Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am going to conclude for the sake of the staff and yourself and others who are here, who, as I mentioned earlier, are at risk. We are all at risk with this pandemic. But just to summarize as quickly as I can, we returned this week when we were supposed to be back in our States. We returned this week because there was pressing legislative business. One of the items before us, raised by Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization. There are some Senators who have questions and objections to the bill that passed the House. Those Senators on the Republican side and on the Democratic side came to the floor last Thursday and said: We will agree to an extension of this law if you will give us a chance to actually debate our concerns on the floor of the Senate. That request was rejected last week by Senator McConnell. So tonight we were going to have the showdown vote to see whether or not we move forward on this, and, lo and behold, moments before that vote, Senator McConnell agreed to what he refused to agree to last Thursday. Yes, we will have a temporary extension, and we will have debate and amendments before that extension expires. So one of the reasons that we were drawn back to Washington, when we were counseled by all the medical experts not to take unnecessary airline flights, was for a matter that was resolved without a vote tonight. I came to the floor after that and said: If that is the case, then, for goodness sakes, the only other remaining matter pending before us is the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed by the House of Representatives in the early hours of Saturday: free testing for coronavirus, strengthening food assistance, safeguarding Medicaid benefits, enhancing unemployment assistance, and establishing paid leave. My request then was and still is, Why don't we pass that by voice vote? Let's do it. This was a measure agreed to on a bipartisan basis by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. If the two of them can come together and agree on it, are you telling me we can't agree on it in the Senate? And if someone wants to vote no, so be it. Place your vote on the record. But for some reason we are not going to do that. We are going to sit around tonight and come back tomorrow. Will we do it tomorrow? I don't know. But there is no sense of urgency in the Senate, as there should be--first, for the people in this country who are facing this virus and the disruption in their own personal lives. Some of those people are losing jobs, and some are sick and should stay away from their jobs. They want to know what this bill says that passed the House of Representatives--that there is medical leave for them if they are sick and can't work, and then, if they lose their jobs, if there is going to be some assistance for their families in this time of trouble. Those are reasonable requests by every family. That is the highest priority. Why would we wait to take that up? Why would we delay that decision and leave more uncertainty among the people of Illinois and across America? There is no reason or excuse for it. Let's get that done. Secondly, this measure also says that we are going to continue to work on a bipartisan basis to solve this problem. Let's take this up tomorrow morning. As was noted before, we raised, in the initial bill to deal with this pandemic, the President's ask from $2 billion to $8 billion and did it on a bipartisan basis to put the medical and healthcare resources to work across America. We should and we did, and we did it with a minimum of debate on a bipartisan basis. This bill, the second bill in the package, should have been treated exactly the same way. It should have moved through the Senate without asking all the Senators to return, the staff to come here, the Capitol Hill Police and others to protect us, and all the staff support that we have. We didn't have to go through this. We should have done this. If Senator McConnell and the Republican leadership would have reached out, he would have found there was a lot of cooperation available on our side of the aisle--again, on a bipartisan basis. I don't disagree with what the Senator from Massachusetts said. There is more to be done--a lot more to be done. We will discover it, and we should move on it quickly. But for the time being, pass this bill. Tell the American people we heard you and we know what we are up against, and we are in it together, on a bipartisan basis. Let's not dream up some way in the Senate rules to drag this out day after weary day and expose one another to the virus that has been rampantly crossing this country and threatening us every single day. We need to do this work, get it done, and get it done quickly. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) 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 unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, On April 29, 1983, Justice Charles Freeman made history as the first African-American jurist to swear in Chicago's first, elected African-American mayor, Harold Washington. Justice Freeman went on to become the first, and so far the only, African- American justice to serve on the Illinois Supreme Court. During his more than four decades, Justice Freeman helped shape Illinois's history through his achievements, his jurisprudence, and his mentoring of a generation of new lawyers he guided to the bench. On March 2, he passed away, and I rise today to honor his memory. Charles Freeman was born in Richmond, VA, in 1933. He was descended from slaves freed by Quakers before the Civil War. As a child, he brought newspapers to legendary civil rights attorney Oliver W. Hill's office. His father was a hard-working man who loved to read and always stressed that he wanted Charles and his brother to become lawyers. The Freemans lived walking distance from Virginia Union University in Richmond, and that is where Charles and his brother went to college. Charles Freeman graduated from college in 1954 and served in the U.S. Army from 1956 to 1958, stationed in South Korea. After his service, he married Marylee Voelker and moved to Chicago. While in Chicago, he attended John Marshall Law School at night, and he worked for the Cook County Department of Public Aid. After law school, Justice Freeman started working as a precinct worker for former Representative Ralph H. Metcalfe, cofounder of the Congressional Black Caucus. Justice Freeman befriended Harold Washington while helping Metcalfe, and they formed a law practice partnership. In 1965, Governor Otto Kerner appointed Freeman arbitrator for the Illinois Industrial Commission administrating workers' compensation cases. In 1973, Governor Dan Walker appointed him a commissioner for the Illinois Commerce Commission. In 1976, Justice Freeman was elected to serve as a judge on the Cook County Circuit Court. In 1986, he was elected to the Illinois Appellate Court, and 4 years later, he became the first African American elected to the Illinois Supreme Court. His peers chose him to serve as chief justice in 1997 until 2000. As chief justice, Freeman reorganized the rotation of appellate judges in the First Judicial District. Before, appellate judges sat on the same panels for their entire careers. He helped improve the Family Violence Prevention Program. Justice Freeman also improved the educational program for judges statewide and pushed for the creation of a special committee to study the death penalty and reforms. While Justice Freeman was a great jurist, his legacy is also reflected in his efforts to promote a diverse judiciary. He appointed 11 of the 16 African Americans who have served on the First District Appellate Court since 1990. It was important to him that people saw in the courtroom judges and lawyers that reflected society. He mentored so many in the field. During his career, Justice Freeman received many awards for his service, including the Freedom Award from the John Marshall Law School, the Seymour Simon Justice Award from the Jewish Judges Association, the Earl Burrus Dickerson Award from the Chicago Bar Association, and the Ira B. Platt Award and the Presidential Award from the Cook County Bar Association. Charles Freeman is survived by his son Kevin and daughter-in-law Cami, by two grandchildren, and by his brother James. I want to extend my sympathies to his family and loved ones. The loss of Justice Freeman is a loss for our State and for the whole country.