Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there was debate on the Senate floor that went on for years. It was a personal thing, a personal issue with two Senators--one was a Republican, the other a Democrat. The Republican was Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico. The Democrat was Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. The two of them had teamed up with a very simple goal in mind. They wanted to make sure every health insurance policy in America covered mental illness. When you think about the fact that so many Americans suffer from some form of depression and that mental illness is something that so many families--at some point or another--face, you wonder: Well, why didn't the health insurance policies cover mental illness? The reason, of course, was that it takes some extended, and oftentimes expensive, care to help those with mental illness. In other cases, there was an argument made that you will not find a cure. Things have changed a lot in the world of mental illness over the last few decades and changed for the better. There are new medications that are available and some even better ones on the way. There is new treatment available and more hope for people. Pete Domenici, a Republican from New Mexico, and Paul Wellstone, a Democrat from Minnesota, did not give up. They insisted on it, and they won. They won with the requirement that health insurance policies cover not just mental illness and treatment but also substance abuse treatment. I will be honest with you. I followed that debate closely. I did not pay that much attention, at the time, to the substance abuse treatment part of their effort. Now I have. I think many people across America have. There was a supplement in the Chicago Sun Times this morning, published by USA TODAY. It is entitled ``Obamacare repeal jeopardizes mental health, addiction coverage.'' I tore it out of the paper on the airplane to bring it to the floor of the Senate because this a good day for us to reflect on what this article has to say. We are now in the midst of the budget resolution effort that is designed by the Republican majority to repeal ObamaCare. The Republicans hate ObamaCare. They hate it almost as much as the devil hates holy water. They have tried for 6 years to repeal it with a singular focus. I don't know how many times they voted in the House-- some said over 60 times--to repeal it. They have said that for so many years, and we have said to them: What will you do after you repeal it? They said: Well, we have a plan. For 6 years, they have said: We have a plan to replace it. We have never seen it. No one has ever seen it. It raises the question about whether they do have a plan. They certainly have a plan to repeal it, but when it comes to replacing it, they don't offer anything--but they are going to go ahead with it. They are bent on doing this regardless of the outcome. For a lot of people across America, this could be devastating. This article talks about a family in Kentucky, the home State of the Republican leader. Melissa Fleckinger of Edgewood, KY. She had to pay for heroin treatment for her daughter Amanda before the Affordable Care Act. Her son Brian's treatment for heroin addiction was covered by the ACA, but unfortunately he died of an overdose in 2015. This article goes on to talk about what it means to have children who are addicted to drugs and parents who are desperately trying to find treatment. Some of the things that are said in the course of this are really worrisome because this article spells out what happens to families without health insurance that covers substance abuse treatment. They become helpless, unable to take care of their kids. The Republicans have come back and said: Well, we will just do a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Listen to what this articles says: Almost any route taken on Capitol Hill leads to an unraveling of addiction and mental health coverage for those people. Even the partial ACA repeal Congress is considering would eliminate the tax credits that reduce the premiums for about 85 percent of the people who buy insurance on the exchanges. Most of those who get the tax credits pay less than $100 a month for health insurance and have very low out-of- pocket costs that make it possible for them to afford coverage. What they go on to say here is that putting a requirement in the health insurance policy that it cover mental health illness and substance abuse treatment means nothing if the people cannot afford to pay the premiums for the health insurance policy. So the Republican plan that would eliminate the tax credits families need to be able to afford the policy means there is no way they are going to get coverage for themselves and their kids. Who is going to be affected by that? I will tell you what I found in Illinois. What I found in Illinois is that the current opioid and heroin epidemic is everywhere. There is no town too small, and there is no suburb too wealthy to avoid it--story after story of teenagers and young people addicted who have no place to turn. If the Republicans have their way in the Senate and the House, they will close the door for many of these young people. I see my colleague from the State of New Hampshire. I was stunned to read--I don't know if it is still the case, but I was stunned to read several months ago that when you look at the average number of deaths from opioids and heroin across the Nation--and Illinois is, I am not making any excuses here, we are average--the rate of death for heroin-opioid overdoses in West Virginia is twice the national average, and the rate in New Hampshire is three times the national average. Listen to what the repeal of the Affordable Care Act would mean in New Hampshire. I might say to the Senator from New Hampshire that she is quoted in this article. Repealing the ACA would cause [in New Hampshire] nearly 120,000 people to lose coverage in the State, where federal data show a nearly 200% increase in overdose deaths in the past five years. More than 48,000 Medicaid claims were for substance use disorder in 2015, making an ACA repeal [in the words of Senator Shaheen] ``literally a matter of life and death.'' Ohio. At the Cincinnati Center for Addiction Treatment, CEO Sandra Kuehn said about 30% of Kuehn's patients are covered for treatment because of the expansion [under ACA]. Overdose deaths in Ohio climbed from 2,531 in 2014 to 3,050 in 2015, up more than 20 percent. Kentucky. The home State of the Republican Senate leader. Overdose deaths here totaled 1,248 in 2015, up 17% from the previous year. Fentanyl--which is much stronger than heroin-- was involved in 420 fatal overdoses in 2015, up nearly 250% over the previous year. The lady who was quoted earlier who lost her son to the overdose was not surprised. She knows several other people who have overdosed and many others who have died, including one last week. Chicago. I am proud to represent it. Up to 30% of the 9,000 inmates in the Cook County Jail have a diagnosed mental illness. . . . ``The ACA has been a game changer for those who were in and out of Cook County Jail,'' says Mark Ishaug, CEO of Thresholds, a Chicago treatment provider. It costs less than $20,000 a year for Threshold's highest level of community-based mental-health care with a housing voucher. . . . So $20,000 a year or less than that. Do you know what it costs to incarcerate that same person? It costs $70,000 a year to incarcerate them. About one-third of the patients being treated by Thresholds are covered by the Affordable Care Act. What is the alternative, I say to my Republican friends. They can't wait to repeal this, but they don't have an alternative. Meanwhile, in Illinois, in New Hampshire, in Maine, and every State in the Nation, mental illness is still a challenge, and substance abuse is on the rise and people are dying from heroin and opioid overdoses. This is the height of irresponsibility, to repeal this measure with no replacement. It is sad to say we have reached this point where a political score has to be settled now that the Republicans are in control of the House and the Senate. Now that they have an incoming President, the Republicans finally get their day. Someone said to me: Why is public sentiment starting to change on this issue and even among Republican politicians? I said: They have been saying irresponsible things for a long time, but now people are taking them seriously. As they take them seriously, they realize what a devastating impact it is going to have. Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times last week: If the Republicans ran a home renovation business, they would start tearing down your roof this month and promise to return in 2019 with some options for a new one--if you survived. Last week, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky wrote an op-ed arguing that repeal should not be done without simultaneously being replaced. Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, has said that repealing the law without replacing it is ``a flawed concept'' and that having a replacement ready first would be a more ``prudent approach'' in the Republican Senator's words. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, has said she would like to see ``detailed framework'' accompanying any repeal. Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, said: ``I don't think we can just repeal ObamaCare and say we are going to get the answer 2 years from now.'' Over and over again, these Republican Senators are realizing how totally irresponsible it would be if we go forward with this proposal. I will tell you what troubles me as a representative of a State that has the great city of Chicago and a wonderful metropolitan area. I come from the other end of the State, the rural part of our State. I wonder what is going to happen to our rural hospitals if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. I think about Franklin Hospital in Benton, IL, population, 7,300. The hospital has been there 60 years. In the past 15 years, it has been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. It all changed 6 years ago with the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of our Medicaid Program in Illinois. Because of those changes, Franklin Hospital found they could survive. Expanding Medicaid cut Franklin Hospital's uncompensated care in half. In Franklin's emergency room, they saw 600 fewer no-pay patients and 428 more Medicaid patients compared to the previous year. This, combined with increases in Medicaid funding, allowed Franklin Hospital to invest in much needed improvements and to consider bringing nuclear medicine and a retail pharmacy to Benton, IL. What does that mean in that city? Well, it means all the difference in the world. There is something else that has to be said. If that hospital--Franklin Hospital in Benton--closes, it will not just mean a longer drive for critical health care, it is going to mean job losses. It will mean the loss of 4,300 jobs in the 12th congressional district, where Franklin Hospital is located. So when the President-elect talks about saving 6 or 800 jobs at Carrier Corporation, good; I am glad. But then for his party to turn around and pass a measure which could kill 84,000 to 95,000 jobs in Illinois, that is a move in the wrong direction. I say to my Republican friends, go home and talk to the people you represent. Listen to what they have to say about what we are doing--addiction, mental illness, and rural hospitals that are on the brink of closing, if you have your way politically. This is no victory for the people of America to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement that is as good or better. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to reflect on the 1-year anniversary of rain and winter storms that swept across the State of Illinois, causing widespread flooding and devastation. In the midst of the holidays, heavy rainfall of over 7 inches a day in some areas caused water levels on rivers in Illinois to reach record, or near record, heights. The Mississippi River at Thebes reached its highest crest level on record at 47.7 feet. Flooding forced many communities to evacuate their homes for their own safety. Damages to property in these Illinois communities totaled more than $15 million. Sadly, these storms were so severe that flooded roadways tragically claimed the lives of 10 people whose vehicles were swept away by flooding. Alexander and Randolph counties were two areas most impacted by this flood. I went to visit two towns in these areas--Olive Branch, IL, and Evansville, IL--and I saw miles of flood damage to agricultural lands, homes, and businesses. What I saw was heartbreaking. I spoke with residents who were concerned about being able to recover from the flood and resulting damages and who were concerned about what could happen if levees overtop and breach again in the future. People like Bruce Ford, from Olive Branch, IL, worked day and night to clean out debris and move equipment back into their businesses, but he worried about how long he would be out of business and whether or not he would be able to rebuild in the event of another disaster. And he is not alone--many residents in these communities worry that they will not have the means to fix properties and businesses all over again. The Governor declared 23 counties State disaster areas, and State and local emergency responders were dispatched to affected areas. I supported his request for a Federal disaster declaration for 21 counties in the State. The State disaster declaration allowed people in affected communities whose homes and businesses were damaged to start repairs and receive the help they needed. And I want to say thanks for the hard work and dedication of James Joseph, head of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency; he was there when his constituents and communities needed him the most. The State provided over 997,000 sandbags, over 4,000 tons of sand, and 117 Illinois Department of Transportation trucks for flood mitigation and response efforts. The Small Business Administration also made loans available to homeowners and businesses in Christian, Iroquois, Ford, Kankakee, Macon, Montgomery, Sangamon, Shelby, and Vermilion Counties. I want to acknowledge the dedication of the State and Federal employees who pitched in at every level, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. Finally, I can't overstate how proud I am of the volunteers, National Guard members, and local law enforcement agencies who came forward to keep our communities safe. Before flooding began, local law enforcement and emergency responders went door-to-door to advise residents to evacuate and move to higher ground, saving the lives of many who heeded the call and sought out shelter with family and friends before the flooding began. There is still work to be done, but the people who live and work in the damaged communities have made incredible progress rebuilding. Thousands of volunteers have helped with the cleanup. People from all over the State pitched in to help their neighbors and even strangers get back on their feet. Hearing these kinds of stories make me proud to be from Illinois. Our thoughts remain with the many people who lost their loved ones, their homes, and other property last year. I want to thank everyone who has been engaged in the rescue and cleanup. We are rebuilding--as Illinoisans always do--and we will be stronger for it.