Ron Johnson

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, first, let me talk a little about the Luke and Alex School Safety Act. The Luke and Alex School Safety Act of 2020 is named in memory of Luke Hoyer and Alex Schachter, who tragically lost their young lives on February 14, 2018, in the attack at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Luke's parents, Tom and Gena Hoyer, and Alex's father, Max Schachter, turned their tragedy into positive action by dedicating their lives to promoting noncontroversial, commonsense school safety measures so that others don't have to experience tragedies like they have. Both Tom and Max testified before my committee on July 25, 2019, and presented their recommendations for improving school safety. One of their recommendations was to create a Federal clearinghouse of school safety best practices that schools, teachers, and parents can use as a tool to improve a school's safety posture in a way that best suits that school's community and needs. Our committee turned this commonsense recommendation into the Luke and Alex School Safety Act of 2020 and passed it unanimously, with bipartisan support, on November 6, 2019. Even though the bill had only cleared our committee, the Department of Homeland Security agreed that it was such a good idea that it actually created and launched this clearinghouse in February of 2020. I ask unanimous consent to codify this clearinghouse within the DHS to ensure it will be continually updated to be useful and relevant for schools and teachers and parents well into the future. By the way, I just quickly printed out the current web page here. What is on it is just very common sense. It reads: ``Find Resources to Create a Safer School.'' It has the latest news and a coronavirus update. Then it has a number of different parts to the site. You can go on School Safety Tips, like bullying and cyberbullying, threat assessment and reporting, school security personnel, physical security, training, exercises and drills, mental health, school climate, emergency planning and recovery. Again, this is completely noncontroversial. It is just a clearinghouse of best practices that every school in America can go to and cut through the clutter and, hopefully, find very practical solutions to improve the safety within their schools and, again, hopefully prevent tragedies like those that, unfortunately, befell the folks in Parkland, FL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 402, S. 2779. I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendments be withdrawn; that the Johnson substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, if I could ask the Senator from Pennsylvania, I am not quite sure what that fix has to do with the school safety bill. They are completely unrelated. By the way, I talked to Senator Lankford earlier, and I know he also has a bill to fix that and is trying to get that into the NDAA this year. Again, it seems like there is bipartisan support for that as well. To me, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to hold up and not pass a bill that is completely unobjectionable and noncontroversial and that really could marginally improve school safety simply because we have not fixed what we kind of botched the last time around even though there is bipartisan support to actually fix it. So I guess I am kind of scratching my head and not understanding that objection.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, I am happy to take a look at that as I am willing to take look at the Lankford bill and get that in the NDAA. So, perhaps, maybe, if that gets included and gets fixed, we can come back at a later date and pass this by unanimous consent. I yield the floor

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. The way we are working this out, there would be no change required, just a letter for the Congressional Record stating what I believe the intent was, just to allow people to spend to the end of December. We are just working out the details of that language, and then we will be able to allow this to pass by unanimous consent. By the way, I have gotten other Members who are objecting to this to agree to this as well. So just give us a little bit more time; agree to that language. Hopefully, the ranking member would agree with that letter for the Congressional Record. Pass this bill, unchanged. Then, in the future-- because this PPP will expire June 30, but the need does not. If you read my article in the Wall Street Journal, I have a number of, I think, innovative ideas for what we can do to help restore capital for businesses that are going to need it to reopen our economy, and I would love to work very closely. I obviously have experience in businesses and small businesses and would like to work with the chairman and ranking member of the Small Business Committee

Mr. JOHNSON. I believe so. Again, there is a dispute as to what the language actually says. Again, I have no problem with the full $660 billion that has already been appropriated to be spent whenever. But I don't want to reauthorize the program past June 30 without the types of reforms that we can talk about. Then we will pass it through regular order. What I am suggesting here is to just wait until we have this letter of intent for the Record. We are just asking the chairman or ranking member of the Small Business Committees of both houses to agree to and sign, and then we will pass this bill as-is, unchanged, to give those small businesses the certainty we want to provide them.

Mr. JOHNSON. We will deal with those in the future.