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the 125th anniversary of the founding of Northern Illinois University, or NIU, a renowned institution with a long record as a public research university and the proud home of Huskies. Like many great State universities across this country, Northern Illinois University began as an expansion of the normal school program, otherwise commonly known as a teachers college. Near the end of the 19th century, as our Nation's population continued to experience rapid growth, the State of Illinois recognized the need to prioritize teacher training in Northern Illinois to increase access to education in the bourgeoning community. NIU was founded in DeKalb, IL, in 1895 to help more students receive a high-quality education, and it still serves those same goals today. NIU is a university of diversity. From its very first day, NIU has charted a course of inclusion and accessibility that focused on the students and their education. NIU has proven its commitment in this area by expanding opportunities and pathways to college for students from underserved communities and to those that are the first in their family to attend college. Over the years, NIU has been at the forefront of recognizing the unique challenges of these communities and has worked tirelessly to identify ways to address them as part of its strong commitment to students. NIU is a university of opportunity. Today, nearly three quarters of NIU students fall into one or more of the following categories: about 45 percent of the students are Pell grant-eligible, 50 percent are students of color, and 50 percent are first-generation college students. I would like to commend NIU for its work to make higher education more accessible for families from all communities and walks of life. NIU is a university of excellence. NIU has a nationally recognized faculty that includes prominent experts and leading scholars from a variety of disciplines, including science, East Asian studies, and visual and performance arts. After receiving a first-class education at NIU, over 200,000 alumni have gone on to make a difference in the Midwest and across the world, teaching people about the value of NIU as they do. The State of Illinois has been enriched by NIU, and I look forward to the school's many contributions in the years ahead. It is my distinct honor to congratulate President Lisa Freeman and the entire NIU community on its 125th anniversary.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to address the issue which will be before us at noon on the vote, but, preceding that, I would like to say a word on a different topic that certainly is on everybody's mind, and that is the coronavirus. I was recently notified by my Governor, Governor Pritzker, that we have run into a shortage in our State of the test kits that are necessary. Some 330 Illinoisans have been tested to date, and these are people who, on physician's orders, should be tested because of exposure to coronavirus or because of the vulnerability of the patient and the suspicion that they may have been exposed to the virus. The difficulty that we have run into is that the testing process apparently is coming to a stop. We are running out of the test kits, and there has been contact made with the Centers for Disease Control to determine why we are not getting responses on this need for additional kits in our State to test people who are truly vulnerable. I don't believe our situation could be unique. I imagine other States are facing this same challenge. I reached out to the Centers for Disease Control within the hour and had a lengthy conversation about the situation that we are facing. Originally, the coronavirus test kits faced a shortage of reagents that were necessary to take the initial test. It turns out they are now facing a new challenge: It is an issue of the global supply of enzymes that are used by laboratories to analyze the test results. This is a commercially available enzyme that is now in short supply, and CDC is desperately looking for other commercial sources that are reliable that can come to the rescue. The testing process, of course, is going to stop if the laboratories can't take the initial test results and test them to see whether they are positive or negative. They are looking for alternative ways at the CDC to meet this need. It is a critically important issue, and the lack of these enzymes limits the actual tests that can be taken across the United States. The source at the CDC told me this situation is not unique to our country. It is a commercially produced product, and they are looking for other sources, either within the United States or without, as quickly as possible. This is a market-driven problem, and the CDC is looking across the market for sources to solve the problem. For the time being, there is no relief in sight in Illinois or other places that have run into this same issue, where people desperately need to be tested to determine whether they are positive for this virus, and the testing, even if it takes place, cannot go through the laboratory approval. The commercial supplies of this enzyme, apparently, are depleted at this moment. It is an urgent issue, as I mentioned repeatedly. They are looking for optional alternative platforms for this laboratory testing. Now, I would say at this point I don't want to speculate on what that means. It is far beyond my personal expertise. But it is an indication of a desperate situation in many places. It is one that we need to respond to and quickly. To argue that there are enough test kits that have been distributed is questionable to start with. But even if distributed and they cannot be analyzed, it really doesn't give us the information necessary to protect the Americans who may be vulnerable. The bottom line is this. This administration is facing a challenge over test kits that still have many unanswered questions. How did other countries in the world--Korea and others--come up with test kits early on in volumes that were necessary to address this problem, and the United States did not? Why didn't we accept these test kits in other countries that apparently do come up with results that are needed and necessary? I don't know those answers. Only time will provide them to us. But, in the meantime, we have appropriated all the funds and more asked for by the Trump administration to deal with this issue, on a bipartisan basis, and that is exactly what we should continue to do. But we need start-to-finish straight answers from everyone in the administration and outside about this public health threat. Credibility is the first step toward dealing with a public health challenge such as the one we face today, and this test kit issue is clearly central to our bringing this situation under control--the sooner we get straight answers and good information and can respond to it quickly, the better for our Nation. H.J. Res. 76 Mr. President, in just a few minutes, we will see a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate that is fairly unique. There aren't many votes in this Chamber. This one, actually, is meaningful, because this issue before us on a vote at noon today relates to student borrowers who went to colleges--primarily, for-profit colleges and universities--and ended up attending those schools, going deeply into debt by borrowing money from the government to go to school, only to learn at a later stage that they were misled. The schools didn't tell them the truth. The schools many times told them that if they took certain courses, there was a job waiting for them. In some cases they even told how much the jobs paid. They went on to say that the schools themselves had certain people on the faculty with certain qualifications, and it turned out that wasn't true. In addition, many students were told that the hours that they took at these for-profit schools could be transferred to other schools if they wanted to complete someplace else. It turns out that wasn't true either. These students were basically defrauded. If you can understand the predicament, here is a student customer sitting at a desk in an office at a for-profit college or university being asked questions and being given information for the most important contract they will sign in their early lives. Many of these students incurred substantial student debt based on the representations and misrepresentations of these colleges and universities. They find out now that the schools have gone bankrupt in some cases, and some schools that didn't go bankrupt ended up providing them with training and education completely inadequate for them to find a job. Here is the student deep in debt, having wasted years of their lives in these for-profit colleges and universities with nowhere to turn. Their lives are affected by it. Who wouldn't be? Whether it is $20,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 in debt, it quickly adds up, and students find themselves literally in chains because of student debt and because of misrepresentations made by the schools. You might say: What is the government going to do about it? We decided years ago exactly what we should do about it. We put in the Higher Education Act something called the borrower defense, and here is what it said. If you went to a school and they lied to you, if they misrepresented what you were going to receive in your education, if they deceived you and defrauded you, and then you incurred a student debt because of it, you can go to the U.S. Department of Education under what is known as the borrower defense program and seek relief from some or all of your student debt. This borrower defense program is not new. It has been around many years. But in the year 2014, it became a popular situation, sadly, because these for-profit schools were defrauding so many thousands of students. Over 200,000 students currently have a claim at the U.S. Department of Education that they were deceived by these for-profit schools, which are notorious for the representations and misrepresentations they make to these students. These 200,000 students went to the Department of Education and said: Because there is statutory relief here, we are asking you, Secretary Betsy DeVos, to give us relief from this debt. We were students at these schools. And she has refused. She has refused to take up their cases, refused to consider the merits of them, despite the fact that President Obama, before her and through the Department of Education, was