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the pending business in the U.S. Senate is to set the stage procedurally so the Republican majority of 52 to 48 can repeal ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act. That is what we are about. That is the business of the day, the week, and probably the weeks to come. So we are addressing that issue and others related to the budget. I would like to start by sharing a story that was told to me by a family who I represent, Richard and Mary Laidman, who live in Naperville, Illinois. They told me a story, and I will recount it to you. My 13-year-old son Sam was diagnosed with leukemia one day after the ``no pre-existing conditions exclusions for children'' protection went into effect [under the Affordable Care Act.] The good news is that the form of leukemia has, so far, been effectively controlled by a magic-bullet drug. My son is currently a very robust young man and in otherwise good health (while the drug keeps him alive). The bad news is that the drug, as I understand it, costs [Blue Cross Blue Shield] about $10,000 a MONTH! Without even going into the issue of ``Big Pharma'' pricing-- They wrote-- this means that it would take about $6 million to get my son into his 60's. Obviously we are feeling dependent on all the clauses of the [Affordable Care Act] right now--no pre- existing conditions exclusions, no caps on benefits, allowing Sam to stay on our health insurance plan till [he reaches] age 26. Mr. President, the bottom line according to the Laidman family of Naperville, IL, is that the Affordable Care Act is critical to their family's health and financial survival. That is what this debate is about. It is not about talking about promises made in campaigns or slogans one way or the other. It is about families like the Laidman family in Naperville who understand that were it not for the provisions in the Affordable Care Act, their son might not be here today or they may be penniless. That is what it was like in the old days. If you had a son with leukemia and wanted to buy a family health insurance plan, good luck. If they would sell it to you, you probably couldn't afford it. And secondly, many policies had limits on how much they would pay. Listen to what she tells us: $10,000 a month just for this drug that keeps her son alive. There were policies that had $100,000 limits on the amount they pay each year. Oh, they were affordable and cheap enough. What would the Laidman family have done if that is all they had to turn to? Sadly, we know thousands, perhaps millions, of families across America face that. That is why the Affordable Care Act made a difference. That is why it is inconceivable that the Republicans are coming to the floor, saying they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act without any replacement. They have had 6 years to come up with a better idea, 6 years to come up with a list of improvements, and they have failed and failed miserably. Why? Because it is hard. It is difficult. We found that when we wrote this law. Let me concede a point to the Republican leader who was on the floor this morning. I am ready to sit down. I think other Democrats are as well. If you want to change and improve the Affordable Care Act to make sure that American families like the Laidmans of Naperville have a chance for these protections in a better situation, I want to be part of it, and I have wanted to be part of it for 6 years. But the Republican approach has been very simple: All we will propose is repeal. We will not come up with an alternative. It is catching up with them this week in Washington. Have you noticed? Senators on the Republican side of the aisle and even some House Republicans are saying publicly: You know, we really ought to have a replacement. It is not fair for us to say to America: We're going to repeal the only protection you have. Trust us. Some day in the future we might come up with a better plan. The atmospherics have changed--maybe even changed with the President- elect. Remember a few weeks ago when he said he thought that provision about the preexisting conditions was a good idea? Well, he is right, and so is the provision to make sure you don't have limits under the policy, the provision that allows the Laidmans to keep their son under their family health insurance plan until he reaches the age of 26. Yesterday, Mrs. Kellyanne Conway, Senior Advisor to President-Elect Trump, was on a morning show, and she said: ``We don't want anyone who currently has insurance to not have insurance.'' That is a good statement. Then, when she was asked about whether the Republicans should come up with a replacement, she went on to say: ``That would be the ideal situation. Let's see what happens practically.'' Well, I don't know Mrs. Conway, but her observations square with what we feel on this side of the aisle, and more and more Republicans are starting to say publicly that it is irresponsible for us to repeal the Affordable Care Act without an alternative. It invites chaos. We know what is likely to occur. We know that if there is no replacement that is as good or better, people are going to lose their health insurance. Illinois' uninsured rate has dropped by 49 percent since the Affordable Care Act was passed. A million residents in my State now have health insurance who didn't have it before the Affordable Care Act. Illinois seniors are saving on average $1,000 a piece on their prescription drugs because we closed the doughnut hole in the Affordable Care Act, which the Republicans now want to repeal. More than 90,000 young people in Illinois have been able to stay on their parents' health plan until age 26 under our current health care system, and 4.7 million Illinoisans, such as the Laidman family, no longer have annual or lifetime caps on benefits, and that protects them when there is a sick member of their family and they need it the most. Under our current health care system, 5.6 million Illinoisans with preexisting conditions no longer have to fear denial of coverage or high premiums. I am going to close with this brief reference. Remember the first thing President-Elect Trump did when he went to visit the State where they were going to keep 800 jobs and not transfer them overseas? He took justifiable pride in the fact that he had jawboned the company into deciding to keep at least some of the jobs in the United States-- 800 jobs. That is good. America needs companies to make the decision to keep jobs here. We need all the good-paying jobs we can get, particularly in manufacturing. But do you know what the repeal of the Affordable Care Act means to jobs in Illinois? Well, the Illinois Health and Hospital Care Association knows. They told us that it would have a devastating impact on hospitals in Illinois. That includes many rural downstate hospitals, the major employers in their community. They estimate that we would lose between 84,000 and 95,000 jobs with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. We could have a press conference for saving 800 jobs at Carrier, but are they going to have a press conference and celebrate when they are killing 84,000 jobs in Illinois with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act? They shouldn't. They should do the responsible thing. Let's work together. Let's make the Affordable Care Act better, more affordable. We can do it, but the notion of repealing it first and then promising to get around to a substitute later invites chaos. That is going to make America sick again. Mr. President, I yield.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are discussing the budget resolution. It is an interesting time to do it in the month of January. The fiscal year, the spending year for the Federal Government, starts October 1. We have tried, with no success, to pass appropriations bills--12 of them--that would meet our obligation to fund the government for the entire fiscal year. We have had two continuing resolutions, which are temporary spending bills. And here we are again discussing a budget resolution. But it isn't really about the budget; it is about the Affordable Care Act, known as ObamaCare, a law passed 6 years ago with the goal of providing affordable health insurance for all Americans. I voted for that bill. It is one of the most important bills I have ever voted for, and I believe that, despite shortcomings, it has achieved its goal and it has done it in a way that most American families would agree they want to see. As an example, there are very few families in America who have every member of the family in perfect health. In the old days before the Affordable Care Act, if you happened to have a child who had survived a cancer situation, a spouse with diabetes, and you went to buy a health insurance plan, you ran into a problem: They might not want to insure your family because of that sick child, or they might want to charge you a premium way beyond your reach. So in the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, we said: As a health insurance company, you cannot sell insurance in America and discriminate against a family or person because of a preexisting medical condition. From where I am sitting, my own personal life experience and my family's experience, thank goodness. We had members of our family with serious health issues. I worried about that all the time as a husband, as a father. The Affordable Care Act gave me and every other American the peace of mind that health insurance companies could not discriminate against us or our families because of a preexisting condition. There was also a practice where they would put a limit on how much coverage you could buy in a health insurance policy. So many people thought: I have a great health insurance policy. It has a $100,000 limit. I will never hit that number; I am a healthy person. The next accident, the next diagnosis, and that healthy person realized that $100,000 in today's world of health care costs--you could eat that up in a minute and find yourself without any health insurance protection. What happens to you next? You have been diagnosed with cancer. You start treatment. It is expensive, and now your health insurance policy has reached a point where it doesn't cover you anymore. What then are your options? Stop treatment? Exhaust your savings? Throw yourself on the mercy of a hospital and hope for the best? We ended that. ObamaCare ended that. They can no longer put limits on health insurance policies because none of us--not one of us--knows what kind of health crisis we might face or a member of our family might face tomorrow. That is important. A third provision in ObamaCare, which most families would understand in a hurry, involved what to do with that recent college graduate. What are you going to do with that daughter whose graduation you are so proud to go to, and then it dawns on you that she doesn't have a full- time job yet and that the part-time job she has doesn't have any health insurance benefits. I remember calling my daughter and saying to her: Jennifer, I know you had health insurance as a student. What is your situation now? Oh, Dad, I am fine. I am healthy. I am not worried. I am worried, as a father, something is going to happen to her and she will have no health insurance protection. Do you know what ObamaCare did? ObamaCare said I could keep my daughter under my family health insurance plan until she reached the age of 26. Peace of mind for 2, 3, 4 years while that son or daughter is starting their professional life, their life of employment. For thousands in Illinois and across the United States, more peace of mind that health insurance would be there when your family really needed it. We also said we don't think you ought to discriminate against people when you sell them health insurance just because, for example, you happen to be a woman. Yes, the health insurance premiums charged women were higher than those for men. Obviously, women can have challenges in their lives but so can men. We said you cannot discriminate in health insurance premiums under ObamaCare between men and women. These are issues that affect the real world--what people pay for insurance, whether they qualify for insurance, and whether insurance will be there when you need it. That is what ObamaCare did. By providing helping hands to those in lower and middle-income categories, we extended the reach of health insurance under ObamaCare to cover 20 to 30 million more Americans. We currently have the highest percentage of Americans with health insurance in modern history. We had another provision too. We said: If you happen to be a senior citizen under Medicare and you are paying for your prescription drugs, that can be expensive. Under the old law, before ObamaCare, there was a gap in coverage, and you might spend $1,000 or $2,000 out of your savings account each year just to keep taking your meds. We closed the gap so you had continuous coverage under Medicare as a senior. Important? You bet it is. A lot of seniors ended up retired with limited savings wanting their meds, their prescriptions, so they can remain strong and independent as long as possible. Don't we want them to? So that, in a brief summary, will contain four or five of the main features of ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act--more Americans with the guarantee of health insurance than any time in our modern history in the United States of America. How important is it to have health insurance? If you have ever been the father of a very sick child and you didn't have health insurance, it is a life experience you will never forget. I know. I lived through it. At that time, I thought, if I don't do anything else the rest of my life, I am always going to have health insurance, and I did. At some sacrifice to my wife and me, but we made sure we had it because for a period of time when we had no health insurance, I felt like I had let my family down and I let my daughter down. I didn't want it to happen again. I don't want anybody else to go through that. We want to make sure health insurance is there for all of us. Some people say: If you are rich, you ought to get it, but if you are not, tough luck. I don't think so. I think health care and health insurance protection should be a basic right in this great Nation of America. That was the driving force behind passing ObamaCare, passing the Affordable Care Act. The Republicans hate the Affordable Care Act like the devil hates holy water. They despise it. Over 60 times they voted to repeal it in the House of Representatives. It drives them into a rage. The first thing they say is, we can't wait to get a new President and abolish ObamaCare. The obvious responsible question to them is, And what happens the day after you abolish it? What happens when it comes to preexisting conditions? Can health insurance companies now discriminate against people again? What happens when it comes to the limits on how much a health insurance policy would pay? Are we going to be back in the day when there isn't enough coverage when you and your family desperately need it? What happens to those kids fresh out of college if they can't get on your family health insurance plan? Do