Christopher Coons

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, today, I am pleased to join my colleague Senator Wicker in honoring Rex Buffington, a friend and public servant who will soon retire from the John C. Stennis Center for Public Service Leadership, where he has served as executive director for three decades. Rex was present at the center's founding and has been instrumental in the development and success of this important legislative branch institution. He embodies the essence of its mission which endeavors to inspire and train new generations of leaders who seek out public service. The late Senator John C. Stennis, who founded the center, embodied this commitment to public service, not only in his relationships with his colleagues, who called him a ``Senator's Senator,'' but to all who admired the way he lived his life. Integrity, courage, commitment to duty, and hard work are among the core principles that marked his time in the Senate. Given the late Senator's focus on public service, the Stennis Center's congressional mandate became clear--to attract young people to careers in public service, to provide training for leaders and future leaders in public service, and to offer training and development opportunities for senior congressional staff, Members of Congress, and other public servants. Rex has played a vital role in helping to realize Senator Stennis's vision. Rex has said: The Stennis Center believes that no government, regardless of its history and structure, can be better than the people who make it work. That is why our focus is on people over policy. We are confident that if we can get the best possible people in public service leadership, we will also get good policy. From the creation of the Stennis Center in 1988, Rex Buffington has committed himself to memorializing those ideals the late Senator Stennis embodied. At its core, the Stennis Center operates a unique, bipartisan development program for 30 of the most outstanding high-ranking congressional staff in the House and Senate. Best known for the flagship Stennis Congressional Staff Fellowship Program, Rex has ushered in nearly 400 senior-level congressional staff members through this practical, bipartisan, bicameral leadership development experience established in the 103rd Congress. These veteran staff members have in turn started a mentoring program for younger congressional staff, called Emerging Leaders. Rex sought out many other ways to honor public service. He has been a strong supporter of our Nation's military servicemembers. Honoring the late Senator Stennis's relationship with the defense community, Rex has cultivated a unique civilian-military relations portfolio of programs at the Stennis Center. He was also instrumental in establishing programs that have inspired leaders at every level--from high school to newly elected Members of Congress. For example, over 300,000 high school students from across the country annually compete for a spot at the John C. Stennis National Student Congress. Rex's hard work and dedication have been integral to the success of the Stennis Center and to thousands of public servants who have benefited from his counsel and leadership. Prior to being appointed executive director, Rex served as Senator Stennis's press secretary and chief spokesperson and played a major role in shaping the Senator's legislative strategy. He has long been active in his local community and his church, serving in a variety of roles supporting youth, advocating for education, and participating in organizations such as Scouting, the United Way, the Rotary Club, the Boys and Girls Club, and many more. Rex was born and raised in Meridian, MS, and graduated from Mississippi State University with a degree in communication. He started out as a news reporter for the Memphis Commercial Appeal before moving to Washington to work for Senator Stennis. Rex has long been a steady, thoughtful, and committed leader. He has dedicated his professional life to the bipartisan work of promoting and strengthening the highest ideals of public service leadership in America and has provided vital services and resources to Members of Congress and their staff for 30 years. I want to thank Rex and his family for their commitment to public service, and I wish them all the best in the future.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I am honored to have the opportunity to join my colleagues and rise today to speak in tribute to my friend Senator Bob Corker and in recognition of his remarkable service to our Nation here in the Senate of the United States. Senator Corker and his staff have left an astonishing legacy of tireless energy, engagement, and productivity, and I am thrilled to have a few minutes to follow on the comments of the majority leader and the senior Senator from his home State of Tennessee. When I first came here as a freshman in 2010, I partnered with Senator Joe Manchin, who was elected at the same time as I was in a special election. We decided that the first thing we had to do was to go to Afghanistan and see our troops in harm's way. Having never been a Senator before, I had no idea how one went about getting to Afghanistan, but Senator Manchin assured me he had it under control and it was all going to be just fine. Just a few weeks later, I ended up on an airplane with two Senators I had never heard of--Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Bob Corker of Tennessee. Maybe I had heard of them, but I certainly had never met them and knew little about them. As we all got engaged in this trip--we went to Pakistan and Afghanistan--I learned more and more about Bob Corker. You just heard it, but I will repeat it. Possessing a fierce work ethic, incredible intellect, and a determination to get things done, Mr. Corker is a builder who reaches across the aisle, extends his hand, and doesn't relent until there is a deal done. I can't think of a more frustrating place to try and bring that attitude than Afghanistan. We were there at a time when our own law enforcement had just informed us that then-President Hamid Karzai's half-brother had stolen nearly a half billion dollars from the American taxpayers. Chairman Corker unleashed on the President of Afghanistan with a focused communication that I will not soon forget, and that left me looking around to make sure there were folks from our side in the room. He was respectful and supportive of our men and women of the Armed Forces. He was engaged and purposeful with the leaders of Afghanistan. In every single meeting we had in Pakistan and Afghanistan and then in the follow-on in Jordan and Israel, Bob was a blizzard of activity with purpose. What an introduction that was. What I realized on our trip is that my background as a county executive who did a lot in land use and development and Bob's background as an entrepreneur and a builder and then a mayor and someone passionate about providing housing to those in need meant that we had a lot in common. He has an attitude of wanting to get a lot of things done and refusing to be satisfied with a body where folks talk too much and accomplish too little. So from that first trip, I concluded Senator Corker was someone with whom I could really get things done. He is the sort of person who has been willing at times to put Nation above party and to be always committed to his home State of Tennessee. I do want to make sure I also say thank you to his wife Elizabeth and to his daughters, Emily and Julia, and his family, including his grandchildren, who have supported him in this service. His dozen years in the Senate has left a lasting legacy, and that is only because he has a family who has loved and supported him even as he has traveled relentlessly around the world and worked tirelessly to tackle our budget issues. As a builder, an entrepreneur, and successful businessman, Bob can read a balance sheet, and he knows that ours is badly out of whack. As a member of the Budget Committee in my first few years here, he was relentless at delivering a message to anyone who was here that we were headed toward a reckoning. That is a piece of unfinished business that I feel some obligation to try and carry forward in Mr. Corker's honor. As you heard his colleagues say, though, it was at moments of Bob's tireless, relentless energy and his determination to build things and get things done that he encountered the tragic realities of the world that most moved him. A trip to Haiti opened his eyes to the profound need for housing in this region of the world. Much later, a trip to the Philippines to see the tragedy of young women ensnared by sex traffickers profoundly touched him and moved him. It is this combination of a relentless will, great intellect, and a huge heart that has made Senator Corker--Chairman Corker--such a successful leader here. Whether meeting with world leaders, fighting to solve budget issues, or chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, there is universal agreement about his passion, his character, and his integrity. That is because he genuinely listens to people, asks them thoughtful, sometimes tough, very focused questions, and then gets moving toward solving a problem. I asked for a review of the bills that we have worked on, and it is longer than the time I have allotted. So let me just give a few highlights. One of the issues that bears mentioning is that in a deeply divided, often too partisan Congress, where too few Members are willing to work across the aisle to achieve results, my work on legislation with Chairman Corker has led to most of the things that I can say with confidence have made a difference in my short 8 years here. We recently worked together to reauthorize PEPFAR, President George W. Bush's emergency program for AIDS relief, in just September of this year. We worked together--this is really Senator Corker's issue and his leadership--to pass the End Modern Slavery Initiative Act, a critical step in fighting the scourge of slavery around the world today. We worked to pass the Global Food Security Act, which authorized USAID's Emergency Food Security Program, and we worked tirelessly--work I intend to continue--to make our food aid more efficient and focused. There is the Water for the World Act, which promotes safe, clean drinking water for a billion people around the world and was signed into law in 2014. Most recently, there was a bill we spent a great deal of time on and where his staff was particularly effective, the BUILD Act, which will deploy $60 billion of American private capital around the world, at no cost to American taxpayers, in a way that meets the challenges we face from China, investing everywhere in the world. It allows us to step up the skills and strength of our private sector to help build and meet the needs of a growing world. Working to implement the BUILD Act and to execute on Bob's vision will be one of the things I will tend to this coming year, as well as making sure that the Electrify Africa Act, which we worked on together, is implemented this coming year, and this will be something I look forward to doing. Working on making sure that the End Modern Slavery Initiative Act is carried forward this coming Congress is something I look forward to. What I will deeply miss is time with Senator Corker. It was at Easter time last year that he asked me on short notice if I thought we should go to the fastest growing refugee camp in the world, Bidi Bidi, in Uganda, where more than a quarter-million people were living after fleeing war-torn South Sudan. I went to my wife and said: I sort of planned a quiet weekend at home this year, what do you think? She said: There is no better place on Earth you can be than with Bob Corker. She and I both have been impressed with his tireless commitment to making a difference in the world, and the impact of that trip on both of us--of spending that weekend not in the comfort or quiet of our own homes in our home States but with people who had just fled violence, torture, rape, and abuse, and to provide some measure of comfort and confidence to them and to gain insight into how we are helping around the world-- touched my heart and will affect the whole rest of my service and my life. Let me just say this in closing. We have had a remarkable time serving together