Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. For the information of the Senate, Senator Sanders had a flight delay and is still expected to make the motion to discharge his resolution and speak prior to this evening's votes. Senators should expect votes to start at approximately 6:45 p.m. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, over the holiday recess, the U.S. Senate and the people of Wisconsin experienced a profound loss: the passing of Herb Kohl. I had the pleasure of serving with Herb in the Senate for 15 years. He was a tremendous Senator and an even better man. Born in Milwaukee to two Jewish immigrant parents, Herb went to school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and later earned a master's degree from Harvard University. He went on to serve in the Army Reserve. In many ways, Herb's story is the American dream personified. A Midwestern boy from humble roots who teamed up with his father and brothers to grow a family business into an iconic retail chain, becoming a successful businessman and philanthropist in the process. Herb took what he learned from the world of business--hard work, integrity, and humility--and pivoted to politics. Getting his start in Wisconsin politics in the 1970s, he went on to chair the Wisconsin State Democratic Party. And in 1988, he ran for the U.S. Senate. Unsurprisingly to all of us who knew Herb, he was a beloved candidate, and he faithfully served the people of Wisconsin for four terms. In his conduct and commitment to his constituents, Herb proved that the Midwest's reputation for kindness and loyalty does not stop at the doors of the Senate. He had a quiet manner about him, with little ego. In many ways, he was an anomaly. He put his head down, and he focused squarely on how he could improve the lives of those who entrusted him to serve. Even with his success, Herb never forgot his roots and used every position he found himself in to give back to his beloved Wisconsin. In 1970, he was instrumental in bringing a professional baseball team to Milwaukee. When Milwaukee's professional basketball team, the Milwaukee Bucks, threatened to leave town, Herb purchased the team to ensure they remained in his hometown. When he saw educational need in his State, he founded the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation to provide scholarships and fellowships to students, teachers, and schools. When his alma mater found itself in need of a new athletic facility and arena, it was Herb's donation that helped bring it to life. A fellow Midwesterner, Herb and I worked together on many issues. He was a colleague, a friend, and above all, the resident dairy expert. I can still recall when Herb retired in 2013, I quickly realized I had lost my most trusted adviser on all things dairy. It was important to his constituents, so it was important to him. And no one knew more than Herb. Notably, we also served together on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where we worked to confirm fair and qualified judges and pass legislation that made this Nation more just and equitable. Specifically, in 2011, he cosponsored the DREAM Act, legislation that is very close to my heart. I send my deepest condolences to Herb's family, friends, and constituents. With Herb's passing, we lost one of the very best of us. I am honored to have called Herb a friend, and I will miss him dearly.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, in a few short days, our Nation will honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For many, it will be a day to envision a future in which America, as Dr. King dreamed, is ``free at last.'' For others, it will be a time to remember the ideals Dr. King fought so hard for, namely his dream for everyone in this country to finally receive the fair and equal treatment promised to them under the Constitution. Today, we should honor Dr. King's legacy by continuing to fight to realize his dreams--and also recognize the brave people who stood alongside Dr. King at the foot of history's doorstep, like Memphis sanitation worker and civil rights activist Elmore Nickelberry. Mr. Nickelberry was one of the last surviving Memphis sanitation workers who fought for better working conditions in 1968, and he marched with Dr. King during the sanitation workers' strike. He was a man of great integrity and a pillar within his community. When others wanted to give up and stop the strike, he said: ``Keep on marching, keep on doing the right thing. If they're doing the right thing, everything will be good. But keep the dream alive.'' Because of Mr. Nickelberry's bravery and determination, the Black Memphis sanitation workers received better working conditions and pay and were finally afforded rights equal to those of their White counterparts. Last week, Elmore Nickelberry took his last breath on this earth. But the legacy left behind by Mr. Nickelberry, Dr. King, and the rest of the visionary activists who fought for a freer, fairer, and more just America will stand the test of time. The impact of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., on our Nation is, in many ways, immeasurable. Dr. King taught us that no change comes without hard work and determination. He used to say, ``The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.'' As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am committed to continuing the work to which Dr. King committed his life: the work of advancing justice and equality for all. We are moving toward that goal by continuing our efforts to bring balance to our Federal judiciary. Throughout America's history, our courts have too often been the venue in which justice is denied rather than