you want to go out and buy an individual policy for that son or daughter who is still looking for a job? How about the seniors? Are they going to go back to the time where they have to pay out of pocket for their prescription drugs? I think those are all legitimate questions. Do you know what the answer is on the Republican side? Trust us. We are just going to abolish this program, and someday, not today and not soon, but someday we will come up with another idea. That is irresponsible. They are replacing affordable care with chaos. They are saying to the American people: Just trust us. Someday we will dream up a plan. You know what, they have had 6 years to come up with a plan, 6 years to come up with an alternative to the Affordable Care Act. They have been unable to do it. It is difficult. It is painful. You know what is ironic, the Affordable Care Act is based on a Republican model of health insurance. This was what the Republicans suggested years ago: Use private insurance companies and make it available to all Americans. That is what we did. A lot of Democrats felt there was a better way: Why don't we make a Medicare Program for every American a nonprofit program that is there. We couldn't get it done. We didn't have the votes, and the Republicans wouldn't help us. In the first step of the new year and the new Congress, the new Republican majority in the Senate wants to abolish the Affordable Care Act, wants to put millions of American families at the mercy of health insurance companies. They must think we are suffering from amnesia and that we had forgotten what that was all about--sitting on the phone for hour after weary hour with some adjuster who may or may not be in the United States, trying to argue about whether your son or daughter can go into a hospital, whether your wife can receive the medical treatment the doctor asked about. That is what it used to be, and that is what it is going to go back to when we abolish the Affordable Care Act and don't replace it with something that is as good or better. That is the first step in the Republican program, make 20 to 30 million Americans more vulnerable when it comes to their health care. That is not the end of it. I live in a State that has the great city of Chicago, Cook County regional area, but downstate we are very rural, smalltown America. I know from my congressional experience and from my life as a Senator representing that State, there are downstate hospitals that cannot survive without the Affordable Care Act. In my State, some of those hospitals are the major employers in their communities and the only go- to place for someone seriously ill or injured. The Republicans have yet to suggest any suggestion at all about how we are going to keep those hospitals open. They are starting to contact me now--the hospitals as well as the clinics and the health care providers, and they are asking: The Republicans really aren't going to do this, are they? They are not just going to abolish it and leave us with this chaos to follow. Sad to say, that is exactly what they are going to do. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky wrote an article today and said he thought it was wrong on the Republican side to do that. He said: The responsible thing to do is to have an alternative before you abolish the Affordable Care Act. Good for him. That is common sense. You would expect it from a party that says it is conservative in its approach to government. What they are suggesting with the Affordable Care Act is not conservative. It is destructive. It is catastrophic. It is irresponsible. I hope my colleagues will join me. We need two or three Republicans to join us to stop this effort. Let us sit down together, Democrats and Republicans, take the Affordable Care Act and make it more effective, fix the problems that are part of it--and there are some--make sure we keep our promise to the American people that they will have access to affordable, quality health care. Keep these providers covered by the Affordable Care Act in business in rural areas and inner cities and all across our Nation. That is our responsibility.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I wish to join in and echo the comments of the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, about the passing of John Glenn. I was just in high school when he was the famous astronaut who risked his life to prove that we could move forward in the space program. It wasn't just an achievement that came to science. It was an achievement America was hungry for. We were so afraid, after launching the Sputnik and two Russian cosmonauts, that we were falling behind in the space race. All of the astronauts, especially John Glenn, risked their lives to move us forward in the space program that ultimately landed a man on the Moon. I read this morning in the obituary columns about the risk that was attendant to this launch after it was scrubbed over and over because of mechanical problems and weather and the fact that 40 percent of the time the efforts to use this rocket had failed. Yet John Glenn put his life on the line in Friendship 7, in that tiny little capsule that was only 7 feet across and was launched into space. He almost died on the reentry when the tiles that were to protect him started failing and, as he termed it, there was a fireball as he came back into Earth. He made it. He was greeted with a hero's welcome all across the United States, and he addressed a joint session of Congress. That was the man I knew. He was also the man who then volunteered to come to Springfield, IL, in 1982 and campaign for me when I ran for Congress. I was just awestruck that this great man, this American hero and then a U.S. Senator, would take the time to come to my hometown and campaign for me. He did, and he was beloved. A large crowd gathered, cheering him on, as they should have. I was just kind of background noise to the real arrival of the real American hero--John Glenn. Many years later, when I was elected to the Senate, I was lucky enough to serve with John Glenn for 2 years and be on his committee. He was the ranking Democrat, and Fred Thompson was the Republican chairman of that Administration Committee. We held some very controversial hearings under Chairman Thompson. John Glenn would sit there very quietly, and I wondered if he was going to be outflanked by this trial lawyer, Fred Thompson, who was so gifted with his own oratory. But time and again, John Glenn rose to the occasion for our side of the aisle and did it in his own quiet, persuasive, Midwestern way. At the end of that 2-year period that I served with him when I first came to the Senate, he was launched again into space at age 76 or 77. He was the oldest astronaut and went up into space and came back safely. He always wanted to fly, whether it was his own beloved airplane or whether it was a space capsule. He loved flight, and he made history with his flights around the country and, literally, around the Earth. We should remember that he risked his life, too, in airplanes for us. In World War II, he had some 59 combat missions in the Pacific, earning the distinguished Flying Cross and many other decorations. But that wasn't the end of his service. When the Korean war started, he volunteered again and flew 90 combat missions there. Interesting footnote: His wingman in those Korean missions, at one point, was Ted Williams, the famous baseball player for the Boston Red Sox. His is such a storied career of what John Glenn gave to America, including restoring our faith in our own space program, risking his life to prove that we can move forward into space, and serving the State of Ohio and the Nation as a Senator for four terms. He was just an extraordinary man. We can't mention John without mentioning Annie, his wife of 73 years. They literally shared the same playpen when they were little toddlers. They grew up together in the same school. They got married at a very early age. It was a love affair that went on for decades. The two of them were inseparable. I am honored to have served with John Glenn. He truly did have the right stuff, time and again, to make America proud. (The remarks of Mr. Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 3542 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, next to the Senator from Texas, who just spoke, is the Executive Calendar of the U.S. Senate. There are about 30 pages of that calendar on his desk that contain the names of individuals nominated by the Obama administration, then sent to committee, approved by the committee, then sent to the calendar to be approved on the floor of the Senate. The Republican majority in the Senate refuses to call these names. The plea that is being made by the senior Senator from Texas is, why can't we just get along? Well, I hope we can, but this is a bad place to start, with all of these names sitting right in front of us, waiting patiently--some of them for over a year--to be called for a vote on the floor of the Senate. They all were reported out by committees that have a majority Republican membership. Of course, there is exhibit A in this, and that is Merrick Garland. Merrick Garland was President Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court after the death of Antonin Scalia. Since February of this year, the process has been going forward by the President and the White House to send a name to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. For the first time in the history of the Senate, the Republican majority refused to give the President's Supreme Court nominee a hearing or a vote. It has never--underline that word--never happened before. So we hear the plea from the Senator from Texas for cooperation: We have to get along here. Well, we should. We owe it to the country. But, for goodness' sake, let's be honest about where we stand. There are dozens of names here of men and women who are highly qualified to serve this Nation, who went through the process of being nominated by the administration, of being approved by Republican- majority committees, who have been languishing on the floor of the Senate because of the refusal of the Republican leadership. Judge Merrick Garland, who was judged ``unanimously well-qualified'' to serve on the Supreme Court by the American Bar Association, never even got a hearing before this Republican-controlled Senate. In fact, the leader of this Senate and many others said: We will not even meet with him. We won't discuss it with him. What was their strategy? Well, it is one that paid off, I guess. They felt if they violated what we consider to be the tradition and duty of the Senate and not have a hearing and a vote on a nominee, they might just elect a Republican President. Well, they did. Now they want to fill their vacancies and they are begging us: Cooperate. Join in with us. Let's be bipartisan. I am going to try. I am going to give a fair hearing to each of the nominees. They deserve it. There are no guarantees on a final vote; it depends on whether I think they are the right person for the job. But I do hope there will be some reflection in the process about what we have just lived through. There are over 100 vacancies on Federal courts across the United States. Many of them--30--would have been filled with just the names on this Executive Calendar that have already cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee with a majority of Republican Senators. Yet they sit. They languish. In just a few hours and a few days, they are going to become part of history as we move to the new Senate on January 3. I wanted to make that point for the record. Mr. President, I also wish to say a word about where we are with the continuing resolution. What is a continuing resolution? Well, we are used to it around here because we have done it so often. Both political parties have done it. Here is what it basically says. Think about your family budget. Let's assume that last year you spent, on average, $100 a month on your utility bills. What if we said to you: In this next year, we want you to spend $100 a month. You say: Well, I don't know if that is what it is going to cost. I hope it is less; it might be more. Well, the continuing resolution says: Stick with last year's budget, and you can make special provisions and special allowances if it happens to be wrong. You think, that is a heck of a way to run my family. That is what a continuing resolution does. It takes last year's budget and says: Let's repeat. Well, things change. I am on the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. It is the largest subcommittee in terms of the amount of domestic discretionary money that is spent. Things change with our military all the time. You know that. Presidents come forward and say: We need additional money for our troops, to prepare them, to equip them, to make sure they are where they need to be in this world to keep America safe. What we do with a continuing resolution is we say: Well, we are going to tell you that you have to live within the bounds of last year's budget--a continuing resolution. The people in the Department of Defense, of course, will do their best. They are not going to spend money this year on things that are finished. They are not going to repeat and keep building if they have already finished their building. They are not going to buy things they have decided are not valuable. But when it comes to making important budget decisions, their hands will be tied by this Congress. For the second time, we are going to come up with a 3- or 4-month budget resolution as we move forward. It is no way to run a government. Here is the good news: We didn't have to do that. On this Appropriations subcommittee, Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi and I worked a long time. Our staff worked even longer and prepared a Department of Defense appropriations bill. We are ready--ready to bring it to the floor, ready to debate it. And it is a good one. It keeps our country safe. On a bipartisan basis, we agreed on what it should contain. We can't bring it forward. All of the spending is going to be done under this continuing resolution. We will be halfway through this current fiscal year with continuing resolutions if we ever get around to the appropriations process. The Presiding Officer is also on the Appropriations Committee and works in a very bipartisan way in the authorizing Appropriations Committee on some critical programs for health and education. We should have brought that before the Senate on the floor, but we did not. We have this continuing resolution before us, and it has a few things in it that I think the American people should know. One of them relates to retired coal miners and their families. Coal mining has always been a dangerous job, and it is also a job that has diseases that come with it, such as black lung. So for those who retire from coal mining, health care is critically important. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has a lot of coal miners, and they are worried about a cutoff on the health care benefits for retired coal miners and their surviving widows. He has come before the Senate over and over again begging the Senate to come up with a plan to make sure their health care is funded for this next year and for years to come. In this continuing resolution, we managed to provide that health care protection for several months, 3 or 4 months--but not any longer. He is worried about it. I have talked to him twice today. He has spoken on this issue countless times on the floor of the Senate. We believe he is making the right fight. The fight to ensure that coal miners don't lose their benefits has been before Congress for 4 years. It has been through the regular order of committees. It was passed by the Senate Finance Committee with Democrats and Republicans supporting it. Even in the midst of dysfunction of partisanship in the Senate, this is apparently one measure that apparently both parties agree on. Despite all of this, the continuing resolution does not reflect the needs of and it does not provide the resources for these families. The other day, Majority Leader McConnell came to the floor and he insisted that the continuing resolution addressed the expiring benefits of retired workers. What he did was extend those benefits for 4 months. There is no indication of what is going to happen beyond that. It requires the United Mine Workers health plan to deplete its reserves to pay for this temporary extension, but then they are broke. There is nothing in the bank when the CR expires in April. It subjects the health plan to a reduction in funding from what they currently receive from the abandoned mine land funds, and it makes no mention of the pension shortfall that these same mining families face. We are looking for a real solution, and we are hoping to get one soon. Before the end of the day, I think Senator Manchin, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Casey, and others will come to the floor and speak to this specific issue, but it has been one of the things that has held us up. In Illinois, there are nearly 2,000 coal miners and their families whose health care benefits are in jeopardy, and I have heard from them. Linda Fleming of Taylorville, IL--that is about 30 miles from where I live. She is afraid her 86-year-old mother will lose the benefits her father, who worked at Peabody coal for 30 years, left for her mother when he passed away 2 years ago. Her husband, who retired from Freeman coal in Central Illinois after 33 years of service, also received notice that he was going to lose his benefits. Larry Garland, a retired coal miner in Millstadt, IL, worked in the coalfields because it was a good job--a hard job, a dirty job some days, but it had a promise of lifetime health care for him and his family. His wife has MS, and he is wondering how he is going to afford her medical expenses if this isn't funded properly. Karen Williams, a nurse and daughter of a retired coal miner in Du Quoin, IL, sees firsthand how important these benefits are to retirees like her dad, who has a lung disease directly related to his coal- mining years. These are just a few of the stories in my State, of the 2,000 affected by this decision, so we take it personally. There is another provision in here as well. The President-elect has designated General Mattis to be the next Secretary of Defense. James Mattis was the head of U.S. Central Command, an extraordinary general, given some critical assignments by previous Presidents, and every report that I have read is positive about his service to our country and his leadership skills in the Marine Corps. But the appointment of General Mattis is in violation of a basic law. The law, which was passed over 50 years ago, limited the availability of these retired military officers to serve as Secretaries of Defense. In America, we have always prided ourselves--and particularly since the reorganization of the military after World War II--on civilian control over the military. It is something that is really built into the American view about the military and the civilian side of the Federal Government. Here we have General Mattis, who is eminently qualified to lead in many respects, but he is going to be violating that basic law that says there must be 7 years of separation between your military service and your service as Secretary of Defense. There has only been one exception in history, and that was back in 1950, when President Truman asked GEN George C. Marshall, a five-star general--there aren't many in our history--to come out of retirement. General Marshall had retired as Secretary of State. President Truman asked General Marshall to come out of retirement to serve as Secretary of Defense under the new reorganization plan of our government. Congress had to change that law. At that time, there was a 10-year separation. Congress had to change the law, and it took some time to do it--to debate it, to make sure the policy decision was the right thing for our country, and to make sure that whatever we did was consistent with this idea that civilians should control the military. They ultimately gave the waiver to GEN George C. Marshall, this hero of our World War II defense, Sectary of State, and a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize, I might add. So he was an extraordinary man. This bill that we have before us is going to ask us to expedite this decision. At the time it was debated before with General Marshall, the Senate took the time to really consider this. So expediting and changing the rules of the Senate in this bill is something that hasn't been done before. I worry about the impact it is going to have in the long term. It complicated what should have been a pretty simple and straightforward bill. Let me speak as well about the impact on the Department of Defense of this continuing resolution. A continuing resolution for defense might be harmful to our Armed Forces, and the longer we live under it, the worse it could get. If Congress were to pass a 3-month continuing resolution for the Department of Defense, they are going to feel it right away. The Pentagon has identified more than 150 programs costing tens of billions of dollars that will be disrupted by a continuing resolution. House Republicans fixed no more than a few of these. There are a lot of others in disarray. The Defense bill has provided $600 million, for example, for the Israeli missile defense programs, a substantial increase over last year's funding level of $487 million. This includes increased funding for the Arrow 3 program, which will protect Israel against new threats from long-range Iranian missiles. Under a continuing resolution, this new initiative is put on hold until we get around to passing a full- year Defense appropriations bill. The impacts of the 3-month continuing resolution will also be felt by the defense industrial base. There is a similar story for the Air Force's new B-21 bomber. Funding for this program is planned to nearly double this year to more than $1.3 billion, in order to design the replacement for the decades-old B-52. The CR makes that difficult, if not impossible. The Pentagon's R&D efforts have already been hamstrung by continuing resolutions, and there the story gets worse. Important medical research will be postponed in the Department of Defense, and agencies like DARPA, which had planned to award contracts worth $24 billion, is on hold. Instead, due to putting defense funding in this continuing resolution on autopilot, less than $16 billion, instead of $24 billion, will be awarded. That is going to slow down innovation and impact untold numbers of suppliers for our Department of Defense. The old adage ``time is money'' certainly applies to the Pentagon. Every day, every week, every month that defense programs are delayed adds up to more costs to American taxpayers. When the government can't keep up its end of the contract because funding isn't available, costs go up, and taxpayers pay more for things they should pay less for. Every Member of Congress has criticized the Pentagon--I have been in that queue--for spending too much on weapons systems, but every time we do a CR, we raise the cost of weapons systems by delaying these payments. Our constituents didn't elect us to delay making decisions. They elected us to get things done. Months of bipartisan committee work and weeks of bipartisan negotiation shouldn't be cast aside. Putting government spending on autopilot is not responsible. Whether you work in a Fortune 500 company or in any agency of the Federal Government, budgets must adapt to innovation, new challenges, and new opportunities. Failure to do so is a waste. We owe it to the American taxpayer and we sure owe it to the men and women in uniform to do more than just kick the budgetary can down the road. We owe it to thousands of retired miners to keep our promise, to respect their years of hard work and give them the benefits they deserve. Now is not the time to give up and go home. Now is the time to rededicate ourselves to truly working together, as the Appropriations Committee has historically done, use their work product, and pass a bill and an appropriations spending measure that really reflects what is needed for the national defense of America. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I had hoped to offer two amendments to the continuing resolution, CR, we are considering to fund government operations through April 28, 2017. I want to say from the outset that I am disappointed the Republican majority has decided to consider another CR rather than pass full appropriations bills. This is an abdication of our responsibility to govern, and there are real negative effects for the American people. As vice chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, I can tell you that 4 more months of a CR poses significant funding issues for the Department of Defense, DOD. Given the thousands of funding lines that make up the DOD budget and the changing needs from one fiscal year to the next, it does not work to simply continue spending from year to year. For example, rolling the fiscal year 2016 DOD budget into fiscal year 2017 means that procurement accounts are overfunded by $6 billion, while operations and maintenance accounts--those primarily concerned with maintaining military readiness--are underfunded by $12 billion. This is not the support our men and women in uniform deserve. To mitigate the worst of these effects, the bill before us contains a very small number of changes to particular funding needs, so-called anomalies. The two amendments I filed today suggest two more such changes, to ensure that important DOD medical research efforts and significant increases in spending for Israeli missile defense programs move forward. Just this summer, during the consideration of the fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, the Senate voted in a strong, bipartisan fashion to maintain a comprehensive DOD medical research program. We debated at great length the important contributions DOD medical research continues to make for our Active Duty personnel and their families, as well as our military retirees, veterans, and the American public. Under a CR, because the bulk of DOD research dollars--over $1 billion--are added by Congress, much of this work will stop cold. No new projects will be funded, with impacts on fiscal year 2016 research projects as well. Passing this amendment will ensure that this critical work and medical advances for our soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines are not delayed by allowing $1.8 billion contained in the fiscal year 2017 Defense Appropriations bill to be spent. At the same time, over the last decade, Congress has overwhelmingly supported significant increases for Israeli missile defense programs, including Iron Dome, David's Sling, and Arrow. The fiscal year 2017 Defense Appropriations bill includes a $113 million increase for these programs--totaling $600.7 million--and this spending is necessary to get new technologies into the field in a timely manner. I think we can all agree that 7-month CRs are not the way we should be funding our government. While we should be considering all of our appropriations bills, passing both of these amendments would enable important programs to maximize their impacts in fiscal year 2017.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, more than 4,100 people have been shot this year in Chicago. And there have been over 700 homicides in the city this year, the vast majority of them due to gun violence. This is unconscionable. The American Medical Association has declared that gun violence is a public health crisis in our nation. And it is. Every day in America, around 300 men, women, and children are shot. And every day about 90 of those shooting victims die. Gun violence touches nearly every community in America. But no community has suffered more than Chicago. The stories of Chicago's shooting victims are heartbreaking. Here is one of them. On November 18, Javon Wilson, the 15-year-old grandson of my friend Congressman Danny Davis was shot and killed in a dispute over a pair of basketball shoes. It is hard to imagine a more senseless and tragic killing. Congressman Davis said of his grandson, ``He was a typical 15- year-old. He liked basketball. If you listened to him he was a basketball star, but he liked basketball and music.'' Congressman Davis went on to say that Javon's grades had improved in school and that ``his father had just told me about how proud of him that he was because he was catching on and realizing that all his life was in front of him.'' The two suspects charged with Javon's murder are a 16-year- old boy and a 17-year-old girl. It was a dispute between kids that turned into a deadly tragedy because of easy access to guns. My heart goes out to Congressman Davis and his family. But thoughts and prayers are not enough when it comes to reducing this epidemic of gun violence. We have had too many funerals, too many families who now have to face an empty seat at the dinner table or walk past an empty bedroom, too many children who suffer the physical trauma of gunshot wounds or the mental trauma of witnessing a shooting. We have had too many of our fellow Americans getting shot while they are sitting on their porches or walking on their sidewalks. So many of these shootings could have been prevented. But there are loopholes in our gun laws that make it too easy for dangerous people to get their hands on guns. It is absurd that we have not closed the loopholes in our background check system--a step that 90 percent of Americans support. And we have had enough of the gun traffickers and straw purchasers who are able to buy guns out of State and sell them out of the trunks of their cars in Chicago. At Javon's funeral, Congressman Davis said this: ``Not only Javon, but thousands and perhaps millions of other young people cannot exist on a regular, daily basis without the fear of not making it through the day. Somehow, with all the technology that we have, with all the know- how, all the things that we as a nation have been able to do, somehow or another we have not had the will to stop the flow of guns through inner cities.'' Well, we have a new President-Elect who said during his campaign that he was concerned about the shootings in cities like Chicago. If President-Elect Trump really wants to help Chicago, he can work to stop the flood of guns coming in to the city from States with weak background check laws. He could work with the Vice President-Elect, the governor of Indiana, to stop letting people buy guns without background