in Foreign Relations. Chairman Corker has shown us how Members of this body should act. We have real differences. He is a conservative Republican. He is of the opposite party. He comes to things with different principles. But he has been relentless in finding solutions, and the problems that face us will not be solved without leaders like Chairman Corker. It has been my honor to have the opportunity to work with him on a few issues. Frankly, I wish more Members were here to talk about all the other issues--from financial services to the auto industry to things around the world--that I know are pressing business in this short lameduck session. Let me say this. I am eager to see what Chairman Corker does next, because his relentless energy, huge heart, and great intellect have made such a lasting difference here. I am eager to find out what he is determined to build next. There is nothing to which he has bent his will toward that hasn't been shaped by his character, his integrity, and his kindness. It has been a true blessing, Mr. Corker, to serve alongside you and, in some small way, to try to earn the opportunity to make a difference in this country and in this world with you. Thank you and thank you for your service to our Nation. With that, Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I am proud to join the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from New Jersey on the floor today in calling for action on a bipartisan bill--a bill that has been crafted to protect our institutions and safeguard the rule of law in this country not just right now but for future Congresses and administrations as well. Today, we will be asking our colleagues to give the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act the consideration here on the floor of the Senate that it deserves. This bill would do something simple but powerful: It would codify Department of Justice regulations that prevent the removal of a special counsel without good cause. That might seem like a small detail, but it is important. Independence is required to ensure that a special counsel can do his or her job and find the facts. Our bipartisan bill would put this restriction in statute and give the special counsel a clear legal remedy. If removed without cause, the special counsel would have a 10-day period to take the case to a three- judge panel for expedited consideration. If the special counsel doesn't wish to contest his removal, it would proceed without interference. Both Republicans and Democrats recognize that removal of the current special counsel without a valid basis would be a significant, even a catastrophic event. It would be a constitutional crisis that would threaten the Presidency and the rule of law. We can work together to prevent a crisis. President Trump should be the first person to support this bill. He has raised concerns about oversight of the special counsel. He has accused the prosecutors of making partisan, politically motivated decisions. This act would ensure that regulations providing for supervision and oversight of the investigation are not just codified but strengthened. It would ensure that Congress gets a complete picture at the end of the investigation. My colleagues Senators Graham, Tillis, Booker, Grassley, and Feinstein were instrumental in crafting this balanced legislation, and it passed the Judiciary Committee by a strong bipartisan margin of 14 to 7, 7 months ago. The time to take up and pass this bill in the Senate is now. Some have questioned the need for this legislation. They have said the President would never fire Special Counsel Mueller, and I hope and pray they are right. I don't think it would be in President Trump's interest to remove the special counsel and certainly not in the interest of our country. The President has repeatedly, publicly, and directly attacked the special counsel and his investigation. Just yesterday, he called his investigation a ``phony witch hunt'' that is ``doing tremendous damage to our criminal justice system.'' The President has already fired the FBI Director and forced the resignation of the Attorney General, citing grievances related to this investigation in both cases. We have an Acting Attorney General not confirmed by the Senate, with no nominee in sight to conduct oversight of this investigation, which is unprecedented and not acceptable. This bill addresses threats not just to this special counsel but future special counsels. I would ask my colleagues who are holding back this bill to consider whether they may wish it were the law in a Democratic administration as well. We should all appreciate the ways in which this protects the rule of law. Let me close by quoting what my colleague Chairman Grassley said when he expressed his view back in April that this should be considered by the full Senate during our Judiciary Committee markup on the bill: In some ways, today's vote will say a lot about how each of us views our responsibilities as Senators. We took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, but we're not judges or Presidents. We are stewards of the legislative branch. The Founders anticipated that we would wield the powers the Constitution affords us with great ambition so that we could effectively check the powers of the other branches. This bill certainly does that. I am confident that, if allowed to go to a vote, this bill would pass with more than 60 votes. History will judge us for how we work together to confront the challenges that face our Nation. The rest of the world is watching. It is important to take up and pass this bill. I now recognize my colleague, a cosponsor of this legislation, the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. COONS. Will my colleague from Utah consider a question?

Mr. COONS. Was Justice Scalia's dissent in Morrison v. Olson a majority opinion?

Mr. COONS. Madam President, will the Senator yield for another question?

Mr. COONS. Let me just conclude by saying that the DC Circuit reconsidered this issue just this year and in their decision said that Morrison remains valid and binding precedent. I know we have other urgent business to move to, but I will simply say that I am grateful for the work of my colleague from Arizona. Despite the objection of my colleague from Utah, I am convinced this is an important bill that we should continue to bring forward on the floor of the Senate. Thank you.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Marcus Wright of my staff be given floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, first, I want to thank my colleague and my friend, Mr. Flake, the Senator from Arizona, for joining me today in calling for action on a balanced bipartisan bill to uphold the rule of law, to avoid a constitutional crisis, and to secure the ongoing position of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as he moves to complete his investigation. This is a critical moment. Just a week ago today, President Trump forced the resignation of his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, and effectively stripped Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of his authority to supervise the ongoing investigation by Robert Mueller--an investigation which, I will remind you, just the same day he forced Attorney General Sessions' resignation, the President attacked publicly as a hoax and a witch hunt. Let's take a step back to remember the bigger picture here. Robert Mueller--a career Federal law enforcement leader, a decorated combat veteran, a lifelong Republican--is leading an investigation into a foreign adversary's attack on our last election. This isn't about relitigating that election. It isn't about partisan politics. It is about protecting our democracy. As my colleague Senator Flake said, it is about protecting what defines us as a democracy. Yet our President is now in a position easily to interfere with or even end the Mueller investigation. Compounding that threat is the person who has been appointed as the Acting Attorney General, Matthew Whitaker. I have separate concerns about Mr. Whitaker's novel legal theories well outside the mainstream, about whether his experience makes him an appropriate person to be Acting Attorney General, whether his appointment is consistent with the Constitution and Federal law, but I will leave those concerns for another day. At the moment, I think Mr. Whitaker's comments about the Mueller investigation made a year ago make him a clear and present danger to the independence of the special counsel. In an editorial last year, Mr. Whitaker argued that Mueller is ``dangerously close to crossing'' a redline, following reports saying he was looking into the President's finances. He said that without any examination of the facts or evidence. He said that if the investigation goes too far, then--and he openly pondered ways--an Attorney General could reduce special counsel Mueller's budget ``so low that his investigation grinds almost to a halt.'' For these reasons and others, I think Mr. Whitaker should recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation, and we cannot wait for that action. We have asked our colleagues today to take a simple yet critical step to protect the special counsel and future special counsels in future administrations by supporting the bipartisan Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act. This is a bill crafted by Senator Graham, Senator Booker, myself, Senator Tillis--a bipartisan bill that, with the support of Senator Flake and the Chairman, Senator Grassley, passed the Judiciary Committee in April by a strong bipartisan margin of 14 to 7. We had a hearing. We had a markup. We had a vote. It is ready for committee action. While I appreciate repeated assurances by the majority leader and many other Senators of the other party that it is not needed because they are confident the President will take no inappropriate action to interfere with the ongoing investigation, why would we not take this simple preventive measure? Given the President's repeated actions, given his repeated statements about the Mueller investigation, why pose this risk when a simple vote on the floor of the Senate could move this toward enactment? Let me be clear about what the bill does. It says that if the special counsel is removed, counsel has the opportunity to challenge the removal in court. A panel of three Federal judges would have 2 weeks to hear and determine whether the removal was based on good cause. If the panel doesn't find good cause, the counsel would be reinstated. It preserves staffing, documents, and materials of the investigation while that matter is pending for that brief period. The bottom line is this. The special counsel legislation we are urging today protects the integrity of this special counsel and future special counsels, something that Members of this body of both parties have repeatedly and publicly said we value. It strengthens the rule of law. It strengthens the principle that no one is above the law, and it ensures that we are not back on this floor trying to unravel an emerging constitutional crisis should the President precipitously act or should Matthew Whitaker precipitously act to impede Special Counsel Mueller's ongoing investigation. Let me close today by asking my colleagues who are listening to consider the fundamental principles that form the basis of our democracy--free and fair elections, respect for the rule of law, strong independent institutions that deliver justice impartially and transparently. It is because of these principles, enshrined in our founding documents, that the United States has grown from a fledgling experiment--at that time on the very fringes of world civilization--to a strong, vibrant, and inclusive nation that is a beacon for the world and the most sustained and greatest democracy in the history of the world. We cannot take these principles and we cannot take the institutions of our democracy for granted. They don't protect themselves. Every now and then, when founding principles are threatened, we have to demand elected officials put aside disagreements and come together to defend them. This is one such moment. I am grateful to my colleague from Arizona for his statement and his leadership today. I am confident that if given the opportunity to come for a vote, this