delivered. If we want to fulfill the promise of equal justice under the law, we need a Federal bench that looks like America. And, under President Biden, we are finally building that bench. We must continue to advance well-qualified judicial nominees who reflect the diversity of America. Under President Biden's leadership, the Senate has confirmed more Black women to the Federal circuit courts than all prior Presidents combined, including the first-ever Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. We have also confirmed a historic number of Asian American, Latino, and LGBTQ+ judges, and we have confirmed more circuit judges with experience as public defenders than all prior Presidents combined. In the past couple of years, our Nation has made historic progress, both in rectifying the injustices of our past, and building Dr. King's ``Beloved Community.'' And that progress was made possible by my fellow Democratic Members of Congress who have advanced Dr. King's march for justice in every form: racial justice, social justice, and economic justice. I would like to close by evoking the words of another great American and civil rights activist--my friend, the late John Lewis. A disciple of Dr. King, Congressman Lewis believed in the power of community, justice, and love. He is famously known for his belief that people should ``get in good trouble, necessary trouble'' to help redeem the soul of America. Today, as we reflect on how we can honor Dr. King's memory and live by his legacy, I hope we can all commit to getting into the kind of ``good trouble'' that John Lewis urged, the kind of trouble that challenges our Nation to live up to its lofty ideals, the kind of trouble that is hard, and costly but ultimately brings us closer to realizing Dr. King's dream.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, having experienced legislative efforts of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, it would be a surprise to many people to learn that many Members come to the floor to address issues of personal importance to them, something that happened in their lives that motivates them to take up an issue, introduce a bill, try to create a new law. That happened to me in the House of Representatives many, many years ago when I first confronted the tobacco issue. I lost my father to lung cancer when I was 14 years old, and it was a profound experience, as you might guess, in my life. And I remembered what he went through in the last 100 days of his life, fighting lung cancer and, eventually, succumbing to it. And so I took on the tobacco issue in the House of Representatives on a personal basis as well as a public basis, trying to reduce the power which the Big Tobacco lobby had in the House of Representatives. And when I arrived there in 1982, they were the most powerful lobby in Washington. We were warned as new Members of Congress on both sides--Democratic and Republican--don't touch the tobacco issue. It is an issue that is very important for us to maintain our majority, and you shouldn't bring it up. Well, I ignored that advice and introduced several ideas on reducing the power of the tobacco lobby on Capitol Hill. The one issue that I pursued with success had a profound impact on this country--much more than I ever imagined. I introduced the first bill, successful bill, in the House of Representatives to ban smoking on airplanes. It seems so obvious today that it would be a fiction to suggest that there is a smoking and nonsmoking section on an airplane. We know that those people who were smoking were generating secondhand smoke, which was dangerous as well. Well, with an amazing bipartisan majority, we passed my bill to ban smoking on airplanes. It was taken up by Senator Frank Lautenberg here in the U.S. Senate successfully, signed into law, and the rest is history, as they say. What we did not anticipate was that this law, in and of itself, was going to be a tipping point. People thought and said: Wait a minute, if secondhand smoke is dangerous in an airplane, why wouldn't it be dangerous in a bus? on a train? in an office? in a hospital? in a place of work? in a restaurant? And the next thing you know, we saw a dramatic change over the years in the attitude towards smoking. New Members of Congress historically, before that was passed, would head to the stationery shop as soon as they were elected to buy an ashtray to put on the coffee table in their office for those visitors who wanted to smoke while they were meeting with the Senators and Congressmen. That is unthinkable today. I am not even sure they sell the ashtrays anymore. They used to be embossed with a big Congressional seal. Things started changing across America, and one of the things that led to that change was the discussion of the impact of tobacco on children. We knew that tobacco, with its chemical nicotine, was addictive. And we knew that kids, naturally, being told not to touch a tobacco product, started using them as soon as they could; and many of them developed an addiction even before they graduated from high school. So we started requiring warning labels and restricting retail sales to try to protect kids from this addiction. It was an ongoing battle because the tobacco companies were powerful and profitable and had many friends in high places, particularly here in Washington. I continued that battle over the years in the House and in the Senate with some success, dramatically reducing the percentage of children who were using tobacco. The tobacco companies knew that they were in trouble. That was their source of addicted people who, when they became adults, bought their products for the rest of their lives until they died from