearly false. In New York, you also have to have a reason for voting absentee, but in Georgia no excuse needs to be given. You can do so as a matter of right, even if you are going to be in town, even if you are otherwise able to vote. If you find it more convenient to cast your ballot by mail in Georgia, you can do so--but not in New York. If any State tries to enact policies that suppress the votes of minority voters, there is a law in place currently, section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, that gives the U.S. Government the right to sue that State or jurisdiction and make sure that minority voters have equal access to the ballot. As a matter of fact, the Voting Rights Act has been one of the most successful laws ever passed by a Federal Congress. And the historic turnout I referred to a few moments ago, I think, is the best evidence of that Minority voters across the country are voting in historically high numbers, which, to me, is the best evidence that the Voting Rights Act is doing exactly what we had hoped it would do when we passed it and when we reauthorized it just a few short years ago. So, if this isn't a solution to efforts to restrict minority voting, what exactly is this bill that we will be voting on tomorrow, S. 1? The truth is it is a partisan solution to a problem that doesn't exist. This law, if passed, S. 1, which we will vote on tomorrow, prevents States from requiring identification from voters to vote. In other words, you won't have to show a driver's license or some other means of identification in order to cast your ballot. Yet, on the Jimmy Carter, James Baker, III commission--I think it was in 2005--it recommended voter ID as one of the important ways to maintain the integrity of the ballot so that the voting officials would know you are who you say you are, and, indeed, you could check your name against the voter rolls to make sure you were legally authorized to cast a ballot. In Senator Schumer's effort to pass S. 1, which we will vote on tomorrow, it prevents the States from asking for voter identification even when virtually every State provides that identification card for free. If you don't drive, they will provide you with a free card, and you can use an alternative means of identification, but not if Senator Schumer's S. 1 bill were to pass. This bill, S. 1, would also tie the States' hands when it comes to maintaining accurate voter rolls. So, if people have moved out of State or if voters have passed away, this law would tie the hands of the States to make sure those names would be removed from the voter rolls, which would make it more likely that fraudulent efforts to cast those ballots on behalf of voters who either didn't exist or had moved out of State would be possible. S. 1 would tie the hands of the States from periodically purging dead voters from the voter rolls. This would also encourage something called ballot harvesting. Now, some States provide for ballot harvesting, but many, thankfully, do not. Ballot harvesting simply makes it possible for a partisan in a political campaign to go around and collect ballots--maybe at nursing homes, maybe at shopping malls, maybe at other places--and then deliver those ballots to the voting clerk at the designated place and time. Yet you can imagine if the chain of custody of those ballots is not traced and tracked and monitored. Just think of the opportunities that could provide for fraud. This bill would also alter the makeup of the bipartisan Federal Election Commission, so as to give the Democratic Party an advantage. Right now, there are equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats on the Federal Election Commission, and that is the way it should be. Yet this bill, S. 1, would give the Democrats a partisan advantage--a big mistake. Here is, maybe, the biggest insult to the taxpayer: Whether or not you support a particular political candidate or the platform that candidate runs on, you can be forced to contribute your tax dollars to that political candidate to help him run and win the election. This is the government funding--really, the taxpayer funding--of political campaigns. I believe it is a 2-to-6 ratio, if I am not mistaken. For every $2 that candidate raises, he gets $6 in taxpayer funding to run his campaign. That is your hard-earned money that you have paid in taxes that is being used to promote ideas and candidates whom you don't support. I could go on and on, as the list of absurdities is a long one, but our friend the senior Senator from California summed it up pretty well earlier this month. She said: If democracy were in jeopardy, I would want to protect it. But I don't see it being in jeopardy right now. Madam President, there is no voter suppression crisis--certainly not a systemic one. If there is a problem with suppressing minority votes, there is authority available under the Voting Rights Act for the Attorney General, appointed by Joe Biden and confirmed by this Senate, to be able to go after them. There is no widespread effort to stop voters from casting ballots, and there is no desire to hand the States' constitutional authorities over to the Federal Government. Our Democratic colleagues are struggling to accept this reality. They have spent the last several days working behind the scenes to negotiate a compromise among themselves. There was never a question of whether or not this would be a bipartisan bill because of the overreach that I have just talked about. The question was whether or not the bipartisan opposition seen in the House would continue in the Senate. Even if the Democrats were to accept all of the changes that have been proposed by Senator Manchin of West Virginia and that have been endorsed by Stacey Abrams, the rotten core of this bill would remain the same. This is a politically motivated, Federal takeover of our elections, and it will not stand. The Constitution doesn't give the Democratic Party or the Republican Party the power to govern how States run their elections. That is reserved to the States by the Constitution of the United States of America. I will firmly oppose any effort to hand Texas's constitutional rights to regulate and conduct its elections over to the Federal Government. The one-size-fits-all Federal mandate won't improve public confidence in our elections. It will be seen for what it is in a transparent way, that being a partisan, political takeover--a coup d'etat, really--of the way our elections are run. Elections should be run by the folks who are elected and who are accountable to the States--and to my State of Texas--and certainly not by partisan, political actors with an agenda here in Washington, DC I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday, the Senate moved a historic bill one step closer to President Biden's desk. The Senate unanimously passed legislation to finally make Juneteenth a Federal holiday and to preserve the legacy of that momentous day for generations to come. For more than a century, Texans have celebrated Juneteenth and commemorated the anniversary of the day slaves in Texas were first informed of the news that they were, indeed, free. President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, but the news didn't reach Texas for 2\1/2\ years, until June 19, 1865. We were the first State to make Juneteenth a holiday and, of course, it commemorates an event that occurred in Galveston, TX. But over the last four decades, many other States have joined us. It is finally time to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday. I reintroduced this bipartisan bill with the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Markey, this year, and I have been proud to work alongside my fellow Texan Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee, in the House to get the bill passed and signed into law. The bill now heads to the House and according to Congressman Steny Hoyer, the House will actually pass it today. I will have more to say about the history and significance of Juneteenth tomorrow, but for now, I want to thank the dozens of Senators on both sides of the aisle who have supported this effort. I think, particularly now at this point in our Nation's history, a little reconciliation can go a long way. It is also an opportunity to learn from our past. America is the greatest Nation in the world, but we are not perfect and, indeed, the original sin of slavery when this country was created has caused this country a lot of angst, death, and injustice over the years. We fought a civil war, and 600,000 Americans died. If you extrapolated that to current population, that would be like 3 million Americans dying. Of course, we went through the civil rights movement in the sixties, and, of course, the latest manifestation of racial strife is the unfortunate killing of people like George Floyd and the lack of trust that exists between some law enforcement and the communities that they serve. While America is not perfect, we continue to do the work to strive to be ``a more perfect Union,'' in the words of the Constitution

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, the American people are counting on Congress to act on some of the biggest issues facing our country. For starters, there is a border crisis. Since January, more than 630,000 migrants have come to our southern border, including more than 65,000 unaccompanied children. In May, Customs and Border Protection had their busiest month in 21 years, with more than 180,000 encounters in May alone, and we are on track to see some of the highest numbers in yearly border crossings in decades. Well, the alarm bells are sounding, but amid this crisis, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing this morning on a partisan bill that has nothing to do with the extant border crisis. Make no mistake, I believe Congress should absolutely take action to allow current DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, recipients to remain in the United States, but a partisan bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for 4.4 million adults and other unrelated issues has simply no chance of passing in the Senate. Now, Senator Durbin, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has long been an advocate for the Dreamers, if he really were serious about that issue, he now has the authority, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to put a bill before the committee to allow Senators to offer and vote on amendments and to mark up a bill. And if he were able to get a majority of the committee to vote for a bill, he could then ask majority Leader Schumer to put the bill on the floor. But, so far, most of our discussions on immigration have been just that, all talk and no action.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, in recent years, China has emerged as one of the greatest competitors to America. Both Republicans and Democrats recognize the need to take action now to confront the growing threats posed by China, and so that is what we did last week. Last week, the Senate passed a sweeping bipartisan bill to invest in strategic competition with China, in large part by funding the CHIPS for America Program to shore up this vulnerable supply chain of advanced semiconductors coming primarily from Asia, primarily from Taiwan