bill would get at least 60 votes, having spoken to colleagues on both sides of the aisle yesterday and today. I am puzzled as to why there are leaders in this body who continue to have great confidence given the President's statements and actions. I think the time for action has long since passed. We should have taken that action today. I will continue to work tirelessly with my colleague from Arizona until we secure passage of this bill. With that, I yield the floor to my colleague and cosponsor, the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I will just conclude by saying that I could not agree more with the comments of the Senator from Arizona, my friend and colleague. There come moments when we should step up and defend the prerogatives and the role of this body. This is one of them. I understand it may annoy, it may displease the President for there to be a speed bump put in the way of interference with the special counsel. But this isn't just about the current special counsel; this is about taking Department of Justice regulations and making them statute. This is about providing a small modicum of protection for the groundless removal of a special counsel. This is something that, as my colleague has said, deserves prompt attention on the floor. We have a few weeks between now and the end of this Congress, time when we could be taking up and confirming nominees, time when we could be taking up and moving other pieces of legislation, but you have heard a very clear position by my colleague that we won't be moving forward nominees in the Judiciary Committee, and if just one more colleague joins him, we might well begin to prevent nominations from moving on the floor as well. To what end? Simply to get a vote on the floor. Simply to get an opportunity to be heard and for there to be a vote taken on this important piece of bipartisan legislation. I am grateful to my colleague for his work on this and for his stand today, and I look forward to continuing to work tirelessly with him on it. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Thank you, Mr. President. I come to the floor to express my opposition to the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to serve as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. I come with a profound regret. I come today with profound regret that this body has transformed from one that historically confirms Supreme Court Justices with broad and bipartisan support to one in which rules, norms, and courtesies fall away to serve the objectives of the majority and one in which Justices are confirmed by the absolute narrowest of margins. I know I am not the only one to feel this way. We can simply wish for the bygone era of consensus to return, we can give speeches about bipartisanship with no hope of making progress, but to wish for it without doing the work of reaching across the aisle is empty talk without action, and as one who tries to inject some spirit of bipartisanship in what has been the most bitter and most divisive and most partisan fight I have seen in my 8 years here, I wanted to reflect for a moment before we close today on my views on the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh, the process that got us here and where we go next. First, in this process, in this nomination, I saw barrier after barrier placed in front of consensus and bipartisanship and the proper functioning of the Senate Judiciary Committee on which I serve. These barriers prevented us from fully and effectively performing the advice and consent function to which we are called by the Constitution. We have to do better. There needs to be a reckoning with all that went wrong here. I am sure that colleagues from the other side of the aisle may well have different views on exactly which steps or developments led to the sharply divided vote today and the heated and sharply divided hearing and proceedings of last week, and I welcome their input. But I thought today I should, for me, recount the course of this nomination. It was fraught from the beginning because the Senate Judiciary Committee majority used an unprecedented and partisan process to rush this nomination while blocking access to millions of pages of documents of Judge Kavanaugh's service in the White House, potentially relevant to our deliberations. For the first time since Watergate, the nonpartisan National Archives was cut out of the process for reviewing and producing the nominee's records, and Judge Kavanaugh's former deputy, who made his career representing Republican and partisan causes, was in charge of designating which documents this committee and the American people got to see. Nonetheless, the committee pressed forward, despite objections from the minority to Judge Kavanaugh's hearing. During that hearing, I was, frankly, disappointed. Judge Kavanaugh was not fully forthcoming when discussing his interpretation of the Constitution and responding to timely and important questions about his record. I asked Judge Kavanaugh why he repeatedly criticized Morrison v. Olson, a 30-year-old precedent about a now-extinct statute but a 30- year-old Supreme Court precedent holding that Congress can create an independent counsel with authority to investigate the President and whom the President cannot just fire on a whim. I asked whether he still believes what he said in 1998, that a President can fire at will a prosecutor criminally investigating him. On these and other critical questions of Presidential power, Judge Kavanaugh would not respond. He would not tell me whether he believes all executive branch officials must be removable at will by the President, according to his view of Executive power. I asked whether critical rights like rights of access to contraception, to abortion, the right to marry the person you love would be protected under the test to evaluate substantive due process that he has championed. Judge Kavanaugh has repeatedly cited a test for substantive due process that would limit the protection of liberty and interest to rights ``deeply rooted in our Nation's history and tradition,'' but he would not confront the consequences of applying this test going forward. Judge Kavanaugh would also not condemn President Trump's attacks on the Federal Judiciary and the President's suggestions that the Justice Department should consider politics when making prosecutorial decisions. I asked Judge Kavanaugh about a comment he made on a panel at Georgetown when he said: ``If the President were the sole subject of a criminal investigation, I would say, no one should be investigating that.'' In fact, Judge Kavanaugh testified he didn't say that, but I reviewed the record. I followed up with a series of questions for the record to get additional information I think the American people should know and to give Judge Kavanaugh a chance outside of our brief exchanges in the confirmation process to explain his suggestions that perhaps I had misquoted him. Unfortunately, I instead received pages of nonanswers. When I asked Judge Kavanaugh specific questions about his criticism of Morrison v. Olson, he simply referred to his prior testimony and said he had ``nothing further to add here.'' He would not explain how his proffered test for substantive due process is consistent with the Court's landmark marriage equality decision by Justice Kennedy in Obergefell. After the hearing was over, I learned of Dr. Ford's allegations that Judge Kavanaugh had assaulted her in high school. Dr. Ford courageously presented her account to the committee and the country. She gave compelling testimony about a terrifying sexual assault she experienced at age 15. She recounted Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh, stumbling drunk, pushing into her bedroom, locking the door, laughing, and turning up the music to muffle her screams. Dr. Ford testified with 100 percent certainty that the person who assaulted her was the judge whose nomination we were considering, whom she had known through acquaintances and socialized with on many occasions. Dr. Ford had borne the pain of this attack alone for decades, but over time, she told several people she trusted. She told her now- husband in 2002, she told therapists in 2012 and 2013, and friends in 2013, 2016, 2017, and 2018. She proffered their names in the subsequent FBI investigation, but they were never questioned. Importantly, Dr. Ford wasn't the only person to come forward during this period. Her testimony gave courage to countless others to confront their own trauma and share their own pain so that all of us can understand. As I just shared in a bipartisan conversation with colleagues at the end of this divisive vote, we have all had the experience of friends and colleagues, classmates and neighbors coming forward with stories long concealed--whether out of shame or fear; whether out of a certainty they would not be believed; whether out of pressures real, recent, or long gone--and we all have work to do together. Inspired by these survivors, I will never forget the experiences they have shared, and I will not stop in efforts to make certain this body, this Senate, acts in ways that respect them and their suffering and their experiences. When Dr. Ford came forward to speak to all of us and the American people, I will remind you she had nothing to gain and a lot to lose. She came forward to testify about her assault, and I am going to use her own words to explain why, as she said to us: ``I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school.'' Civic duty to tell the truth. What always struck me was how Dr. Ford came forward to voice concerns before Judge Kavanaugh was nominated by the President. She reached out to her Congresswoman and anonymously to the Washington Post when his name was on a short list, but he had not yet been chosen. Later, last Thursday, after Dr. Ford's testimony, Judge Kavanaugh came forward to offer an aggressive, full-throated, angry denunciation of her accusations. Even recognizing the understandable passion of one who believes himself to be defending his honor against unjust assault, I found his prepared opening statement and combative exchanges with my colleagues deeply troubling. As a sitting circuit court judge, he refused to answer fair and relevant questions, instead throwing them back in the faces of two of my colleagues. He was not candid with the committee about his own history of drinking and aggressive behavior. To quote an editorial recently published by three college classmates: Telling the truth, no matter how difficult, is a moral obligation for our nation's leaders. No one should be able to lie their way onto the Supreme Court. Honesty is the glue that holds together a society of laws. Lies are the solvent that dissolves those bonds. They stated: ``Brett lied under oath while seeking to become a Supreme Court Justice.'' Most concerning of all to me, Judge Kavanaugh broke his own stated rule of staying three ZIP Codes away from politics. In his sharply worded and partisan exchange with Senators, he accused Democrats of ``replacing advice and consent with search and destroy,'' of ``Borking'' him, of engaging in some sort of revenge plot on behalf of the Clintons, and of a calculated political hit. He looked us in the eye and told us: ``What goes around comes around.'' Retired Justice John Paul Stevens explained he changed his mind about Judge Kavanaugh's fitness to serve because his hearing performance ``demonstrated a potential bias.'' I share the concern of my colleague Senator Murkowski's that after last Thursday, the ``appearance of impropriety has become unavoidable.'' Following the intense and emotional testimony of last Thursday, I am grateful that we took a week pause so that the FBI could conduct an investigation into credible allegations of sexual assault, and I remain thankful to my colleague Senator Flake for supporting my call for an FBI investigation. It showed courage on his part. Unfortunately, regrettably, the investigation that ensued had a scope so narrow, so cursory, so incomplete that it did not remove the cloud hanging over Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. Dozens of witnesses who could have corroborated Dr. Ford's and Ms. Ramirez's accounts were never contacted and never questioned, despite their contacts and names being handed