that addiction. And so these tobacco companies started a new campaign. It wasn't based on tobacco but on the chemical nicotine and the addictive nature of it. And they created something called vaping and e-cigarettes. And who did they go after? Kids, of course. They had fruit-flavored vaping devices that looked like they belong in a computer or in a school bag going off to grade school and high school. And these kids started buying them and using them; and so I switched my campaign not exclusively from tobacco but to vaping as their latest Big Tobacco product that was addicting children. I have asked the Food and Drug Administration, through many administrations, to basically police this product as they would a tobacco product, and they have promised that they would. I come here today to make a report, one very good piece of news and one very bad piece of news about that effort. First, I want to thank the Supreme Court which, on Monday, left in place a California law banning the sale of flavored cigarettes. That is great news for kids and communities of color who have been preyed upon by Big Tobacco's aggressive marketing with flavored products. We know that flavors play a unique role in hooking new smokers because they mask the harsh taste of tobacco and turbocharge the addictiveness of nicotine. In particular, we know that menthol cigarettes have been purposely targeted at Black communities for decades with heavy advertising, sponsorship of events, and free samples. It has contributed to the fact that Black adults in America are 30 percent more likely to die from heart disease and 50 percent more likely to die from a stroke compared to Whites. There is a Federal proposal on the table now to prohibit the manufacturing and retail sale of menthol cigarettes. That rule would save an estimated 650,000 lives, including 255,000 Black Americans. It would eliminate the racial disparity in lung cancer deaths between Black and White Americans. I know this President cares deeply about the toll of cancer. It has touched his family personally, as it has mine. If we want to make a difference in the health of Americans and set a legacy for future generations, then the administration must finalize this public health measure to end Big Tobacco's predatory promotion of menthol cigarettes. Lives hang in the balance. That is the good news out of California and the Supreme Court. Here is the bad news. Robert Califf is the head of the Food and Drug Administration. Two years ago, he was approved by the Senate in a very close vote; it was 50 to 46. If two Senators had gone the other way, he would not be the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. He came to my office and made a plea that I vote for him. I was planning on voting against him. He ended up getting five Democrats voting against him and six Republicans who voted for him, and that made the difference in the final rollcall. On the final rollcall, because he looked me in the eye in my office in this building and promised that he would take on the vaping interests, I voted for him. It has been a miserable disappointment to see what he has done with that office when it comes to this issue. As the calendar turns to 2024 and the new year, I am afraid that it has not brought any change in the Food and Drug Administration's shameful, abysmal job of preventing tobacco companies from addicting our children. On January 1, the Food and Drug Administration missed yet another court-imposed deadline to finish reviewing e-cigarette applications. Even after repeated delays, the FDA had told the U.S. district court for Maryland that it would finish reviewing e- cigarette applications by December 31, 2023. It failed. That deadline came and went. The FDA is now 28 months past the original court-ordered deadline to complete this review. That is not only unacceptable, it is embarrassing. Here is why that is a problem: The law is clear that no vaping or tobacco product can be put on the market without first proving-- proving--to the FDA that it is--listen--``appropriate for the protection of public health.'' In other words, the industry, the vaping industry, has the legal burden of proof to prove that their product will protect the public health. Vaping companies cannot do that. We know they can't. Yet thousands of products continue to flood store shelves and addict America's children without having met that bar of proof. The FDA has the power and the responsibility to protect public health by enforcing this premarket review requirement, but it appears to be giving Big Tobacco a free pass day after day, week after week, month after month, despite court orders to the contrary. While the FDA has missed a court-ordered deadline, it also failed to meet a statutory deadline for the regulation of synthetic nicotine products, an authority that the FDA asked us in Congress to provide. You see, vaping companies thought they found a loophole in the law by using nicotine that was synthesized in a lab, rather than derived from a tobacco leaf. They thought they could skirt FDA regulation by exploiting this ambiguity in the law. The same FDA Commissioner I referenced earlier, Dr. Robert Califf, testified to the Senate: We have to close this loophole. He pleaded with us to close it, and we did. Senators Collins, Murkowski, and several others joined me to lead a bipartisan effort to clarify FDA's jurisdiction over synthetic nicotine. The new law required the FDA to clear the market of all unauthorized synthetic nicotine products by July 13, 2022--18 months ago--and they have failed. After asking us for this authority, after our passing the law and having it signed by the President, they have ignored the law and