actually using this program and this law to help the students. To add insult to injury, Secretary DeVos said: Incidentally, we are going to change the standards at the Department of Education for students who feel that they have been defrauded and that the schools have misrepresented things to them. How did she change the standards? She made it extremely difficult for these students to get any relief from the student debt from the schools that misrepresented them. Instead of the students' being able to rely, for example, on the fact that many States have investigated these schools and found fraudulent misconduct, she has established a new standard that each of the students has to prove that there was, in fact, an intentional defrauding of that student. What does that mean? Each of these students has to lawyer up and each of these students has to have some investigative capacity to meet the new standard that has been established by Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education. It turns out that these students are up in arms over it, and I am joining them. This measure on the floor would put an end to this new rule by Secretary DeVos and say that you have to treat students fairly when it comes to those who have been defrauded. Yesterday, the Senate voted 55 to 41 on a bipartisan rollcall--fairly unusual, but a bipartisan rollcall--where 10 Republicans joined the Democrats to move the measure disapproving of this new rule by Secretary DeVos. I want to thank my Republican colleagues who stood up for these students and veterans. We have veteran organizations coming to us saying: You can't do this. What happens is that we have military men and women who, when they are discharged from service, qualify for the GI bill. The GI bill pays for their college education, as it should, and I am proud that we do that. These very same schools not only take the GI benefits but then tell the students they have to turn around and borrow more money to finish what turns out to be an absolutely worthless education and training. The American Legion and many other veterans organizations are leading the charge with us to change this new Secretary Betsy DeVos standard. I thank them for that. In 1992--that is how far back it goes--we put into law in the Higher Education Act this borrower defense so that students who were defrauded had somewhere to turn when it came to student debt they incurred. The schools misrepresented how many job placements would take place if they finished the courses. They misrepresented the earning potential of these jobs after graduation. They lied about the cost of attending these schools. They told the students their credits would transfer when, in fact, they did not. This kind of misrepresentation left these students to sign up for more student loans and go more deeply in debt because they were lied to. Those are just a few of the examples. Congress rightly didn't want to leave the students to be left holding the bag for the misconduct of the schools. So it created in 1992 this statutory borrower defense. No one had ever heard of it until 2014, when Corinthian Colleges collapsed and the lid was blown off of other for-profit colleges and universities' fraud. We are talking about the University of Phoenix and DeVry and others. If you look, you will find them, and it is a long list. There are two numbers you need to know about the for-profit colleges and universities, and this will be on the final. One number is 8: 8 percent of all postsecondary students go to for-profit colleges and universities--8 percent. The other is 33: 33 percent of all federal student loan defaults are students from for- profit colleges and universities. For the very reasons that we come to the floor today, these schools are notorious for misrepresenting to students, overcharging them in tuition, and providing them with little or no education for the future. These schools take the money and run, and the students are left holding the bag with massive debts. Corinthian is a good example. It collapsed in 2014. Thousands of students were the victims of Corinthian's misrepresentations. They inflated job placement rates, took out loans for students without their knowledge, and lied to the students about employers recognizing their degrees. Corinthian was not unique. Nearly every other major for-profit college has been the subject of multiple State and Federal investigations and lawsuits for similar predatory practices. Since the year 2015, nearly 300,000 student borrowers--mostly from for-profit colleges--have applied to the Department of Education for this discharge, and it is not going to stop. These for-profit colleges are the coronavirus of higher education. The Department of Education estimates that nearly 200,000 borrowers will be subject to further illegal practices by their schools in 2021 alone. This new DeVos rule is going to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for students to find relief. The best estimate is that 3 percent of the students who are defrauded by their school will get relief, and the other 97 percent will not under this new rule that we will have a chance to vote against this afternoon. The rule by Secretary DeVos makes it almost impossible for future defrauded borrowers to receive the borrower defense discharge that Congress intended. It eliminates all group relief. Each of the students is supposed to lawyer up. To prove their claims under the rule, the borrowers must provide evidence that the school intended to deceive them, had knowledge of the deception, or acted with reckless disregard. How many students fresh out of school are able to make that legal proof? In addition, borrowers under the DeVos rule are required to show financial harm above and beyond the fact that they took out the loans that now burden them later in life. This is a situation where we can respond as a Congress and should on a bipartisan basis. The House has already passed this measure saying that we reject this new Secretary Betsy DeVos rule when it comes to this mistreatment of students who were defrauded and have a debt as a result of it. One of my Senate colleagues whom I respect very much yesterday used a car analogy to defend Secretary DeVos' rule. He said: If your car is a lemon, you don't sue the bank; you sue the dealer. A college can be a lemon, just like a car can be. That is what the Senator said. His point is that the students who were defrauded by the school, sold a lemon of an education, should go after the school and not the Department of Education--except that the DeVos rule allows the schools to prevent students from suing them. It eliminates a prohibition in current rules on the use of mandatory arbitration clauses and class actions. Under the existing rule, students of Corinthian could have come together in a class action and ask for relief in a court of law directly from the school. Secretary DeVos eliminates that: Go on your own. Each one of you students stand up for yourself. Is that fair? I don't think it is. It certainly isn't the kind of thing that we want to see in terms of justice for these students. The DeVos rule causes the person who bought the lemon to be forced to sue the bank instead of the car dealer. You can't have it both ways. It is not just me who believes that the DeVos rule is bad for student borrowers. A number of student, consumer, veteran, and other organizations are supporting this resolution to overturn the rule: the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, the NAACP, Third Way, Bipartisan Policy Center Action, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and 20 different State attorneys general. But the groups I want to highlight as I close in these final 2 or 3 minutes are the veterans organizations. Many of the students who have been defrauded are veterans. These men and women have served our country in uniform, and after serving they seek an education to provide a better life for themselves and their families, and they deserve it. We have story after story after story of veterans who signed up at these for-profit colleges. They were told the GI education benefits were all they needed, only to waste the entire benefits on a worthless degree and be forced to take tens of thousands of dollars of student debt on top of it. That is why our effort in this vote in just 2 minutes on the floor of the Senate--our effort to overturn this rule--is supported by the American Legion, the Student Veterans of America, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the National Military Families Association, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, VetsFirst, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans Education Success. James ``Bill'' Oxford is the national commander of the American Legion, and he wrote to me and said: ``Thousands of student veterans have been defrauded over the years--promised their credits would transfer when they wouldn't, given false or misleading job placement rates in marketing, promised one educational experience . . . but given something completely different. He, the American Legion commander, calls the DeVos rule ``fundamentally rigged against defrauded borrowers'' and says that it ``flagrantly denies defrauded veterans [fair and timely] decisions [on their claims].'' How many speeches do each of us give as Senators about how much we value our military and veterans? We have a chance to prove it in just 1 minute, because there will be a roll call. Are you going to stand up for these veterans and these students and are you going to say to Secretary DeVos you are headed the wrong way? These students and these veterans have been defrauded. Give them a fighting chance to rebuild their lives. Don't make it next to impossible. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren), are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, perhaps later today or one day this week, we will have debate on the Senate floor and a vote, and that vote literally will decide the future for over 200,000 young Americans. Politicians and elected officials are prone to exaggeration, but I don't exaggerate when I say that, because we will have an opportunity here to debate and vote on a system that was put in place years ago to protect students from being defrauded by the colleges they attend. It is called the borrower defense program. It was started years ago. It was really designed for that rare situation where a student would take out a government loan to go to college after the college made misrepresentations about the education it offered. The student would rely on those misrepresentations, sign up for the school, sign up for the government loan, and learn, to his disappointment, months or years later that the school had lied to him. The school may have told him: If you take this certain course at this school, you will qualify for a certain job or licensure. The school may have misrepresented to the student that the courses they took at the school could be transferred to other schools if the student decided to go to a different university to complete their education. The misrepresentation may have been something as basic as saying ``All of our professors and instructors at this school have certain college degrees qualifying them to teach you,'' or the school may have misrepresented to the student that ``If you complete this course, here are the jobs that will be readily available for you to fill.'' Students listen to those promises, sometimes rely on them, oftentimes signing loans with the Federal Government that need to be paid off later, and then they learn they were lied to. Because they were defrauded or lied to or misrepresentations were made, we set up a provision in the law that said there is a way out for the student. You don't end up holding the bag here when a college or university which the United States government has recognized as accredited has lied to you. You are not left holding the bag. There is another way out. Our Department of Education will take a look at your circumstances and decide whether there is evidence that this school has lied to you or misrepresented, and if we find it, we can restructure or forgive some part or all of your student loan debt. You know, that makes all the difference in the world to these students because here they are holding the bag, with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt because of lies that were made by the schools that tried to entice them into enrollment. It is called the borrower defense program. Under President Obama, thousands of students came to the program and said: We were lied to by these schools. Most of the schools are for-profit colleges and universities. One of the most notorious--Corinthian Colleges--is now bankrupt and gone, but for years, they were enticing thousands of Americans into their programs. They were signing up young students for courses, making them sign the loan agreements, and then after that was done, the students learned later on that the education was virtually worthless. What happened to Corinthian? Well, the people who started this for- profit college and university did quite well, thank you. All these students paid thousands of dollars to them, and even though they misrepresented the school to the students, they ended up taking the money and going home, and the school faced bankruptcy, and the students are left holding the bag. That is the unfortunate reality we face. We can do something about it today. The Secretary of Education, Mrs. DeVos, has decided to change the way students have to go through proving their losses, and that is why we are here today. The House has voted overwhelmingly saying Secretary DeVos's approach was unfair. I will describe to you why we think it is unfair. What we are asking Members of the Senate to do today is take an honest look at the plight of these students and decide whether they are entitled to any relief under the proposal by Secretary DeVos. We estimate that fewer than 3 percent of the students will receive any kind of relief because of the approach she uses. What we can do today is reject that approach. This vote is not about any alternative approach. Though, we could sit down and actually negotiate a better way to deal with this. I have talked to Members on the Republican side about doing just that. The first step is to stop this new rule by Secretary DeVos, and that will be an opportunity we have today. If we stop these rules she has promulgated, then the students will have a chance to have some part of their student loan forgiven--perhaps all of it--if they can prove through evidence that they have been defrauded. Let me be more specific about what we are facing here. In 1992, Congress added a provision to the Higher Education Act which I just described called the borrower defense program. It allowed student borrowers defrauded by their schools to have their Federal student loans discharged. Congress rightly didn't want students left holding the bag because the schools had been guilty of misconduct. It was really a little known or rarely used portion of the law until the year 2014 with the collapse of the for-profit giant Corinthian Colleges. Corinthian had lied to students one after the other. They inflated their job placement rates, saying to students: Take these courses, and there are plenty of jobs waiting for you. They took out loans for students without the knowledge of the students, and then they lied to the students about employers' recognizing their degrees. Yet Corinthian was not unique. Nearly every other major for-profit college has been the subject of multiple State and Federal investigations and lawsuits for similar predatory practices. Since 2015--just 5 years ago--nearly 300,000 student borrowers, mostly from these for-profit colleges, have applied to our U.S. Department of Education for borrower defense discharges. They have said: We were lied to. These schools lied to us about what the education would mean to our futures. They enticed us into getting student loans, and we learned too late that we have been subjects of this fraud. Now, because our lives have been compromised with the great debts that we carry, we are asking for relief from a 1992 law that has been established. Almost 220,000 of these students have pending claims with the U.S. Department of Education. Do you know how long they have been waiting for resolutions so they know if they can get on with their lives? Many of them have been waiting for years. The claims come from every State in the Union--large, small, red, blue, purple. It doesn't make any difference. Sadly, it is not going to stop. The Department of Education's estimates show that nearly 200,000 student borrowers will be subject to illegal practices by their schools in 2021 alone. The schools continue to make these misrepresentations to students. With the new borrower defense rule, Secretary DeVos at the Department of Education will make it virtually impossible for these future defrauded borrowers to receive the borrower defense discharge that Congress intended. The DeVos rule places unreasonable new burdens on defrauded borrowers, including requiring the student borrowers to submit evidence that they will have to obtain by hiring lawyers and private detectives. For example, defrauded borrowers will have to show that the schools intentionally misled them. How are they supposed to do that? In addition, the rule requires defrauded borrowers to apply and submit evidence individually instead of being able to apply as a group when many borrowers have experienced similar misconduct across a program or school. Think about these schools that have been investigated by so many different States and have been found guilty of predatory practices, of exploiting these college students. The schools have been found guilty of defrauding these students in State, after State, after State. Under the new rule by Secretary DeVos, to be discharged under this borrower defense program, each one of the students has to essentially lawyer up. Each one of the students has to hire an investigator. What is the likelihood that a student who is burdened with debt and is struggling to find a job is going to go out and make those expenditures? It is next to nothing. In fact, it turns out it is about 3 percent of the students who are likely to be able to take advantage of that. Secretary DeVos is basically telling these student borrowers: You are on your own. Lawyer up. Hire a private detective to find the evidence. This is unfair and unrealistic. We need to go no further than the Department's own statistics to realize that 97 percent of the students have no chance under this DeVos rule. By the experts' best testimony, only 3 percent have a chance of recovering under this new approach. That is the rule we will get a chance to vote on this week, whether that rule should continue. The Department claims that these new hurdles for borrowers are necessary to guard against fraudulent claims