to FBI agents and despite the efforts of many offices in the Senate to forward their information. I fear that with the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court today, we will look back on this moment not only as a moment of raucous turmoil for the Senate but as a moment where the norms and traditions of blind justice, a justice blind to partisanship, will have slipped away. The Court is critical to the rule of law in our country, and I am deeply concerned that its legitimacy will be harmed with the addition of an explicitly partisan Justice. The Supreme Court plays a pivotal role in defining the scope of the President's power in determining whether the President is above the law. The Supreme Court impacts essential rights enshrined in our Constitution--the rights to privacy, intimacy, marriage, contraception, abortion, the freedom to worship as we choose, the ability to participate in our democracy as full and equal citizens, and the promise of equal protection of the laws. There are so many more I could list. These issues are not academic, and they are under assault. There are cases proceeding to the Supreme Court now that are relevant to so many of these concerns. There are cases challenging the constitutionality of the ongoing special counsel investigation now. A lawsuit that is aimed at striking down the Affordable Care Act is proceeding in Texas now, and the Trump administration is refusing to defend protections for people with preexisting conditions. A challenge to restrictive regulations for abortion clinics--regulations aimed at putting clinics out of business--is headed to the Supreme Court now. Right now, there are also lawsuits across the country in which LGBT Americans are challenging discrimination they have faced in employment, in schools, and in government service. Our Supreme Court should be a bulwark against violations of law, deprivations of freedom, and abuses of power. Yet we may now enter a perilous time when the Court will, in fact, be shifting far right and will end up issuing decision after decision on clearly partisan lines-- significantly more conservative than the majority of Americans at a time when a President elected by a minority of Americans will have appointed the Justice with a deciding vote, after his confirmation, by the narrowest of margins. The Justice who has been confirmed today is one who, in his conduct, will lead some to fairly doubt his impartiality. He will likely play a central role for decades in charting a course for interpreting our laws and rights and freedoms. I hope and pray that I am wrong, that my interpretation of his writings, of his speeches, and of his opinions is flawed, that the apology and retraction he offered is genuine, in an opinion that was published yesterday, about his partisan screed in his confirmation hearing, and that his behavior as a Justice will put to rest all of the concerns I have raised and that he will be a model of moderation and balance. Yet I have profound doubts and grave concerns about Judge Kavanaugh's ability to serve on the Supreme Court in an evenhanded and nonpartisan way. As I conclude, let me make a personal plea to those who are listening and those who may watch: that we in the Senate, in going forward, must address the flaws and weaknesses of the process that got us to today and that we must do better. Simply retreating to our partisan cloakrooms when we are faced with our Nation's challenges will not solve them. If we do not work to repair this institution, there will be nothing left worth saving. If this Senate does not work, our Congress does not work. If our Congress does not work, our Nation does not work. If our Nation does not work, we teach the world that democracy is not the model to follow. If we, simply, reflect the bitter partisanship that is growing and festering across our Nation--fueled by some here in Washington--we will fail. We in the Senate must, instead, follow the Founders' vision for us and, in fact, lead the country to common ground, to consensus, and to a better future. We should, therefore, work together to get back to a place where it is possible for Supreme Court Justices to be confirmed with broad and bipartisan majorities, where it is possible to legislate together on the issues compelling to our time, and where it is possible to hear each other and to hear the concerns of all of our people. I hope my colleagues will hear my remarks today as an invitation to work together to face this challenge. We owe nothing less to the Supreme Court, to our country, and to our people. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, it was a week ago today that Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which I serve, were riveted by the compelling and powerful testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. It was a week ago today that Judge Brett Kavanaugh delivered his forceful rejoinder and rebuttal. Today I want to take a moment and share with Members of this Chamber and folks who may be watching something else that was happening during this entire hearing that I did not expect. It was powerful and unique and special in my experience as a public servant, and I have heard, as I have listened to other Senators of both parties who were present and with whom I talked to afterward, it was their experience as well: This conversation is bigger. It is bigger, it is pressing, and, I would say, it is more important than the question of one Supreme Court seat and one current nominee. It is a question that we, as a country at the highest levels of power, believe victims and survivors of sexual assault and are willing to listen to them, to believe them, and to take action. So what was it that happened last Thursday? As I tried to pay attention to the remarkable testimony of Dr. Ford, my phone was blowing up. I got texts, I got instant messages, I got phone calls, I got emails, I got Facebook posts--I got messages in more ways that you can connect with me than I knew was possible. These were stories--powerful stories--stories that friends of mine, people I have known for years or decades, people I barely know or people I hope to get to meet. They were sharing with me stories of assault. They were told by classmates, neighbors, friends, constituents, people who had carried these burdens alone for years. These stories are difficult to hear, but it is important that they be heard. It is important to understanding why survivors stay silent, and it is important to understanding why we, as a body and a nation, must get this moment right. They are important to understanding why the President and others are wrong when they say that if a victim's allegations are true, she would have filed a report or come forward decades ago. In response to the question, why didn't Dr. Christine Blasey Ford come forward earlier, I have just this experience to share. The texts and emails, the conversations in person and over the phone, with friends I have known for so long and friends I have just met, make it powerfully clear to me that the many ways in which assault and violation happens in our country between people have as many different reasons why they hide them, carry them, and keep them in darkness and quiet and in shame, and each one of those stories reminds me even more powerfully the reasons we must--we must--demonstrate that they are heard. One friend from Delaware, a cancer survivor--someone I have spoken about on this floor before because of her survival of a nearly life- ending cancer--confided in me she was terrorized and raped as a small child. Living with the effects of that experience, she said, has been way harder than cancer. She said to me early childhood trauma can be murky and difficult to describe and doesn't lend itself easily to a courtroom narrative understanding. She is right. A male friend, someone I know from high school, shared with me an experience he had during a spring break trip. He shared how, on a biology field trip to Mexico, when he sought help from a trip organizer after snorkeling fins blistered his ankles, after administering first aid in the hotel room, he was assaulted. His comment was he was too shocked to call for help and did not tell anyone for over three decades. He is right. She is right. They are not alone. Today I want to share a few more stories shared over the last weeks by brave men and women who are shining a light on the challenges, the fear, the shame, and the anger surrounding sexual assault. This is under the hashtag ``Why I Didn't Report.'' I think it helps lend some understanding to the dynamics of surviving assault. Under the hashtag ``Why I Didn't Report'': ``I had known him for years,'' one victim said. Why I didn't report: Because he was ``sorry.'' Because I was drunk. Because I was young and ashamed and felt like I had somehow asked for it even though I had said NO and STOP. . . . Because even typing this still makes me feel it all again. Another, in response to this hashtag, said: Because my counselor said they won't believe you because you're not a pretty girl. Another said: I blamed myself. I was humiliated and hurt. I thought they were my friends. I felt safe until I wasn't and then it was too late. I wanted to wash it away and never think about it again. Another said: Because I feel ashamed of what happened and didn't want to publicly ruin someone's life, even though they privately ruined mine. Because: He was my boyfriend and I was sleeping. He told me he had been accused of this before and it wasn't rape because we were dating. Another victim posted: My mom did report my 18 year old cousin when I was 9. I had to testify sitting across a table from him. I froze and cried, couldn't speak. All charges were dropped. Earlier this week, at a townhall at the Delaware City Fire Company, someone I have known for decades got out of her car, came up to me, gave me a huge hug, and, weeping, said: I never told my husband, I never told my son, and today I have. In her voice, there was both heavy emotion and an enormous sense of relief--and, I have to say, for me, a sense of great pain that I was wishing I could do nothing except sit and listen, to honor her story, to provide some sense of comfort and support and recognition. Yet I had to move on to the townhall after a few moments. At a dinner here in Washington just last night, someone shared with me an amazing story of her daughter's suffering. To hear a story of that power and pain in the midst of a social setting is both wonderful, in that they are trusting with a story they have held on to for so long, and terrible, in that it is a reminder of the ways in which we speak to each other of surviving assault in hushed tones and in dark corners and on the internet and anonymously. Whatever comes out of this week, whatever comes out of the proceedings of this floor today, tomorrow, and this weekend, we must listen and recognize that hundreds of thousands of American women and men have been victims, are victims, and will be victims, of sexual assault--and, according to our Department of Justice, at least two- thirds have never reported it. There is an ocean of pain in this Nation not yet fully heard, not yet appropriately resolved, not yet fully addressed. Everyone--everyone-- everyone within earshot of my voice--the women and men in this Chamber, staff, journalists, colleagues, friends, members of the public, those who think Brett Kavanaugh should be a Supreme Court Justice and those who do not, those who have either themselves been victimized by assault or know someone, a loved one, a family member, a neighbor, a classmate, a fellow parishioner, a colleague, or a friend--we all--all--have an opportunity here, a moment, to make it clear that we welcome and will respect and listen to and act on stories that have been and will be shared with us and that we will act. If I could make one request, it would be that we come out on the other side of these last few weeks with an awareness of those who are in silent, deep, and lonely pain--often right next to us, all around us, in our families, in our churches, in our workplaces, and in our communities--and that we give them the listening, the understanding, and the embrace to help them heal. You know, in today's hyperpartisan environment, where we are quick to question motives of others and search