the requirement to clear the shelves since 2022. Since then, FDA has failed to issue a single marketing denial for a synthetic nicotine vaping application. Worse yet, e-cigarettes using synthetic nicotine are now the most popular tobacco products used by children. There are many examples of that. Think about that for a moment. The FDA Commissioner comes here and says: My hands are tied. I cannot regulate e-vaping to protect kids because they are using synthetic nicotine and we are not sure the law covers it. We change the law and tell them: Now you can proceed. Enforce this law that you have asked for, and do it 2 years ago to make sure these products are not on the shelves. They ignore it. After calling for our passage of the bill, they ignore the reality, and the shelves are stocked with these e-cigarette synthetic nicotine products that kids are using across America. The consequences for our children are devastating. According to the Surgeon General, e-cigarettes can damage lungs, heart, mental health, and parts of the brain that control attention and learning. Don't just take it from me. I recently received a letter from the Chicago Teachers Union. Here is what it said: Teachers have noticed a growing frequency of disposable vapes in our schools. These products come in colorful packages and fruity, kid-friendly flavors that are pushed on social media. . . . Some even look like school supplies. And it is not just the big cities like Chicago. Last month, I also received a letter from the regional superintendent of schools for five of the rural areas, southernmost parts of Illinois: Alexander, Jackson, Perry, Pulaski, and Union Counties. They said: While most young people view smoking as no longer cool, they look at vaping differently . . . as being a ``healthy'' and cool alternative. The FDA was given the tools to protect our kids and consistently failed to do it under Dr. Robert Califf, head of the FDA. Here is what I want to make clear today: February 14 is the second anniversary of Robert Califf's approval by the U.S. Senate. By that date, by February 14, I expect his compliance and the compliance of the FDA with all of these court-ordered mandates which they have ignored for months and years. What is at stake? The health of our kids and their addiction. If Dr. Califf cannot exercise the authority of the FDA, it is time that we put somebody in who will. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Kato Crews to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. Born in Pueblo, CO, Judge Crews received his B.A. from the University of Northern Colorado and his J.D. from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. After working for the National Labor Relations Board in Denver, Judge Crews entered private practice in Colorado. During his career as a civil litigator, he tried 18 cases to verdict, including 6 jury trials. In 2018, the district judges of the District of Colorado unanimously voted to appoint Judge Crews as a magistrate judge. In his 5 years on the Federal bench, he has handled a wide variety of both civil and criminal matters. He has presided over six trials and issued more than 1,700 recommendations and orders. Judge Crews has also been deeply involved in his community, serving as a mentor to young lawyers and helping establish a program to assist pro se litigants in the District of Colorado. The American Bar Association unanimously rated Judge Crews as ``well qualified'' to serve on the District of Colorado. He enjoys the support of the Colorado legal community and both of his home State Senators, Mr. Bennet and Mr. Hickenlooper. Judge Crews' deep ties to the Centennial State, his significant litigation background, and his courtroom experience as both an advocate and magistrate judge ensure that he will continue to be an asset to the district court. I strongly support his nomination, and I urge my colleagues to join me.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture motions with respect to the Rodriguez, Goffman, Crews, and Mehalchick nominations ripen at 4 p.m. and that the Senate now resume consideration of the Rodriguez nomination.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened to my friend, the Senator from Kentucky, and his remarks really brought to mind a division in the United States that most of us are aware of when it comes to the issue of climate change. You either believe that human activity is having an impact on the weather of the world or you don't. You either believe that it is not in the best interest of our country or the world for us to continue to heat this planet to levels unheard of in history. You either believe that the extreme weather situations which we are witnessing on a regular basis are just a run of bad luck or, sadly, maybe the product of a design in energy that makes a difference. You either believe that fossil fuel creates emissions which make it tougher to live in this country and this world or you don't. You either believe that our generation has a responsibility to do something different to try to preserve the planet that we live on for our kids and grandkids or we don't. You either believe that low gasoline prices are really the absolute pinnacle of success politically, or you believe that the use of fossil fuels needs to be somehow changed if we are going to save this planet. It is just a clear difference of thinking. When a prospective candidate for Presidency of the United States for reelection talks about ``drill, baby, drill'' and has no concern, obviously, for the impact of those words on energy and the future, you really know that there is a difference coming in this election for voters to make a choice. I want to err on