made by students, but there is no evidence--none--of widespread fraud on the part of borrowers among the 300,000 borrower defense claims that have already been submitted. In fact, the Department itself notes that it does not have sufficient information to determine the extent of any potential fraud by students. There is no evidence whatsoever of this notion that Secretary DeVos's rule is needed because of fraud by borrowers. The new rule just means that defrauded borrowers with legitimate claims are not going to get relief. The Department also claims the DeVos rule protects taxpayers by shifting the burden of relief from the taxpayers to the schools that commit misconduct. Yet it then turns around and acknowledges that other changes in the rule will, in fact, reduce recoveries from schools compared to the 2016 rule, and that means more cost for taxpayers. The truth is, of the small amount of relief that will be awarded under the DeVos rule, schools will be on the hook for about one-third of it at the most. In reality, the DeVos rule achieves savings on the backs of the borrowers who are victims of fraud. It eliminates $11 billion in relief while it reduces the share of relief that the schools which are guilty of fraud have to pay. The Department also acknowledges that the DeVos rule is not expected to significantly change the percentage of loan volume subject to misconduct. In other words, this rule will not only generate less money from the offending schools, but it will be less likely to discourage future misconduct by the same schools. On the other hand, the former Department inspector general said the 2016 rule would ``avoid costs to students and taxpayers that result from school closures.'' I could go on, but the bottom line is this: If we want to stop this insidious practice of defrauding students and having them pile up debt from schools that are phony and that eventually all go out of business, we have to have a program that is sensitive to the needs of the student borrowers and that puts these schools that are guilty of misconduct on the hook for the payoff rather than the taxpayers. The DeVos rule eliminates the prohibition in the 2016 rule that prevents schools from using mandatory arbitration and class action restriction as a condition of student enrollment. What is mandatory arbitration? It is basically saying to the students and their families: You can't go to court. You have to go into a closed room, sit across the table from one of our lawyers, and take it or leave it. That is what mandatory arbitration is all about. Class action restrictions mean that the students of one school that defrauded thousands of students can't come together in any kind of legal action. You don't see those kinds of provisions for mandatory arbitration and class action restrictions in the contracts that most students run into when they sign up at colleges and universities. It is almost exclusively in the area of private, for-profit colleges and universities. The clauses are often buried in stacks of enrollment documents that students rarely, if ever, read. It means that the schools can defraud and mislead students and that they are protected from being held accountable in court. Businesses around America are held accountable for their conduct and misconduct. Why would we let the for-profit colleges and universities off the hook? Students have nowhere else to turn other than to the taxpayers through this borrower defense program that we are discussing here. Instead of allowing borrowers to hold their schools directly accountable for misconduct in court, Secretary DeVos's rule shields these schools from accountability and puts American taxpayers on the hook. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter that was published in the Charlotte Observer over the weekend. It was written by Shaun Joyce, of Greensboro, NC.

Mr. DURBIN. Shaun is one of nearly 6,000 borrowers from North Carolina who have applied to the Department for a borrower defense discharge. He attended the Art Institute of Charlotte and thought it was his path to having a successful future. He was told by recruiters that the school would prepare him for a job in video game designing and that those at the school would connect him with people who would help him land that job. That is a pretty serious promise to a young person, isn't it? He said they kept pushing him to take on more and more courses and more and more debt. Eventually, he had so much debt that he felt there was no other option than to finish the degree. He had to go all in with this school, the Art Institute of Charlotte. He writes: ``[As] a young black man, the last thing I wanted to do was become just another statistic by dropping out [of school].'' Shaun owes nearly $100,000 in student loan debt today for a degree that did not prepare him for a job in the very industry he was promised. When he asked the Art Institute of Charlotte about career opportunities, do you know where they sent him? Craigslist. As of today, Shaun's work is in writing on-hold telephone messages for a marketing company, and he attends one class at a time at his community college at which none--not one--of his Art Institute credits can be transferred. He has asked the Senate to overturn the DeVos rule. He knows the struggles defrauded student borrowers go through. I want to share with you a story of a U.S. Army veteran whose name is Jarrod Thoma. Jarrod is from the State of Colorado. After Jarrod left the Army, he wanted to pursue his lifelong passion for electronics by pursuing a degree in engineering. He signed up at the for-profit DeVry University in Westminster, CO. He said he quickly realized he was not getting the quality education it had promised. Course materials and the equipment for instruction were subpar and not as advertised. He says: ``Although DeVry was more than happy to cash all of my GI Bill benefits, my complaints about quality [of the courses they were offering] fell on deaf ears.'' When he tried to transfer, he found out that his credits wouldn't transfer to a public university or even a community college even though DeVry had promised him they would. In addition to using his entire GI bill benefit for serving this country, he accumulated $52,000 in additional student loan debt in order to finish his program at DeVry. On top of that, Jarrod says: ``Upon entering the job market, I quickly found that the degree . . . was not worth the paper it was printed on, and it actually hurt my job prospects.'' Jarrod is waiting, along with 3,800 other Coloradans, for the Department to act on his borrower defense request, and he has urged the Senate to overturn the DeVos rule in order to help future veteran borrowers like him. Let me also show you Tasha Berkhalter. I met her recently. She is a U.S. Army veteran from Lima, OH. She enrolled at ITT Tech, which is another notorious for-profit school. After she had been honorably discharged from serving in our U.S. Army, she was promised by ITT that her GI bill benefits would cover the cost for the program and that her program would lead to a job in her field after graduation. At one point, she tried to transfer, only to find out that other schools wouldn't accept the credits she had earned at ITT Tech. She didn't have any options. She had to finish at ITT. Not only did she exhaust her entire GI bill benefits at ITT Tech, but she had to take on additional Federal student loans despite all of ITT's assurances that was not going to happen. Tasha's student loan debt today for having attended ITT Tech is almost $100,000 beyond her GI bill benefits--all for a degree that she says no employer takes seriously. Of course, this puts a lot of pressure on her now. Tasha is married and has a family. She is facing overwhelming stress, anxiety, and depression because of the miserable experience she had with this for- profit school, ITT Tech, and the student debt she incurred. She served our country, and she risked her life for America. When it came to her GI bill benefits, she lost all of it at this for-profit school. She is asking for a chance to start over with her life, and our vote on the Senate floor may decide that. She even questions herself as a wife and as a mother of four young children because she is unable to provide for her family as she is still unable to get a job in her field. She has lost cars, homes, and has had to move from State to State. She supports overturning the DeVos borrower defense rule because she wants defrauded veterans like her to have a shot at relief. Veterans like Jarrod and Tasha are the reason that I bring this matter to the floor and ask my Republican and Democratic colleagues to join me. So many of us give speeches about our appreciation for the veterans and their service to our country. So many of us voted for the GI bill benefit package. We said to veterans: We owe it to you. You served our country. We want to be on your side after that service so you can build good lives in America. Then schools like Corinthian and schools like ITT Tech defraud these students out of their GI bill benefits and pile additional debt on top of them. That is why this has become such a major veterans issue. Take a look at the veterans organizations that support the measure that I bring to the floor today: the American Legion--and I am going to quote from a letter from its national commander in just a moment; the Student Veterans of America; the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America; the