for any excuse to discredit, devalue, and doubt, I also wanted to add one small but I think important point: Every victim who has spoken to me in the past week was not looking for anything. They were not looking for a settlement. They were not looking for some lawsuit. They were simply looking for acknowledgement. They were looking to share something they have carried too long alone. They just wanted to be heard. Our country is watching. This is a moment where the Senate as an institution and the country as a whole need to show we can and will do better. I hope we will listen--that we will listen as we continue to move forward important legislation: the Violence Against Women Act, which my predecessor, then-Senator Biden, helped champion in a bipartisan way over several Congresses; the Victims of Child Abuse Act, which even now I am working with a bipartisan team to try to get through this Chamber to be reauthorized. There are many more things we can and should do to work to combat sexual abuse and sexual assault and to help prevent and heal. What I most want to say today, to my friends and acquaintances, to my constituents and my community, to my Nation and the world that may well be watching this moment in the United States, to those whose stories I have just shared and whose stories I have just heard, I simply want to say this: You have touched my heart deeply. I hear you, and I thank you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Hannah Smith be given floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in honor, in memory, of our colleague Senator John Sidney McCain III. I asked myself a series of questions as I was trying to prepare for today's comments. First, who was he? Who was John McCain? John was a man deeply in love with his country and its promise, a man optimistic that tomorrow would be better than today, and a man grateful for the chance to serve a cause greater than himself. His humor was rooted in that hopefulness, the sometimes sharp sting of his words in debate rooted in his passion for his cause and his love of the fight, and his restlessness rooted in impatience to get on with it, to get busy defending liberty or making a difference in the world to help soften the burdens of millions not yet free. John was both a romantic and a cynic, as some of have said, in love with and passionate about the causes he fought for, yet clear-eyed about the long odds he often faced in a world hostile to our ideals. In trying to summarize John, just reviewing a few of his titles barely captures the sweep and complexity of this man--naval aviator, POW, captain, Congressman, Senator, chairman of the Commerce Committee, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Presidential nominee of his party, statesman, hero. John also treasured, deeply, two titles rarely mentioned here-- husband and father. He clearly loved his family and was every bit as privately passionate about them as he was publicly passionate about the causes he fought for here and around the world. To Cindy and to all of John's family, thank you so much for sharing him with us, for sustaining him in his service over 60 years of his remarkable service to our Nation. I was so honored to get to know John first as a colleague and then as a traveling companion and mentor and, in recent years, to be able to count him as a friend. We didn't always agree, or even often agree, on a very wide range of policy and political issues. On one thing in particular, I deeply admired and followed his lead as best I could. John was convinced what makes America great, what has always made America great, is its values, its principles; that we stand for something in the world, not the example of our power but the power of our example; that only when we fight for those values, when we fight for the values that define us apart from other powerful nations--for human rights, for freedom of speech and religious expression, for a free press, an independent judiciary, open and fair elections, for the very foundations of democracy as guarantors of human liberty--only then do we best use our power to act in the world. What impact did John McCain have on those of us in the Senate and on our country? John commanded this Chamber when he spoke like few others I have ever known, and he commanded it precisely because he called us to our better selves, to put down the tools of petty partisanship so often on display here and to work together to fashion better solutions to the problems of our day. It was a great honor to be his cosponsor on his last immigration reform bill earlier this year--a bill which offered not partisan promises but a way forward to fix our immigration system, which has, for far too long, been badly broken. Indeed, from immigration to healthcare, national security to foreign relations, John challenged us, pushed us to act in ways more worthy of this place and its history as the greatest deliberative body on Earth, as a full equal to the Executive, our President, as a group elected and empowered over longer terms to know each other, to respect each other, and engage with each other in the real and hard and good work of advancing America's values at home and abroad. What impact did John McCain have on me, the junior Senator from Delaware? First, my predecessor, former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden, let me know, from my first day here, that John was a treasure and a challenge and that I would, in serving alongside him, have a unique opportunity to learn from someone whose scope of experience was, in many ways, unmatched among our current Senate colleagues. I had the honor of traveling with John, of seeing him at his absolute best, of seeing him show compassion for Syrian refugees at a camp in Jordan, hearing him confront corrupt foreign leaders and encourage our men and women in harm's way, and, most memorably, visiting Vietnam to see the genuine warmth with which the Vietnamese people and their leaders regarded him. I first encountered John overseas on my first codel, or congressional delegation trip, just a few months into my first term, early in 2011. I was traveling with Senators Manchin, Corker, and Sanders, and we had visited Pakistan, Afghanistan, Jordan, and Israel. It was quite a group and a memorable trip at a time of great conflict, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was our last day in Israel before returning home. I spotted former Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut at dinner at the David Citadel Hotel, and he waved me over. He and McCain had just finished a long dinner, and Lieberman asked me to sit down and talk about our trip, our experiences, and recent developments in Pakistan and Afghanistan. McCain barely acknowledged my presence with a gruff grunt and seemed genuinely distracted and even annoyed as I was answering Joe Lieberman's questions, McCain looking around the room and barely paying any attention. After 10 minutes, John snapped to and asked me three pointed and challenging questions, testing my observations and my conclusions. Rattled and intimidated, I defended as best I could my insights before his withering questioning. McCain grunted and stormed off, and in the silence of his wake he left behind him, Joe Lieberman leaned over and said: I think he really likes you. I said: How can you tell? To which Lieberman responded: He wouldn't have bothered asking you those questions or waiting for your answers if he didn't think you had something to say. There followed invitations to travel, which I accepted less often than I should have, but three trips were especially memorable. While visiting a refugee camp in Jordan where hundreds of Syrians had literally just arrived, fleeing the butchery of Assad's troops, John wept with compassion for women who recounted their husbands being murdered before them and their children being taken from them. John promised to fight for them and their cause relentlessly, and he did. Just after inauguration last year at the North Atlantic Regional Security Conference in Halifax, Canada, I got to see John command respect across the board from political and military leaders from a dozen countries, and I heard as leaders from allies and partners across Europe--from the Baltics to the Balkins--pressed him for reassurance that we would keep our commitments, defend our values, and stand by their young democracies in the face of Russian aggression. During that trip, too, Senator McCain, once again, reiterated his principled, unequivocal stand against the use of torture. His unwavering commitment on that issue at that critical time was just one of the many ways John nudged us ever closer to our ideals. Finally, on an unforgettable trip to Vietnam just last June, I got to visit the Hanoi Hilton with John to hear his indescribable description of the deep deprivations of his long captivity and torture and then got to see in person the high regard the people and leaders of Vietnam had for him as a warrior and a peacemaker, a statesman, and healer of the wounds of that war. We admired John for all these things, but working with him in the Senate, traveling with him, many of us got to know him as not just a war hero and statesman but a colleague, even a friend. John's temper was quick and fierce. On more than one occasion, I swear he peeled the paint off the wall behind me with a fiery stream of profanity-laced invective, but he also, more often than not, later apologized, came around, listened, even considered. He was that breed of Senator--too rare today--who knew how to fight passionately, yet not make it personal; whom I could respect, even when I thought he was deeply wrong; who pushed me relentlessly to defend and explain my own positions and votes. He showed unusual kindness to my children, my father and stepmother when they visited, and I was struck by the delight John took in visiting with schoolchildren and seniors, with people of all kinds of backgrounds when they visited this Capitol he loved. He also took wicked delight in teasing, and testing and working with journalists, always letting them in on the joke or giving them a heads- up when good trouble was brewing. Most importantly, Senator John McCain was genuinely humble, not the false modesty of a popular politician who knows he should feign indifference to the cheers of a crowd. No, John's humility was real, a demonstrated humility of one who knows he is a flawed and fallen human, as are we all, and then sets about being open and accountable for his shortcomings. John, remarkably, for a modern politician, wrote and spoke about and acted on the ways in which he fell short. In an excellent recent HBO biography of him, ``For Whom the Bell Tolls,'' McCain subjected himself to accountability for chapters in his life I am certain he would have rather left forgotten in history. In talking about the 2000 Presidential primaries, rather than simply blaming his opponents and their dirty tricks for his loss, John took responsibility for his failure to stand up in South Carolina against the practice of flying the Confederate flag over their State capitol. John, even more strikingly, directly addressed his association with the Keating Five scandal. John McCain was cleared, but he viewed that scandal as part of the larger and growing problem of campaign finance that has threatened the ethics of all who serve here. Rather than moving past it, he owned it and acted on it, angering leaders in both parties by working relentlessly with Senator Feingold until they passed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. John also used his hardest personal experience to make some of his most important contributions. Having himself survived imprisonment and torture at the hands of his Vietnamese captors, Captain McCain could easily have returned home after those 5\1/2\ harrowing years in captivity to serve out his time and retire in comfort. Instead, he continued his cause of serving our Nation and, while here, worked tirelessly to champion those unjustly imprisoned around the world. Dissidents and activists who spoke up for freedom and against dictators knew no more dedicated friend than Senator McCain, and we on the Senate Human Rights Caucus intend to carry forward that work. After 9/11, when our own country was engaged in enhanced interrogation techniques