the side of making this a safer planet for my kids and grandkids. My wife and I have tried to make decisions--large and small--in our lifestyle that reflect this feeling. We drive a hybrid car and get 33 miles a gallon--I wish we got more. Maybe the next car we buy will reach that. We put solar panels on our home in Springfield, IL. We were the first in the area to do it. I hope others will follow. Those things and many others can make a little difference. And if we all do them together, they can make a big difference. And I think it is our moral responsibility to do that. We can argue on the margins about the science of what I have just said, and that, of course, is time well spent. We should discuss science in honest terms. But we all know something is going on in this world that we live in, and it is not good. Heating up this planet is going to make life a lot more difficult and create challenges we never even dreamed of. So when I hear the Senator from Kentucky talking about bring down those gas prices, ``drill, baby, drill'' from a candidate on his side running for President, I think to myself: I would rather err on the side of being a little more cautious and careful in my lifestyle and the lifestyle of my family in the hopes that the little granddaughter of mine will have a planet she can live on when she reaches that stage in life.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell) and the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Judge John Kazen to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Born in Lincoln, NE, Judge Kazen received his B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and his J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. After completing law school, Judge Kazen began his legal career at Kemp, Smith, Duncan & Hammond, P.C., where he focused on personal injury defense litigation. He then opened his own firm, Kazen, Meurer & Perez LLP, where he advised businesses and organizational clients on personnel matters and business transactions. In 2018, Judge Kazen was appointed to be a magistrate judge for the same district to which he is nominated. In his time on the bench, he has issued more than 7,500 reports and recommendations, orders, and opinions. The American Bar Association rated Judge Kazen ``well qualified'' to serve on the district court, and he has the support of Senators Cornyn and Cruz. Judge Kazen's deep ties to the southern Texas legal community, combined with his courtroom experience as both a litigator and a judge, make him an excellent candidate to serve on the federal bench. I thank my colleagues for supporting his nomination.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am honored to join my colleague, Senator Duckworth, to talk about Ed Smith. It is rare that Senators come to the floor and pay tribute to someone who passes away. It doesn't happen every day. And when we have two Senators from the same State here at the same time doing it, it speaks to the quality of the person that we are talking about. Mr. President, you have been to Chicago, but you may not have toured the whole State of Illinois. It is a different State down south. About 400 miles south of Chicago is a place called Alexander County, and the county seat is Cairo, IL. Now, most students of geography would say: That is ``Cairo.'' Not to people of southern Illinois; it is ``Cairo'' or ``Cairo.'' It has had quite a history. It is at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, so it was really a hotbed of economic activity for a century. It was a large, bustling town and with a lot of river traffic that made it a very successful town. Over time, the economy started to slump. Interstate highways took over for rivers, and Cairo was not quite where it should be. I graduated law school here in Washington in 1969 and went to work for the Lieutenant Governor of our State, Paul Simon. Brandnew lawyer, anxious to be successful and do the right thing, I said to Lieutenant Governor Simon: What do you want me to do? He said: Go to Cairo. Well, that was quite an assignment in those days because Cairo was in big trouble. It was in trouble because, as the economy started to slump, a lot of the racial tensions in that community started to emerge, and there were terrible instances of violence and a lot of division in the community. Rallies and parades led to gunshots and arson and evacuation of the white population from that town. Cairo was not another Illinois city; Cairo was the South. It was said by Paul Simon himself that Southern Illinois is a land of grits and gospel music. And it is true. It is also the land where racial tensions had reached a fevered pitch by the late 1960s. The State's attorney for Alexander County was a man named Peyton Berbling. He could have come right out of the cast of ``To Kill a Mocking Bird,'' a rumpled white suit. And he was head of what was known as the White Hats Organization. That was a thin imitation of the Ku Klux Klan. He had his boys ``checking out the county'' every day to make sure that someone who was a stranger, a foreigner, didn't linger in his county. It was a terribly racially divided community. And as I said, it led to violence and economic slump. Fifteen years later, I was in a situation--well, it was more than 15 years later--I was in a situation where a young State Senator from Chicago was coming down to Cairo for the first time. I was bringing him down. And as we traveled in the car the 380 miles, I told him the story of Cairo and the economic problems and the racial problems it had. As an African American, he said later he didn't know what to expect when he got to Cairo. Well, our destination was the Laborers' International