Tim Kaine

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that floor privileges be granted to J.C. Jain, a State Department fellow in my office, and Mark Ewachiw, a Navy fellow in my office, for the duration of the 116th Congress.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the War Powers Resolution that I filed on Friday, January 3, with Senator Durbin. I spoke yesterday at some length about the painful history of relations between Iran and the United States and the escalating tensions in the last 3 years that have brought us to the brink of war. As we stand at the brink, with military actions by Iran and the United States causing battlefield casualties on the other side, I believe that it is imperative for Congress to reassert itself and make plain that no President should have the ability to take the Nation to war on his or her own. Let me talk about the Constitution and about the value judgment underlying the allocation of war powers in the Constitution and then the resolution that is now pending, having been filed in the Senate. First, on the Constitution, the Constitution as drafted in 1787 has a series of provisions. Some are somewhat vague. In the Bill of Rights, what is an unreasonable search? Some are extremely precise. You have to be 35 years old to be President. If you look at the Constitution, you can see a variety of provisions, some more specific and some a little more open-ended. Actually, the war powers part of the Constitution--though not completely without ambiguity--is one of the clearest parts of the Constitution. In article I, the power to declare war is given to Congress, not to the President and not to the Judiciary--to Congress. In article II, the President is declared to be the Commander in Chief of the military. If you read the constitutional debates at the time, what emerges is a fairly clear understanding by those who were at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia that was both clear but also quite unusual. The understanding was that for a war to start, Congress should vote for it to be initiated, but then, once started, the last thing you would need is 535 commanders in chief. So once Congress had voted to start a war, at that point the prosecution of the war becomes for the President and the military command, not to be micromanaged by 535 Members of Congress. This was fairly clear, and it was very unusual. It was very unusual because at that point in history, in 1787, war and the declaration of war was not primarily legislative. It was for the executive. It was for the King, for the Monarch, for the Pope, for the Emperor, or for the Sultan. War had been, throughout history, an executive function, not a legislative function. But the Framers of the Constitution and the constitutional debates made plain that they were really trying to change human history, at least in so far as the United States went. Then, in this country, the initiation of war would be done by Congress. Why was it done that way? Well, we have the virtue of a Virginian who was not only one of the drafters of the Constitution but who kept notes of the Constitutional Convention and then wrote letters about what they intended. Ten years after the Constitution was written in 1787, James Madison wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson and directly addressed why it is that the power to declare war is something for Congress. He said this: ``The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.'' For this reason, we have ``with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature.'' They recognized that Executives were prone to war, and they wanted the legislature to have to sign off on the initiation of war. It was unusual then, and it is unusual now that the initiation of war is to be left to the legislature. Why is that provision in the Constitution? Why would we want to leave the question about whether war should be started to Congress rather than let the President do it as would be the case in other nations? It is about a value judgment. As important as the constitutional provision is, I would argue that what is more important is the value judgment that underlies this requirement of congressional authorization, and the value judgment is about the men and women who serve in our military. Any war runs the risk that the young men and women who serve in our military could lose their lives or could be injured or could see their friends lose their lives or be injured. When we send troops into war, they may suffer an injury--traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder--that will affect the entire remainder of their lives in dramatic ways. If we affect their lives in that way, we affect the lives of their families and friends. The value judgment that sort of served as the pillar behind the provision that says Congress has to authorize war is this: If we are going to force young men and women to risk their lives, it should be based on a considered and open debate and a vote in full view of the American public. Then, there should be a vote about whether we are at war. If at the end of that debate--with the questions that get asked and the trading of perspectives--before the people's elected legislative branch, the legislature says that this is in the national interest and we should be at war, then, for those men and women who serve--yes, they are going to serve and risk their lives and risk their health and risk what might happen to them for the rest of their life-- we will only ask them to do that if there is a considered judgment that war is in the national interest. That is the value judgment that underlies the most unusual part of the Constitution, that war can't be started except by Congress. If we have that debate and vote, then, it is a fair request to ask that of people--like my boy in the Marines or the 1 million-plus people who serve in the military. It is a