Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, earlier today, my friend from South Dakota, the Republican Senator John Thune, came to the floor and discussed the filibuster. It has been a topic of discussion not only this week but even before. I hope that Senator Thune will concede that whether you are for the filibuster or against the filibuster, we should certainly be dedicated to the proposition that the U.S. Senate should be a deliberative body that actually considers amendments and legislation on the floor. Now, what I just said sounds very routine and normal. It is radical when you look at the record of the U.S. Senate. Last year, under the Republican leadership of Senator McConnell, we had 29 amendments on the floor the entire year--29. That was really an improvement over the previous year, 30 percent better than the previous year--22 amendments. What that says to those who may not be familiar with Senate procedure is that the floor is empty and no one is here because we aren't taking up legislation. Why? So far this year, we have done three things in the Senate: the impeachment trial; the reconciliation bill, the American Rescue Plan by President Biden; and nominations. What do those three things have in common? None of them, not one of them can be stopped by a filibuster. Why aren't we taking up other legislation? Because looming over us is a supermajority requirement of 60 votes to get anything done. What I have said to my friends on the Republican side of the aisle is, show me that we can make the Senate function. If we can show that with the filibuster, so be it. If we can show it by changing the filibuster, so be it. But let's do something. We were elected to do things. We were elected to pass an infrastructure bill for America. It has been years since we have done that. We were elected to deal with issues that are fundamental to this country. What about all the student loan debt in this country? Are we going to do anything about it, say anything about it? Nothing is coming to the floor, is it? There are so many issues that we should be taking up that we are not taking up because of the looming specter of the filibuster. That is a reality. Let me bring that reality close to home. Twenty years ago, I introduced the DREAM Act. I said if you were brought to America as an infant, toddler, child, young person--your family brought you here, you grew up here, you went to school here, and you pledged allegiance to that flag in your classroom every single day--at some point in your life, you ought to have the opportunity to earn your way to be a legal person in America, a citizen in America. I don't think that is a radical idea. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Americans support the idea. So, Durbin, let me ask you a question. It has been 20 years. You are supposed to be a legislator. Why haven't you passed this, something that simple and that direct? I haven't made it a law of the land because of one thing: the filibuster. The filibuster. Five times I have brought this measure to the floor of the U.S. Senate and have been stopped by the filibuster; a majority vote every time but never the magic 60, the magic supermajority. So do I have a problem with the filibuster? Yes, I do. I challenge those who are defending it to show me it can work, to show me we can create bipartisan votes on the floor, actually debate on the floor, amendments on the floor, legislation on the floor. That is not too much to ask. I think that is why we were elected. I come today to address this issue because the House is expected to vote on the Dream and Promise Act and Farm Workforce Modernization Act. If the Senate is able to join the House in passing these bills, we would be able to make significant immigration legislation progress. But I want to add that I support comprehensive immigration reform. I believe it is the only honest answer to what we face in America today. I will do my best to do everything I can. There is no excuse for inaction. This broken immigration system needs to be addressed on a bipartisan basis, and an answer is long overdue for Dreamers in this country. I have told you who they are. When President Obama created DACA for them, some 800,000 came forward, registered with the government, and received legal status to work and freedom from fear of deportation because of DACA. President Trump eliminated the program. The battle ensued in court. The Supreme Court said that Trump did it wrong, and we are now in the middle ground. President Biden supports DACA. He has made it clear that it is open for new people to apply. Yet we don't have the final law. We are dealing with Executive orders when it comes to this important issue. That is why I have decided to come to this floor and to continue to raise the issues of the people who are involved and to introduce my 129th Dreamer story on the floor of the U.S. Senate, which I have done for years. Diana Andino. She was born in Ecuador. She came to the United States when she was 11 years old. She grew up in Houston, TX. She was quite a student. She graduated in the top 10 percent of her high school class and went on to earn a bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Houston, in biology with a minor in chemistry. She wrote me a letter, and here is what she said about her dream of becoming a physician: I found my calling in medicine after volunteering at a local county hospital while I was in college. Here is what she said about the difference that DACA made in her life: I graduated from college in 2011, and my dream of becoming a physician was truncated by my lack of citizenship status. However, DACA came in place a year later. I was able to apply to school and was accepted at the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago. Let me just say, hats off to Loyola and their medical school. They have led the Nation in accepting wonderful students just like Diana. They were the first in the Nation to accept DACA applicants. More than 30 have since attended their medical school, and many of them are practicing in underserved areas. Diana graduated from Loyola Medical School and now is a third-year resident at Loyola University Medical Center. She treats COVID-19 patients with serious complications, such as stroke or major bleeding. Here is what she said about the COVID-19 pandemic: It's been a challenging year not only physically but mentally. Patients with COVID-19 developed