that could only be called torture, Senator McCain was irate and insisted we end a practice he knew was both of limited value and that demeans both tortured and torturer. John's passion on this point wasn't just the pain of one who had experienced it himself, it was the pain of someone who loved his country and felt deeply the shame of episodes like Abu Ghraib and then worked to address them. What will it mean to have Senator McCain no longer here with us? My fear and concern is, we will not soon see another Member of John's stature join us, a stature John earned over decades of service and a demonstrated willingness to put country over party and cause over self. Senator McCain earned his ``Maverick'' title. It would serve all of us well to remember that even as his principled stands cost him the support of many in his party and even home State, he won the accolades of many more here and millions abroad who were delighted to see someone willing to risk reaching across the aisle and around the world from those hoping we will continue to fight for the values that best define America. What should we do? What should we do to honor the memory and legacy of Senator McCain? First, fight the dreaded disease that took him from us, as it did my dear friend Beau Biden, beloved son of my predecessor Joe--Beau was taken too young--and Senator Ted Kennedy, another great lion of this Senate who was lost at a time he was needed most. Brain cancer has robbed us of our best and brightest, and we must work harder to cure and end this disease. As has been proposed, I believe we should rename the great Senate building in which John served for decades, that we might keep his memory alive for future generations. I also think we should strengthen and invest in national service, an expectation that all young Americans will serve their country in some way, military or civilian, which will take effort and investment, but service as a young man helped John fall in love with our Nation. At a time of great division, I can think of nothing greater to remind us of the spirit of service in which John lived his life than to make it possible for the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who want to serve--whether in Teach For America or Habitat for Humanity, the Peace Corps or our military--by expanding those opportunities for them to learn skills, commit themselves to our community and country, and earn tuition funds for college through service. We must stay engaged internationally and lead by the power of our example. John would say this requires us to advance not just America's cherished values, but our interests--to stand against authoritarian leaders from Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, and to stand with our democratic partners and allies like those in NATO. Last, we have to continue in John's spirit of working across the aisle. I was struck, while hearing his remarkable speech in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center, where my predecessor, Vice President Biden, spoke movingly in introducing him, and Senator McCain's acceptance of that award. It should be mandatory viewing at every high school in America. It was clear these two men, who served decades alongside each other, genuinely knew each other, knew each other's families, knew each other's values, respected each other, even though they rarely, if ever, agreed. We must do that too. We have to demonstrate that we can work together and, like John, be cheerful and grateful in our service. I caught my breath as I walked into this Chamber yesterday, seeing John's desk draped in black velvet and with white flowers rather than seeing his remarkable stature, hearing his punctuated speech and his dramatic call to action that so often rang through this space. John, I will not soon meet another man like you, and I only hope to someday deserve the friendship you extended to a young and inexperienced Senator and to follow your example of genuine humility, dedication, and passion in tirelessly serving the greatest Nation on Earth and the best hope for freedom in our world. Rest well, dear friend. May God Himself hold you in the palm of His hand and give peace to you and your family. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I want to briefly add my personal thanks to the Senators from Wyoming and Pennsylvania, who just spoke. Their work on getting this bipartisan solution to the Perkins CTE reauthorization is nothing short of admirable. I have worked with the Senator from Florida, Mr. Rubio, for 7 years on an education demonstration program called the American Dream Accounts. Both of these terrific Senators were gracious in including it in this bill. This is a bill that is going to make possible programs all over this country that will smooth and clear the pathway toward meaningful employment for young Americans. I wish more people knew about this kind of work, this kind of effort that these two Senators have made to move forward the sort of bipartisan, responsible solutions to the real problems facing Americans, which we need, and I just wanted to take one moment and thank them both for their tireless work to achieve this good result today. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I am proud to join my colleague, Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, in bringing our committee bill--the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill--to the floor. I thank the full committee chair and the vice chairman, Senators Shelby and Leahy, for their leadership and their bipartisan work that has laid out the process we are now following to make real progress on our appropriations process. I thank Chairman Lankford for working with me on this bill, and to my colleague Senator Lankford, of Oklahoma, I express my appreciation for his being a great partner, for our positive experience in working together, and for how much I value our collegial relationship. I also thank the key staff of this subcommittee--Andy Newton, Lauren Comeau, and Brian Daner--as well as my own staff--Ellen Murray, Diana Hamilton, and Reeves Hart. These six folks are, I think, exemplars of the people who work here year in and year out, week in and week out and who help make it possible for us to craft large and complicated, bipartisan compromise bills like this one. We are grateful for the positive working experience they have had together and for the spirit with which they have worked to make this bill possible. I am confident this bill fairly allocates funding among many competing priorities, given the subcommittee's allocation and its broad jurisdiction. Senator Lankford and I have followed the guidance of the full committee chair and vice chair and have kept this bill free of new controversial riders. Overall, this bill appropriates $23.688 billion, which is a small increase over that in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus bill that was enacted earlier this year. I would like to take this opportunity to briefly highlight how this bill will impact both Delawareans, whom I represent, and Americans across our whole country. The bill provides $250 million for the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which supports development in some of America's poorest communities. The President's budget had recommended cutting this vital program down to just $14 million, which would have completely eliminated any new grant funding, but I am proud this bipartisan Senate bill restores all of the funding for this effective and vital program. This bill rejects the transfer of two vital anti-drug programs--the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program, known by its acronym HIDTA, and the Drug-Free Communities--from the Office of National Drug Control Policy to the Justice Department. I am grateful that at this time when opioids are a crisis of academic proportions, which I hear about week in and week out in my home State of Delaware, that we have rejected an ill-conceived proposal to move these programs to other agencies, where I have been concerned they would receive reduced funding and scant attention. I am pleased, instead, that they will stay with the Office of National Drug Control Policy. This bill provides $281.5 million for the CFTC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This is an increase of $32.5 million. It is critical the CFTC is able to keep pace with the dramatic changes in the marketplace as it regulates, particularly with the emergence of cryptocurrencies and complex financial products and international trading platforms. I think it is critical that the CFTC be able to modernize its investments, as this is what it is responsible for. The Federal judiciary will receive $7.251 billion in funding, an increase of $140 million over the fiscal year 2018 enacted level. In particular, the defender services and court security accounts, which I have long been attentive to, will receive robust funding. This bill vitally increases funding for the basic operations of the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS may not be the most popular of Federal agencies, but it touches almost every American and is central to the legal and appropriate and efficient collection of revenue and for being responsive to constituents and customers. This bill increases funding for the basic operations of the IRS, and it fully funds the request for the cost of implementing the comprehensive new tax law. I hope we continue to work to increase funding for this vital agency in conference because the IRS has IT systems that are out of date, and customer service can still improve. As the chairman and I have both commented in previous hearings, we need to continue to make progress in closing the $400 billion tax gap--the gap between what is owed and what is collected in tax revenues every year. This bill includes $1.66 billion for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC. Given the number of publicly traded firms that have an incorporation footprint in my home State of Delaware, I am particularly interested in making sure the SEC has the resources it needs and is investing those funds efficiently and effectively, as it is the watchdog that helps to make sure our securities are being exchanged in ways that are transparent and legal and appropriate. There is a provision within the Department of the Treasury that I want to highlight briefly of $159 million being appropriated specifically for the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. It is an increase of $17 million over last year, just over 10 percent. This office has the responsibility of enforcing economic sanctions across the globe. It also has a very broad and very important responsibility, and it is key that we have been able to work on a bipartisan basis to ensure funding is adequate not only to continue the implementation of sanctions against North Korea and Iran but also to make sure we are fully enforcing the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and that we are enforcing sanctions in other places in the world-- Africa, for example--where we have longstanding sanctions that need more thorough enforcement. This bill provides funding for the Small Business Administration--a remarkably effective Federal agency that punches above its weight. This bill rejects the President's proposed cuts to the SBA's grant programs by either restoring or increasing funding to virtually every initiative within the SBA. These grants are essential to the SBA's mission of supporting small businesses so local communities across our country have greater economic opportunity. I am particularly pleased, within the suite of SBA-related services, to support the SCORE Program, which has one of the highest ratios of volunteers and civic outreach and impact to Federal investment. Groups of volunteers all over the country offer business tools, workshops, and mentoring to dedicated entrepreneurs and small business owners. SCORE was initially founded in my home State of Delaware, in the city of Wilmington. So I have enjoyed working in a bipartisan way to reauthorize it during this Congress. This bill also includes a well-deserved pay adjustment for Federal civilian workers. Last year, Federal employees received a cost-of- living increase of 1.9 percent. The cost of living is growing at a faster rate than that. So, this year, the bill includes that same level, which, I think, is an important bipartisan compromise to ensure that our civilian workforce receives the support it has earned. Lastly, we did include, last year, election security grants of about $380 million in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus to help protect States and their voting systems from cyber attacks. The chairman is the cosponsor of an authorizing bill that is critical we take up and move independent of the appropriations process. I also do think, this year, we should have provided more for appropriations to our States to make sure they are strengthening their cyber security as we are just 4 months from a general election. In closing, let me again thank the staff members of the subcommittee who worked so well together. Let me thank Senator Lankford, my colleague from Oklahoma, for his great and positive attitude and for his determination in making sure these dollars are spent wisely. We may not agree on everything, but we have been able to agree on this thing, which is significant and historic progress, as the very first ever floor markup of the FSGG bill now begins. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to speak about an amendment that I look forward to advancing as a member of the relevant Appropriations subcommittee--in fact, the ranking Democrat. I was pleased to work in a bipartisan way to secure $380 million in the last fiscal year that has been distributed to the States to secure our elections. As you may have heard, some who opposed this in the Appropriations Committee, when we took it up and debated it, asked a few simple questions, which I will try to address quickly. Aren't elections a State and local responsibility? Why should the Federal government be providing funding for States and localities to secure their elections? It is true that elections are overwhelmingly run at the State and local levels. The cost of securing and modernizing our voting machines and voting systems will be overwhelmingly borne at the State and local levels. Second, this $380 million was just made available, and I don't think it has even gone out yet. Have they used it well, and have they used it properly? Third, why is this something we need to do now? Is there any indication that our upcoming elections are actually under threat? Let me briefly speak to those three questions. This morning, it was publicly reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, outside of a classified setting for the first time, revealed that not one, not two, not a dozen, but more than 100 American power utilities had been successfully hacked by Russian military intelligence and that air-gapped control rooms--meaning control rooms that are designed so they are not connected to the internet--in power- generating or distributing utilities around the country had been compromised by Russia. There is a level of sophistication in their invasion and interference in our physical infrastructure that is matched by their sophistication in interfering and intruding in our election infrastructure. I think the present danger is very clear and very real. As my colleagues stated at great length, our Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, our former colleague, has said repeatedly that our election structure is at risk. On July 13, Special Counsel Mueller indicted 12 Russian military officials for cyber attacks on our 2016 elections, and we know those attacks are coming again. Michael Chertoff, the former Bush Department of Homeland Security Secretary, and Grover Norquist, long known as an advocate for reduced Federal spending, jointly wrote an editorial earlier this year--I think it was in the Washington Post. They said, and I quote, that ``we can replace all paperless voting machines in the country for less than the cost of an F-22 fighter jet.'' As Senator Klobuchar has said repeatedly and correctly: ``Election security is national security.'' Chertoff and Norquist concluded with this thought: It is not practical to expect State and local election administrators in rural Missouri or small town Maine or in my State of Delaware or in my colleague's State of Iowa to go toe-to-toe with the premier government- backed cyber mercenaries of Russia or China or North Korea. Just as Federal agencies prudently provide support for State law enforcement in dealing with terrorism, Federal officials should give guidance for support of the election cyber security threat. My home State of Delaware is one of five with no paper trail for our election systems, and our election systems are air-gapped. I just received a letter from our State election commissioner, Elaine Manlove, who has made clear that with the $380 million already distributed through the money made available last year, they will begin to make a downpayment on replacing our current, antiquated election machinery with those that will have a verifiable paper trail. I have many more examples I can cite, but I will be brief because I have a colleague who has waited long for his opportunity to speak. All States have now requested the funding, and 90 percent of the funding has been disbursed. The EAC is working with States to make sure that they are addressing cyber security issues and, in particular, replacing outdated, antiquated systems. I will give you one of many examples. The State of Louisiana last purchased voting equipment in 2005. Its 10,000 voting machines are antiquated, and their spare parts are dwindling and are no longer being manufactured. Louisiana's secretary of state estimated the replacement cost would be between $40 million and $60 million. A $3 million downpayment of Federal money is just barely enough to get Louisiana started, not enough to complete the job. Let me close by saying that election security is not a partisan issue; it is about protecting who we are as a nation. Free and fair and regular elections define us as a democracy. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--all Americans--who want to know that their votes are counted and our elections are free and fair should care about a Federal role in supporting States and localities as they work to ensure that our election systems are protected and our equipment can't be compromised. This is an issue not just for the November 2018 elections but for the 2020 elections. The amendment we hope to call up later today should not be controversial. This is about protecting our democracy. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues from Washington and Connecticut for being here, for speaking out, and for being so remarkable in their persistence in defending America's concerns about healthcare. I want to add my voice for just a few moments, if I might. Let me look back 8 years to when I first joined the Senate in 2010. At that point, the Affordable Care Act was barely a year old. Since then, in the early years of the Affordable Care Act, we saw some very positive patterns: More Americans gained access to health insurance; the growth of healthcare costs slowed; insurance markets put in place under the ACA proved to be resilient, despite repeated challenges. As a result of the ACA, 20 million more Americans, including 38,000 Delawareans, gained access to high-quality, comprehensive healthcare coverage. It is through the ACA exchange that my own family and I get our healthcare, and so many others in Delaware have a chance to get access to healthcare. The 190,000 people, in my little State of 900,000 people, who have preexisting conditions no longer had to worry about being denied coverage, and lifetime caps were a thing of the past. This matters; it has saved lives. Just listen briefly to the story of Nicole from my little hometown of Hockessin, DE, a small farming town of just a few thousand people. Nicole's 3-year-old daughter was born with cystic fibrosis, a horrible disease that robs children and people of the ability to breathe. Nicole's 3-year-old daughter with cystic fibrosis spent at least an hour a day getting breathing treatments from her mother. At $5,000 a month for her medications--not cheap--Nicole was confident that without the ACA she would have exceeded her annual caps and her medical expenses well before the end of the year. Nicole, in reaching out to me, made it clear that without the consumer protections of the Affordable Care Act, she would have had one of three choices: hope she would qualify for Medicaid--unlikely, due to her income; go into debt to pay for her daughter's treatments; or stop giving her daughter some of the medication she depends on to save her life. All of that assumed that her daughter's cystic fibrosis wasn't considered a preexisting condition that would prevent her from getting any insurance at all. Because of that circumstance, Nicole's story exemplifies the life-changing gains and positive trends that the ACA provided. Unfortunately, there were some other challenges as well, which I will summarize quickly, that have developed over time. Let me transition to where we are today. Today we are in a place where, just a year ago, consistent, repeated efforts after the 2016 election by Republicans in Congress to repeal without a plan to replace the ACA resulted in a situation where, as my colleague from Connecticut has laid out, the Trump administration has done its best to roll back ways in which progress was made to extend quality, affordable healthcare to more Americans. After a number of efforts to repeal the law failed last year, thanks to the American people who stood up and had their voices heard, the administration has decided to take a different approach--a slow and steady unraveling and undermining of the protections that made the ACA work. It started with a decision to stop cost-sharing reduction payments, which help working families afford their premiums and access care. It continued when they changed the rules and encouraged people to sign up for plans that didn't have all the benefits and consumer protections of the ACA--really, junk plans--which made it possible to bring back discrimination against women and those with preexisting conditions. It culminated last month with something that was done in a fly-by-night way and may not have been visible at all to my constituents and viewers: a decision to no longer defend the core components of the ACA in court, including protections for those with preexisting conditions, in a lawsuit brought by 20 attorneys general from States that overwhelmingly opposed the ACA. This decision was so shocking that three career Justice Department attorneys withdrew from the case, and one with over 20 years' experience resigned from his job. Make no mistake, this was the administration sabotaging the ACA and our healthcare system. President Trump even admitted at a campaign event, just cited by my colleague from Connecticut, that he had gutted the ACA. This may resonate with the President's base. It may resonate with people he hopes will vote him back into office in the future election. But for millions of families across the country and in my home State, losing protections against preexisting condition discrimination is a death sentence. It would be devastating for Nicole and her daughter, whom I described before. It would be devastating for Kim from my hometown of residence, Wilmington, a thyroid cancer survivor who is now able to get insurance. Because her cancer isn't considered a preexisting condition under the Affordable Care Act, she is not subject to preexisting condition discrimination. In my small State of Delaware, gutting protections for preexisting conditions would leave one in five at risk of skyrocketing health insurance costs or losing coverage altogether. This lawsuit impacts every corner of America's healthcare system, and the fact that our administration is not defending the law of the land is a shocking development. It impacts not just those who get their healthcare through the ACA exchanges. It would impact 150 million Americans who get their health insurance through their employer because it would eliminate protections against lifetime and annual limits on care. It would impact seniors on Medicare who would see increased prescription drug costs. It would impact Americans who depend on free preventive services, like cancer screenings and flu