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Now, Madam President, there is a lot of work that we can and should do on a bipartisan basis because, of course, not every issue should be or is a partisan issue. But I will have to tell you that old habits die hard around here. Despite the clear need for cooperation to move critical legislation through a 50-50 Senate, the majority leader is resisting any progress on issues that we can and should be addressing. Instead, he is trying to drum up a scenario where somehow we decide to eliminate the 60-vote requirement, otherwise known as the filibuster. But it is that 60-vote requirement that requires both parties to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work and build consensus. In a country of 330 million people, we need to have the continuity and the planning and the stability of bipartisan work products, not just a partisan bill that can be undone after the next election for Congress or after the next Presidential election. Well, over several months, our Democratic colleagues have been asked about the fate of the filibuster, whether they would be willing to eliminate the filibuster in pursuit of partisan goals. Senator Schumer, for one, has repeatedly said that ``all options are on the table''-- whatever that means--and a number of our Democratic colleagues have parroted the same line. Now, they have looked for examples of Republicans filibustering bills, just like they have done over the last 6 years. They assumed this would be the golden ticket to rid themselves of the bipartisan filibuster requirement and escape blame, only things haven't quite worked out that way. The roadblock to bipartisanship isn't on the Republican side but, rather, on the Democrat side.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, after passing five bipartisan COVID-19 relief bills last year to support the American people through the pandemic, our Democratic colleagues kicked off this year with a different approach. They made no attempt to try to negotiate another consensus package, as we had done five times before last year, and insisted on skirting the normal legislative process so they could pass a purely partisan $1.9 trillion spending bill. Well, the problem with that is it was really mislabeled. One, it vastly overshot the target, and it spent less than 10 percent of the money--which, purportedly, was for COVID-19 relief--on COVID-19, and less than 1 percent of that was related to vaccines, which was clearly the most urgent need. But the money that we had appropriated last December hadn't even been spent yet, but, apparently, the Biden administration wanted to demonstrate that it could get things through but, in the meantime, appropriated $1.9 trillion, threatening us with something we haven't seen rear its head in a long time, which is inflation. But the bill, as I said, included a lot of unrelated and unnecessary partisan priorities, ranging from blank checks for mismanaged union pension funds, funding for climate justice, backdoor money for Planned Parenthood, and an exclusive paid leave program for Federal bureaucrats.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, where did that land us? Well, as I said, last week, the Department of Labor announced that inflation had climbed to the highest rate since 2008. Core inflation surged to the highest level in nearly three decades. Families are feeling the pinch of higher prices as they pay higher prices for everything from housing to cars to gasoline to groceries. This is really sort of a silent and hidden tax on their income, when the dollar that they earn is worth less and less as prices go higher and higher. But, unfortunately, this is the exact scenario economists expected when our Democratic colleagues rolled out this $2 trillion spending bill at the beginning of the year. And they are currently proposing to spend trillions of dollars more. Even Larry Summers, who once served as Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama, warned about inflation. He penned an op-ed in the Washington Post in February, cautioning the administration about the risks of inflation, making himself persona non grata among our Democratic colleagues. But he wrote another one last month saying that ``the inflation risk is real.'' You might think that would serve as a cautionary tale to our Democratic colleagues, that partisan legislation does not give way to sound and stable policies. But that is not the case. When the majority leader said all options are on the table for eliminating the filibuster, he didn't mention the fact that he would be setting the table and setting the agenda trying to make that case. Absent Republican obstruction that he and other members of the media forecasted, the majority leader is now teeing up a series of designed- to-fail votes so he could explain or justify--try to justify--why the filibuster should be eliminated

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, we kicked things off last week with a vote on a bill that would exploit the cause of pay fairness, when that is already clearly the existing law, but, in this case, to line the pockets of trial lawyers. Senator Schumer said this month, the Senate will vote on S. 1, the partisan Federal election takeover bill. So just as our Democratic colleagues went on a spending spree in the name of COVID-19, this bill hijacks the constitutional authority of the States in the purported name of increasing voting access. But this bill, too, is chock full of unnecessary, unpopular, and unconstitutional election proposals. It makes it much easier for partisans to affect our elections through fraud, in part, by removing requirements for the most basic safeguard, which is voter identification. That was one of the main recommendations in 2005 of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, a bipartisan commission cochaired by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State, James Baker, a Republican. That Commission, back in 2005, recommended that voters be required to present a photo ID card and the State should provide free cards to voters who, for some reason, didn't have a driver's license or other identification. In order to vote in person, most States require voters to present some valid form of identification. Matching the name of an eligible voter with the name on a valid form of ID is a commonsense safeguard against fraud, but one our Democratic colleagues apparently want to eliminate. In fact, their legislation would stop the States--actually it would prohibit the States--from requiring proof of identification in order to vote. Just sign a piece of paper saying you are who you say you are and no further questions can be asked. On top of that, this bill would require the States to automatically register anyone in their databases for everything from the department of motor vehicles to public assistance. We know these programs aren't limited to eligible voters and could include noncitizens and others who aren't eligible to cast a ballot, not to mention the fact that those who are already registered to vote would be registered again, potentially. And even if there are duplicate registrations or if someone passes away or moves, States would not be allowed, by this law, to clean up their voter rolls within 6 months of an election. But just when you think things can't get any crazier, they do. Our Democratic colleagues want to provide taxpayer funding for political campaigns and elections. That is right. They want you to pay for a political candidate's campaign, whether you want to or not, whether you support the policies of that candidate or not. A lot of companies have matching programs for charitable giving. If an employee donates to the charity of their choice, the company often will match the donation dollar for dollar. Well, that same principle applies here, in part, except instead of the charity getting money, it is now a political candidate. Instead of the company footing the bill, it is--you got it--it is you, the taxpayer. I could go on and on. This proposal, S. 1, which we will be voting on in the near future, changes the basic structure of the Federal Election Commission, which is currently a bipartisan Commission, which is forced to obtain a bipartisan majority before they can act. It split 3 to 3. But this bill would eliminate that bipartisan requirement and simply allow a partisan Federal election committee to work its will. This bill also legalizes something called ballot harvesting, which is susceptible to widespread fraud. In other words, it lets a campaign worker go around to nursing homes, neighborhoods, union halls, wherever, and collect your ballot and then to take them down to the clerk's office and cast that ballot. Well, the opportunities for fraud are pretty obvious. This bill would also implement a new financial disclosure policy that even the American Civil Liberties Union says ``could interfere directly with the ability of many to engage in political speech about causes that they care about.'' But above all this, this bill undermines the trust and accountability that is so important to elections. The Judiciary Committee recently had a hearing where the secretary of state, who happens to be a Democrat, from New Hampshire said the single most important thing in providing a big turnout for elections is public confidence that their ballot will be counted. It is not how many days before election day you can vote, who can vote by mail; it is the public's confidence that their ballot will be counted, no matter how and when cast. So S. 1 is not a serious attempt at bipartisanship. It is the opposite. It is not an honest effort to pass legislation. Right now, we know that Democrats don't even have 50 votes on their side of the aisle. But the majority leader is trying to prove that partisanship apparently has a death grip on the Senate, but, unfortunately for him, it is not the party he thinks. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. At the same time, Madam President, America's roads and bridges are in dire need of attention by Congress. Every year, the American Society of Civil Engineers evaluates the state of our infrastructure and issues a report card to let us know how we are doing. Well, America is barely passing with a ``C-minus.'' Texas is faring slightly better than the rest of the class, with just a ``C.'' I believe Republicans and Democrats alike think that rebuilding our roads and bridges is important. We even share the same goal of expanding the definition of ``infrastructure'' to include broadband because we saw during the current pandemic that broadband is no longer a luxury. It is an absolute necessity, whether it is for telehealth or whether it is for our children learning remotely or for people working remotely from home. Even as bipartisan negotiations continue, though, the majority leader is eyeing the prospects of a partisan bill that would circumvent the normal legislative process and would be entirely a partisan product. But we know that in a 50-50 Senate, bipartisan work on shared priorities is not impossible. In fact, we did it just last week. Last week, we saw a great example of what can be accomplished if we will work together to achieve an outcome.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill's purpose is to improve the safety and security of members of the Armed Forces, and for other purposes.