multiple neurological complications that we have encountered and continue to learn about. As a neurology resident, I've learned to be flexible as there are so many unknowns we encountered almost daily. How many times have we said in the last year: Thank God for people just like this woman, who risks her life as a doctor for COVID-19 patients. Our brothers and sisters, our family members, people whom we love are kept alive because Diana is skilled enough and brave enough to go into their rooms and try to save their lives. We think so much of Diana that we have to debate in the Senate whether she should be a citizen of the United States. There is no debate, as far as I am concerned. She is exactly the kind of person we need in America's future. Send her back to Ecuador? No. Let her stay in her home country of America. Make the Dream Act a reality. Make it the law of the land. Don't let a filibuster stop it again. When we receive the Dream and Promise Act from the House of Representatives, we will have an opportunity to see if 10 Republican Senators can join us in an effort to finally pass it-- I hope more. As I said at the outset, I support comprehensive immigration reform. I want to try to sit down and have a conversation about the farm labor bill, about those who are here in temporary protected status, about essential workers like Diana who ought to be given a chance to become citizens in this country. That is what the debate is all about. This empty floor, with no conversation among Senators, is testimony to the fact that this is an aspiration--an aspiration that we can overcome the filibuster, pass the Dream Act and more and do it soon. Lives depend on it. Futures depend on it. The dreams of America are at stake. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the exchange which took place between myself and the junior Senator from Texas has been analyzed from many different directions. The conclusion of CNN based on what he said on the floor and I responded to is as follows: Cruz said ``every illegal alien in America'' would get a $1,400 check. Durbin responded that Cruz's statement is ``just plain false'' because, he said, ``Undocumented immigrants do not have Social Security numbers, and they do not qualify for stimulus relief checks, period.'' According to CNN: They were both wrong. Cruz was inaccurate when he said ``every'' undocumented immigrant will get a $1,400 relief check. Then they go on to say there are people, a discrete class of people, who might have a Social Security number, be undocumented, and receive a check. And because of the clarification and my own investigation afterwards, I will concede their point. I overstated my case. Here is what it boils down to. In this situation, people have applied for a work visa--not a tourist visa, a work visa to come to the United States. Because of that work visa, they also received a Social Security number. Then they overstayed their visas and still could continue-- could possibly continue--to be on the rolls with their Social Security number and receive a check. I might quickly add, this was a provision that was included in both of the relief bills for COVID-19 signed into law by President Trump, one of which the Senator from Texas voted for, one of which he did not. So I would ask, how many people are we talking about? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? I can't find out. They can't give me the number because there isn't a calculation. So here is the situation. You had to apply for a work visa, be granted the work visa and come to the United States, get a Social Security number, overstay your visa, and then continue to file income tax returns because that is the only way you could qualify for help through these relief packages. I don't know if that group is ten or a hundred or a thousand, but I have carefully read the provisions that are offered by the Senator from Texas today, and I will tell you he basically says to the American Government, when it comes to cash payments: Stop the presses. Stop the presses. I want to know who these people are, and I don't want you to send them a check. I don't believe that is reasonable. We have sent out 90 million checks. To stop this while we go through this debate is, I think, unfair. I don't want these checks to go to people who do not qualify for them any more than he does, but I am not going to stop the issuance of checks to people living in Texas or Illinois in the meantime. I object.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, let me thank my colleague from Indiana. You can't do better than ``Hoosiers.'' It is one of my favorite movies. It is the story of a small Indiana town beating the big city players, and, if I am not mistaken, my former colleague in the House, Lee Hamilton, might have been one of those players on the big city team. I think he told me at one point. It is a great story and all eyes are on Indianapolis and Indiana now with the NCAA tournament and your neighbors to the west, Illinois, headed across the border. It is going to make a good showing, I hope, for the Fighting Illini. Thank you very much for reminding us of that great American tradition.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask to speak as if in morning business.

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is flattering when the Republican Senate leader comes to the floor and mentions your name, and Senator McConnell did just that this morning. The issue was the filibuster. Senator McConnell found a quote several years ago where I spoke in favor of the filibuster to protect minority rights in the Senate. It is true. I did say that. It was based on life experience. Having already served in the Senate for a number of years, I came to understand how it evolved as one of the procedures in the Senate. But I have to say to you that my impression of the filibuster changed, and the reason it changed was none other than the Republican Senate majority leader, now minority leader, Senator McConnell. You see, the filibuster really was created in the Senate through its own rules, as I explained yesterday, and it came to define the Senate in this respect. The Founding Fathers looked to the Senate to provide two representatives--literally, Senators--from each State, regardless of population, so smaller States, back in the original Colonies, like Delaware, would have the same number of Senators as a large State, like Virginia. That was