fair request to deploy them and have them risk their lives. But how dare we order troops into harm's way, where they could risk their lives or health possibly for the rest of their life, if we in Congress are unwilling to have a debate and have a vote. Sadly, throughout the history of this country--and this is a completely nonpartisan statement--with Whigs and Federalists, Democrats and Republicans, and with different parties in control of the legislative bodies and different parties represented in the White House, Congress has managed to figure out a way to avoid debate and avoid voting if they can. War votes are tough. I have had to cast two during the time I have been in the Senate as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. I have cast thousands of votes in my life as a city council member and as a Senator. I will tell you that a war vote is categorically different than any other vote you will ever cast. They are hard. They can be unpopular. There are going to be bad consequences of a war vote. There may be an understandable human tradition in Congress to try to avoid it, but it is a responsibility that cannot be avoided. How can we order people to risk their lives when we are unwilling to risk the political challenges of a vote on war? That is the constitutional history. That is why the article I branch--the first among equals--is charged with the responsibility of initiating war, and that is the value judgment that underlies that constitutional provision. What does our resolution do? Our resolution is filed pursuant to the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act was passed at the tail end of the Vietnam war. Senator Durbin did a good job yesterday of sort of going into the history of the passage of the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act was trying to do two things. In the aftermath of the Vietnam war, they were analyzing what had gone wrong during it. There were a number of points along the way where the President did not keep Congress informed. There was a bombing campaign that started in Laos, for example, during the Vietnam war, about which Congress wasn't informed, and there were activities in Cambodia about which Congress wasn't informed. Then, the second thing we were trying to do was not just to require Presidents to inform Congress but also to give Congress the ability to have a debate and have a vote on the floor in case the President started hostilities without coming to Congress. The President should keep Congress informed and not hide the ball from Congress, and Congress needs a procedure to stop a war that is initiated by a President who doesn't come to Congress. Here is the procedure under which we have filed our resolution. If a President puts U.S. troops into hostilities without a congressional authorization--even if the President claims a legal right to do so-- self-defense, article II power--but if the President puts U.S. troops into hostilities without a congressional authorization, any Member of Congress can file a resolution to remove the U.S. troops from hostilities and force a vote on that resolution within a prompt period of time. That is the resolution Senator Durbin and I filed last Friday. President Trump has engaged the United States in hostilities with Iran. People have different points of view about whether that is a good thing or bad thing, but now that there are battlefield casualties on both the U.S. and Iranian sides, it is clear that this provision of the statute has been met. We are engaged in hostilities with Iran. Not only are the United States and Iran engaged in hostilities that have inflicted casualties on the other side, but the President is essentially acknowledging that we are in hostilities because he is sending War Powers notices to Congress--one in November and one last Saturday--reporting on his actions and saying that the reports are consistent with the War Powers Act. He recognizes that hostilities are underway. The current hostilities are not pursuant to a previously passed congressional authorization. The 2001 authorization for use of military force authorized military action against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack. Iran was not a perpetrator of the 9/11 attack, and there is no argument that they are covered by that authorization. There was a separate authorization passed by Congress in 2002. That is the most recent one that has been passed. It authorized action to topple the Iraqi Government of Saddam Hussein. That government is long gone, and that authorization does not permit attacks on Iran or on the current Iraqi leadership, such as the individuals who were killed in the two sets of U.S. strikes. With these two threshold questions met, hostilities are underway as defined by the War Powers Act, and they are not subject to a previous congressional authorization. We have now filed a resolution to get Congress to reassert its constitutional role. The resolution demands that U.S. forces be withdrawn from hostilities against Iran unless Congress affirmatively passes a declaration of war or authorization, or the United States needs to defend itself from an imminent attack. If my resolution passes, Congress would still have the ability to pass an authorization, if it chose to, and the United States would still be able to defend itself against imminent attack, but the President could not act on his own to start a war with Iran except in those circumstances. The resolution does not require that U.S. troops withdraw from the region. We are doing many things in the region. Thousands of Americans are there partaking in missions that increase the security of the United States and our allies. There is no requirement that we withdraw from the region. These missions include security cooperation with partner forces, fighting against elements of al-Qaida, ISIS, and the Taliban, and ensuring the safe passage