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last month, more than 180,000 migrants crossed our southern border. That is the highest monthly total since the Clinton administration. Unaccompanied children continue to arrive at our border by the tens of thousands. In the first 5 months of this year, more than 65,000 migrant children crossed our southern border--nearly double the amount we saw in fiscal year 2020. As bad as things are, things can, and I predict will, get worse. The administration is weighing whether this is an appropriate time to lift title 42, which is a public health order designed to protect from the spread of the COVID-19 virus, but they have yet to tell us what transition plans they may have, if any, in transitioning from the current exclusion of many adult migrants to welcoming those who are currently excluded or processing them through our immigration courts. Depending on what the administration decides, the humanitarian crisis at the border will likely swell even larger this summer. Despite the clear need for action from Congress, most of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have put on blinders. Instead of a bipartisan effort to eliminate or, I should say, alleviate or mitigate the humanitarian and security crisis at our border, we have one side pushing for action and the other side largely staying silent. The Judiciary Committee of the Senate should be leading the charge to address this crisis in a fair and humane way. Back in April, Senator Grassley, the ranking Republican, and I sent a letter to Chairman Durbin and Subcommittee Chairman Padilla requesting a hearing of either the full committee or the Immigration Subcommittee on this current crisis at the border. Two months and hundreds of thousands of migrants later, they have simply refused to even hold a hearing. Last month, the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration held its first hearing, but the topic wasn't on the border crisis. Instead, the topic was increased numbers of visas for undocumented immigrant workers. That is a topic we can and should discuss but certainly not with the looming crisis on the border. Tomorrow morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue to ignore this backlog of migrants and this blinking red light that should warn all of us that this crisis will get nothing but worse. What is the topic of tomorrow's hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee? We are set to hold a hearing on the unserious, House-passed immigration bill. This legislation stands zero chance of being passed by the Senate--zero. It combines some of the most radical proposals from the far left in one massive bill that fails to address the needs of our country. Rather than discuss the humanitarian crisis at the border, our Democratic colleagues have chosen to hold a hearing on a dead-on-arrival bill, and they know it. It is a remarkable show of priorities. Tomorrow, I expect we will hear a lot about discussing the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrival recipients--one of the categories of undocumented immigrants that would receive a path to citizenship under this legislation. I should say that Texas is home to about 100,000 DACA recipients who are vital parts of our communities. They have grown up with our kids, attended the same churches, shopped in the same grocery stores, and defended our freedoms in the U.S. military. They are also a huge driver of our economy. Ninety-six percent of DACA recipients are either working or in school, and, on the whole, these young people contribute more than $400 million a year in State and local taxes in Texas alone. Despite all the ways these young men and women strengthen our country and our communities, they have been living in a constant state of uncertainty about their future. That is because when President Obama announced this program 9 years ago, he did so through a shortsighted Executive memorandum rather than engage Congress. That is right. Rather than rolling up his sleeves and working with Congress to pass long- lasting immigration policy, he chose a path of least resistance that didn't involve any input from Congress but merely created this with a stroke of a pen. To say the least, this made things easier for President Obama in the short run, but it caused a lot of fear--has caused a lot of fear and uncertainty for these young people in the long run, and that continues today. They were set unfairly on a yearslong, tumultuous journey, waiting nervously to see how the courts would weigh in on the various court challenges that we knew were going to occur. President Obama knew it as well. So these young DACA recipients have been left wondering whether they might be deported to a country they have no memory of and being forced to leave behind the families, the jobs, and the opportunities they have worked so hard to build here in the United States. Many of these young people are in their twenties and thirties now with careers, families, and plans of their own. The possibility of being forced to leave the United States is no less terrifying for them than it would be for anyone who was born here. After years of being yanked around from court ruling to court ruling, these young men and women deserve certainty. They deserve to know whether they can apply to college, grow their families, live their lives, and do all the things other young Americans can do without this dark cloud hanging over their plans. After all, they haven't done anything wrong. They were brought here as children, as minors. And in America, we do not hold children responsible for the mistakes of adults--in other words, their parents. That is why I believe we should take action that gives these DACA recipients the certainty they deserve, and the only way to do that is through more legislation, not further Executive actions. And I strongly support that legislative effort. However, massive partisan bills, like the legislation the House passed this year, is not the answer. I support DACA recipients because they were brought here at a young age through no fault of their own, but the American Dream and Promise Act has completely abandoned this justification in favor of rewarding recent illegal entries with green cards, even adults who violated our immigration laws. If the goal is to provide legal certainty for our DACA recipients as opposed to making a grand political statement, we need to be realistic about how we get there. We need to learn from our mistakes of the past, where we have tried to build big, comprehensive immigration reform bills only to see them collapse of their own weight, which means we need to begin working on smaller packages that can gain broad support and hopefully build trust in the process. I am not suggesting we quit there, but that is the place we need to start if we have learned from the lessons of the last 20 years The American people overwhelmingly support allowing DACA recipients to remain in the United States, and I believe it is true of a majority of Members of the Senate. We have to set aside policies we cannot agree on so we can make progress on the ones we do agree on, and we need to keep our efforts focused on DACA recipients. If this is a priority for folks on both sides of the aisle, I hope we will finally be able to get a bill to the President's desk to help these young people. More broadly, though, there is no denying our immigration system is sorely in need of reform. It is outdated; it is inefficient; and it simply does not meet the needs of our country today. But there is very little room for those types of conversations until we solve the current crisis at the border. Once that is under control and our bipartisan Border Solutions Act, which is the only bicameral, bipartisan bill that has been introduced--once we solve that problem, I hope we will have a bipartisan debate about the changes that should be made to our immigration system, and the DACA recipients are at the top of that list. As I said, these young men and women deserve certainty, and Congress cannot pass legislation to provide that certainty if our Democratic colleagues and the White House insist on attaching controversial policies or ignoring the current crisis at the border, as the Biden administration is appearing to do. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last year, our friends across the aisle painted a picture of doom and gloom of what governing with a Republican Senate minority might look like. They forecasted unprecedented obstruction, endless stonewalling, and the inability to get anything done. Now, there is nothing more popular than the myth that Congress is unable to get anything done. It is pretty popular. The press, uncritically, reports it, even when it is demonstrably false. But it is safe to say the vision painted by our Democratic colleagues of doom and gloom with a Republican Senate minority of unprecedented obstruction, endless stonewalling, and inability to get things done--well, that hadn't come to pass. Actually, I feel like I am doing a Washington Post fact check. But over the past few months, Republicans and Democrats have actually worked together to make progress on a number of issues. One, I am sure the Biden administration would confirm that we have been able to confirm a number of nominees for high-ranking positions in the Federal Government with broad bipartisan support. We extended the popular Paycheck Protection Program that was part of the CARES Act, which was the major COVID-19 relief bill that passed overwhelmingly last year on a bipartisan basis. We did that because we all recognized the importance of small businesses continuing to take advantage of this lifeline until they could safely reopen. We took action, on a bipartisan basis, to combat the increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans. We provided States with additional resources to upgrade their drinking and wastewater infrastructure. And this week we passed historic legislation to improve the way we counter the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, the so-called Endless Frontier Act. It included a $52 billion emergency appropriation to make sure that we weren't dependent on imports of semiconductors, which are so essential to our economy and to our national security. That is not all. The Environment and Public Works Committee advanced a bipartisan surface transportation bill. That is actually the second time--first under Republican leadership, now under Democratic leadership--that the Environment and Public Works Committee has advanced a bipartisan, unanimously supported surface transportation bill. The Judiciary Committee that I serve on unanimously has approved three bills to support our men and women in blue. And two committees, the Rules Committee and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, just released a bipartisan report--127 pages long, if I am not mistaken--on the events surrounding January 6. You would be hard pressed to count the number of bipartisan bills that have actually been introduced in the last few months, just in 6 months of the Biden administration: legislation to bring down prescription drug prices, enhance cyber security, which is an increasingly scary and frightening issue, especially with the Colonial Pipeline, the JBS hack, and the SolarWinds hack by the Russians. We also know we need to improve our electric grid infrastructure, which we have bills doing that. And then we also have even a bipartisan bill to address the humanitarian crisis on the southern border-- bipartisan, bicameral. These are some of the bills that I have introduced, and when you add to it the work being done by other Members of the Senate, you have a long list of opportunities for us to work together on behalf of the American people. I believe this is the type of results and consensus that the American people had hoped for after the last election because, the truth is, neither party got a mandate after the last election. I know President Biden won the election, but we have a 50-50 Senate, and Speaker Pelosi has a very slim majority in the House. And we have a President who, I