their intention. So the protection of minority rights was kind of built into the definition of the U.S. Senate, and the filibuster became its manifestation in the daily procedure of the Senate. Under that filibuster, of course, one Senator could stop the debate, or at least slow it down, by insisting on a filibuster, only to be stopped by an extraordinary majority of the Senate voting to return to the regular business. That was the case in 1957 because, in August of 1957, Senator Strom Thurmond took to the floor of this U.S. Senate and initiated the longest filibuster in its history. For 24 hours and 18 minutes, the man stood by his desk and spoke without stopping. He didn't have any permission to leave the floor for any reason and certainly couldn't sit down without losing his filibuster. He did it. He did it for the wrong reason, I am afraid, because he was trying to stop the march of civil rights in this country, but he did it. Determinedly, he achieved that goal. When he did, in 1957, that was the broken fifth filibuster in the history of the Senate in the previous five decades. In other words, if you went back to 1919 and all the way to 1957, Strom Thurmond's was the fifth time in history a filibuster was broken. Once every decade, a filibuster was broken on the Senate floor. Well, that world has changed--dramatically changed. We can now have five filibusters in a couple of weeks. We now have, on average, 80 filibusters a year because of the urging and direction of the Senator from Kentucky, Senator McConnell. He has institutionalized the filibuster to the point where it is now the normal course of business, not an extraordinary procedure. I recounted the fact that I introduced the DREAM Act 20 years ago--20 years ago. Durbin, what kind of a Senator are you that in 20 years you can't pass the DREAM Act? Well, I brought it to the Senate floor on five different occasions, and on five different occasions it was stopped by the filibuster. Other Members can tell the story of their legislative experience on the floor too. The point I am getting to is this: It wasn't until Senator McConnell and the Republicans who follow him decided to make the filibuster just daily business in the Senate that it was abused to the point where the Senate stopped doing regular legislative business. I would like Senator McConnell to come to the floor the next opportunity he has and explain this to me. In the last calendar year, 2020, the Senate considered 29 amendments on the floor of the Senate in the entire year. Now, that doesn't count a vote-arama, which is an aberration that I don't think would ever be accused of being deliberative. But 29 regular-order amendments during the course of a year--embarrassing, isn't it? When you think of this great so-called debating society, 29 times we brought an amendment to the floor? Well, it was an improvement--an improvement over the previous year, a 30- percent improvement, in fact--because in the year 2019, under Senator McConnell's leadership, we had 22 amendments. So when Senator McConnell and others come to the floor and plead for us to hang on to the traditions of the Senate, I would tell you that their interpretation of the traditions is strangling this body. They have beaten the old filibuster to the point where it is hardly recognizable and is now the regular order of business in the U.S. Senate. That is why many of us, frustrated with having worked so hard to come here, wanting to do the best we can to represent the people who have sent us here, are so frustrated by the current state of procedure. And for Senator McConnell and other Republicans to come to the floor and plead for hanging on to this tradition is actually pleading for the Senate to continue to do less and less each year. There are those of us now in control on the majority side--the bare majority side--on the Democratic side, who really believe there is much more to be done in the Senate. The American people expect us to respond. Now, you might ask: Well, how did you pass the American Rescue Plan if there is a filibuster used so frequently? It was under a process called reconciliation, which depends on a majority vote. You can't filibuster under the reconciliation. That is why this amazing bill, this new law, the American Rescue Plan by President Biden, is so sweeping in its reach. We had to try to combine, under this law, so many provisions that had been affected by the pandemic and the state of the economy because we knew that returning to the regular order of business with the filibuster looming every single day would tie our hands just as sure as we have seen in the past several years. So, Senator McConnell, thank you for mentioning my name, but if I became skeptical of the filibuster, it is because of your use of it. I hope that you understand that you can't have it both ways. It can't be a rare procedure and be a procedure that dominates the actual business of the Senate as this has done for so many years.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, last week, my friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Texas, came to the floor to speak about two highly qualified nominees seeking senior positions in President Biden's Justice Department--Lisa Monaco and Vanita Gupta. I was pleased to hear Senator Cornyn express support for Lisa Monaco. She is nominated to be the Deputy Attorney General. She has vast experience and deep ties to the Department. She has served in multiple roles as both a career employee and a Senate-confirmed official. She is also someone who has predicted and responded to several of the greatest threats of our time, including global pandemics and the rise of domestic terrorism. She has what it takes to serve as the No. 2 person in the Department of Justice and along with the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, to restore independence and integrity in that Department. Unfortunately, my friend from Texas went on to take a different view when it came to Vanita Gupta, who has been nominated to be an Associate Attorney General, the No. 3 position at the Department. Every Senator, of course, has the right to oppose any nominee, even though many of my colleagues across the aisle have spoken about the importance of deferring to President Biden and his choices to lead his Cabinet. But when opposition turns from beyond just feeling negative toward someone to stating things about that person that may not be altogether