checks at gun shows in Northwest Indiana. Hundreds of crimes in Chicago are being committed with guns that are brought into the city from Indiana. America has had enough of politicians who are too scared of the gun lobby to stand up and fix our laws so we can keep guns out of the wrong hands. We also need to address the crisis of poverty that affects many of our Nation's most violent neighborhoods. We need to provide our young men and women in these neighborhoods with economic opportunity and a path to a brighter future. This is going to require a sustained commitment of resources and investment at every level of government. But it is an investment that will pay off. It will save lives and avoid the devastating costs of violence to our communities. I will do all I can to make sure that the Federal Government does its part to help create growth and economic opportunity in our most depressed neighborhoods. But as we head into a year when the White House and Congress will be controlled by the Republican Party, it will require cooperation from the other side of the aisle. It is a moral imperative, and it is an investment worth making. I am angry about the shootings that injure and kill so many people in our Nation. I will not be silent about the need for action and reform. But I am also hopeful. Even in the neighborhoods of Chicago where the violence has been the worst, everywhere you look you will find determination and resilience. You will find mothers and fathers and teachers and faith leaders and many others who are going the extra mile to bring their children up safely and to provide them with love, faith, and hope for their future. They aren't going to quit. And neither can we. There is a lot of work we need to do to address the public health crisis of gun violence. But we owe it to the memory of Javon Wilson and so many others to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today I want to say a few words about one of the most admired members of my staff, Katharine ``Kappy'' Scates. Kappy is retiring at the end of the year. I don't know what we will do without her. Oftentimes, public servants are in it for the accolades-- not Kappy. She, in her own quiet way, just wanted to make a difference in people's lives. Since 1996, when I first ran for the U.S. Senate, Kappy has been my eyes and ears in southern Illinois. She is a retired elementary school teacher and a friend of my predecessor and mentor Senator Paul Simon. Kappy joined our campaign as a volunteer, and we all fell in love with her. She not only knew everybody, she was happy to drive the wheels off her car to be everywhere. In 1999, Kappy came to work for us in our Marion, IL, offices. She quickly became indispensable. When it comes to southern Illinois, Kappy is a human rolodex. From Carmi to Cairo, Kappy Scates is a household name. On my behalf, Kappy met with countless people. She listened to their ideas and concerns-- and did her best to help solve problems. And whatever the task, there isn't a town in southern Illinois that Kappy can't recruit a few folks to pitch in and help. People know that when you are on Kappy's side, you are on the right side. Let me give just one example. In Ridgway, IL, Kappy helped a dental clinic. It wasn't easy; there were hurdles every step of the way. But Kappy would not take no for an answer. She got all the equipment and convinced hygienists and a part-time dentist to help out in this severely underserved community. I got the credit, but it was Kappy's vision, hard work, and determination that made it happen. I could go on about all those Kappy has helped, but let me tell just one story--about a housekeeper at a motel where I often stay. Years ago, at 62 years old, she told me that she had never in her life had health insurance--not for a single day. She had worked as a cook, waitress, and housekeeper, but had never known the security of having health insurance. She hadn't even seen a doctor in over 20 years. Enter Kappy Scates. Kappy spent hours meeting with her and helping her figure out a solution. Finally, because of the Affordable Care Act and Kappy's help signing her up--she was able to afford health insurance for the first time in her life. But that is not the end of the story. You see, after my friend saw a doctor for the first time in more than two decades, she was told she was diabetic. Fortunately, Kappy had stayed in touch. She drove her to doctor appointments and helped get the critical medications she needed. It probably saved her life. That is who Kappy is--always going above and beyond the call of duty. She has a great heart and pours it into everything she does. I want to thank Steve--Kappy's husband of more than 56 years--their children: Steve, Carole, Tim, Susie, and 18 grandchildren--for sharing so much of their wife, mother, and grandmother with the community. I also want to thank the entire Scates family, who have lived in the Shawneetown area since the early 1800s. You can't set foot in southern Illinois without running into a member of the Scates family. They are the heartbeat of one of the best parts of our State. The Scates family farm is a well-known and respected family operation. In fact, it is not only one of the largest family farms in Illinois, it is known as one of the best. Throughout the years, the Scates family support and generosity have meant more that I can express in words. I will close with this. I believe in the role of public service to make a difference. Kappy's years of service reflect that, too. Our Nation needs more people like Kappy Scates. I couldn't be more proud of the work she has done--and the person she is. I am honored to congratulate her on a job well done, and I am lucky to count her as a friend. I wish Kappy, Steve, and her family all the best.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, 6 years ago, I joined with Senator Dick Lugar in a bipartisan request of President Obama to do something to protect the DREAMers--those young kids brought to America as babies and infants and toddlers and teenagers who were undocumented, living in America, and had no place other than America to call home. We wanted these DREAMers to have a chance, not to be deported--a chance to go to school, a chance to work, a chance to prove themselves and to become part of the future of America. President Obama created the DACA Program by Executive order, and despite the political controversy of that decision on the other side of the aisle, the fact is it was a lifeline for up to 800,000 who have now come forward. They paid their filing fee of several hundred dollars, they have gone through a criminal background check to make sure there is nothing in their background to disqualify them from staying in the United States, and they have been given a temporary approval to stay here without fear of deportation and to work. So they have gone on to colleges and medical schools and law schools. They have taken important jobs. They have volunteered to serve in our military. They are proving that they want to be part of America's future. Now, if that Executive order, DACA, is eliminated, what happens to them? That has been a concern and a fear, not just on this side of the aisle but on the other side as well. I am happy to report that Senator Lindsey Graham has stepped forward. We are working together on a measure we call the BRIDGE Act, which we are going to introduce today. This is an effort by Senator Graham and myself to have a bipartisan answer to the question about what happens to these 800,000 and others like them while we debate the future of immigration. I think what we are taking is a reasonable step forward. As Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House said the other day, there is no need to disrupt their lives. President-Elect Donald Trump said recently in Time Magazine: We're going to work out something that's going to make people happy and proud. Speaking of the DREAMers, President-Elect Trump said: They got brought here at a very young age, they've worked here, they've gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they're in never-never land because they don't know what's going to happen. So Senator Graham and I are proposing this legislation today, and we invite Members to join us in supporting it. It is simple. It would provide protection from deportation and legal authority to continue working and studying to the people who are eligible for DACA. The BRIDGE Act has a new term--not DACA--but ``provisional protected presence.'' If you have DACA now, you would receive provisional protected status until your DACA expires, and you can apply for an extension. If you don't have DACA protection now but you are eligible, you can also apply for this provisional protected presence. Applicants would be required to pay a reasonable fee, be subject to criminal background checks, and meet the same eligibility criteria that currently applied to DACA. This legal status would be good for 3 years. DACA is only good for 2 years but is renewable. The status we are creating would be good for 3 years after the BRIDGE Act becomes law. I believe this legislation will attract broad support from both sides of the aisle. But let me be clear. The BRIDGE Act that we are introducing today is no substitute for broader legislation to fix our broken immigration system. This bill should not be tied to other unrelated measures. Let's take care of these young people who are in doubt about tomorrow before we debate the larger and equally important question about immigration reform, which has so many facets. Senator Graham and I were two Members of the bipartisan Gang of 8, Republicans and Democrats who authored comprehensive immigration reform legislation that passed the Senate. We both believe that Congress must consider legislation to deal with all aspects of the immigration law. In particular, I strongly believe personally--personally, I believe-- that we need a path to citizenship not just for DREAMers but for their parents and other undocumented immigrants who are living in the shadows but, by every measure, should be given a chance to prove themselves in America. We need to pass the BRIDGE Act quickly to ensure that DREAMers who came forward to register for DACA do not lose critical work permits. There are 28 medical students at the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago. They are DACA-eligible. They competed nationally. They weren't given any specific slots. They were accepted to medical school. If they lose their work permit, they have to drop out of medical soon, and they can't do their clinical work, which is important to medical education. So let's not lose them and others who can serve our country in the future. Over the years, I have come to the floor to tell stories about these DREAMers, and I would like to tell one today about Javier Cuan- Martinez. He came at the age of 4 from Mexico with his parents. He was 4 years old. He went to elementary school in Texas. He moved to Temecula, CA. He was an excellent student involved in many activities. He was a member of the National Honor Society, and he was named Riverside County's Student of the Month. He received an award from the College Board's National Hispanic Recognition Program, given to only 5,000 of the 250,000 Hispanic students who took the test. He was a member of the Math Club and a drum major in the school's marching band. He volunteered in his town's soup kitchen for the homeless and received the President's Volunteer Service Award. He didn't even know he was undocumented until he was applying for college and he learned that he was ineligible for any Federal financial assistance to go to school. Thanks to his academic achievements, this young man was accepted at Harvard University. He is now a sophomore majoring in computer science, a member of the Harvard Computer Society and Harvard's marching band. Thanks to DACA, he is supporting himself by working as a web developer. He sent me a letter, and here is what he said: DACA doesn't give me an advantage; rather, it gives me the opportunity to create my own future on the same grounds as any other student. I would like to be judged upon my qualities as a person rather than what papers I happen to have in my hand. I hope to be a computer programmer and begin earning my own living as a contributing member of America's society. Consider this. Every year, the United States of America imports guest workers to do computer programming on H-1B visas. So does it make any sense to deport this young man who could fill one of those important jobs, who was educated and raised in the United States and wants to stay and be a part of our future? Javier and other DREAMers have so much to give America. But if DACA is eliminated, he will lose his legal status and be deported back to Mexico--a country he barely knows and left when he was 4 years old. Will America be stronger if we deport him? I don't think so. The answer is obvious. I hope President-Elect Trump will understand this and will continue the DACA Program or encourage the passage of the BRIDGE Program, as we move forward. If he decides to end DACA, the President-elect can then turn to Congress and ask us to do our part by passing the BRIDGE Act.