think, inspired all of us when he started talking about healing the separations in our Nation and appealing to a promise of unity. I can tell you one thing, that 2020 wasn't a mandate to pass a radical agenda. It was a call for us to work together. I don't know any other way you can interpret a 50-50 Senate. And I believe there is no better time for us to get work done on behalf of our constituents in the Senate. There is, perhaps, the apocryphal story of George Washington, who told Thomas Jefferson that the Senate was meant to be the saucer to cool House legislation, like how a saucer apparently was used at the time to cool hot tea. There certainly is a lot of hot tea in the House these days, and the filibuster, I believe, and the 60-vote requirement to cut off debate is core to the Senate's ability to perform its constitutional function--to cool off the debate and to talk about the greater good and to force us to do something that maybe we don't do naturally, which is to force us to work together. The Founders understood that if you passed legislation on a purely partisan basis, well, the next 2 years after the election, the next 4 years after a new President, the new majority, the new President, could simply undo it. And we have seen a lot of that, unfortunately-- admittedly, on both sides of the aisle. But when you have to get 60 votes in the Senate to pass legislation that impacts the lives of 330 million Americans, it strikes me that is a pretty commonsense way to force us to do, again, maybe what might seem unnatural to us but we have to do for the benefit of the American people. It forces us to pass bipartisan bills and makes passing partisan bills impossible. Now, I know both parties. There is a reason why people are Democrats and a reason why people are Republicans. We have different ideas, different priorities, different ways of going about doing things, perhaps to achieve a result that we would all agree on, a different means to an end. But the fact of the matter is, notwithstanding our preference, perhaps, to have our policies succeed over those of our Democratic colleagues, that is not always necessarily in the best interest of the American people. What is in the best interest of the American people is to have us work together. Just 4 years ago--it is amazing how time flies and how much people's positions change depending on where they sit. Well, 4 years ago, now- Majority Leader Senator Schumer, the Senator from New York, said we should ``build a firewall around the legislative filibuster.'' Believe me, that 60-vote requirement looks a lot better when you are in the minority than it does when you are in the majority. As a matter of fact, when President Trump was in the White House and we had a Republican majority in the Senate, I can't tell you how many times he pressed on Leader McConnell to eliminate the filibuster because it was an impediment to him getting what he wanted done. But he wasn't looking at the long game or the long-term consequences of doing that. Senator McConnell, on the other hand, having been in the Senate a long time, understood that short-term gain was not worth the long-term pain. But Senator Schumer called it the most important distinction between the House and the Senate, this consensus-building mechanism known as the filibuster. But, today, Senator Schumer perhaps has succumbed to the temptation, once you are in the majority, to say: Anything that gets in my way, any impediment to getting what I want, like the 60-vote requirement, we need to do away with it. So he has done a complete 180. Clearing the way for a radical agenda is priority No. 1. I understand the political pressures that come within our political parties, and it is pretty clear to me that the pressure on our friends in the Democratic Party is from the progressive left, who want to push the party farther and farther to the left. But that is not a reason for us to give up our previous convictions or principles. Apparently, our Democratic colleagues--not all, but some of our Democratic colleagues--apparently have abandoned the long-held belief that the filibuster is a vital stabilizing force, and they are on the warpath to eliminate it. You can tell by the language that is being used. Some have called the filibuster a ``weapon of mass destruction,'' ``a death grip of democracy.'' And here is perhaps the most despicable description when, I think it was, President Obama himself, who spoke at John Lewis's funeral, called the filibuster a ``Jim Crow relic,'' essentially suggesting that anybody who supported this vital stabilizing mechanism was a racist. And he gave tacit permission to other people to play the race card when it comes to the filibuster. Well, it hasn't even been a year since our Democratic colleagues used this ``Jim Crow relic'' to block an anti-lynching bill. This was part of the police reform bill that Senator Tim Scott led that was filibustered by our Democratic friends. I still remember being on the floor when then-Senator Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, who were the chief advocates for this anti-lynching provision in the police reform bill, were part of the core of Democrats who filibustered that bill. They filibustered their own anti-lynching bill. So when somebody wants to play the race card and say that this is used for improper purposes, their own actions demonstrate the hypocrisy of that argument. The inconvenient truth for our Democratic colleagues is that they have filibustered bill after bill when they were the minority party over the last 6 years. But I know memories are short around here. The impulse to get something done today may cause people to do things that they later would regret. We certainly have seen that in the George W. Bush administration when then-Leader Reid decided to raise the bar for judicial confirmations to 60 votes for cloture and blocked a number of George W. Bush's judges. Of course, we know how that story ended. Ultimately, we got back to the status quo ante after we went through years of fights, gangs meeting and coming up with tentative compromises. And then, ultimately, with the use of the same precedent setting or the appeal of the ruling of the Chair, that then was used to bring the number back down to 51, where it had, in essence, been forever, when Neil Gorsuch was confirmed. So it is important for us to remember that what goes around comes around here, and what might seem expedient today may prove to be pretty painful tomorrow. Well, we know our Democratic colleagues have used this so-called Jim Crow relic--and, again, I think that is completely inaccurate to use it that way. This is how the Senate functions. Our Democrats are within their rights when they employ the filibuster to kill countless pieces of legislation, whether it is pandemic relief, government funding, pro- life legislation, or police reform. The list goes on and on. Again, I don't particularly like it when the minority filibusters legislation I would like to see passed, but what that means is it is an invitation and, really, a command to us to roll up our sleeves and work harder to try to find common ground. Really, if you think about it, eliminating the filibuster is a lazy way of legislating because it means you don't have to do the hard work. You don't have to build bipartisan consensus. You don't have to worry about stabilizing our laws so that they don't change dramatically every 2 years or every 4 years depending on who is in charge. So we don't have to wonder how our Democratic colleagues felt about the filibuster when it was of benefit to them because they made countless statements and even put their feelings in writing. When Republicans held control of the House and the Senate and the White House, our Democratic colleagues were afraid the filibuster would be eliminated. They were afraid we would do what we did not do but that which Leader Schumer and others are advocating now, which is to eliminate the filibuster so we could get--they were worried that we would eliminate the filibuster to get what we wanted rather than have to work together on a bipartisan basis. So the shoe is truly on the other foot now that Democrats have a nominal majority in a 50-50 Senate but with the tie-breaking vote of the Vice President. That is why Senator Schumer gets to be the floor leader even though he doesn't command a majority of Senators. Back then, when Democrats were in the minority and they were worried about eliminating the filibuster, 33 of them--33--signed a letter insisting that the filibuster be preserved. Among them was the now Vice President, then Senator Kamala Harris. Senator McConnell, being an institutionalist at heart, agreed, and he never wavered to pressure from anyone, even President Trump, to eliminate the filibuster. But now the tables have turned, and so have many of our colleagues' views on the filibuster. Instead of resisting pressure to blow up the rules of the Senate and perhaps change it forever, Leader Schumer has gladly accepted his marching orders from the radical left, and he is trying to dismantle the longstanding rules of the Senate, what makes it exceptional, as he said, different from the House--way back when. Senator Schumer banked on Republican obstruction to justify going nuclear. He is trying to set up a series of votes in order to justify going nuclear to change the Senate into the House, to eliminate the bipartisan command of that 60-vote requirement. So he engaged in a lot of doom-and-gloom forecasting to predict that Republicans would willy-nilly filibuster Democrat legislation, but it hasn't come to pass. So now he is trying to orchestrate a series of votes that are designed to fail. And they are just that--designed to fail--because they don't represent the kind of hard work that goes into building bipartisan consensus in the Senate. We kicked things off earlier this week with a vote on a bill that would exploit the cause of pay fairness to line the pockets of trial lawyers. We will soon vote on the Democratic Party's attempt to seize authority from the States to run elections. This is a bill so extreme that a number of Democrats have said they will not vote for it. Who knows what might be next, whether it is packing the Supreme Court, making Puerto Rico or Washington, DC, a State with two Democratic Senators each, or whether they will try to use this to erode the constitutional rights of American citizens, for example, under the Second Amendment. But blocking these bills isn't an example of Republican obstruction; it is a destructive act of political theater. Well, thank goodness there are enough Democrats who are opposed to eliminating the filibuster, apparently. So it appears that Democrats don't have the votes to make this horribly miscalculated rules change. Two of our colleagues have made clear in their statement that they have the courage to stand up for what they believe is right, despite the pressure they are receiving from the far left. Senators Manchin and Sinema have repeatedly said they will oppose efforts to eliminate the filibuster. They won't accept the short-term gain for long-term pain. Unlike the rest of their conference, their caucus, they recognize the inherent dangers of making this strictly a 51-vote majority institution. They seem to be following the advice of what then-Senator Barack Obama gave back in 2005 when then-Senator Obama said: If the majority chooses to end the filibuster . . . then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse. The American people deserve better than that. Chipping away at the right of the minority may seem expedient now, but Democrats