accurate, I feel obligated to come to the floor and correct the record. I would like to address a few of the false attacks that are being leveled against Ms. Gupta. She unequivocally stated in her testimony under oath before the Judiciary Committee last week that she opposes defunding the police. Any suggestion to the contrary is patently false. We have seen statement after statement from law enforcement organizations that support Vanita Gupta and her nomination. They admitted plainly that they know she doesn't call for defunding the police. Yet we also continue to see statement after statement from Republican Senators and many of their allies buying television ads claiming the contrary. Ask yourself this basic question: If Vanita Gupta wants to defund the police, how would she get the support and endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Major Cities Chiefs Association, National Sheriffs' Association, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and others? I think we know the answer. She doesn't want to defund the police. It is simply something that is said about her that is not true. But what Ms. Gupta has called for and what she reiterated before the Committee on the Judiciary last week is making sure that police officers, the men and women who put themselves in harm's way every day, are not called upon to be mental health counselors. Some may have that skill, but most are not trained in that field, and it is not why they signed up for the job. As Ms. Gupta explained at her hearing, we have spent far too long laying too many of our Nation's social problems at the feet of police-- no matter what goes wrong in the neighborhood, on the street, in the household--call 9-1-1. From homelessness to mental health issues to substance abuse disorders, they all fall on the laps of our law enforcement officials. This is something that police officers, police chiefs, county sheriffs, and civil rights advocates agree on, finding the right person can be critical in an intervention. Ms. Gupta is a consensus builder, and the consensus from law enforcement is this: Confirm Vanita Gupta. My friend from Texas also suggested there was something amiss in Ms. Gupta's response to his question on whether she supported decriminalizing drugs. He asked her this at the hearing: ``Is it true that you advocate decriminalization of all drugs?'' Ms. Gupta, under oath, responded: ``No, Senator, I do not.'' My friend from Texas suggested this answer was misleading, given that Ms. Gupta wrote 9 years ago that she would support decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs. There was nothing misleading about her response. The question was posed in the present tense. It was not limited to decriminalizing possession. More importantly, as she eloquently explained at the hearing, Ms. Gupta's position on decriminalizing drug possession had changed due to her family's own experience with opioid addiction. She did something that far too few people in Washington are willing to do. She acknowledged that she had changed her mind. I have done that, too, as an elected official. Sometimes people call me on it, and, luckily, I can turn to a good source for rebuttal. You see, Abraham Lincoln spent many years in politics, and he was once accused of changing his mind on an issue, and he replied: Yes, it is true, I changed my position on that issue, but I would rather be right some of the time than wrong all the time. That is the way I feel about being honest if you change your mind based on new information, new experience, or thinking it through from a different angle. My friend from Texas also suggested that Ms. Gupta somehow wanted to follow her own personal convictions rather than the law. That is not true. Ms. Gupta is a Justice Department veteran. She spent 3 years leading the Civil Rights Division. She enforced the law regardless of her personal views, and she will do the same as Associate Attorney General. Senator Cornyn suggested that Ms. Gupta harbors personal views that are hostile to police. I won't recount again all the police organizations that have endorsed her. But he omits the fact that she has already served in the Justice Department. And what was the verdict on her time in the Department? These police groups believe in her. They like her approach. They think she is fair. They have endorsed her. I hope my friends on the Republican side of the aisle will acknowledge that. Unlike the prior administration, President Biden has nominated senior Justice Department leaders who are driven by fidelity to the rule of law. They understand their role at the Department as officials who enforce the law, and they will do so. Ms. Gupta is no exception. Next week, we will vote on Ms. Gupta's nomination in committee. She has broad bipartisan support across the Nation--law enforcement, Justice Department officials of both parties, civil rights groups, even some of the most conservative Republican advocates, they back Ms. Gupta. She deserves that same bipartisan support here in the Senate.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, one floor above this Senate Chamber, near a bank of elevators, sit the marble busts of two leaders of the Ojibwa, or Chippewa, people who came to Washington, DC, in 1855 to sign a treaty with the U.S.Government. The terms of the treaty had been dictated by the U.S. Government: The Ojibwa people would surrender more than 2 million acres of their ancestral homeland in northern Minnesota. In exchange, the Tribes would receive less than $20,000 in cash, goods, and services, and assistance to resettle on two reservations. There was no real negotiation. The Ojibwa has two choices: Accept the terms, or face annihilation. So the two chiefs, whose English names were Buffalo and Flat Mouth, signed the treaty and hoped that they had salvaged some future for their people. It was one of more than 500 treaties that Indian nations signed with the U.S. Government between 1778 and 1871. Like every one of those 500-plus treaties, the 1855 treaty with the Ojibwa Nation was violated by the U.S. Government. The part of our government most responsible for carrying out treaty obligations and maintaining government-to-government relations with Tribal nations was--and still is--the U.S. Department of the Interior. That is part of what makes the vote we will take today so historic and important. It has taken too long--244 years--for a Native American to be