National Military Family Association; the Paralyzed Veterans of America; the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors; VetsFirst; Veterans for Common Sense; and Veterans Education Success. I would like to show you this last poster here. It is a letter that I received from Bill Oxford. Bill, as you can see, is the national commander of the American Legion. He wrote to me on behalf of 2 million American Legion members whom he represents because he wanted to go on the record and give me a chance to bring this evidence before my fellow Senators, Republicans and Democrats. Many of them are being visited today by representatives of these veterans organizations, including the American Legion. I hope they can spare a minute of their time in their offices in honor of these veterans and listen to the pleas they are going to make for a vote in favor of the measure I am going to bring before the Senate. Here is what Bill wrote in his letter to me: ``Thousands of student veterans have been defrauded over the years--promised their credits would transfer when they wouldn't, given false or misleading job placement rates in marketing, promised one educational experience . . . but given something completely different.'' Bill calls this rule by Secretary DeVos ``fundamentally rigged against defrauded borrowers'' and writes that it ``flagrantly denies defrauded veterans [fair and timely] decisions [on their claims].'' Bill closes his letter by calling on Congress to overturn the DeVos rule. How many times have each of us stood on the floor and talked about honoring the sacrifices of men and women who serve our country in uniform? Well, we have a chance to do it with a vote this week--to put our votes where all of our speeches have been. We have a chance to stand up not just for the American Legion but for all the veterans groups that I referred to before, to give defrauded student veterans and student loan borrowers a fair shot at the Federal student debt relief that Congress intended for them. We don't do many things on a bipartisan basis around here anymore, and it is a shame. I hope this will be an exception. Frankly, all of us have given these speeches on both sides of the aisle. All of us have said how much these veterans and their families mean to us. Well, now they are asking us to be on their side with this vote. I am urging my colleagues to show America that, when it comes to supporting our veterans, the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, can come together and do the right thing. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, last year, I was proud to stand with my colleagues as we introduced the For the People Act in the Senate just weeks after it passed the House of Representatives. This measure has already passed the House of Representatives. If you took civics 101, they explain that after the House took action on a measure, it came here. So the obvious question is, What happened to it? It has been a year. It must be here somewhere. Well, we know exactly where it is. It is in Senator McConnell's office. He is the Republican Leader of the U.S. Senate, and he has made a conscious decision that hundreds of bills just like this one will not even be considered on the floor of the Senate. It isn't that he doesn't have a majority; he does. But he doesn't want us to even debate or discuss these bills before the American people. This U.S. Senate once enjoyed its reputation as the world's most deliberative body, which means we came here, debated, argued, and voted on things like amendments and bills like this one. Last year in the U.S. Senate, the calendar year 2019, we considered exactly 22 amendments in the entire year--22 amendments in 1 year in this Senate. Six of them were offered by Senator Paul, who, with a gun to our heads, said: If you don't give me a vote on my amendment, you can't go home. All six of his amendments were defeated, but that just gives you an example of why there is so little activity and why this floor is so empty so many times. In fact, this floor has become a museum piece where bystanders, witnesses, and spectators can come in, sit in the Galleries, and look down on the desks that used to be occupied by Senators who debated and voted. We don't do that anymore. Instead, we consider one after the other after the other of judicial nominations. I am not going to get into that issue because it has been touched on already. My contribution to this For the People Act goes to the heart of political campaigns. If you don't think American political campaigns are long enough, if you would like us to be on television a few more months each year, hang on tight because it is coming. If you don't think enough money is being spent on American political campaigns, hang on tight because more is coming. If you want to reach the point where we have no idea where most of the money is coming from that funds these campaigns, hang on. The Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court across the street has set the stage for that, and that is where we are headed in America today. My proposal for fair elections now moves in exactly the opposite directions--shorter campaigns, smaller contributions, more confrontation between candidates over issues than to have this battle of television ads that goes on now. My act would create a voluntary, small-donor, public financing system for Senate candidates who agree to raise only small-dollar contributions. I know it is a dream, but think about what it would do to change American politics. Here is how it would work: Qualified Senate candidates would receive grants based on their State's population, 6-to-1 matching grants for contributions they get of $200 or less--smaller contributors--and vouchers for purchasing television advertising other than social media. Once candidates reach the maximum amount of matching funds they receive, they continue to raise an unlimited amount of contributions of $200 or less--a $200 cap on contributions. They can also raise money from small-donor political action committees, known as People PACs, which allow citizens to make their voices heard by aggregating just small contributions--no big hitters. The fair elections public financing system would elevate the views and interests of a diverse group of Americans, rather than the traditional wealthy class, and we would pay for it without spending a dime in taxpayer dollars. Our system would be financed with assessments on wealthy bad actors and industry law breakers. In the 2018 midterm elections, the price of victory for a successful House congressional candidate averaged about $2 million, and 35 Senate candidates who won in 2018 spent an average of $15.7 million apiece. If we don't rein in the cost and length of campaigns, shame on us. We have to reclaim the reputation of this great Congress and the U.S. Senate, and it starts with the way we finance our campaigns. In addition to the Fair Elections Now Act, this bill has measures to increase access to the ballot box, to strengthen election security, to improve oversight in our campaign finances, and to remove corruption from office. I think it is outrageous that we live in an America in which people are dreaming up ways to restrict and restrain people's right to vote. If there is anything fundamental to a democracy, it is the vote of those who are legally entitled in America. I have been in this business for a while. I started off by losing a few elections. I didn't enjoy a moment of that, but there was a notion that at least the American people had spoken in those elections, and I accepted the verdicts of those people. They have come back and given me a few chances since to be in public service. Let's make sure the American people have the voice--the most important voice in this process--through their right to vote. Keep foreigners out of the process, and put Americans into them. Don't make it hard to vote. Make it easy for those who are legally entitled to vote. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in just a few moments, we are going to be considering the motion to proceed to the borrower CRA, and I would like to say a few words, understanding that the Senators are expecting this motion to come up in about 5 minutes. This is a joint resolution that was passed on a bipartisan basis in the House of Representatives to overturn the borrower defense rule that has been promulgated by Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. I am pleased to be the Senate's sponsor. Here is what it comes down to--hundreds of thousands of Federal student loan borrowers having been defrauded by their schools. They went to some of these for-profit schools that have gone out of business, but many schools defrauded these students over the years. We in Congress established what was known as the borrower defense. We said, if you borrow money from the Federal Government and go to colleges that we acknowledge as being accredited and they defraud you, lie to you, misrepresent to you what your education is going to cost or what it is going to give you, then, you don't have to be saddled with the student debt for the rest of your life because of their lies, because of their fraud. You have a chance to go to the Department of Education and plead your case that you were defrauded, and you should at least be relieved of some, if not all, of your student loan debt. That is what it is all about. There are 230,000 student borrowers who are waiting for the Department of