Union headquarters in Cairo, IL, and the president Ed Smith. So Barack came to that scene, a barbecue in the parking lot, and got out of the car and was shocked to see a Black and White crowd. Men and women, members of the union, friends of the union, African American and White, sitting together, eating a sandwich, and waiting for this candidate from Chicago. He walked around to a hero's welcome from so many people who were supporting his candidacy, including a lot of African-American people who were proud of Barack Obama. Not that many years later, when Barack was running for President, he pointed to that experience and said: I began to believe the politics of hope could overcome the politics of division. Who brought that crowd to that parking lot? Who invited us to come down to that barbecue? Who wanted to show us the success of this union? Who wanted to demonstrate the dignity of work way beyond quitting time on Friday afternoon? Ed Smith. Ed Smith was devoted to the workers in that community in that State. It was his life, and it was his father's life before him. They were legends in the labor movement--not just in Illinois but around the Nation. So when I saw what Ed had done in Cairo and realized how much progress he had made because of the power of his own values and the power of his own being, our friendship was cemented forever. He passed away last week. I don't have to tell you that those of us in politics meet hundreds if not thousands of people. It is rare to find someone who is consistently smiling--Ed Smith; consistently kind-- Ed Smith; consistently fighting for working people--without exception, Ed Smith. Time and again, that defined his time on Earth. Like Senator Duckworth said, he really did keep a tally of what he had done for people, and it was a lot of work to do because he helped everyone in every direction. He became eventually not only successful in the Illinois labor movement but was recognized nationally. He came out here to Washington to be the CEO of Ullico, which is the life insurance company for the laborers union. Ed decided to do something different. He noticed that a lot of predecessors had taken the deposits from the pensions of laborers around the country and invested them in Wall Street projects. Ed said: We are going to do it differently. We are going to invest in good ideas and good projects that create union jobs for my workers. When it was all over, he had $5 billion in his working fund, investing so that people could go to work and have quality of life. He was a wonderful man, and I am going to miss him a lot because I counted on him so much. But I know he has created a really idealistic vision of what you can do if you have a mission in life and live faithfully to it. He did that, and he also showed over and over again that he cared about everybody. No one was too small or insignificant. For him, the labor movement was not just a movement; it was a way of life, and he proved it over and over. So, Betty, his wife, and his great family, thanks for sharing Ed with us. He really made a difference in our lives, as Senator Duckworth and I have said today, and he made a difference in Illinois in the lives of countless thousands of families. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Cantwell), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, you know as well as I do what is happening in our home State of Illinois when it comes to the migrants that are being bussed from Texas, primarily, into our State--the impact it has had in the State and in the city of Chicago, in particular. These migrants are arriving in the city without any consultation or warning and are being dumped in places near the city, totally unprepared to face the cruelty of the winter that we are facing in Chicago. I am amazed at the number of people who have shown extraordinary caring and have stepped forward to try to help. I thank Catholic Charities, Salvation Army--there are so many groups. There is a New Life Center, Matthew DeMateo--extraordinary, just a miracle worker. He manages to find a way to put a roof over the heads of those migrants that come to our city and give them a fighting chance to have a decent life. So many more just like him prepare to step up and provide shelter, provide basic clothing, food, accessibility to schools, and more. I really want to commend the mayor as well. Brandon Johnson has taken an approach toward this which I think is humane and consistent with the traditions of America. He shows a caring heart time and again, and I respect him so much for it. Recently, the city of Chicago tried to put some order into this disorderly process, identifying times and places where the buses could stop so that people could be received properly, cared for, and go about their lives as best they could. But, unfortunately, there has only been one example of cooperation by the State of Texas. There are plenty of examples the other way--people who are sent to airports in Rockford where they are dumped out of airplanes on the tarmac with no place to turn; people who are put in suburban towns and rural areas, which even if they wanted to help, would be so limited to what they could do. We understand the politics of the situation better than most. We do politics for a living. But there are a lot of people who are helpless and victims of this situation who need to be taken into consideration. The city of Chicago gave the Texas Governor a safe, convenient, accessible option to drop the migrants off at a warm shelter for orderly processing, but only one bus from Texas has attempted to register with the city. The Texas Governor has chosen cruelty and chaos over orderly and humane processing. I don't