included in a President's Cabinet. Deb Halland is a leader of honor, integrity and vision, and I commend President Biden for nominating her to this important post. As Secretary of the Interior, she will oversee the department that manages America's national parks and vast public lands. She also will lead the Bureau primarily responsible for maintaining relations between the U.S Government and the nearly 600 federally recognized, sovereign Tribes within our national borders. Her nomination has the strong backing of more than 500 national and regional Tribal leaders, civil rights organizations, and environmental and conservation groups. She received bipartisan support in the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. She is a thoughtful and inclusive leader who will search for balanced solutions on energy, climate, and natural resource policy. I also hope--and expect--that she will correct mistakes the previous administration made in removing protections for vast amounts of lands, including large portions of Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monuments in Utah. These natural and cultural treasures are part of our shared national inheritance and must be protected. Deb Haaland understands that. In 2018, she became one of the first two indigenous women ever elected to Congress. She is a 35th-generation New Mexican and an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo, a Tribe of people who have lived on the land that is now New Mexico for 900 years. Defending this Nation is in her blood. Her father was a marine who received the Silver Star for his service in Vietnam and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Her mother is a Navy veteran who worked for a quarter century at the Bureau of Indian Education, an Interior Department Agency. This historic nomination is an important step towards healing a deep wound of our past, and it offers hope for a better future. I am honored to support Deb Haaland to serve as U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Hickenlooper), and the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, for 20 years now, I have come to this floor hundreds of times to speak on behalf of the DREAM Act, which I introduced long ago. During that period of time, I have had an occasional vote. I have not been successful in making it the law of the land. The closest I came was about 8 years ago, when we had the comprehensive immigration reform bill. Four Democratic Senators and four Republican Senators--and I was among them--worked for months to try to address our immigration system. We came up with an agreement that was no mean feat. It is a complex area of law. It is a controversial area of law. It is an area of law that changes almost by the day, and we were trying to find a solution to all the challenges it presents. To think that we are a nation of immigrants and, then, to reflect on our history on immigration is to leave one puzzled. Most of the time we have been against immigration, despite the arrival of good people on our borders. Occasionally, when we were building a transcontinental railroad, we would invite people from China in to take the backbreaking jobs, only to categorically exclude them from immigration in the meantime. It is hard to explain, understand, or appreciate where we stand on immigration. When I hear the Republican leader come to the floor and criticize President Obama for DACA, I have to say that it is personal to me. I was writing letters to President Biden, my former Senate colleague from Illinois, begging him to do just that, and he did. In creating DACA, he gave the Dreamers a fighting chance, and more than 800,000 of them came forward. These were young people who were brought to the United States as toddlers and infants and children, not because of a personal decision but a family decision. They grew up here, went to school here, and believed they were a part of this country, only to learn in a quiet moment of honesty from their parents that they didn't have the necessary paperwork and they had to be extra careful or face deportation. I thought that was a heartbreaking conclusion for their time in America and introduced the Dream Act. And when we could not pass it, I asked President Obama to do what he could to help, and he did. I thank him for it still to this day. But DACA, if it was stretching Executive power, was certainly reflective of where the American people are on this issue. No apologies; the American people don't hold these young children now grown responsible for their family's decision. They want to give them a chance. They want to give them a chance to earn their legal status, to earn a path to citizenship. No apologies here; these are wonderful young people who make America a better country, and we need them to be a part of our future. So for those who come to the floor critical of DACA, I just tell you: Take a couple of minutes and meet these young people. I have come to the floor over a hundred times telling their personal stories. They are a great source of pride, not just for me but for this Nation. Now we face problems on our border--and we have for some time--and they are challenges that are very real. Mr. Mayorkas has taken over as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. He is a person I willingly and anxiously support for that job. He has a personal family story of immigration, but, more importantly, he has a depth of experience that is almost impossible to find in other places. He has tried to come together with the leaders in Central America to fashion a plan for order on the border, and it is difficult. It is true that larger numbers are coming to the border at this time. The Senator from Kentucky said earlier that they believe they have a right to break Federal law. I couldn't disagree with him more. They are presenting themselves at the border under the law of asylum in the United States so that they can be judged as to whether or not they are eligible to come into this country. That is the process, but it has broken down because the numbers presenting themselves at the border and the backlog of cases, more than a million cases pending. We don't have enough judges. We don't have a procedure that is sensible and humane. We need all of that, and it is not going to happen the day after tomorrow. Part of it depends on us. It is one thing to come to the floor and lament the situation of immigration in our country. It is another