would be sure to regret those changes one day, just as they now regret the day that Harry Reid cleared an easy path for hundreds of conservative Federal judges. In two years, Republicans could win the majority in either or both of the Chambers. In 4, a Republican could win the White House, as well. How would our Democratic colleagues feel then when their rights as Members of the minority are disparaged and ignored? Would our Democratic colleagues support their rule changes then? Would they then believe the Senate minority should be silenced and made irrelevant, as apparently some believe now? Well, I find it hard to believe that that would be the case. The thing about power in Washington is it is never permanent. Majorities and Presidents change. And there is a reason why the rules should stay the same. If Democrats had the votes to eliminate the filibuster, our country would face a tidal wave of changes: defunding the police, election law hijacking by the Federal Government over the States and local jurisdictions, tax hikes as high as the mind can conceive, restricted rights under the Constitution. You get the picture. But when the tide inevitably turns, which it will at some point, then the temptation would be on the part of the Republicans to reverse all of those changes. The economy, the government, the average American family would be in a constant whiplash. The requirement to get 60 votes to close off debate in the Senate is designed to protect our country from the relatively rapid changes of majorities and Presidents, and eliminating it would do serious, irreparable harm, as many of the quoted comments by distinguished Democrats have stated in the past, if not today, at least in the past. So I agree with what Senator Schumer said 4 years ago: We should build a firewall around it. But in the meantime, there is still a lot of bipartisan work being done here in the Senate, even under the current rules, without the thermonuclear device of blowing up the 60-vote cloture requirement known as the filibuster. But every day that the Democratic leader wastes on political theater, which he knows is not going to succeed, is a day we have wasted in passing bipartisan legislation that will benefit all of the American people, not just a partisan majority. This is the world's greatest deliberative body. It may be one of the last ones in existence. I don't know any other place in our country or around the world where Senators can come down to the Senate floor and express their views no matter how unpopular, no matter how politically incorrect, but engage in actual debate and exchange of views, which ultimately give the American people the best opportunity to make up their own minds about what policies they agree with and who they trust to protect their welfare. This is the world's greatest deliberative body. There are far more important ways to spend our time than on political theater. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the right to vote is the most fundamental and essential feature of our democracy. As Abraham Lincoln said, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people would not be possible if it weren't for citizens who cast their ballot at every available election. From city councils, to school boards, to Presidents of the United States, the American people have a right and, I would argue, a duty to make their voices heard. In 2020, a record number of voters did just that. Nearly 160 million Americans cast their ballot, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all eligible voters. If you compare that to 2016, just 4 years earlier, 17 million more people voted in the last election. This included higher turnout across all racial and ethnic groups--African Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, Asians. Each had a higher turnout this election. When Congress originally passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the goal was to eliminate common discriminatory practices that were in place at that time. It was and it is a landmark piece of legislation. There is no question it has been an overwhelming success, and I think that is something we should celebrate as a nation. In 2012, for the first time on record, turnout among Black voters was higher than for White voters. In 2020, both Asian and Hispanic voters turned out at the highest rate on record. We certainly have come a long way, as the preamble to the Constitution says, in our effort to form a more perfect Union, but we should not tire, nor falter, nor fail in our progress to make sure that everyone who has the right to vote has an opportunity to cast their ballot. Before every election--and 2020 was no different--there is a widespread effort to register new voters and encourage more citizens to participate. In Texas, we set new records in registering and turning out voters. We turned out 11.3 million voters, 66 percent of those registered. In the years to come, I hope we will set new records and get more voters to the polls. I think that goal should be shared by every American. But in addition to this work, we have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the ballot. This became a focus in particular after the 2016 election when we actually saw Russia try to interfere with the Presidential election that year. In response, Congress provided hundreds of millions of dollars to shore up State election security measures and to help local officials safeguard future elections. Our intelligence community and particularly the National Security Agency and Cyber Command made sure that there were no cyber attacks or minimized the impact of potential cyber attacks on election voting systems, including voter registries and the like. The postmortem reviews were that they were pretty successful in deterring those sorts of attacks that occurred in 2016. But it is not just up to the Federal Government; across the country, States are also fighting to make sure that those who are legally entitled to vote can do so and ensure the integrity of their own elections. They are looking at ways to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat, which I think should be our goal. But those election security efforts have been mischaracterized, unfortunately, by many of our Democratic colleagues and many in the news media who falsely claim that somehow there are efforts underway at the State level to suppress minority voters. We saw this play out in the case of the Georgia election law in particular. Our Democratic colleagues tried to frame this legislation as a way to suppress minority voters, but that was completely contrary to the facts, and it was completely contrary to the election laws in their own States. The Georgia law, for example, set a deadline of 11 days before an election to request a mail-in ballot. In the home State of the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer from New York, voters only get a week--11 days in Georgia; a week in New York. And in New York, you have to give a reason for voting absentee. In Georgia, under the proposed changes to the State election law, you don't even have to give a reason to vote absentee. Georgia also expanded early in-person voting to 17 days. In Massachusetts, represented by two of our Democratic colleagues, early voting lasts only 11 days. The President's home State of Delaware won't even offer early voting until 2022. In other words, you can't even do it now, and it won't be available until 2022, and even then, voters will have only 10 days. Well, I think this demonstrates the hypocrisy of some of the debate we are hearing and seeing. New Jersey, represented by two Democratic Senators and a Democratic Governor, recently passed a law that expanded in-person voting to 9 days. As a reminder, Georgia just expanded theirs to 17 days. But the New Jersey Governor had the temerity to criticize Georgia for ``restricting the rights of Georgians to vote'' when it is more expansive than the voting laws in his own State. We have heard similar lines of attack from many across the aisle who falsely try to brand this law as a form of voter suppression. Once you play the race card, it is hard for people to think clearly because it tugs at our emotions. It tugs at our collective, frankly, guilt, emanating from the earliest days of our country that we have come a long way to try to rectify. But here is the bottom line: Each State has the authority to determine the ``times, places, and manner of holding elections.'' Where does that come from? Well, that is article I of the Constitution of the United States of America. But our Democratic colleagues insist on pushing for a one-size-fits-all mandate that turns federalism, including the Constitution itself, on its head. Senator Schumer, the Senator from New York, has said that this month, the Senate will vote on a bill called S. 1, which is the Democrats' effort to commandeer control of elections from the States. The bill is so radical that Members of his own party have lined up against it, and it is easy, on superficial inspection, to see why. In order to vote in person, 36 States require some form of voter identification. That was the recommendation of the Commission that former President Carter participated in, along with James Baker III--a prominent President, a Democrat, and a prominent Republican. They made a recommendation for voter ID, but this proposal, S. 1, would eliminate it. In my State, Texas, there are several options to present voter identification. You can present a driver's license, a passport, a military ID, a citizenship certificate. If you don't have any of those, you can get another one issued by the State at zero cost. Those all work. This Democratic proposal would stop States, would actually block the States from requiring voter identification--something you have to do when you buy a six-pack of beer or cigarettes, for those who still smoke, or get on an airplane or even enter a Federal building. You have to produce an identification to do so. But S. 1 would prohibit the States from making that requirement when exercising your most sacred right as a citizen. What would they require? Well, you sign a piece of paper saying you are who you say you are, and nobody can ask you any questions. The invitation for fraud doesn't stop there because this proposed legislation also legalizes something called ballot harvesting. That means that mail-in ballots could be collected by political partisans, whether it is paid campaign staffers or anyone who has a stake in the outcome of the election--not an impartial third party but a partisan who has a stake in the outcome of the election. They could harvest those ballots. It goes so far as to specify that the States ``may not put any limit on how many voted and sealed absentee ballots any designated person can return.'' So there are no limits on how many ballots a political operative could harvest and turn in and count in the election. Well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how this can go wrong. Maybe the ballots get turned in with thousands of others. Maybe some of the ballots are altered. Maybe some are falsified. Maybe some end up in the trash. It is tough to know exactly what might happen. S. 1, this Federal commandeering of State-run elections, is rife with opportunities for fraud. It mandates things like automatic voter registration and ballot drop boxes, while making it more difficult for the States to maintain accurate voter lists. It would even go so far as to make it harder for the States to remove dead voters from their rolls. My State, like many States, has an unfortunate legacy of having candidates