understand the politics of that moment. These people are as vulnerable as any people on earth. They are doing the best they can for themselves, and they are in a situation where they need a helping hand in many instances. Last week, my colleagues in the Senate were working on a negotiated border compromise to deal with the policy and law on the border. I support that completely. I don't know what the final product will be, and I am hoping to support the bill. This process is long, long overdue. I made immigration one of the issues of concern for my services. I am the original author of the DREAM Act that was part of the Gang of 8 10 years ago that passed legislation--bipartisan legislation--on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I believe that it is important--it is inevitable-- that we deal with this in a humane and thoughtful way. And let me say a word about what is going on at the border. I believe in the asylum process. If you are a student of history, you know that during World War II, the United States had a policy of turning away refugees. There is the well-publicized and notorious example of the SS St. Louis, a ship which came from Europe and tried to find a port to disembark in Havana and in Florida and failed. The passengers were returned to Europe--some 700 of them--many of whom died in the Holocaust. They were Jewish people looking for a safe place in the world where they could live, and we turned them away in World War II. That is a fact. But at the end of the war, we decided there would be a different approach in the future. We would have an orderly international process led by the United States when it came to refugees. And we established that and lived with it under Presidents of both political parties for decades. The situation we face at the border today defies what I just described to you: the desperate people, in numbers we can handle, coming into the United States through an asylum process. What we are facing now is just not comparable at all. The thousands and thousands of people who are turning up at our borders each day are unsustainable. There was a story in the New York Times this morning about the number of immigrants who are coming to our southern Mexican border from Africa--Africa. And they told a story about a group of people in Guinea, Africa, who found a way to travel from Guinea to Turkey, then to fly from Turkey to Colombia, then from Colombia to Honduras, and then to Nicaragua, where they were transported to the border. This defies a stereotype in our mind about where the refugees are coming from in Central America. In this last year, more than 10,000 people from Uzbekistan showed up at our southern border in Mexico. How do you explain this? Well, one explanation is pretty obvious. We have a refugee crisis in this world, the likes of which we have never seen and in numbers from all over the world--hundreds of thousands of people who are desperately looking. Today, there are over 100 million displaced people worldwide, including over 30 million refugees. It is the largest refugee crisis in history. That is the starting point of this conversation. The second point is equally important. Many of these people have found their way to the United States through international groups, some of them for very sinister purposes, who are trying to make a lot of money on helpless people by promising them they could get into the United States and have a much better life. These people are being exploited in Africa, in Asia, and around the world, and we have to deal with this seriously. They are not the ordinary course of refugees coming to the United States. They are overwhelming numbers that have completely bankrupted our system in its response. I hope this bipartisan group finds a way to deal with it and to resolve it in a humane fashion; and I am open to any suggestion. In the meantime, I want to commend the people in my State--the mayor and others, who are stepping up to do their very best to be humane and American in their response. Many of us can trace our own immigrant roots back one generation or two. I am certainly one of those. My mother was an immigrant to this country. I have met with these immigrants from all over the world and all over the United States, and I have talked to them. And, although I say to them the situation at our border is not sustainable, it has to change, and we can't deal with the massive numbers that come our way, I look at each one of them and I see in their eyes the eyes of my own family making that decision to come here, desperately trying to get to the United States. It is a natural human instinct. But we need an orderly process. The bill that we passed, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, established such a process. We took the 11 million people undocumented in the Nation, and we said to them: Step forward, identify yourself, register yourself, pay your taxes, and go on working. Realize at a future time, many, many years from now, you may be eligible for legal status and even citizenship. That was part of the promise. And we need to establish such an approach today to find a way to deal with those who are here and those who want to stay here and are of no danger to the United States. The fact is, we cannot absorb all the people in the world who want to come to the United States at this moment. It is just not practical. It is not humane even to think in those terms. But those who are here should be brought in and assimilated into this country. If they are here and are no danger to our country, they can be an important part of our future. We need them in so many different ways. The Presiding Officer and I know about the agricultural