of commercial vehicles through freedom of navigation operations. All those activities that are being conducted by the United States in the region can continue. The resolution does not hold those forces into question or question their mission. The only thing the resolution would accomplish, if passed, is to back the U.S. troops away from engagement and hostilities with Iran unless for imminent defense or pursuant to a separate authorization. I would hope to have the support of all my colleagues on this resolution. Its passage would preserve the option of U.S. military action for self-defense. It would preserve the ability of Congress to declare war or pass a war authorization. It would only prohibit this President or any President from taking us to war on his own. I heard one colleague say: ``The last thing America needs is 535 Commanders in Chief.'' I completely agree. Once Congress authorizes a war, it should be up to the Commander and the military leadership to wage that war and make the tactical decisions about how to fight it, but the question of whether we should be at war at all is one that is specifically left to Congress. Let me finish by again focusing on our troops. So many members of the military were home for the holidays, enjoying time with their families, and then received surprise notices that they must redeploy to the Middle East yet again. Imagine the cost of two decades of war on these troops and their families. Some of these folks have deployed over and over and over again. Imagine being at home at Christmas and receiving the notice you have to deploy yet again to the Middle East. We are living in a challenging time. Many Americans know nothing but permanent war. We have been at war since 2001. There are Americans, including Americans in the military, that that has been their whole life. That is all they know. Yet, at the same time, many Americans know nothing about war. Because we have an all-volunteer service, many American families are completely untouched by the war. Only 1 percent of our adult population serves in the military. We have an interesting dynamic that may be sort of unique to our history, whether we have been at war for 20 years and some only know permanent war, while many other American families know nothing about war because members of their families don't serve in the military. We put war on a footing where it can go on forever, sort of like on ``Executive autopilot'' by Presidential order, and Congress, in my view--and, again, this is bipartisan--has hidden from its responsibilities. At this moment of very grave danger, where both Americans and Iranians are losing their lives in hostilities, it is time for Congress to shoulder the burden of making the most important decision we will ever face. That is why I intend to bring this resolution to the floor of the Senate and ask my colleagues to debate and vote on it in the coming weeks. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

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

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I am glad to be joined today by my colleague from Illinois, who is a personal mentor of mine. We are here to talk about the threat of war with Iran and about the Constitution. I have been worried about this threat for some time, ever since President Trump chose to ignore the advice of his key national security professionals and allies by abandoning America's commitment to a diplomatic deal to limit Iran's nuclear program. The President's action since that tragic decision and the easily predictable responses of Iran to his actions have resulted in an escalating set of hostilities between the United States and Iran and its proxies. I will state at the outset my conclusion. I believe that the United States should not be at war in Iran and that, indeed, another war in the Middle East now would be catastrophic. But I recognize that some of my colleagues may have a different point of view. So I speak in the hopes of forging a consensus on at least one issue, and that issue is this: If there is to be a war with Iran, it should not be initiated by this President or any President acting on his or her own. It should only be initiated by a vote of Congress following an open and public debate in full view of the American people. Every Member of Congress should vote and then be accountable for the question of whether another war in the Middle East is a good idea. The demand for congressional accountability is constitutionally required in the unique constitutional framework that we have. We pledge to support and defend the principle that it is up to Congress to declare war, not the President. If we engage in a war, the odds are high that young American men and women will be killed or injured. Some will see their friends killed and injured. Some will have the remainder of their lives affected by physical and emotional injuries, post-traumatic stress, the pain of losing friends, and their families and friends will bear those scars as well. If we are to order our troops and their families to run that risk, then, it should be based on a public consensus as reflected in an open congressional debate and vote that war is in the national interest. If Congress debates the matter in full view of the public and reaches the conclusion that war is necessary, so be it. Even if I were to vote no, if the majority of my colleagues voted yes, I would agree that the decision to go to war was a legitimate basis to order our best and brightest into harm's way. But by what right do we consign our troops to possible injury and death if we are unwilling to have a debate and cast a vote ourselves? We cannot hide under our desks, outsource our constitutional duty to any President, and pretend that we can avoid accountability for war and its consequences. Over the course of this week, I will address three topics about the issue of war