and political parties cast a ballot on behalf of voters who are no longer alive--box 13, for example. Arguably, that is the way Lyndon Johnson beat Coke Stevenson, by voting the cemetery vote. And that is not unique. Why would Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi be pushing this takeover of State-run elections? Well, it is pretty obvious. They think that our Democratic colleagues will reap the benefits of hijacking State election laws. That is really their goal here. They want to put a thumb on the scale of future elections. They want to take power away from the voters and the States and give themselves every partisan advantage they can. Those are just some of the features of S. 1. There are others. It would make changes to the Federal Election Commission, which currently has six members, three from each political party. This is intentionally designed to protect the Commission from partisan politics. Regardless of which party controls the Senate or the White House, the FEC will always be fair and balanced. Well, that doesn't serve the interests of our Democratic friends, so they want to change it. The election takeover bill would remove one of the seats held by a Republican and turn the Federal Election Commission into a partisan body--no more equal representation, no more consensus building. Why bother with that when you can steamroll an agenda with no opposition? Then there is the taxpayer funding of elections. Instead of political candidates going out and making the case to prospective voters, instead of supporters voluntarily backing their preferred candidates with their hard-earned dollars, this bill would force taxpayers to bear the financial burden, even to the point of channeling dollars, your tax dollars, to candidates whom you disagree with who support policies that you do not support. And it is not even a dollar-for-dollar match. I don't know who came up with the idea of $6 from the taxpayer for every dollar that is raised from voluntary donations, but that is the proposal. What a deal. That means if somebody gives a candidate 200 bucks, the Federal Government could match it up to $1,200. Our Democratic colleagues even managed to get on the wrong side of the American Civil Liberties Union. This bill would implement a new disclosure policy that the ACLU says ``could directly interfere with the ability of many to engage in political speech about causes that they care about.'' But as bad as this proposal is, S. 1, if that doesn't work--and it is looking like, from reading the news recently, it is not likely to work because of defections, even among Democrats--our Democratic colleagues have a plan B. I want to remind you of what I said at the outset, that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was one of the most important laws passed in modern American history. It has been reauthorized a number of times over the years, most recently in 2006. I proudly cast my vote in support of reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act. But a new bill introduced by our friend the Senator from Vermont, the senior Senator, sometimes invoking the name of that civil rights icon, John Lewis, his proposal would radically change the law as well, this time putting the Federal Government, not the State, in charge of new voting laws again. Just a reminder: Back in 1965, part of the Voting Rights Act required States and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to receive Federal preclearance before they could put new laws into effect. In 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the portion of the law that set the formula for which States were included in that requirement. The Court ruled that it was unconstitutional because the coverage formula was outdated. The Court said history did not end in 1965. Indeed, what happened when the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized in 2006, the proponents of that bill made no accounting for the tremendous progress in minority voting turnout that we have seen since that time. In other words, the Voting Rights Act worked. It worked miraculously, and thank goodness it did. But the Supreme Court, in striking down the 1965 formula as opposed to the current-day rate of minority voting, the Court said the Congress based the law on 40-year-old facts having no logical relation to the present day. Here is an example: The formula in 1965 required States to receive preclearance before they could put their own voting laws into effect if they had any test or device, as it was called, that restricts voting. That included things like literacy tests or subjective determinations of moral character. But thanks to the Voting Rights Act, those practices are nowhere to be found today. The bill introduced by Senator Leahy, the senior Senator from Vermont, would change the formula with language so broad that virtually every State in the Union and every local jurisdiction would have to get their election laws precleared by the Biden Justice Department before they could put them into effect. The trigger for that is a vague number of voting rights violations that wouldn't even require a finding of intentional discrimination. Nevertheless, these State and local governments would be required to get the sign-off of partisan bureaucrats at the Department of Justice to exercise their own constitutional authority. I think it is important to keep in mind that the Framers of the Constitution wanted the States to chart their own course in elections, not Washington bureaucrats. To quote the Supreme Court of the United States, ``The Framers of the Constitution intended the States to keep for themselves, as provided [under] the Tenth Amendment [to the Constitution], the power to regulate elections.'' Yet, in any instance where your local election official wanted to make a commonsense change in the way your elections were actually carried out, you would have to ask ``Mother May I'' to the Department of Justice. Based on this proposal, you would think there have been countless unenforced instances of voter discrimination that cry out for this sort of remedy, but you would be wrong. The Department of Justice already has authority under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. During the entire 8 years of the Obama--the Obama--Justice Department, they filed only four enforcement cases in the whole United States under section 2--four. So the narrative of widespread voter suppression is nothing but a propaganda tactic designed to support a political outcome. The push for a Federal takeover of elections is not about voter suppression at all. It is about unconstitutionally seizing power and never letting go. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, during the committee markup on this bill in the Commerce Committee, there was an amendment offered that was accepted that added Davis-Bacon prevailing wage protection to the underlying bill, which is now in the bill before us. This is purely a gratuitous addition to this bill because the fact is, in constructing these major semiconductor fabs, they pay far greater than the prevailing wage. But perhaps the most dangerous part of this is the fact that this now is being applied to private construction. Davis-Bacon historically and statutorily has been applied only to public workers. But this is an unnecessary expansion and, frankly, jeopardizes some of the support we are getting for the underlying bill, which we cannot afford to lose any of that support in our competition against China, particularly when it comes to manufacturing semiconductors here onshore and shoring up the vulnerable supply chain. I would ask colleagues to vote for the amendment.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, as we all know, in recent years, China has emerged as one of the greatest competitors to the world order. Unfortunately, they don't play by the same rules that the rest of the international community plays by. The Chinese Communist Party is increasingly aggressive and well-resourced and has made no secret of its intent to gain more influence and power. For everything from national security to economic policy, there is a clear and urgent need to reorient the way our country views and responds to the challenge from China. I am glad the Senate is taking up an important step today through the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act. The cornerstone of this legislation, of course, is funding to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing so the United States can compete with China and secure some of our most critical supply chains. Nearly 90 percent of the semiconductors made in the world are made by countries in Asia, with Taiwan dominating the market with about 63 percent of that total of 90 percent. In fact, one company, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, accounted for more than half of the total foundry revenues last year. As I said, companies in Taiwan control 63 percent of the advanced semiconductor markets. If for any reason that supply chain was cut off, it would lead to very serious consequences across our entire economy. To address this, Senator Warner, the senior Senator from Virginia, and I introduced the CHIPS for America Act last year to shore up domestic semiconductor manufacturing and reduce our alliance on other countries for one of our most critical products. Semiconductors go into everything with an off and on switch. The United States is not the only country that spotted this blinking red light, this danger signal. Other countries have recognized the immense risks that exist, and they are also pouring billions of dollars into new foundries. The European Union, for example, is investing up to $35 billion, South Korea is investing $65 billion, and China is investing a whopping $150 billion in semiconductor manufacturing. Our competitors are pouring tens of billions of dollars into boosting their own supplies of these essential semiconductors, and the United States needs to keep up and compete. The vast majority of our colleagues agree that this was an important and critical task. It was carefully crafted in monthslong, bipartisan, bicameral negotiations, and, in fact, this legislation was adopted as an amendment to last year's Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 96 to 4. Now, though, it falls to us to fund what we authorized in the Defense authorization bill, and there is just one issue standing in the way. During committee consideration of the Endless Frontier Act, an amendment was adopted that would apply controversial and unnecessary prevailing wage language to the CHIPS for America Act. The prevailing wage provision creates an obstacle to our funding the CHIPS for America Act, and it confers zero benefit on anybody because the manufacturing of semiconductors is a very sophisticated, well-paying business. Considering the current wages of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing companies, there is zero impact on workers' wages by requiring companies to pay an elevated, so-called prevailing wage. So it is really a nonissue. However, these Davis-Bacon provisions also represent an unprecedented expansion of a partisan labor policy, and applying them to private construction projects, as I said, sets a troublesome precedent. Leaving this language in the bill has the potential to dramatically weaken support for this essential broader legislation, and I hope we can all agree that the stakes are simply too high to let that happen. I have introduced an amendment to strike this unnecessary and divisive provision and to maintain the strong bipartisan support that