shots, because those policy components of the ACA would be eliminated. It would impact young people who would lose the right to stay on their parents' health insurance until age 26. These are just a few of the devastating impacts if the Texas v. United States lawsuit is successful in ripping out what is left of the protections of the ACA. It would have a real and tangible impact on families in my State of Delaware and across our country. That is why I am glad to support a resolution proposed by my colleagues Senators Manchin, Casey, McCaskill, and others to defend the constitutionality of preexisting condition protections in our healthcare system. This is critical to the well-being and the health of the families we represent. My Democratic colleagues and I know the ACA was not perfect when passed. I have heard from small business owners in my home State about some of the limitations due to increases in cost and the ways in which they wish we had a more robust tax credit for small businesses, ways they wish we would work together to perfect the ACA. That is why I came to the floor time and again in my first 4 years here, seeking colleagues across the aisle who were willing to work with us to make the Affordable Care Act better. Instead of working to tear down the ACA, we should have been working to address challenges with affordability and coverage, increasing tax credits for small businesses, and making it stronger and more sustainable. Instead of sabotaging the care millions of Americans have depended on, we should have ensured there was more competition in the marketplace, especially in small States like my own. I wish we had, instead, taken a path of pursuing commonsense regulatory reforms and cost containment efforts to slow the rate of growth of healthcare costs. It is not too late for that. It is still not impossible that we could set aside the divisive partisan rhetoric and that this administration will abandon its underhanded attempts to sabotage this healthcare law and, instead, focus on pursuing constructive, bipartisan fixes. The bottom line is the Affordable Care Act has helped millions of Americans--like Nicole and Kim, whose stories I shared with you--live healthier and more secure lives. I am not optimistic, but I insist on remaining hopeful that there is still time for us to do our job on a bipartisan basis and secure healthcare for all of America. As happened roughly a year ago next month, the floor of this Senate can still be moved by the voices of Americans who would say to this administration: Stop your refusal to defend the ACA. Let's move forward in a positive way, together. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I just want to offer my response to the very disappointing renewed objection to the resolution that Senator Flake and I have attempted to move through this body now twice. Last week, Senator Flake and I came to call on our Senate colleagues to speak clearly in support of our intelligence community, our Federal law enforcement community, and to state unequivocally that Russia's attacks on our democracy will not be tolerated and that we will take action in a firm and bipartisan and swift way. Some have said this is merely a simple or symbolic message. I say there are powerful symbols that motivate our Nation, like our flag, and that, although symbolic, are substantive in their consequences. After the narrow objection of one Senator to this resolution last week, we hear another objection tonight saying what we should be focused on is confirming nominees and funding the Federal Government. I, frankly, don't get the point. If this symbolic resolution, which calls on this Senate to act on hearings, on receiving notes, and on imposing sanctions, in order to push back against Russia's attack on our democracy--if we cannot find 2 minutes to adopt by unanimous consent this simple resolution, then I worry that we continue to have a problem. We continue to have a problem of lack of clarity about what actually happened in 2016 and what may happen in 2018. I will remind my colleagues, briefly, that President Trump's own Director of National Intelligence has warned that Russia's attacks on our digital infrastructure are ``persistent, pervasive, and they are meant to undermine America's democracy.'' I know I don't need to remind my colleagues that what defines us as a democracy is free, fair, and open elections that our people find credible. Just this morning, the Department of Homeland Security publicly released that air-gapped control centers for utilities in more than 100 places across our country had been penetrated successfully by Russian military intelligence. The threat to our 2018 election continues to build, the clarity that we have been attacked in our 2016 election continues to build, and the sanctions that our President could be fully exercising were passed by this body by a vote of 98 to 2 last summer through the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. This resolution is simple. Because of a lack of clarity at the Helsinki summit between President Trump and President Putin, it calls for prompt hearings, the release of relevant information and notes to better understand the impact of what was committed to in that meeting in Helsinki, and the full implementation of the sanctions adopted by this body by a vote of 98 to 2. Either we mean it or we don't. Either we care about knowing what happened in Helsinki or we don't. Either we get the threat to our upcoming election or we don't. In my view, we continue to face threats to our elections and to our critical infrastructure, and it is long past time for Congress to work together to secure our democracy. I will close by thanking my colleague and friend from Arizona for being a partner in this effort, for seeing clearly what is happening, and for standing up and asking this body to act. He gave, I think, a haunting opening quote from ``1984.'' I am concerned that if our President thinks it is appropriate to invite President Putin of Russia to meet with him in our White House or in our Nation's Capital, that he may not yet fully get the point. I am encouraged that Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell said clearly earlier today that President Putin is not welcome in this Nation's Capitol, in this building, in the Capitol where this Congress meets. I wonder what more it will take for there to be clarity on the part of the administration that President Putin is our adversary, has attacked our election, is a threat to our democracy, and should not be welcome in this Nation's Capital as a whole. I call on my colleagues to support this resolution, to stand with our intelligence and law enforcement communities and against this dangerous foreign adversary, Russia. Again, I thank and compliment my colleague from Arizona for joining me in this important effort. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor with my colleague Senator Flake from Arizona to send a strong, clear, and, importantly, a bipartisan message to the American people that we stand with the men and women of the Department of Justice and the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community. We support the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in our elections, and we must act--and act unequivocally--to hold Russia accountable for its actions. Just 3 days after the U.S. intelligence community issued a detailed and staggering finding that led to an indictment against 12 Russian military intelligence officers for interfering in our 2016 election, President Trump stood shoulder to shoulder with President Putin and failed to challenge Putin's claim that his government played no role in the effort to undermine our democracy. In fact, when asked, at the time, whether he believed Putin's denial or the U.S. intelligence community, President Trump said: ``I have confidence in both parties.'' He has subsequently walked back those comments, but I think it is important that the Senate be on the record as saying that our intelligence community is clear, our law enforcement community is clear, and today the Senate should be clear. So today Senator Flake and I are putting forward a resolution that, in its language, commends the Department of Justice for its ongoing investigation into Russia's interference in our last election--the one that led to last week's 11-count indictment, offering the most thorough and detailed accounting to date of Russia's complex effort to sow doubt and create chaos in the months leading up to our last election. The resolution also reaffirms the intelligence community's assessment of Russian interference and asserts that Russia must be held to account for its actions. This can be accomplished in part by immediately and responsibly implementing sanctions provided for in the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, which this body passed 98 to 2 this summer. Finally, following the President's summit with Putin in Helsinki, today's resolution calls for prompt hearings and the release of notes to better understand what the two leaders discussed and may have agreed to during their one-on-one meeting, which ran for over 2 hours. I am encouraged by hearings that have already been scheduled, but I think it is important that it be clear that our Senate seeks a role in engagement and oversight. Congress and the American people deserve to know what promises or concessions may have been made to President Putin, and thorough hearings with senior officials, including Secretary Pompeo, are critical. This resolution is a first step--a good first step--but we need to be clear-eyed. President Putin of Russia will not stop until we stop him. We know we face continued threats to our elections in 2018 and beyond. Just last week, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, our former colleague here in the Senate, cautioned that the warning lights are blinking red again on cyber attacks against our Nation. He said: These actions are persistent, they are pervasive, and they are meant to undermine America's Democracy. Attacks on our country's digital infrastructure [are] made principally by Russia. He said: Russia is the most aggressive foreign actor and the worst offender. So we know that we continue to face hostile threats. FBI Director Chris Wray said just yesterday: ``Russia is still working to sow division in the United States and continues to engage in malign actions against our country.'' So we need to join arms and look forward to protecting our next election. Today's resolution is an important first step, but I think we should work together to take up and pass the DETER Act, introduced by Senators Rubio and Van Hollen, to deter Russia from interfering in our next election. I think we should take up and consider the Lankford-Klobuchar Secure Elections Act to strengthen election cyber security. Of course, I would like to see my Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act taken up as well. We can build on $380 million invested in election security, grants provided by this Congress to the States back in March to help bolster their election systems against threats. It is important to remember that Putin and Putin's Russia are attacking other democratic processes throughout Europe. As Americans, as Senators, we need to stand up and fight for our democracy and the rule of law. I had a memorable conversation with the Ukrainian leader last year, who said to me: If you don't defend your own elections, your own democracy, how can the rest of us count on you to defend ours? This resolution makes clear that, on a bipartisan basis, we intend to defend our democracy. Russia's attacks on our last elections where attacks on every American--Republicans and Democrats. The threat is great, it is pressing, and it demands that we act. Today's resolution is a first step and an important one, and I call on my colleagues to join us in supporting it. If there is any Senator who disagrees with this very basic resolution, I look forward to hearing their reasons. Let me close by thanking my colleague and friend Senator Flake, from Arizona, for having taken the initiative and the lead in introducing this important resolution. We may not agree on everything, but we agree on this important principle: We should stand up and be counted in defense of our democracy.