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, 6 years ago, I joined with Senator Dick Lugar in a bipartisan request of President Obama to do something to protect the DREAMers--those young kids brought to America as babies and infants and toddlers and teenagers who were undocumented, living in America, and had no place other than America to call home. We wanted these DREAMers to have a chance, not to be deported--a chance to go to school, a chance to work, a chance to prove themselves and to become part of the future of America. President Obama created the DACA Program by Executive order, and despite the political controversy of that decision on the other side of the aisle, the fact is it was a lifeline for up to 800,000 who have now come forward. They paid their filing fee of several hundred dollars, they have gone through a criminal background check to make sure there is nothing in their background to disqualify them from staying in the United States, and they have been given a temporary approval to stay here without fear of deportation and to work. So they have gone on to colleges and medical schools and law schools. They have taken important jobs. They have volunteered to serve in our military. They are proving that they want to be part of America's future. Now, if that Executive order, DACA, is eliminated, what happens to them? That has been a concern and a fear, not just on this side of the aisle but on the other side as well. I am happy to report that Senator Lindsey Graham has stepped forward. We are working together on a measure we call the BRIDGE Act, which we are going to introduce today. This is an effort by Senator Graham and myself to have a bipartisan answer to the question about what happens to these 800,000 and others like them while we debate the future of immigration. I think what we are taking is a reasonable step forward. As Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House said the other day, there is no need to disrupt their lives. President-Elect Donald Trump said recently in Time Magazine: We're going to work out something that's going to make people happy and proud. Speaking of the DREAMers, President-Elect Trump said: They got brought here at a very young age, they've worked here, they've gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they're in never-never land because they don't know what's going to happen. So Senator Graham and I are proposing this legislation today, and we invite Members to join us in supporting it. It is simple. It would provide protection from deportation and legal authority to continue working and studying to the people who are eligible for DACA. The BRIDGE Act has a new term--not DACA--but ``provisional protected presence.'' If you have DACA now, you would receive provisional protected status until your DACA expires, and you can apply for an extension. If you don't have DACA protection now but you are eligible, you can also apply for this provisional protected presence. Applicants would be required to pay a reasonable fee, be subject to criminal background checks, and meet the same eligibility criteria that currently applied to DACA. This legal status would be good for 3 years. DACA is only good for 2 years but is renewable. The status we are creating would be good for 3 years after the BRIDGE Act becomes law. I believe this legislation will attract broad support from both sides of the aisle. But let me be clear. The BRIDGE Act that we are introducing today is no substitute for broader legislation to fix our broken immigration system. This bill should not be tied to other unrelated measures. Let's take care of these young people who are in doubt about tomorrow before we debate the larger and equally important question about immigration reform, which has so many facets. Senator Graham and I were two Members of the bipartisan Gang of 8, Republicans and Democrats who authored comprehensive immigration reform legislation that passed the Senate. We both believe that Congress must consider legislation to deal with all aspects of the immigration law. In particular, I strongly believe personally--personally, I believe-- that we need a path to citizenship not just for DREAMers but for their parents and other undocumented immigrants who are living in the shadows but, by every measure, should be given a chance to prove themselves in America. We need to pass the BRIDGE Act quickly to ensure that DREAMers who came forward to register for DACA do not lose critical work permits. There are 28 medical students at the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago. They are DACA-eligible. They competed nationally. They weren't given any specific slots. They were accepted to medical school. If they lose their work permit, they have to drop out of medical soon, and they can't do their clinical work, which is important to medical education. So let's not lose them and others who can serve our country in the future. Over the years, I have come to the floor to tell stories about these DREAMers, and I would like to tell one today about Javier Cuan- Martinez. He came at the age of 4 from Mexico with his parents. He was 4 years old. He went to elementary school in Texas. He moved to Temecula, CA. He was an excellent student involved in many activities. He was a member of the National Honor Society, and he was named Riverside County's Student of the Month. He received an award from the College Board's National Hispanic Recognition Program, given to only 5,000 of the 250,000 Hispanic students who took the test. He was a member of the Math Club and a drum major in the school's marching band. He volunteered in his town's soup kitchen for the homeless and received the President's Volunteer Service Award. He didn't even know he was undocumented until he was applying for college and he learned that he was ineligible for any Federal financial assistance to go to school. Thanks to his academic achievements, this young man was accepted at Harvard University. He is now a sophomore majoring in computer science, a member of the Harvard Computer Society and Harvard's marching band. Thanks to DACA, he is supporting himself by working as a web developer. He sent me a letter, and here is what he said: DACA doesn't give me an advantage; rather, it gives me the opportunity to create my own future on the same grounds as any other student. I would like to be judged upon my qualities as a person rather than what papers I happen to have in my hand. I hope to be a computer programmer and begin earning my own living as a contributing member of America's society. Consider this. Every year, the United States of America imports guest workers to do computer programming on H-1B visas. So does it make any sense to deport this young man who could fill one of those important jobs, who was educated and raised in the United States and wants to stay and be a part of our future? Javier and other DREAMers have so much to give America. But if DACA is eliminated, he will lose his legal status and be deported back to Mexico--a country he barely knows and left when he was 4 years old. Will America be stronger if we deport him? I don't think so. The answer is obvious. I hope President-Elect Trump will understand this and will continue the DACA Program or encourage the passage of the BRIDGE Program, as we move forward. If he decides to end DACA, the President-elect can then turn to Congress and ask us to do our part by passing the BRIDGE Act.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I wish to say a few words about Harry Reid, our departing, retiring, Democratic leader. It is appropriate he is not on the floor because it is painful for him to sit and hear anybody say anything nice about him. I am sure he is going to be happy not hearing these words, but I want the rest of the folks following the proceedings in the Senate to hear them. I was first elected to the House of Representatives the same year as Harry, 1982. A friend of mine, who is an attorney in Chicago named Ed Joyce, said: Be sure and look up this Harry Reid from Nevada because he is a great fellow and a great lawyer. So I did. We came in with a large class of over 50 Members. I went up to Harry and said: Hi. I am Dick Durbin from Illinois. We have a mutual friend in Chicago. He said: Well, great. I am looking forward to working with you. I said: So are you headed up to Harvard for the orientation? I will see you up there. He said: No, I am headed to Kansas City. We have settlement conference in a personal injury lawsuit that I couldn't miss. And I thought to myself, this is some lawyer. Up to the bitter end of his legal career, he was still devoted to the cause of representing clients and representing them effectively. When Harry makes a commitment, he keeps it. I knew at that moment and I have known it ever since. Four years later, he was in the Senate, I was still in the House, but the day came when I finally got elected to the Senate and joined Harry Reid. I know we had a good friendship to start because we came to the House together, but I remember the day and I remember the moment when that friendship became something special. It was right there in the well of the Senate. The most important bill in Harry's political career was up for a vote. It was on Yucca Mountain. He came before the rollcall was being announced and he said: How are you going to vote? I said: Well, Harry, I have kind of mixed feelings on this. He said: Stop. I need you. I think I have enough votes, but I may need you. So can you promise that if I need your vote you will be there? I said: Well, all right. But he said: But I don't think I will need your vote. You know what happened next. They called the roll, and at the very end, one of the Democratic Senators he counted on voted the other way. He turned to me and said: Well? I said: I am giving you my word. And I voted with Harry Reid on Yucca Mountain. That was the moment when our friendship became solid. In this business, your word is your bond. When you promise somebody you are going to stick with them come heck or high water, that is when it is tested. Our friendship grew from that point. I didn't know the time would come, but it did, amazingly, when Tom Daschle lost in the Senate race in South Dakota. The next day, I got a call from Harry Reid. He said: I hope you will consider running for whip. You ought to call every Member of the caucus, and I did. I quickly learned that many of them had called him and said: Whom do you want to be your whip? And he said: Well, I think Durbin would be a good choice. That is why I am sitting here today. Twelve years later, I am still serving as Harry Reid's whip and still counting the votes on key issues, and during those 12 years, I probably spent more time talking to Harry Reid, my colleague in the Senate, than to any other Member of this body. It is a close, personal friendship and relationship, and we have gone through a lot together. I listened to his stories. He told some of them today. He returns to his youth, growing up in Searchlight, which we heard about today in just wonderful detail, but he also returns to all of those friendships that were made during those years with people he grew up with in Searchlight and in Henderson, where he went to school. I have come to know these people as if they were my own classmates because I have heard these stories so many times. It is part of who he is, and it is part of his value system. It explains some important decisions in his life. When he talks about the Affordable Care Act, we understand that he still remembers that his mother needed dentures, and he saved up money to buy his mother a set of teeth. He thought about the fact that there was no medical care for his family when they needed it the most. He thought about the depression that took his father's life and how that might have been averted with the right medical care. That is what has inspired him to public life. The one thing that has inspired him the most is Landra. Over and over, I have heard these stories about this courtship. Now, by most standards, getting married when you are 19 is not recommended but, clearly, in this case, it worked out beautifully. When he tells the story of how he finally got Landra to marry him, it appears there was a little bit of tension between Landra's family and this young Harry Reid, to the point where Landra's dad basically said to him: Stay away; I don't want you dating my daughter. Well, they had words and other things, and Harry insisted. He dated Landra, and they were married. The interesting thing about that is that despite that tension with her father in those early years, Harry wears a ring that her father used to wear, and he carries it around with pride in memory of her father and her family. He manages to keep those memories as part of his life and his inspiration. Another thing my colleagues may or may not know is that Harry is a voracious reader. He reads books constantly. Even after he lost the sight in his right eye, he has continued to read. I love to read as well. It has been one of my real joys in life, exchanging books with Harry. He reads everything under the sun. One time he told me he was reading the Koran cover to cover. I thought: Man, that is something I am not sure I could even do. He has this curiosity, this interest in learning. Even at this point in his life, as he nears the end of his public career, he wants to continue to learn about people and history and important things. I look back on experiences we have had together. It was 9/11 when Harry and I were in a room just a few feet away from here when there was an attack in New York, and in Virginia, and we thought the Capitol would be the next target. We had to race out of this building and stand outside, not knowing which way to turn as we were afraid that we were the next target here at the U.S. Capitol. Those were moments we spent together that I won't forget. I remember as well that he was one of the first to say to my junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, that he should seriously consider running for President. President Obama the other night said that was one of the most important pieces of advice he received in making his decision to be a candidate for President of the United States. It is an indication of Harry's credibility--how much people trust him, and how when he gives his word, you know he is going to be there. When President Obama was elected, he needed a person--more than one, but he certainly needed a leader in the Senate whom he could count on. He couldn't have had a better ally than Harry Reid. When I look back on the battles over the last 8 years that were waged on behalf of America and Harry's leadership role with the President, there wasn't another person in this Chamber who could really take as much credit. He would be the last person in the world to do so. When it came to the stimulus package to turn this economy around, it was Harry Reid counting the votes. It was Harry Reid working every single day the holding hands of those Members of the Senate who weren't quite sure they could be there when he needed them. It was Harry Reid who was counting up to 60 votes to pass the Affordable Care Act. It took every single Democrat. Not a single Republican would join us in that effort. And Harry Reid had to do it. What was he up against? He was up against Ted Kennedy, who sadly was giving his life up to cancer at that moment and fighting to stay alive until he could vote for that important bill. It was Harry Reid working with other Members of the Senate who would get cold feet on the issue and had to be brought back in. He did it time and again, day after day after day. In the end, 20 million Americans have health insurance because of Harry Reid's determination that what he went through as a kid growing up in Searchlight would not be repeated for families across the United States. When it came to Wall Street reform and the Frank and Dodd bill that passed through the Senate, Harry stuck with it and made sure we passed it, hoping to avoid the kind of recession we have been through and the damage that was done to businesses and families and individuals all across the United States. I knew he was a fighter because I knew his record when it came to being a lawyer. There are so many stories about his clients that I have heard over and over. I feel like they were my clients because I have heard those stories so often. One of the things I remember and read about in his book I want to share with you. There was a woman named Joyce Martinez who was working in Las Vegas, and the police came in to the casino where she was working and arrested her for writing bad checks at the local grocery store. Joyce tried going to several lawyers and kept insisting they were wrong. She had never done anything like that, but none of these lawyers would take the case. Then she met Harry Reid. Harry believed her. Harry said she reminded him of the people he had grown up with-- real people who had nothing but hard work as their life. Like many of the cases Harry decided to take, his colleagues said: What are you doing wasting your time on this case? Spend your time on worthwhile cases. But every step of the way, despite the ridicule, Harry decided to stand up for this cocktail waitress. Harry was determined to keep at it and to make sure that she had a strong voice in court. Ultimately, Joyce won her case, and Harry Reid ended up with a victory that he still counted many years later as one of his