to roll up your sleeves and say: Let's do it; let's solve it on a bipartisan basis. And it is certainly an imperative in a 50-50 Senate that any immigration legislation be done on a bipartisan basis. I stand ready to do that as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and I think colleagues on the Republican side agree with me. As tough as it may be, we need to tackle these issues and not ignore them as they have been ignored during the last 4 years. That is going to call for some cooperation and some compromise on both sides, but we owe it to our country to do the right thing to make our immigration system sensible, logical, and fair. I don't want to go back to those moments under the Trump administration of zero tolerance, where over 2,000 children were forcibly removed from their parents, sent into a bureaucratic ``Never Never Land'' and then were only reunited--and not all of them have been--those who were reunited were because of a Federal court order calling on the Trump administration to do it. They cast those children adrift in the bureaucracy. It wasn't until the Federal court demanded that they be reinstated with their families that it happened--in most instances but not in all of them. So we have a lot of work to do, and I hope we can do it on a bipartisan basis. We need to do it as quickly as we can on a bipartisan basis. 56th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday Mr. President, I was a college student in town here at Georgetown University, and I can remember it well. You have a lot of time to talk with your roommates about things that you might just do with your life and things that you should do, even as a student. I remember that week before the march on Selma, there was a serious conversation among my roommates as to whether we ought to pack up and head to Selma, AL, to join in the march. We were serious about it. We thought about it, but, in the end, it fell through. Too many classes would be cut and jobs we wouldn't be attending to, and we decided at the last minute it just wasn't practical at all for us to do it. I regret that decision to this day. I wish I had been there, even if I were in the back of the line, to say I was part of that day in history. It was 56 years ago last Sunday, some 600 civil rights activists, 56 years ago, were kneeling in prayer outside the Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma. Leading them was our dearly departed friend--and I know he was the Presiding Officer's friend as well--and former colleague John Lewis. As they stood up outside the church, they formed two rows and began a silent, orderly march toward Montgomery, AL. We all remember that photo of John Lewis coming over that bridge in his tan raincoat and his backpack. As the civil rights activists reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met by a phalanx of State troopers and armed vigilantes. They wielded cattle prods, billy clubs, shotguns, and other makeshift weapons. We all know what happened next. Today, that violence is remembered as ``Bloody Sunday.'' What some may not know is what happened the night before that march. The county sheriff in Selma, Jim Clark, had issued a call to arms. He ordered White men in the area to join troopers in Selma, and he deputized those people to help stop the march. They answered the call, lining up by the hundreds alongside the State troopers. John Lewis and his fellow patriots were not going to be intimidated. They stood tall. They bore the brunt of racist violence, and they did so with a solemn purpose: They wanted to build a more perfect union in this country, to make sure every voice is heard in our democracy. Days later, with the brutal scenes from Selma fresh in the minds of America, President Lyndon Johnson urged Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. That August, he signed the bill into law. It is hard to imagine, isn't it? In the same year he proposed it, we actually saw Congress pass the law. That is what happened in the good old days. His law fundamentally changed our Republic for the better, but our work remains far from over. Last weekend also marked the anniversary of another tragic moment in our Nation's history, far more recent than Bloody Sunday. It was 2 months ago--2 months ago on January 6 that a violent mob stormed through the halls of this Capitol Building. Like the vigilantes in Selma, they, too, were answering a call to arms--except this one wasn't issued by a county sheriff; it was issued by the former President of the United States, Donald Trump. The failed insurrection of January 6 not only left five people dead, but, like Bloody Sunday, it left a permanent stain on our Nation's history. Make no mistake, no more than half a century stands between these two dark days for democracy. They are part of the same thread that sadly has run through American history: racism--racism weaponized to deny full citizenship to Black and Brown Americans. The mob violence that we personally witnessed on January 6 in this building was not an aberration; it was the continuation of a sad chapter in our history. For months, former President Trump had sowed doubt about the legitimacy of the election. He claimed that it was stolen from him. ``Stop the steal,'' they chanted. We know that President Trump's claims have no basis in reality. Just 2 days ago, the Supreme Court finally dismissed the last remaining case brought by Trump supporters to push the big lie. The Supreme Court didn't buy it. In fact, no court bought it. The former President has never let facts stand in his way, has he? In fact, he claims to know exactly where this supposed fraud transpired, cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Detroit-- coincidentally, cities with large populations of Black and Brown voters. This is no coincidence. President Trump and his enablers believe they were entitled to victory because they don't think that every American should have an equal vote in our democracy. President Trump's efforts to overturn the election are just the most recent example of a decades-long movement to suppress voters of color. I have spoken on this floor before about investigations I conducted as chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Human rights of the Senate Judiciary. I took the show on the road. I traveled to Ohio and Florida, where lawmakers at that time were considering making it more difficult to vote, requiring IDs, and this was