Education, under Betsy DeVos, to do something. The Department has not done anything except to come up with a new rule that says, at this point, it is going to be harder for these students to prove fraud. It isn't enough that the States and other units of government have found fraud by these schools. These students are supposed to be their own lawyers and their own investigators and prove the fraud and how it affected them personally. Is it reasonable for a young student who has been defrauded and is carrying student debt to have that responsibility? Secretary DeVos thinks yes. I think no. That is what this vote is all about. Who agrees with my position on this issue? Most of the advocates for students do. In addition, the veterans organizations across America, led by the American Legion, are supporting our effort now under this Congressional Review Act to do away with the new rule by the Secretary of the Department of Education. They say it is unfair to veterans--it is--and unfair to student borrowers to hold them to this standard. The American Legion's national commander, Bill Oxford, called the rule, which we are going to get a chance to vote on after the debate, ``fundamentally rigged against defrauded borrowers.'' He is speaking on behalf of veterans. He could be speaking on behalf of young men and women across America who have been misled by these schools over and over again. The Bipartisan Policy Center Action, the NAACP, Third Way, 20 State attorneys general, and a host of others have joined me in urging the Senate to overturn this unfair rule. The Senate has a chance today to show the country that we can come together and do the right thing for students and veterans. How many times have we given speeches about how much we care about veterans? Here is a chance to vote with the veterans, especially those who have been defrauded out of their GI bill of rights and have ended up with additional debt. Secondly, how many times have people told us these student debts are too much, are ruining kids' lives, and to give them a chance? I am not for forgiving all loans to all students, but these students have been defrauded. They should have an opportunity to start life again and not be burdened with the debt that is going to make life impossible in their futures. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me. Regardless of what you think of the 2016 rule, we can certainly do better than what Secretary DeVos has come up with. I have been advised that we are not quite ready for my request of the Chair. So I will say a couple of more words on the subject. I moved it along quickly, but I didn't have to. Under the new Betsy DeVos rule, it turns out that, of the 100 percent of students who have been defrauded and are asking for relief, the estimate is that 3 percent will be successful but that 97 percent of these students will not have the opportunity to get this relief. One of my colleagues whom I respect very much came to the floor here and said: If your car is a lemon, you don't sue the bank; you sue the dealer. A college can be a lemon just like a car can be. In his scenario, the school is the dealer, and the Department of Education is the bank. The case that he is making for a student who has been defrauded by a school is that one has been sold a lemon of an education and that we should go after the offending school. Doesn't that sound right--that, if a school has defrauded you, you would go after it? It turns out that the rule that Secretary DeVos has promulgated ties the hands of a student who is going after the school. It requires forced, mandatory arbitration. So you can't take it to court. It eliminates class actions so that students from the same school, like the Corinthian Colleges, which went bankrupt, can't even come together as a class. No, you have to lawyer up individually. You have to get ready to fight in some room that has been set aside in which the for- profit school and the Department of Education are going to argue against you. Is that what we want to say to these students who have been through bad college experiences and want to get on with their lives, who found out that these credit hours from these for-profit colleges didn't transfer anywhere, and who found out the courses that were supposed to lead to jobs didn't lead to jobs? These students were misled by these schools, and these schools are notorious for it. The question is this: Are we going to stand up for the students, many of whom are veterans, or are we going to stand up for the schools that have been affected by this?

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

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

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I understand there is a discharge petition at the desk for S.J. Res. 56 that has been signed by at least 30 Senators, which will cause the joint resolution to be discharged under the Congressional Review Act; is that correct?

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 439, S.J. Res. 56, a joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to ``Borrower Defense Institutional Accountability''.

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

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the coronavirus has now been confirmed in 104 countries. There are more than 110,000 cases worldwide, and nearly 4,000 people have died. In the United States, we have more than 500 cases--including 7 in my home State of Illinois--and at least 20 deaths. With these numbers expected to increase, we must be prepared to handle the cases that inevitably will follow. As we consider the next step, it is imperative that we look at the impact this public health emergency is having in all sectors of our economy, including schools, hospitals, nursing homes, public health departments, and small businesses. Last Friday, I held a roundtable discussion with officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Illinois and Chicago Departments of Public Health, as well as other local health officials. It was held in the medical district in the city of Chicago. Experts updated us with the latest information on the coronavirus and what is being done at the State and local levels to prevent and address the outbreak. I am grateful for the work these officials are doing to keep Illinois safe and healthy in our homes, schools, and communities. This is a serious public health challenge, and we are working diligently to protect Americans from the virus. The seriousness of this situation was evident by how quickly the House and Senate here in Washington came together on a bipartisan basis to provide needed emergency funding to help combat the virus. Last week, Congress rejected President Trump's original funding request of $2.5 billion and, instead, we secured $7.8 billion to address the virus in the United States. This funding will reimburse State and local governments for the millions of dollars they have already spent in containing the spread of this virus. The bill also included important measures for patient monitoring, lab testing, acquisition of test kits, protective equipment, and research for vaccine and therapeutics. Democrats successfully fought to include a provision in the bill that will hopefully ensure that any forthcoming coronavirus vaccine is accessible and affordable for all Americans in need. As we look forward to the next steps to respond to this public health emergency, it is critical that Congress prioritize the health and safety of workers and their families. Our public health experts are rightfully telling people to stay home if they are sick. Yet for many Americans, staying home means losing a paycheck that helps them pay their rent, pay for food, medication, and childcare. For many American families, losing a paycheck--even one--would be devastating. Nearly 40 percent of American adults do not have enough savings to cover a $400 emergency expense. I am proud to have helped introduce legislation last week that would immediately provide 14 days of paid sick leave to workers in light of coronavirus. It also is important that we ensure workers have access to unemployment insurance benefits during this uncertain time. We passed a robust funding bill last week, but our work is far from done. There will be far-reaching impacts of this outbreak. It is imperative that we look forward to developing a comprehensive response that benefits everyone, including America's working families and small businesses, not just large corporations. It is also important that we recognize the good work being done around the country to combat this virus. The Argonne National Laboratory in my State of Illinois is helping to address the threat with the Advanced Photon Source. Researchers are using this high- powered x ray to study the virus. In fact, it was just announced last week that potential drug targets have been identified for this coronavirus by a team, including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of California, Riverside. The scientists said their findings suggest drugs previously in development to treat SARS could now be developed as an effective drug against this coronavirus outbreak. This work by Argonne highlights how we need to work with researchers from different subject areas and expertise to address this pandemic and the importance of supporting scientific research funding in places like the National Institutes of Health. It is coincidental that the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Missouri, and