great successes as a lawyer. He also made sure the store that brought the charges against her had to follow the law in the future. So he didn't just help Joyce, he helped a lot of other people as well. For Harry, this is what the law was all about as a lawyer and what it was all about as a Senator--making life better for people and families across the United States. He has fought for so many important causes, and there is one that I want to give special thanks for. It was his commitment to the DREAM Act. I introduced this legislation 16 years ago when I discovered a young woman in Chicago, undocumented, who sadly couldn't go on with her life and go to college because of her legal status. I introduced the DREAM Act to say those young people brought to the United States as kids deserve a second chance. Harry Reid heard my speeches and then met his own DREAMer in Nevada: Astrid Silva, a DREAMer who would often write to Harry with updates on her life. On December 8, 2010, Harry Reid kept his promise to me and a promise to Astrid and to other DREAMers by allowing the DREAM Act to be brought to the floor for a vote. The Senate Gallery was filled with DREAMers wearing their graduation gowns and caps to remind people they were students who wanted to use their education and talents for the future of America. Fifty-five Senators voted for the DREAM Act that day. Harry had given us our chance. But it wasn't enough to pass because we needed 60 votes under the Senate rules. Harry Reid joined me and 22 other Senators in sending a letter to the President of the United States asking that he do everything he can to protect these DREAMers, and he did, with an Executive order known as DACA. To date, 744,000 of these young people have been protected with President Obama's Executive order, because Harry Reid believed, as I believe, that these young people deserve the chance. Let me tell my colleagues one last story that I think really defines Harry--his courage, as well as Landra's courage. It goes back to his days as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission. Being a Mormon, not gambling, not drinking, he was the perfect choice for gaming commissioner. It was hard to consider bribing him. In the 1970s, Harry wore a wire for the FBI to catch a bribery attempt. The tape that was transcribed from that wire ends with Harry jumping out of his seat and shouting: You SOB, you tried to bribe me. Harry couldn't tolerate that somebody thought he could be bought. In an effort to retaliate, the mob was mad at Harry, and they planted a bomb in his family car. Thank goodness, a watchful Landra spotted it and told Harry: Don't start the car. They are alive today because of Landra's vigilance, but they suffered that indignity because of their courage in standing up for ethics and integrity. Today, when we hear people talking about how rough politics can be, it certainly doesn't lead to a bomb, in most circumstances. In this case, Harry proved then and today that he is up to that kind of a challenge. Let me conclude with this. In Harry's childhood home in Searchlight, there were words embroidered on a pillowcase that his mom hung on the wall. As we have heard, it was a simple and barren little shack that they lived in, but this pillowcase had the following words: ``We can, we will, we must,'' Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Harry never forgot those words. They are engrained in his spirit. I want to thank him for what he has done for the Senate, for the State of Nevada, for me, and for his decades of service to the United States. I want to thank Landra and their five kids and their wonderful family for sharing her husband and their father with us for all of these years. Harry is leaving the Senate, but I am sure he is not going to quit. He is going to be fighting for Nevada to the end, and he will be fighting for the causes he believes in. He will continue to be a fearless advocate. I wish him and his family all the best. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in recent years, we have seen a troubling trend of democratic backsliding in several parts of the world, including Russia, Thailand, Uganda, Turkey, and Venezuela. Even some parts of Europe and the United States have seen long established democratic norms challenged in deeply upsetting ways. So imagine my great surprise late last week when the people of The Gambia peacefully voted for a new democratic government. Many probably don't know much about The Gambia--a small West African nation whose uniquely odd colonial borders have it straddling the meandering Gambia River almost completely surrounded by Senegal. Gambia is English speaking--Senegal speaks French--with several local languages shared between the unusual borders. Some of you may remember The Gambia was the ancestral home in the novel and then-television miniseries ``Roots.'' Because of its strong ties to the U.S. and geographic location, for some time The Gambia also had a unique distinction of being an emergency landing spot for the Space Shuttle should one need to abort its mission early in the launch phase. And until 1994, it had the proud distinction of being the longest postcolonial democracy on the African continent. You see, for the last 22 years, The Gambia was ruled by a regime that took power in a coup, with troubling arrests and disappearances of journalists, activists, and opposition members. I and several of my Senate colleagues raised a number of these cases over the years, most notably the 2007 disappearance of journalist Ebrima Manneh--for which I now hope there will finally be a fair and healing accounting. And yet, last Thursday night, the people of The Gambia, voting with colored marbles placed in different containers to make it easier for illiterate voters, chose a new leader in a peaceful and democratic process. And outgoing President Yahya Jammeh honorably conceded the election and agreed to a peaceful transfer of power. He offered to help President-Elect Adama Barrow. While we have had our differences, I want to acknowledge this important act of leadership and love of country by outgoing President Jammeh. And not only has there been this notable peaceful transfer of power, but in just the few short days since the election, at least 18 political prisoners have been released from jail, including a key opposition figure. So to the Gambian people, let me say congratulations on your important demonstration of democracy--a model for the African continent and the world. I look forward to significantly improved relations between our two nations and working together on a host of shared concerns.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there is a story about an Irishman walking down the street. He passes two guys who are fighting. He asks them: Is this a private fight or can anybody get into it? Well, you know a little bit about that; don't you, Mr. Vice President? For 40 years or more, you have always been ready to fight for those who needed a champion and never walked away from a good fight for a good cause. Your public career has been marked by so many amazing victories but also by unbearable losses and sorrows. You have had joys and passions, determinations and immense accomplishments. The list of your legislative achievements has been recounted on the floor today. One of them I am sure you are most proud of is the Violence Against Women Act. You made a big difference in the lives of so many people whom you will never meet, in protecting them and giving them hope in a hopeless circumstance. Between 1993, when your bill was passed, and 2010, the rate of violence against intimate partners--almost all women--declined by 67 percent in the United States. We often wonder here, when bills we take to law are passed and signed by the President, whether they can make a difference. We know that your unsparing effort when it came to violence against women made a significant difference. I had that in mind 9 years ago when I was riding around Florida in a recreational vehicle. It was with my fellow Senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama. He was running for President, and we were in the back of this RV as he was cruising through Florida. We were talking about potential running mates, someone who could be his Vice President. We went through a short list. We came to your name, and I said to the soon-to-be President, then Senator and my colleague: You couldn't pick a better choice than Joe Biden. I know him as a person. I know him as a fellow Senator. I know his heart. You would be blessed to have him on your team. He made that choice, even though at the beginning, I am sure both of you wondered: Is this going to work? It did. It did for your purpose and for his and for America's. I am reminded of that famous poet Seamus Heaney. He wrote: History says, Don't hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme. Obama-Biden--hope and history certainly did rhyme. The things that you have been able to achieve with this President have made a difference in America to millions of lives. Whether we are talking about coming out of a recession where we were losing 800,000 jobs a month, making sure that Wall Street didn't make the same mistakes again at the expense of businesses and families across America, or making sure that some father did not face the heartbreak of a sick child with no health insurance. You made a difference in their lives. Just this week, there is the Cancer Moonshot. Who knows, Mr. Vice President, what will happen as a result of that investment in your son's name. But I sense that something good is going to happen for a lot of people around this country. I am glad that the Biden name is closely associated with it. Mr. President, there is an old story--a joke--about the Pope. The story goes that the day came when he said to his driver: You know, I haven't had a chance to drive the car in a long time. Why don't you sit in the back and I'll drive. The story goes that the Pope started driving the car and started speeding and got pulled over. This policeman looked inside the car, then looked out again, and looked back and said: Excuse me. He got on his cell phone and he called the police station. He said: I have an extraordinary circumstance here. I have just pulled over a car with someone very important in it. They said: Well, who is it? He said: I don't know who he is, but he has the Pope for a driver. The reason I remember that story is that one time I was on Air Force Two with Vice President Joe Biden. We flew you home to Delaware. I was going to catch an Amtrak train at Wilmington, and I asked you to drop me off. You said: No, I'm going to take you up to the train. So we get up to the train, and the train is pulling in the station. You look at what I have for a ticket and you said: That ticket is not good. You need a real ticket. I will get it for you. You grabbed it and took off running, with the Secret Service trailing behind you as the train pulled into the station. I am thinking: Am I going to make this train? Is he going to make it back? You came running up the steps with the Secret Service trailing behind you while the train was stopped. All of these passengers were looking as the Vice President of the United States ran up to me, handed me a ticket, and said: Go ahead and get on the train. Now, the people on the train had no idea who I was, but they knew if the Vice President was carrying my ticket, I must be somebody important. Let me say one personal word. You and your wife Jill really embody what I consider to be the best of public life--not only your commitment to people who are less fortunate around the world but your genuine sense of caring and your good heart, both of you. I recall when my colleague Marty Russo of Illinois had a son who was sick with cancer. There was one person who called every day to make sure that he was doing well. Well, that is the way you not only build a friendship but you build a reputation as not just a glad-handing politician but someone who really, really cares. I have been honored to count you as a friend. I am honored that the President whom I love chose you as his Vice President. I am honored that we have served in the Senate together and that I can tell my kids and grandkids. I wish you the best whatever life brings you next.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I want to introduce the Senate to a young man I met last Friday. His name is Luke Hwang. Luke was born in Korea. His parents brought him to the United States when he was in the fifth grade. They took him to New Jersey. Luckily he had taken some classes in Korea and was able to speak English. He grew up in Palisades Park. He said: It didn't take me long to adjust and assimilate because my elementary school offered bilingual classes. . . . This is the kind of America I have known and experienced--not just mundanely accepting diversity but going above and beyond to serve the unique needs of a diverse community. This is an amazing young man. He started off with a passion for science. He was accepted into the math and science magnet school called Bergen County Academies, ranked by Newsweek as one of the top five public high schools in the United States. At Bergen County Academies, Luke won several awards at regional science fairs. He volunteered as an emergency medical technician in the local ambulance corps as a high school kid. Because of his academic achievements, Luke was accepted as a university scholar in the Macaulay Honors College at the City College of New York. In 2013 Luke graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's of science in chemistry. He received an award for the highest grade point average of any chemistry major in the school. This brilliant young man is currently a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry at the University of Chicago. He works as a researcher at the university. In his spare time, he volunteers for the Chicago Korean American Resource and Cultural Center, an organization that tries to help poor people in that community. Here is the kicker: Luke is undocumented. He was brought to the United States in the fifth grade and turned out to be one of the smartest chemistry students in his high school, in his college, and now in his graduate program. When I met him last Friday--he is a very quiet fellow--I said: What do you want to do, Luke? He said: I want to teach. That is what I would like to do, research and teaching. Well, here is the problem: He is undocumented. He is not legally in the United States of America. His family brought him here. They did not file the papers, or if they could have, they did not file the papers. Whatever the case, this young man grew up here in the United States, took advantage of the best schools in New Jersey, and now is going to one of the best universities in the United States and is destined to do great things in his life. Maybe he will teach. Maybe he will start a company. Maybe he will just come up with some breakthrough achievement in chemistry that will change the lives of many people. What are we going to do with Luke Hwang? Well, there are 744,000 people just like him. These are young people who are undocumented, whom President Obama gave a chance to stay here in the United States after they went through a criminal background check, after they paid their filing fee. He said: You can stay and study in the United States of America. We won't deport you. You can travel to another country and come back without being arrested. You can work in this country if you wish. You have a work permit. There are 744,000 of them under what is called the DACA Program. Well, the new President says he is going to eliminate that program and eliminate the only thing that is keeping Luke Hwang in the United States; that is, the DACA Program protection against deportation. We can't let that happen. Why would we do that to this young man who was brought here as a fifth grader? Why would we walk away from his talents? Why would we say: Despite all that you have achieved with the highest grade point average in chemistry, America does not need you, Luke. Of course we need him and many more just like him. I am trying to find a way to give people like him a chance to stay in the United States without being deported, to continue their education in medical school, in law school, in graduate programs, and in so many other different fields. Well, there was a breath of hope today. The President-elect was interviewed for Time magazine. Here is what he said about DREAMers and people like Luke: We're going to work something out that's going to make people happy and proud. They got brought here at a very young age, they've worked here, they've gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they're in never-never land because they don't know what's going to happen. That statement by the President-elect gives me some hope that I can give Luke some hope and others just like him. We can straighten out this immigration system in this country, but let's not do it at the expense of these young people. Let's do our job, but in the meantime, let's us protect them. Let's let them continue their education. Let's let them achieve what they want to achieve for themselves and for America. We will be a better nation for it. Senator Lindsey Graham and I are working on a bill. Whether you are for immigration reform or against immigration reform, join us in the basic proposition that we need to protect young people like this while we debate this important issue. I think that is the right to do. It is certainly the right thing to do for this young man. Some day, he is going to do something very important in this world. I would like to have it happen in the United States. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this past Thanksgiving marked the beginning of the holiday shopping season. In an effort to find deeply discounted electronics, toys, and other Christmas gifts for family and friends, bargain-hunting shoppers searched for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. While these deals provided great savings for shoppers, Main Street retailers and States did not reap the same benefits. Because we have let another year and holiday season come and go without closing the online sales tax loophole, States missed out on millions of dollars in sales tax revenue owed to them from online purchases. And Main Street retailers continued to lose business. However, this was not without trying. Around this time last year, Senators Enzi, Alexander, Heitkamp, and myself opposed the air dropping of legislation in the customs conference report that would have taken away a State's right to collect taxes on accessing the internet unless we gave States the ability to collect taxes on internet sales that were already owed, and we leveled the playing field for brick and mortar businesses. Despite our opposition, the customs bill passed, and Majority Leader McConnell promised to give us a vote later this year on the Marketplace Fairness Act or similar e-fairness legislation. This would give House Republicans the opportunity to go through regular order, a process they said was necessary to address the issue. Yet, unfortunately, here we are, at the end of the Congress, and House Republicans have still refused to act. The Marketplace Fairness Act levels the playing field for retailers by allowing States to treat brick and mortar retailers the same as remote retailers in the collection of State and local sales and use taxes. Internet retailers benefit under our current system with a 5-10 percent price advantage over their Main Street competitors. This is because customers visit local retailers, browse goods, use their phone to take a picture of it, and go online to purchase the item tax-free. Products sold online seem cheaper when sales taxes are not collected at the point of sale. But they are not because the tax is still owed, though not paid, by the customer. This is not fair, and it is not right. Thousands of Main Street businesses have worked hard to grow their businesses, but have become showrooms because of this price advantage, making it difficult, and, in some cases, impossible for them to compete. I have come to this floor in the past to share the stories of Main Street businesses, such as Play It Again Sports in Naperville and Soccer Plus in Palatine, that have gone out of business due, in large part, to the unfair advantage of their online competitors. Since then, Sports Authority has met that same fate, and many department stores and big-box retailers have closed a number of stores because of the increase in online shopping. These are local jobs and community anchors that no longer exist. There is nothing we can do now for these shuttered retailers. But we can, and should, still help thousands of retailers avoid the same fate by leveling the playing field for Main Street retailers. For the first time in history, consumers said they made more of their purchases online than in stores. This trend is evidenced by an increase in online retail spending, which grew 14.6 percent last year, to $341 billion, and is projected to reach $523 billion in 2020. During the weekend following Thanksgiving--the biggest shopping weekend of the year--online retail spending was over $9.3 billion, a 16.4 percent increase from 2015. As online sales increase, the potential sales tax revenue that States lose increases. The longer we delay in closing this loophole, the longer we perpetuate an uneven playing field between local and online retailers that erodes the revenues needed by State and local governments to fund essential public services. Despite the looming budget deficits State and local governments are facing and the competitive disadvantage experienced by brick and mortar businesses, House Republicans have refused to address the issue for more than a decade. This year is no different. Numerous requests to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to markup e-fairness legislation from the ranking member and other bipartisan members on committee, Main Street retailers, State and local governments, labor, and the sponsors of the Marketplace Fairness Act remain unanswered. Instead, Chairman Goodlatte drafted his own proposal that created more problems than it solved. I didn't support the chairman's proposal, but I supported the process and his calls for regular order and encouraged him to work with his colleagues in the House to send us a bill so that we can resolve our differences. We are still waiting. The chairman has continued to refuse to work with us on reasonable compromise legislation that didn't turn 100 years of sales and use tax law on its head, even though he doesn't have the support of the majority of the House Republican Caucus on his approach. It is apparent that these calls for compromise and regular order are nothing more than veiled attempts to delay and obstruct, which have so far been successful. If Congress continues to ignore this issue and fails to act, the courts will. Because States are missing out on an estimated $23 billion a year in potential sales tax revenue, they are looking to the courts for a solution, heeding the call from Supreme Court Justice Kennedy to reexamine the Court's precedent on the issue. This year alone, 16 States have introduced over 40 sales tax bills, and others have enacted legislation that have triggered legal challenges that would help States collect sales tax without congressional action. This week, a Federal court in South Dakota will begin hearing oral arguments on a South Dakota law that requires remote retailers to collect and remit sales tax. And we may know, as early as next week, if the Supreme Court will grant review of a law Colorado recently enacted that imposes reporting and notification requirements on remote retailers. Let me be clear. This is not the approach I prefer. I would rather Congress do its job to pass a uniform, comprehensive Federal solution instead of the States moving forward individually so we don't have a patch work of laws that small businesses have to navigate. But I understand that, in the absence of Congressional action, the States have no other options. They must either raise taxes or cut vital public services if Congress continues to sit on the sidelines. As you can see, the States are no longer waiting for Congress to get its act together. But there is still time for us address this issue. And I hope my colleagues in the House will work with me to do that before it is too late.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in 1922, Rebecca Latimer Felton was the first woman to sit in the U.S. Senate. She served in this body for only 1 day, but during those 24 hours she made a bold prediction for her time about the future role women would play in the Senate. She said: ``When the women of the country come in and sit with you . . . you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness.'' I will second that. Barbara and I served together in the House--and we have served together in the Senate for 20 years. And let me tell you, no one embodies Senator Felton's prediction better than Barbara Boxer. Throughout the years, I have loved getting to know Barbara as a colleague, but more importantly as a friend. Loretta and I joined Barbara and her husband, Stu, on official trips, personal vacations and countless dinners. We have eaten, drank, joked, and bonded. And as her career in the Senate comes to an end, keeping those bonds of friendship strong as she heads west is one my life goals. Barbara made quite an impact on the Senate Chamber before she even entered this body. On October 9, 1991, the Senate Judiciary Committee was set to vote on the nomination of Justice Clarence Thomas to serve a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Supreme Court, without listening to Professor Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment. At the time, there were two women in the Senate, Barbara Mikulski and Nancy Landon Kassebaum. Now, while this was going on in the Senate, the women of the House tried speaking out in that body. They were censured. And they had enough. So they marched out of the House and over to the Senate--29 women House Members, led by Congresswoman Pat Schroeder from Colorado and Barbara Boxer from California. American politics has never been the same. The following year, a number of esteemed women were elected to the U.S. Senate. Several reporters deemed 1992: ``the Year of the Woman.'' Senator Mikulski, the dean of women, as she is often referred to, said: ``Calling 1992 the Year of the Woman makes it sound like the Year of the Caribou or the Year of the Asparagus. We're not a fad, fancy or a year.'' She was right. But California made history. For the first time, one State sent two women to represent them in the Senate: Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Barbara often reminds me of the line from Shakespeare's--A Midsummer Night's Dream: ``Though she be but little, she is fierce.'' In 1994, when Republicans took control of Congress, one of the first things they did was go after environmental regulations, including rules to limit the amount of arsenic in the drinking water. Barbara immediately launched a good, old-fashioned, 3-day ``Ms. Smith Goes to Washington'' filibuster. And like most of the fights she takes on, she won. Barbara is a call-it-as-you-see-it kind of person. Maybe it is because she grew up in the no-nonsense, working-class town of Brooklyn. Or maybe it is because her parents and Jewish grandparents, who immigrated to this country from Russia instilled in her a deep love for America's Constitution and freedoms--a sense of obligation to give something back and a determination to fight for underdogs, truth and justice. She has sponsored or cosponsored more than 1,200 pieces of legislation and helped lead the fight on issues ranging from women's rights to healthcare to protecting California's natural wonders to keeping lead and other potentially lethal hazards out of children's toys. The vote that sealed our spiritual kinship took place in October 2002 when she and I voted against the Iraq war resolution. One of our dear friends, Paul Wellstone, also voted against the resolution. Paul was in a tough reelection fight that year. A reporter asked him if it was a hard choice to vote against the war. Paul said it was a risk, but not a choice. His conscience wouldn't let him vote any other way. It seems to me that is how Barbara Boxer approaches every one of her votes in Congress: It might be a risk, but it is not a choice. She listens to her conscience, and the people of California respect her for it. But let me be clear: that doesn't mean she will not work hard to find a compromise. She proved that in recent years when she and Jim Inhofe--the unlikeliest of odd couples--worked together to pass important legislation updating regulations on toxic chemicals and shepherding through a surface transportation bill that no one thought could be done. I will close with this. Early in Barbara's political career, people used to come up to her and say: How did you get so strong, how did you get so tough? Barbara would humbly respond: Oh, not tough. I am just an ordinary person, and I do what I think is right. I agree with most of that, but let me tell you--Barbara is as tough as they come. She can't be bullied or intimidated, and she never loses her courage. I want to thank Barbara for sacrificing so much time with her own family to make the families of America safer, healthier, and more hopeful. For that and a thousand other reasons, I will miss her in the Senate. But I know I can count on her to keep pushing those of us who remain to listen to our consciences--to fight for change and do the right thing.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, has the Chair announced the business of the Senate?

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me say at the outset that I took the floor last week and said a few words in tribute and friendship to my colleague, Senator Kirk. I am glad to hear the majority leader's statement this morning. It was spot-on, and it captured his public spirit, as well as his personal strength, that has brought him to this moment in history. I have been honored to serve with him for the last 6 years. I would say to my colleague Senator Coats from Indiana: We served together in the House, in the Senate, and I actually visited him when he was an ambassador representing the United States in Germany. It is an amazing public career on his part, and I wish him the very best for whatever the future holds for him.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.

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