Mr. JOHNSON. I have no demands other than one--again, we are so close. We are first working it out on our side, and then we will consult you, and maybe we will pass it yet tonight or early tomorrow morning. That is my goal as well.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am happy to come back or let you come back and ask for unanimous consent if we get this hammered out, and I will not object. But, at this point, I am going to object until we get this hammered out.

Mr. JOHNSON. What we are working on is not a change to this legislation. The way we are working this we will still be able to pass this piece of legislation unamended, unchanged, with a letter of intent from the chairs and the ranking members of the Small Business Committees of both the House and the Senate--together with a commitment from the majority leader--and we can pass this as-is. We don't have to delay it. We are just this close. I am objecting at this time. Give us a little bit more time to work out that method, and then we will be able to pass this measure without amendment--no changes--pass this and then work in good faith together to make those changes I think we all agree need to be changed in the future.

Mr. JOHNSON. Sure.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. With cooperation from the chairmen and the ranking members of both committees, I think we will be able to get this thing done. Again, our request is really very simple. I am not the only one. We don't want to see this program automatically reauthorized until the end of December. Now, there is some dispute as to whether the language actually does that. It sounds like the intent was not to do that; it was just to allow people to spend money through the end of December, which we have no problem with.

Mr. JOHNSON. So, again, CRS actually interprets it as a full authorization, so we just need to show what that true intent is, put that letter into the Congressional Record so that we are certain that we are not reauthorizing this or authorizing it through December 31; that the authorization does end June 30 so that, if we do want to put more funds into a program like PPP, that new program will have the type of directed reforms that I think we really could gain agreement on.

Mr. JOHNSON. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I appreciate my colleague's desire to help small businesses. I really don't think there is a stronger advocate in support of small business in all of Congress. I think I have proved that with my work in tax reform, fighting for 95 percent of American businesses that are pass- through entities. I think my colleagues on the floor here today realize that what the House passed has one very significant flaw in it--probably a technical drafting error but a significant flaw--which says that if you don't spend 60 percent of the PPP loan on payroll, you get no forgiveness, which was a dramatic difference from what it was when you had 75 percent. I am in favor of all those changes. As Senator Shaheen pointed out, there are a lot of problems with PPP that need to be corrected. My only objection is, before we authorize this and put an authorization date all the way to December 31, we need to make sure those changes are made. So my only objection is we should not extend this authorization without significant reforms that I hope my colleagues would all agree with; for example, the fact that many businesses--again, I am not denying that PPP provided very swift funding to businesses that truly needed it. It was a real lifeline. It worked from that standpoint. But, in our case, we all knew that we had to do something massive, we had to do something quick, but we also knew it was going to be far from perfect. In our haste in crafting this, we made it possible for many businesses that didn't need it at all to have access to those funds, and we don't have an unlimited checking account. When we give money to support businesses that don't need it, we are going to have less money to give to those that truly do need it. Unfortunately, what we are down to here with this unanimous consent request--we have been working in good faith with the sponsors of the House bill, with the Republican leadership. I reached out to the Democratic leader, saying that we are very close; I think we will probably be able to pass the House bill, with assurances, by unanimous consent, just not at this moment. So, again, I appreciate their thoughts. I am really not disagreeing with the fact that we have to do something. I want to do something as well. I just want to make sure that if we do put more money into this thing, it is not going to be flowing to businesses that don't need it, thereby denying those businesses that truly do need it in a more targeted fashion. So, Madam President, I object

Mr. JOHNSON. Will the Democratic leader yield?