community in our own State who have come to us desperate. These are conservative individuals politically who see the reality that our workforce is not adequate for our economy and the birthrate is not sufficient for us to sustain a new population of workers. Let's find a thoughtful way to deal with this, stop overwhelming the border, and have an orderly process. That can be done, but it has to be done on a bipartisan basis. Some of the people involved in this process have said publicly they don't want to find a solution, that they have too good a political issue. I hope that they are wrong. I hope that we can find a solution on a bipartisan basis that serves our Nation and that serves the world. We need an orderly process. It took 3 to 5 years over in Europe for them to come up with their own process. We need to find our own way of doing so. I am willing to work with them as chairman of the Judiciary Committee and with my background on immigration issues, if there is anything I can add to the process. I hope that this week, we will receive a report from this bipartisan committee that moves us in a direction of an orderly process at our border while not being overwhelmed with numbers that are unsustainable. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it has been 2 months since the horrific Hamas attack that killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and saw another 240 people taken hostage--some of them Americans, including Hersh Goldberg- Polin with family in my State of Illinois. For anyone who watched 60 Minutes this past weekend, the ordeal shared by one of the released hostages was harrowing and almost unimaginable. These hostages have been subjected to brutal physical and psychological torture. Some 115 hostages are believed to still be held, and I have long called for a humanitarian pause by both sides that includes the release of all the hostages as quickly as possible. I believe this remains the right path forward, and I hope our government will pursue this goal. But make no mistake, this Hamas attack was a reminder that there are still those who do not recognize Israel's right to exist. I do; and I understand their right to self- defense. But what has happened since October 7 raises larger questions about how Israel should defend itself, how it should retaliate and address the long-term need for two neighboring people to learn to live in peace. Early in this conflict, I urged Israel to learn from our mistakes in the United States after the deadly attacks on September 11, to not make the mistakes in the fog of their rage and pain that we made. I fear some of the important lessons we learned the hard way may not have been heeded by this Israeli Government. While Israel has every right to defend itself, the humanitarian toll inflicted on the people of Gaza has been of historic magnitude and increasingly becomes counterproductive to Israel's long-term security. We are nearing an estimated 20,000 deaths in Gaza. A significant majority of those are not Hamas fighters--they are innocent women and children. Last week, the leaders of some of the world's top relief organizations wrote in the New York Times: More children have been reported killed in this conflict than in all major global conflicts combined last year. Hospitals have had to try to treat civilians without the most basic medicines, using only Tylenol for pain management--even in amputations--and vinegar as a disinfectant of last resort. There are growing fears that disease outbreaks will soon replace the war as the primary cause of death in Gaza. This is simply not an acceptable strategy. Over the last few weeks, I have spoken to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry about reopening hospitals under third-party monitoring. I have also raised the humanitarian toll directly with Israeli officials. Basic medical needs, beyond treating the wounded, are staggering and include curbing a potential infectious disease outbreak and caring for thousands of expectant mothers. As such, I again call on Hamas and Israel to stand down from all military actions around Gaza's hospital and allow them to function and be resupplied under a credible, third-party monitor. I also continue to remind our Israeli allies that any U.S. military assistance must be used in accordance with the laws of war; and, as such, I have joined Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland on an amendment to the proposed National Security Supplemental reinforcing this basic point. The burden is higher in times of war for democracies, but adherence to such norms is what makes democracy distinct. This horrible conflict has caused so much suffering and is a wake-up call to the need for a two-State solution that allows for a viable Palestinian State living in peace side by side with a secure Israel. For years, I have warned that despite heroic efforts at such an agreement, spoilers on both sides have repeatedly undermined progress. So we have two challenges, one very immediate: End the suffering and release the remaining hostages immediately; and the second, finally commit to finding a two-State peace agreement. This will take leadership from both Palestinians and Israelis. And let me be blunt: I do not see the current leadership of either having the vision or political will to take this desperately needed step. But it is the only way forward. It is the only way that the region and international community will fully commit to helping rebuild Gaza and support a unified Palestinian leadership. It is the only way to end the threat of violence and bring a future of hope to both Israel and the Palestinian people. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.