I have worked together with Senator Alexander of Tennessee and Senator Murray of Washington over the last several years to consistently increase, year after year, the amount of money we invest in the National Institutes of Health, our premier medical research laboratory in the world. If I am not mistaken, over this period of time--a matter of only 4 years--we have increased the expenditures for the National Institutes of Health from $30 billion to more than $39 billion--a more than 5- percent-added increase over inflation every single year. During the same period, I believe the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has increased by about 16 percent, which is a good number but not good enough. If anything, this pandemic that we face has reminded us of the absolutely essential role that is played by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in protecting American families from the threat of disease and the epidemic that we now may face with the coronavirus. We need to make this investment every year, without fail, in our medical research and medical prevention efforts in the United States. I commend the Senator from Missouri, who is presiding, for his leadership on this issue, and I want to continue to work with him on a bipartisan basis to make sure this is done. Discoveries like those at the Argonne National Laboratory are fighting to give us a reason to increase the funding as well in our basic Laboratories across the board. The Office of Science in the Department of Energy is a very critical partner to our medical research efforts, and we are learning that today as we face the coronavirus threat. We have successfully increased this funding at the Laboratory since fiscal year 2016. I am going to continue to work for more increases in the future, and I hope my colleagues will join me on a bipartisan basis. It is important that we all remember to follow everyday precautions and educate ourselves with the CDC's prevention guidelines. I have probably washed my hands more this last weekend than during any weekend of my life, but I believe now this has to be routine and normal for all of us to default to washing our hands as frequently as possible and to do it in a very serious and not haphazard way. Avoiding close contact with those who are sick, staying home when you are sick, covering your nose and mouth, and cleaning your hands often are the basics that even the most accomplished of physicians tell us must be followed by everyone. Now that we have secured funding to help address the coronavirus in an even more serious way in this country, we must look to this outbreak and how it will affect our daily lives and our economy. We have to look at the issues of paid sick leave for American workers, enhanced unemployment insurance, transportation, food security, educational plans, affordable treatment, and widespread and free coronavirus testing. We know we are probably a year to a year and a half away from the development of a vaccine, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't redouble our efforts now to do it and to do it in the right way. The health and safety of all Americans is the highest priority of our U.S. Congress and our government. I stand ready to work with my colleagues to provide the Federal resources that are necessary to support and assist us in our progress against this threatening virus. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I come to the floor this morning as a Senate colleague who may know Chuck Schumer better than most. We lived under the same roof for almost 20 years. We know one another. We know each other's families. We have been together through moments of sadness and triumph. I know him well, and I come to the floor this morning to make this statement. I respect Chief Justice John Roberts, but I respectfully disagree with the statement he made yesterday about Senator Schumer's comments before the Supreme Court Building. It is not in Chuck Schumer's nature to physically threaten anyone--anyone--or to create a dangerous situation for any person. That is just not Chuck Schumer. Even his passion, as you just heard about the issue of women's healthcare, would not lead him to that position. Yes, as he said, he could have chosen his words more carefully, but is there a person in public life who has ever stood in this Chamber or any other who wouldn't say the same about some public utterance? What troubles me is his being admonished publicly by President Donald Trump for his use of words--being admonished by President Trump for his use of words. It just takes your breath away to think that this President, with his thousands of tweets and statements and utterances-- outrageous as they have been--would be standing as a judge of others when it comes to the use of language. I listened carefully this morning as Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, came to the floor and spoke, when he talked about his singular respect for the Supreme Court and judicial independence. He used the phrase repeatedly: ``judicial independence.'' He called the judiciary, rightly, a pillar of the American Government. Does Senator McConnell think we have forgotten what he did when it came to the Supreme Court after Justice Scalia passed away? He intentionally left a vacancy in the Court for almost a year for political purposes before it was filled. We remember when President Obama, in the last year of his Presidency, offered the nomination of Merrick Garland, a highly respected circuit court judge for the District of Columbia. Do you remember what this Republican leader, Senator McConnell, did in response--this man who so admires this pillar of the American Government, the judiciary? He refused to even personally meet with Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee, and he instructed his colleagues on the Republican side to do the same, to shun him, to give him the cold shoulder, and to make it clear that, for a year, there would be a vacancy in the Court because he, Senator McConnell, was praying he would get a political opportunity to fill that vacancy if a Republican were elected to the Presidency. And, of course, that is what happened in 2016. So for Senator McConnell to come before us and talk about his respect for the Court, keeping politics out of the Court, calling it a pillar of the American Government--has he forgotten what he did to Merrick Garland? Incidentally, despite his constitutional contortion that, for some reason, in the last year of a Presidency, that President has given up any constitutional right to fill a vacancy, Senator McConnell was recently asked: Well, what if that happens in the last year of President Trump's administration? Well, he wasted no time saying: Of course, I would let President Trump fill the vacancy--as transparent as possible his partisan motives when it comes to that Supreme Court. So if he wants to show respect for the Court, it certainly has not been demonstrated, starting with the vacancy of Justice Scalia. And how about Senator McConnell's single-minded effort to fill every Federal vacancy across the United States as quickly as possible, sadly, with many men and women who scarcely have any experience of service in our judicial system? So far, President Trump has sent to this Senate, with Senator McConnell's acceptance and approval, nine nominees for the Federal Judiciary who have been found ``not qualified'' by the American Bar Association, many of them unanimously--nine men and women who have such extreme backgrounds or such limited experience that they shouldn't sit on the Federal bench. But Senator McConnell, with his respect for the judiciary, couldn't wait to give them lifetime appointments. Oh, you ask: Wait a minute. What about President Obama? How many did he send to the Senate who were found ``not qualified'' by the American Bar Association? None. None, not one. That is what we are facing here with Senator McConnell's singular strategy to fill the courts with people who share his extreme views on women's healthcare, on civil rights, and on so many other fundamental issues. So preaching on this floor about your respect for the Supreme Court, your respect for our Federal judiciary doesn't go very far when you take a close look at the record that Senator McConnell has written. At this point, let me suggest that we move forward from this day and not dwell on what the morning headlines might be. We have work to do, and it would be better if we did it in a bipartisan fashion, with respect for one another. I stand ready to work with those on the other side of the aisle to achieve that goal, but I want to say at this moment that dwelling on this particular chapter doesn't serve the American people. They didn't send us here to squabble and fight. They sent us here to pass important legislation that respects their right to quality, accessible, and affordable healthcare. They sent us here to make sure that women have the basic constitutional right to make the most important personal decisions of their lives. They sent us here to make sure that we serve this country in giving working families a fighting chance. All of the other things that we spend time talking about on this floor diminish in comparison. It is time for us to roll up our sleeves and let the Senate be more than a rubberstamp for Federal judicial nominations when there are partisan goals in mind by Senator McConnell and others. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.