with Iran. The first subject which I will address today is this: How did we get here? How did we come to the place where the United States and Iran are trading violent attacks against one another and what does that mean for our country, the region, and the world? In the coming days, I will address two additional topics. I will discuss how Congress should reclaim its constitutional war-making powers by acting on a privileged resolution that Senator Durbin and I have filed on January 3 to remove U.S. troops from hostilities with Iran unless Congress passes a new declaration or legal authorization initiating such a war. The resolution, which is also being offered on the House side by Representative Slotkin, will give all 535 Members of Congress the opportunity to declare where they are on the advisability of a war with Iran, and it also gives them an opportunity to affirm their commitment to their oath of office. Finally, later in the week, I will address the larger question of how the United States should deescalate tensions in the Middle East so that we might better protect American lives and promote peace and stability in a very turbulent part of the world. How did we get here? The United States and Iran have a very troubled history. When Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossaddegh, supported efforts to nationalize private energy resources, the United States and Britain orchestrated a coup that led to his ouster in 1953. The overthrow of Iran's democratic government, partially with U.S. support, led to the strengthened rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled Iran as an Emperor until he was overthrown in the Iranian revolution of 1979. His dictatorial rule, with strong support from the United States, increasingly alienated the Iranian population. When he fled the country during the revolution, Iran abolished the monarchy and declared itself an Islamic republic. Within a few months after the revolution, Iranian protestors took over the American Embassy in Iran. For those of us who saw the protests outside the American Embassy in Baghdad last week, the images of the Iranian Embassy hostage taking in Iran in 1979 were at the front of our minds. The protesters cited America's role in the 1953 coups, and they asked the United States to return the Shah, who had come to the United States seeking medical attention, to Iran for trial. The United States refused. Iran held 52 Americans hostage for more than 440 days until they were finally released in the first days of the Reagan administration. After this attack--this inexcusable attack on the American Embassy-- U.S. and Iran diplomatic relations were severed. The United States has imposed significant economic sanctions against Iran for decades. The United States provided support for Iraq in its 8-year war against Iran--a war in which hundreds of thousands of Iranians were killed. In 1988, the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian commercial airliner, killing 290 passengers and its crew. Iran has engaged in hostilities against the United States and our allies in many settings--through targeted attacks and assassinations around the world, covert and overt support for terrorist organizations, and development of weapons systems in violation of U.N. security resolutions. Iran has been directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and indirectly responsible for many, many more. These activities over many decades have led America for years to view Iran as a key promoter of terrorism and one of the most concerning nation-state adversaries of the United States. In recent years, a particular focus has been Iran's nuclear program. Despite Iran's claim that it sought nuclear power purely for peaceful purposes, legitimate suspicion of its intent led to a global campaign led by the United States to sanction Iran even more as a means of getting the country to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons. After years of negotiations between six nations--France, Britain, the United States, Germany, Russia, China--and Iran, an agreement was reached in 2015 whereby Iran would pledge never to seek, acquire, or develop nuclear weapons in exchange for gradual relaxation of sanctions against Iran. The agreement, known as the JCPOA, contained strict limits on Iran's nuclear program that would gradually relax over 25 years. Iran's pledge to never acquire or develop nuclear weapons was permanent, as was its commitment to abide by the inspection protocols of the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure compliance with that fundamental pledge. The JCPOA was not perfect, but it carefully preserved the ability of the United States and other nations to continue sanctions against Iran for its other activities and offered an opportunity for the first time in four decades for the United States and Iran to communicate through an established diplomatic process. As the Trump administration took office, the President pledged to undo this diplomatic deal, the JCPOA. The nations that agreed to the deal pointed out that Iran was complying with the deal, as did the IAEA, and the key officials of President Trump's national security team--Defense Secretary Mattis, Secretary of State Tillerson, National Security Advisor McMaster, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dunford--all argued that the agreement was working and should be maintained. But President Trump made the decision that the United States should abandon the diplomatic deal. The U.S. abandonment of a working diplomatic deal was historic. No U.S. President had ever walked away from a diplomatic commitment of this kind. Many of us, at the time, warned the President that abandoning diplomacy, against the advice of allies and our national security professionals, would likely lead us to an unnecessary war. It was just a matter of time. Indeed, since the beginning of