the CHIPS for America Act has earned so far. This partisan provision has no impact on workers' wages, and it should hardly be a reason to forfeit the strong bipartisan support the CHIPS Program has previously received. It is important that we send a clear and distinct and unequivocal message to our competitors and rivals in China. Republicans and Democrats have worked together to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing and to confront one of our biggest looming threats from China. Now is not the time to sacrifice the progress we made. I encourage our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment so we can maintain the strong bipartisan support for this essential program I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, during the first 4 months of 2021, more than half a million migrants have crossed our southern border--a half a million--including more than 50,000 unaccompanied children. Now, nobody really believes that those children got there all by themselves. The truth is, they have been smuggled to the border and crossed the border only to be picked up by Border Patrol, taken care of, as we would all hope they would be, and ultimately be placed with U.S. sponsors. I will have more to say about that in a moment. In the same period of time last year, there were fewer than 125 migrants who crossed our border, including just over 10,000 children-- half a million so far this year, 125,000 last year, 50,000 children so far this year, 10,000 last year during the same period of time. Put simply, this is not normal, nor should it be the standard operating procedure for the U.S. Government. The truth is, our country lacks the facilities, the personnel, the resources, and the policies to handle this sort of influx of humanity in a humane way. Back in March, the President tapped Vice President Harris to handle the border crisis, but we have seen no progress to date. In fact, the Vice President, I believe, is in Guatemala today, and she hasn't even been to our southern border. She hasn't visited the facilities where tens of thousands of migrant children have been cared for. And she hasn't listened to the migrants' horrifying stories of how they were treated by the human smugglers that brought them to the border. We do know the Vice President is finally hitting the trail this week to talk about the border crisis. But that seems to be all it is, is talk. The only problem is, she is not visiting the border. She is not even in her home State of California, which has a border with Mexico. She is in Guatemala. As law enforcement, nongovernmental organizations, and border communities are being overwhelmed by the surge of migration, the Vice President is meeting with foreign leaders. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong about meeting with foreign leaders, but, surely, she can't think that a conversation with the President of Guatemala is going to solve the human crisis at our border. The Border Patrol will tell you, as they have told me, mass migration like this is a product of two different actions. One is the so-called push factors, which means people who lack economic opportunity; maybe they are fleeing violence; maybe they just want to come to America to be reunited with some other relatives; and certainly the human smugglers are more than happy at $5,000, and more, a head to help them. But these smugglers, as I intimated a moment ago, are a part of transnational criminal organizations that care nothing for these migrants. They just care about the money. And what they do is they flood the border with unaccompanied children, for example, taking as many as 40 percent of the Border Patrol off the frontlines in the war against illegal drugs coming across the border. And when the Border Patrol is not there--surprise, surprise--the very drugs that contributed to the loss of about 80,000 lives last year in America alone come flowing across, whether it is heroin or cocaine or artificial opioids. You name it, it is coming across the border by the same people who are moving the migrants across the border. Again, they are commodity agnostic. They will do anything for a buck, and they care nothing about the migrants at all. Well, imagine calling 9-1-1 when your home is on fire and watching as they hose down your neighbor's house instead. That is what it feels like watching the Vice President down in Central America. For years, the United States has tried to address the crime and corruption in Central America with very limited success. Do they have some modest role in the crisis? Well, yes, but that is hardly where the Vice President's attention should be focused right now. Particularly, she should be focused--and the President focused--on working with us on policies that Congress would pass that would mitigate this humanitarian crisis. Former Senator Harris's list of legislative accomplishments and her experience solving complex policy problems is not particularly deep. But rather than be critical, I would like to offer a suggestion. In April, Senator Sinema--the Senator from Arizona--and I introduced the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act to address this unfettered flow of migration. She is concerned about Arizona; I am concerned about Texas. But the truth is, I am concerned about America writ large. We have been proud to work in a bicameral way, too, with two of our friends on the other side of the Capitol: Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, TX; and Tony Gonzales, from the 23rd congressional district. The four of us live in and represent border States and districts. We have spent time--a lot of time--listening and learning from the men and women who are committed to safeguarding our border and those who care for the migrants and those who live in these border communities. There are a lot of people out there who will talk about what is happening at the border who have never actually been there, so how in the world would they possibly know? They inaccurately characterize border communities as unsafe, lawless places. That is not true. They villainize the Border Patrol and other law enforcement Agencies like ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Remember the ``Abolish ICE'' slogan? They are criticizing these public servants for actually enforcing the laws that Congress has passed. Congress passed those laws. These brave men and women are simply executing the laws that Congress itself has passed. Well, unfortunately, there is a lot of talk here in Washington by people who offer blanket solutions that have nothing to do, or very little, with solving the complex problems that exist. The fact of the matter is, my State of 29 million people has a beautiful, safe, and vibrant border region. I was there last Wednesday, last. The men and women who lead and protect these communities are doing everything they can to fairly and humanely respond to the crisis. But they are being overwhelmed, and they are not getting much help from the Federal Government. The same is true across our entire southern border. At her invitation, I visited Tucson last Tuesday, a very different border region than we visited on Wednesday, where Senator Sinema came to McAllen, at my request, in the Rio Grande Valley. I appreciate her and her staff taking the time to learn more about the differences in the border in my State from her State. And I certainly learned a lot by traveling to Tucson and meeting with her constituents. In Arizona, we visited a soft-sided Customs and Border Protection facility where migrants are processed, and the Tucson sector chief talked about the broad responsibilities his agents have in these facilities. As I suggested a moment ago, normally, the Border Patrol is responsible for patrolling the border. That is why they call them the Border Patrol. But now they are encountering unaccompanied children and have to leave those frontlines--about 40 percent of them--just to take care of them at these CBP, Customs and Border Protection, facilities. Well, we need the Border Patrol on the border, patrolling the border so they can deal with everything from encountering a child abandoned by human smugglers to a tractor full of human trafficking victims. They might, and will and do, interdict drugs, weapons, money, or any of a number of contraband being smuggled across the border. Again, as some wise person coined the phrase ``commodity agnostic,'' these transnational criminal organizations that really bring people into the United States from worldwide locations but principally from Mexico and Central America--all they care about is the money. In the Tucson sector alone, 103 agents were pulled from the field because somebody needed to take care of the migrants. Now they are doing everything from changing diapers to serving meals, to supervising playtime for the children--103 law enforcement officers in the Tucson sector alone who should be stopping dangerous people and dangerous substances from entering our country instead of acting as caretakers and not creating serious gaps in our border security. Of course, the cartels--these criminal organizations--are pretty smart. This is actually part of their business model. They know that if they flood the border with unaccompanied children, for example, the Border Patrol is going to leave huge gaps that are then going to be exploited by the drug smugglers. They know about the vulnerabilities that exist on our border. They know about our laws and policies, and they are actively exploiting them. And we are basically letting them. Shame on us. In the Rio Grande Valley last week, we spoke with a number of law enforcement and community leaders, including the National Border Patrol Council president, Brandon Judd. Brandon told us that, this year, individuals from 151 different countries were processed at the Donna Processing Facility. This is one processing facility in Donna, TX, in the Rio Grande Valley. Last year, they processed people from 151 different countries. A couple of weeks ago, Customs and Border Protection at the Laredo Port of Entry made a seizure of hard narcotics worth more than $3.5 million of street value. This wasn't from an entire week's worth of drug interdictions; this came from two vehicles that they stopped. One had 20 pounds of cocaine in it; the other had more than 167 pounds of methamphetamine. This strain on law enforcement poses serious risks to our entire country. The criminals, the drugs, the weapons, and other illegal goods that cross our border are heading to every corner of the United States. And if you think they are stopping at the border, think again. They are traveling to all 50 of the United States. And while unaccompanied children have become the face of this crisis, there is a ripple effect that extends far and wide. Border Patrol, ultimately, doesn't have the capacity to provide safe and thorough care for these children and patrol our borders and interdict dangerous substances and enforce our laws. Agents are spread a mile wide and an inch deep, and something has got to change. This is where the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act comes in. We provide for two major changes in the way that migrants are processed to alleviate the strain on law enforcement and improve the way we process and care for migrants when they are in our custody. One, the bill establishes at least four regional processing centers in high-traffic areas. It is, in effect, a ``one stop shop'' for the various government Agencies involved in processing migrants. CBP, Customs and Border Protection; ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement; FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the USCIS, U.S. Customs and Immigration Service; and the Office of Refugee Resettlement will all be housed under a single roof. Migrants can receive medical screenings, have their identities verified, and go through a criminal history check all in one place. And then they will begin the legal process of seeking asylum if, in fact, that is what they are doing. They will complete their asylum interviews, go through legal orientation so they know their rights, and receive the documents and information they need to appear for their future court date in front of an immigration judge. Our bill also addresses the staffing shortages that have made this situation much more challenging. It requires the hiring of hundreds of CBP officers and Border Patrol processing coordinators so agents can get back on the frontlines. In other words, these processing coordinators aren't going to be Border Patrol agents who are highly trained law enforcement officers. We want them back on the frontlines. But if it comes to processing the migrants and preparing the paperwork, we believe these processing coordinators can help. Our legislation also calls for 150 new immigration judge teams, 300 asylum officers, ICE litigation teams, and other personnel to help adjudicate these asylum claims. Right now, the system is completely overwhelmed, and that is exactly what the human smugglers--what we call the coyotes--are planning on. Everybody in Texas along the border, everybody in Arizona, and everybody who lives or works along the border understands what is happening. Again, that is why it would be so instructive for Vice President Harris to actually go to the border. In order to gain a handle on the mass movement of migrants, we need to make these commonsense changes. When it comes to children, it is not enough to ensure they are safely processed by Border Patrol and then transferred to Health and Human Services' custody. We also need to make sure these children are safe after they have been placed with sponsors in the United States and told to appear for a future court hearing. In most cases, children are released to parents or other relatives, but not always. HHS reports that in 2021, more than 1,000 children have been released to unrelated individuals or distant relatives they don't even know. While these may be legitimate caretakers, it can also open the door for these children to be exploited or trafficked. In 2014, the Office of Refugee Resettlement placed eight children with members of a human trafficking ring who posed as family or friends. These children were forced to work on an egg farm in Ohio for no pay for 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week. They lived in deplorable conditions, and they were threatened with violence if they didn't comply. These distant relatives, unbeknownst to these children, and these unrelated individuals are a big cause for concern, but not the only one. Before a child is released into the custody of anyone--a parent, grandparent, aunt, or uncle--this person must be thoroughly vetted by the Federal Government because we simply can't hand a child over to somebody who is going to be a danger to them. There is no vetting requirement, though, for other people who live in the same home. And those of us who have dealt with the scourge of child abuse know that about anybody living in the same home with a minor child--particularly, an unaccompanied child who has undergone the trauma of moving from Central America to the United States is going to be a potential victim. You can have a trustworthy individual identified as taking care of the child, but abuse could be happening under the roof by another person who lives there. Why do we say that? Because, sadly, it happens all the time. Or, heaven forbid, the parent or the relative is the one who decides to exploit the child themselves. What is being done to prevent this abuse? As it turns out, not a lot by the Federal Government. The Health and Human Services Department requires safety and well-being check-in calls to be made to sponsors within 30 days after a child has been released. But in 2021 alone, the data shows that 18 percent, nearly one in five children, could not be reached after 30 days. Phone calls were not answered. Door knocks were not responded to. And that means that hundreds of children released to the care of these adults in the United States on our watch are lost to the system. We don't know if they are in a safe home or if they are a victim of trafficking or abuse, or whether they simply disappeared, whether they have been recruited into a gang. The U.S. Government simply does not know where they are and what is happening to them. This is a national scandal. Senator Sinema and I are committed to passing this legislation that provides these critical protections for these children who already have endured a lot of pain and suffering--a lot more than any child should. Our bill would require criminal background checks, not only for the child's sponsor but for any other adult living in the household. It will bar children from being placed in the custody of anyone who has been convicted of sex offenses, domestic violence, human trafficking, child abuse, or other serious crimes. The U.S. Government simply can't check a box once they have placed a child with a sponsor in the United States. After the initial 30-day checkup, we require another 60-day checkup--as a matter of fact, every 60 days. Protections for children, streamlined processes, more personnel-- these are commonsense reforms that will address the most urgent issues currently on our southern border. Bipartisanship, as we know, is in short supply these days, especially when it comes to the debate surrounding immigration and border security. We have folks in both parties and in both Chambers of Congress lined up behind this particular bill. I hope we can add more bipartisan cosponsors. Our bill has already been endorsed by a broad range of law enforcement, immigration, and business groups--for example, the National Border Patrol Council, National Immigration Forum, and U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I could go on and on. As I have said before, and I will say again in closing, if anybody has a better idea, I am all ears. But, right now, all we hear is crickets. No one is offering any bipartisan, bicameral solutions-- anything close to what we have described here. This isn't meant to be comprehensive immigration reform. It is a targeted solution to the most urgent problems at hand. I would be happy to offer this legislation to Vice President Harris or President Biden as a solution to the crisis on our southern border. I am happy to meet with them. Senator Sinema, I am sure, feels the same, and Congressman Cuellar and Congressman Gonzalez. We are interested in fixing the problem, not scoring political points, and we can't afford to wait years or maybe even decades to see the circumstances in Central America change. After all, then-Vice President Biden was tapped to solve this identical problem by President Obama. Let me say that again: Vice President Biden was tapped to solve this identical problem by President Obama. Not only was he unsuccessful, but, as we know, it has gotten worse since that time. We need urgent action to address the crisis we are experiencing today at our Nation's border and the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act is an important first step.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would like to thank our friend Senator Cramer for telling us this story about this great American patriot. Many of us are of that age where we are the children of members of the ``greatest generation'' who have their own stories to tell. Just listening to Senator Cramer talk about this great patriot who fought at the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most horrific battles in World War II and most consequential battles--that is really where they really stopped Hitler, finally, toward the end of the war--it reminds me of people like my dad who flew B-17s out of England during the last part of the war. Their job was to knock out the Hitler war machine. But there are so many great stories from that generation. These great World War II patriots are getting older, and they are leaving us, but certainly we will always remember them and their contributions. So I appreciate the Senator from North Dakota sharing that with us.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I call up my amendment 1858 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, last year Senator Warner, the senior Senator from Virginia, and I introduced the CHIPS for America Act to help shore up vulnerable supply chains for semiconductors and to reduce our reliance on other countries for the most critical components of everything from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to the cell phones in our pockets and everything in between. The vast majority of our colleagues have agreed that this is a critical task. It was carefully crafted after monthslong bipartisan, bicameral negotiations. In fact, this legislation was adopted as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 96 to 4 at the end of last year. But now we need to fund the program we created, and there is just one issue standing in the way. During committee consideration of the Endless Frontier Act, an amendment was adopted that would apply controversial and unprecedented prevailing wage language to the CHIPS for America Act signed into law last year. This provision creates a needless hurdle to funding for the CHIPS provision. Considering the current wages of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing companies, there is zero benefit--zero benefit--to workers' wages. So this is really a nonissue in terms of the compensation that workers in semiconductor manufacturing facilities will make. What is more, these Davis-Bacon provisions represent an expansion of special interest labor policy to private construction projects and set a disturbing precedent. Leaving this language in the bill is a gratuitous act and could dramatically weaken support for the broader legislation, and I would hope we could all agree that the stakes are simply too high to let that happen. So I have introduced an amendment to strike this unnecessary and divisive language and maintain strong bipartisan support for this program. A partisan provision with zero benefit to workers' wages is hardly a reason to gamble with strong support for the CHIPS Act. Republicans and Democrats have worked hard together to bolster our domestic semiconductor manufacturing and to confront one of the most dangerous, looming threats from China. Now is not the time to sacrifice the progress we have made. So I would encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment so we can maintain the strong bipartisan support for this critical legislation and send a message to our adversaries that the United States intends to stay the world's preeminent economic and military power.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, Texas has always been a proud supporter of an ``all of the above'' energy strategy. We are often recognized as an oil and gas powerhouse, which we are, but most folks don't know that we are the No. 1 producer of energy from wind, the No. 1 renewable resource. In fact, we now produce one-quarter of all wind energy in the United States. So if Texas were a country--and my friend from Vermont may be interested in this--we would be the fifth largest wind energy producer in the world.