Mr. JOHNSON

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

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, there are many things that the Senator from Minnesota spoke to that I think most of us would agree with. This COVID crisis has created all kinds of issues that need to be thoroughly discussed and thoroughly debated. I think there are a number of us on this side of the aisle--I am just one standing up--who object to this unanimous consent request. The good news for the Senator from Minnesota is, in talking with those colleagues, they also agree there is a fair number of elements in this bill with which they could probably find agreement. I rise to certainly extend my hand in cooperation with the Senator from Minnesota. Let's work on these things together, although this is not a bill that comes through my committee's jurisdiction. I can say, in my committee, we work across the aisle. Staff does an awful lot of work, and we come to a conclusion. If it is not ready for a particular markup, we go back and get the work done. We frequently pass a piece of legislation by voice vote and then bring it to the floor when it has all been ironed out. There is no disagreement, and there is no objection, and we pass those bills by unanimous consent. I think the problem here is that this bill has never had any kind of committee markup or any committee work whatsoever. So I would just suggest that the Senator from Minnesota work with her committee and her committee chair. I see the committee chair is here in the Chamber. Work on this. Try to find those areas of agreement. Then maybe we could pass this and maybe potentially pass this by unanimous consent. This piece of legislation is not ready. It hasn't gone through that process. As a result, I object.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 1558 and ask it be reported by number.

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Blackburn, Senator Cotton, Senator Cruz, Senator Loeffler, and Senator Perdue be added as cosponsors to my amendment No. 1558 to H.R. 6201.

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed and the Senator from Pennsylvania be allowed to finish our comments before we start the vote.