the Trump administration, there have been increasing back-and-forth provocations that have now led us to a state of active hostilities between the United States and Iran. Unclassified examples of U.S. activity under the Trump administration that have escalated hostilities with Iran include the following: On December 12, 2017, the United States and Israel reached a joint strategic work plan to counter Iranian activity in the Middle East that included preparation for military escalation scenarios against Iran. On May 8, 2018, President Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA after promising to do so for months. On May 21, 2018, Secretary of State Pompeo, who had earlier expressed a preference for bombing Iran rather than entering into the JCPOA, vowed to ``crush'' Iranian operatives and proxies. On July 23, 2018, President Trump tweeted a threat to President Rouhani, warning that Iran would ``SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.'' On August 6, 2018, the Trump administration unilaterally imposed economic sanctions lifted as part of the JCPOA, despite Iran's continued compliance with the deal. In September of 2018, it was reported that new National Security Advisor John Bolton had asked the Department of Defense to prepare war plans against Iran. Later the same month, Bolton warned Iran that there would be ``hell to pay'' if the nation ever crossed the United States. On October 3, 2018, the Trump administration terminated the 1955 Treaty of Amity affirming friendly relations between the United States and Iran. The United States terminated it. The treaty itself had long ago been made irrelevant by the actual hostilities between the nations, but the action of the United States in finding the treaty and publicly terminating it unilaterally was seen as a part of a pattern of hostile intent. As early as the fall of 2018, Department of Defense officials began to express concern that the U.S. maximum security pressure campaign against Iran was raising the risk of Iranian retaliation against American troops in Iraq and Syria. In an October 26 article in the Wall Street Journal, DOD officials were quoted as expressing concern that Iran's belief that the United States was helping Israel with airstrikes would jeopardize American lives in the region. On November 5, 2018, President Trump imposed additional sanctions on Iranian oil, shipping, and banking sectors. On February 3, 2019, President Trump stated on ``Face the Nation'' that troops being withdrawn from Syria would be moved to Iraq to serve as a check against Iran. On February 11, 2019, Advisor Bolton released a video addressed to the 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution, stating that Iran's leaders would not ``have many more anniversaries to enjoy.'' On February 13, 2019, the Trump administration convened a meeting in Poland that was publicly described by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his official website as designed to ``advance the common interest of war'' against Iran. In March 2019, press accounts revealed that the Department of Energy had approved seven transfers of nuclear technical information from U.S. companies to Saudi Arabia without informing Congress. The transfers were made despite U.S. awareness that the Government of Saudi Arabia had publicly threatened to develop nuclear weapons to counter Iran. On April 8, 2019, the United States designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization, the first time that had ever been used to apply to a foreign governmental entity. On May 5, 2019, Advisor Bolton announced deployment of the Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command for the expressed purpose of countering Iran. On May 8, 2019, the Trump administration ordered new sanctions against Iran's metal industry. On May 10, 2019, the New York Times reported on war plans developed by the administration that could deploy up to 120,000 additional U.S. troops to the Middle East to counter Iran. On the same day, the administration deployed Patriot missiles to U.S. Central Command to counter Iran. On May 24, 2019, the Trump administration bypassed Congress, declaring an emergency citing ``Iranian malign activity'' in order to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In June of 2019, President Trump ordered 3,500 more troops of the U.S. military to the Middle East to check Iran. On June 20, 2019, the United States initiated a strike against Iranian positions that was aborted at the last minute by President Trump. On June 24, 2019, President Trump imposed additional sanctions against Iran. On September 15, 2019, after drone attacks on two key oil installations in Saudi Arabia, President Trump tweeted that the United States was ``locked and loaded depending on verification from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of the attack.'' On November 19, 2019, President Trump notified Congress that ``consistent with the War Powers Resolution,'' he was deploying additional U.S. weapons and troops to Saudi Arabia to counter Iran. On December 29, 2019, following a rocket attack from an Iranian- backed militia in Iraq that killed an American contractor and wounded several others, the U.S. military struck Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq and Syria, killing dozens. On January 2, 2019, President Trump ordered a drone strike killing Qasem Soleimani, a key Iranian military commander as well as a key Iraqi military leader. The December and January strikes in Iraq were carried out despite the objections of the Iraqi Government and without any prior notification to Congress. Two days after the Soleimani strike, the President notified Congress of the action, which had been in the newspaper, obviously, ``consistent with the War Powers Resolution.'' Now, during the same time, Iran has conducted escalatory activities as well. Their bellicose behavior includes