before the Supreme Court's disastrous decision in Shelby County. That ruling opened the floodgates. It allowed a number of State legislatures to enact discriminatory restrictions on voting that would no longer require approval from the Department of Justice. That decision was a repudiation of the sacrifice John Lewis and his fellow patriots made on Bloody Sunday. We must learn from our history, whether it was 56 years ago or just 2 months ago, and we must recognize that the fundamental right to vote is still under attack. Just last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could further fracture the Voting Rights Act by limiting the effectiveness of a provision that allows voters to challenge discriminatory restrictions. Lawmakers in 43 States have already introduced more than 250 bills this year to restrict voting access This book, ``One Person, No Vote,'' was written by Carol Anderson, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta. I read her first book, ``White Rage,'' contacted her, and we are friends. I think her analysis of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, and all that followed is the most lucid presentation I have read about that chapter in history. In this book, she goes directly into the issue of voter suppression. One of her observations is worth repeating on the floor of the Senate. She refers to what is known in history as the Mississippi Plan. I will read a few sentences from this book, as follows: That became most apparent in 1890 when the Magnolia State passed the Mississippi Plan, a dizzying array of poll taxes, literacy tests, understanding clauses, newfangled voter registration rules, and ``good character'' clauses--all intentionally racially discriminatory but dressed up in the genteel garb of bringing ``integrity'' to the voting booth. This feigned legal innocence was legislative evil genius. Virginia representative Carter Glass, like so many others, swooned at the thought of bringing the Mississippi Plan to his own state, especially after he saw how well it had worked. He rushed to champion a bill in the legislature that would ``eliminate the darkey as a political factor . . . in less than five years.'' Glass, whom President Franklin Roosevelt would one day describe as an ``unreconstructed rebel,'' planned ``not to deprive a single white man of the ballot, but [to] inevitably cut from the existing electorate four-fifths of the Negro voters'' in Virginia. One delegate questioned him: ``Will it not be done by fraud and discrimination?'' Glass responded: ``By fraud, no. By discrimination, yes,'' Glass retorted. ``Discrimination! Why, that is precisely what we propose . . . to discriminate to the very extremity . . . permissible . . . under . . . the Federal Constitution, with a view to the elimination of every negro voter who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the numerical strength of the white electorate.'' In those days, they were very direct and honest about their ambitions in voter suppression. What is the explanation these days? If we don't believe that there was massive fraud--and there was not, by any objective measure--in the 2020 election, why are so many legislators in the business now of reducing the opportunity for Americans to vote in their States? Why? If they can't sell an idea, they just want to change the electorate, and perhaps that would lead to victory, but at what cost? The most enduring legacy of Bloody Sunday is the legislation that it helped to inspire, the Voting Rights Act. We must now draw from this moment in our history, a lesson to be realized, the promise of that legislation: a full and vibrant democracy, made up of all Americans of every color and creed. We have an obligation not just to restore the Voting Rights Act but to build on it, to make it stronger and more comprehensive. Fortunately, President Joe Biden's administration has indicated it is ready to do just that. Last Sunday, in honor of the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, President Biden signed an Executive order calling on the Federal Government to make it easier for Americans to register to vote and access the ballot box. While this Executive order was a welcome announcement, we need to act as well in Congress. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a cosponsor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act in the last Congress, I look forward to working to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act in the months ahead. Though our friend and colleague is no longer with us today, his legacy towers over us. We stand on his shoulders and those of all the American heroes who bled on the streets of Selma in 1965 and long after. We must carry on the fight for equality, and we can begin by enacting a bill the House of Representatives passed last week, the For the People Act. This bill would prohibit voter roll purges, as we have seen in States like Ohio and Georgia, and modernize and strengthen voter registration systems and ballot access. I would say to the other party: Don't be afraid of the voters. In this democracy, they have the last word. Denying them the right to vote is no way and no strategy for a great political party. It would also help end the dominance of dark money in our political system, including through establishing a small-donor public financing system for congressional elections, based on my Fair Elections Now Act. The For the People Act is a vital step toward repairing and improving our democratic process. Passing it and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act will provide critical tools in the fight to ensure that all Americans can exercise their right to vote. These bills represent the bold actions that Americans have been calling for. We must not ignore that call. In 2020, the American people turned out in historic numbers in the election, but they also turned out in historic numbers in protests in support of racial justice across America. John Lewis's march to Montgomery never ended. It has taken on a new life, a new generation of marchers, and more Americans than ever before are putting their feet to the pavement. It is time to finish the work of John Lewis and the heroes of the civil rights movement. As we commemorate the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, we can do no less. With his eyes wide open, John Lewis marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma knowing he was facing a deadly, hateful crowd. They broke down his body, but they could not defeat his spirit. The question we face today is whether John Lewis's spirit still lives in us. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I had a press conference this Sunday back home in Illinois to talk about what the American Rescue Plan means to our State. It is dramatic. Dramatic. Millions of dollars will be coming to our State to buy vaccines. I can tell you, all across Illinois, people are asking: When is it my turn? When do I get my chance? And we want to make sure they get that chance sooner rather than later. Think about what President Biden inherited just a few weeks ago. Surely they had found some vaccines--excellent vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna--approved by then, but he came to the White House to find that there was no plan to administer those vaccines across the Nation. Vaccine is important, but it is of little value if it is not in the arms of Americans. So he set out to establish a standard that we would be distributing this vaccine across the United States as quickly as possible and the mechanism, the infrastructure to make certain that it was administered by professionals who know what they are doing. That is quite an undertaking. It is the largest vaccination in the history of our Nation. But President Biden said he needed help to do it--not just money for the vaccine but money for testing, money for the genomic sequencing necessary to detect variants that might be emerging in the United States. That was a major element of the bill that passed this Senate last Saturday. He also put money in there that had already been promised to the American people. Remember when President Trump said $2,000 for every American? We agreed on a bipartisan basis. The first downpayment was last December, $600, and the remainder, $1,400, was included in the bill that passed on Saturday. I have yet to hear a Republican Senator come to this floor and criticize that sum of money. All of them--I should say most of them have publicly supported it, and others say little or nothing about it, but no one is saying that it shouldn't be given as a result of the promise made. We kept that promise. That was part of what we were doing. We also had a responsibility to millions of Americans who are still collecting unemployment. As of March 14, they were going to lose their opportunity to continue that unemployment check. There were arguments made on the floor here that these were just lazy people and that if you give them an unemployment check, they will just continue to be lazy and won't go back to work. I don't buy that. I don't believe it. Are some lazy? Well, possibly. I think the vast majority of these people are desperate. They are desperate because they have been laid off or lost their jobs and they need to keep their families together. Unemployment benefits do that, and they also give fuel to the economy to recover. We were told that by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and others--to put enough stimulus back in this economy so we can come out of it strong sooner rather than later. I believe that. Yet people like the Republican Senator from Ohio came to the floor talking about the recovery underway and we don't really need to do as much as President Biden had asked for. I disagree. All across the board, the bill that we passed, whether it is money for schools or money for hospitals or money for clinics or money for administering this vaccine, was money that will be well spent in the State of Illinois and all across the United States. Now what troubles me is this: Last year, we had two major bills for COVID relief. They talk about five. There were two major bills. The first was in March, the CARES Act that was worth $2 trillion. That bill passed the Senate after it had been engineered by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin of the Trump administration. It passed the Senate with every Senator voting yes, 96 to nothing. Every Democratic Senator voted for it. Then came the followup bill in December, some $900 billion for more COVID relief, for a temporary, first-quarter-of-this-year fix. When you look at the final rollcall there, it was 92 to 6. All six ``no'' votes were Republicans. Every Democrat who voted, voted for it--again, a Trump proposal that we supported on the Democratic side. So then the tables turned on January 20, and a new President came to town. Joe Biden said: Let me finish this and do it effectively. Give me an American Rescue Plan. How many Republican Senators stood up and said: Well, since the Democrats, in the spirit of responding to this pandemic, came around and supported the Trump plans last year, we will do the same this year. The number--zero. Not one Republican Senator supported the bill that passed on Saturday. We passed it with 50 Democratic votes. That is what it took, with one Republican Senator being missing. But what a disappointment that is, to think that this pandemic and the economic crisis that followed was addressed on a bipartisan basis with every Democratic vote in the major legislation last year, and this year, under President Biden, we couldn't get one Republican Senator to join us in that effort. It is a disappointment, but I hope it isn't a portent of things to come. We have a lot to do, and we need to do it together on a bipartisan basis. The American people are going to count on us to do it. I also might say a word about the nominations that Senator McConnell referred to earlier. It is true that some of these nominees are getting votes that indicate a strong majority in support, and that does evidence Republican cooperation, and I want to thank them for joining us in that bipartisan spirit. But it evidences something else as well. These are good nominees. These are good men and women who can serve this country effectively. Given the chance, they will, and the votes that have been cast in support of them indicate that as well. I won't go into the experience 4 years ago with the Trump nominees, but many of them had troubled records, and some of them didn't even file the necessary disclosures before their names were submitted to us for consideration. So there are a lot of things that have changed in the 4-year period of time. Now we have a chance to approve a team for President Biden and to fill out his national security team.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.