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, we are facing, with the coronavirus, an unprecedented situation, certainly in my lifetime. These are extraordinary times we are living in and trying to live through, and there is no doubt that extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. The good news is that there is a lot of agreement in terms of what we need to do. We all recognize that Americans and American businesses are suffering, through no fault of their own, and they need help. We all want to provide that help. Hopefully, we want to provide that effectively and efficiently with as few negative, unintended consequences as possible. What I would suggest is, this is really no time, though, to follow Rahm Emanuel's famous dictate that you should never let a crisis go to waste. From my viewpoint, I think one of the reasons we have had a more successful economy--certainly far more successful than the economy, the slow recovery we had out of the 2009 recession--is that this administration has focused on reducing the regulatory burden. First we stopped adding to it, and then we actually reduced it. That brought a fair amount of optimism and animate spirits to our economy because businesspeople could actually concentrate on their products and their services rather than looking over their shoulders to find out what new government regulation was going to cause them to hire a new compliance officer, increase their cost, and possibly put them out of business. What I am suggesting is, when we provide that help--and we need to provide that help to both hard-working American workers as well as American businesses--that we do it in the most efficient and effective manner, and we do more good than harm. Now, I would argue that a new mandate on business is going to do a great deal of economic harm. It may sound good, but it is not the right way to go. We will eventually come out of this. We will be recovering from economic woes. We need to learn the lesson from 2009, where overregulation hampered our recovery. So let's not add a new mandate. I know the House bill is only temporary, but temporary becomes permanent around this place pretty good. As Ronald Reagan once said, the closest thing to eternal life in our lifetime is a government program. I will also say that my office has been flooded with businesses calling in also not believing this is only going to be temporary and not really having confidence in the Rube Goldberg financing mechanism for this, again, temporary mandate for paid sick and family leave. The good news is, there is a better way, and that is what my amendment does. It creates a temporary emergency Federal unemployment insurance program sitting on top of what already exists. Rather than having two or three or more programs trying to provide that funding to workers for whom we all want to provide that support, we would have basically a single program, a single method for doing that using State unemployment offices. They are already set up to do this. With some slight modifications, they would be able to handle this, and here would be the slight modifications. First of all, our bill waives any waiting periods, but then, we also reimburse the States for paying unemployment during that waiting period. We have the exact same eligibility as the House bill. It is focused on those individuals affected by the coronavirus, the exact same definition. The benefits are identical as well. We would provide support. We would plus-up the State unemployment benefits up to two- thirds of employee's wages, not to exceed $1,000 a week. We also recognize those companies that are willing to voluntarily offer sick pay and paid family leave by reimbursing them up to that same level--two-thirds of actual wages, up to $1,000 per week, no more than $10,000 per employee. They are the exact same benefits as the House bill. And, of course, we actually make ours temporary. There will be a great deal of pressure on the part of State unemployment programs to get out of this as soon as they possibly can. But they can accept it, accept that Federal help, while they need it. So our bill sunsets; the earliest would be either at the expiration of the national declared emergency or on December 31, 2020. This is a commonsense piece of legislation. It does not saddle small businesses, American businesses, with a new mandate that they don't have a great deal of confidence in. It would actually be funded 100 percent by the Federal Government. By the way, the House bill does not fund this 100 percent. It leaves gaps. And it would definitely be temporary in utilizing the existing programs in the States that are sitting on top of it, providing Federal support for the workers who are going to actually need it as we go through this unprecedented event in our Nation's history. With that, I yield the floor to the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I am glad that this unfortunate chapter in American history is over. The strength of our Republic lies in the fact that, more often than not, we settle our political differences at the ballot box, not on the streets or battlefield and not through impeachment. Just last year, Speaker Pelosi said that any impeachment ``would have to be so clearly bipartisan in terms of acceptance of it.'' And in 1998, Representative Nadler, currently a House impeachment manager, said, ``There must never be . . . an impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by the other . . . Such an impeachment would lack legitimacy, would produce divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come . . .'' And yet, that is exactly what House Democrats passed. I truly wish Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Nadler, and their House colleagues would have followed their own advice. As I listened to the House managers' closing arguments, I jotted down adjectives describing the case they were making: angry, disingenuous, hyperbolic, sanctimonious, distorted--if not outright dishonest--and overstated; they were making a mountain out of a molehill. Congressman Schiff and the other House managers are not stupid. They had to know that their insults and accusations--that the President had threatened to put our heads on a pike, that the Senate was on trial, that we would be part of the coverup if we didn't cave to their demand for witnesses--would not sway Republican Senators. No, they had another goal in mind. They were using impeachment and their public offices to accomplish the very thing they accused President Trump of doing, interfering in the 2020 election. Impeachment should be reserved for the most serious of offenses where the risk to our democracy simply cannot wait for the voters' next decision. That was not the case here. Instead, the greater damage to our democracy would be to ratify a highly partisan House impeachment process that lacked due process and sought to impose a duty on the Senate to repair the House's flawed product. Caving to House managers' demands would have set a dangerous precedent and dramatically altered the constitutional order, further weaponizing impeachment and encouraging more of them. Now that the trial is over, I sincerely hope everyone involved has renewed appreciation for the genius of our Founding Fathers and for the separation of powers they incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. I also hope all the players in this national travesty go forward with a greater sense of humility and recognition of the limits the Constitution places on their respective offices. I am concerned about the divisiveness and bitterness that Chairman Nadler warned us about. We are a divided nation, and it often seems the lines are only hardening and growing farther apart. But hope lies in finding what binds us together--our love of freedom, our faith, our families. We serve those who elect us. It is appropriate and necessary to engage in discussion and debate to sway public opinion, but in the end, it is essential that we rely upon, respect, and accept the public's electoral decisions. In addition, I ask unanimous consent that my November 18, 2019, letter to Congressmen Nunes and Jordan, and the January 22, 2020, Real Clear Investigations article written by Paul Sperry be printed in the Record following my remarks. The November 18, 2019, letter responds to Nunes' and Jordan's request to provide information regarding my firsthand knowledge of events regarding Ukraine that were relevant to the impeachment inquiry. The January 22, 2020, article was referenced in my question to the House managers and counsel to the President during the 16-hour question and answer phase of the impeachment trial. Specifically, that question asked: ``Recent reporting described two NSC staff holdovers from the Obama administration attending an `all hands' meeting of NSC staff held about two weeks into the Trump administration and talking loudly enough to be overheard saying, `we need to do everything we can to take out the president.' On July 26, 2019, the House Intelligence Committee hired one of those individuals, Sean Misko. The report further describes relationships between Misko, Lt. Col. Vindman, and the alleged whistleblower. Why did your committee hire Sean Misko the day after the phone call between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, and what role has he played throughout your committee's investigation?''

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chief Justice, I send a question to the desk on behalf of myself and Senators Hawley, Cruz, Cramer, Braun, Perdue, Barrasso, Rubio, Risch, Sullivan, Ernst, Scott of Florida, Daines, and Fischer for both the House managers, with response from the counsel for the President.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chief Justice, I send a question to the desk for the President's counsel.

Mr. JOHNSON

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