continued arming and financial backing of Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization which carried out the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut as well as efforts to target Israeli citizens and troops; support for the Houthis, including the supplying of ballistic missiles, thus escalating the civil war in Yemen; direct participation of troops and commanders in support of Bashar al-Assad's murderous campaign against the Syrian people; support for the Popular Mobilization Committee-affiliated Shia militias in Iraq, which pose a direct threat to U.S. personnel; unjust detention of U.S. citizens; cyber attacks on U.S. officials, agencies, and companies; the downing of a U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle in June of 2019; UAV strikes against Saudi oil facilities in September 2019; persistent interference with commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz; militia attacks on the Iraqi base in December that killed an American contractor; and stoking popular unrest against the United States in Iraq that encouraged the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad last week. I have given you these examples for a reason. You can see the reason. There has been an escalation that began with the U.S. decision to destroy a diplomatic deal, and it has been one nation acting and the other responding, and the other acting and the other responding, and now we are on the brink of war. The escalation has been so significant between the United States and Iran that now each country has been responsible for actively inflicting injuries and deaths on the other, and we are at the brink of war. Thousands of American servicemembers enjoying the holidays with their families were surprised by notices in the last few days that they must now deploy to the Middle East yet again. The current state of hostilities is causing other serious consequences. The U.S. abandonment of the diplomatic deal, together with other actions, has seriously jeopardized our relations with many allies, particularly our European allies. The U.S. abandonment of a diplomatic deal over a nuclear program has made it much harder to find a diplomatic deal with North Korea. The U.S. decision to carry out strikes on Iraqi soil over Iraqi objections has badly damaged U.S.-Iraq relations. Just yesterday, the Iraqi Parliament voted to ask all U.S. troops to leave Iraq. If that occurs, it will further destabilize a country that has been wracked with protests in recent months, and it will embolden both ISIS and Iran. U.S. actions have had the unlikely effect of driving three of our principled nation-state adversaries into historically unprecedented levels of cooperation. Just recently, Iran, China, and Russia conducted joint naval operations in the Gulf of Oman. Notably, the U.S. actions that I have described here have been carried out mostly by President Trump without congressional approval and often without any notice or any consultation with Congress. Members of Congress on the relevant committees have had to read about these actions in the newspapers rather than being informed by the Trump administration. At this particular moment, with the specter of war so present, it is time for Congress to assert itself. We cannot let a President destroy American diplomacy on its own. We cannot let a President take our Nation, take our troops, and take our best and brightest into an unnecessary war on his own. Indeed, we cannot leave the lives of our troops up to the whim of this President or of any President. That is why Senator Durbin and I have introduced, pursuant to the same War Powers Act referenced by the President, a resolution that will force the removal of U.S. troops from hostilities with Iran unless Congress independently votes that we should be at war. Congress has the responsibility, and Congress must act to shoulder its responsibility. I will offer more comments on the resolution later this week, but I appreciate the support of my colleague, who, as I said, in many ways, is my mentor in the Senate, the Senator from Illinois. I yield the floor to him.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Protecting Critical Services for Mothers and Babies Act, with my colleague Senator Perdue. Enacting this bill will help ensure that mothers and infants across the country continue to receive access to important health programs. About 700 women die each year in the United States from complications during or after pregnancy, a problem that disproportionately affects Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native women. In the face of these challenges, organizations like March of Dimes provide services that disseminate health information to pregnant women and mothers and support care for premature and ill infants. Inflexible funding rules and historically low interest rates have combined to result in a sharp increase in March of Dimes' pension funding obligations next year. This Act will extend more flexible rules to organizations that have a long track record of serving maternal and infant health needs. These rules, already offered to other organizations, will continue to protect plan participants while also smoothing out pension funding obligations. This change will ensure that resources are not diverted away from important maternal and infant health programs.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Protecting Critical Services for Mothers and Babies Act, with my colleague Senator Perdue. Enacting this bill will help ensure that mothers and infants across the country continue to receive access to important health programs. About 700 women die each year in the United States from complications during or after pregnancy, a problem that disproportionately affects Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native women. In the face of these challenges, organizations like March of Dimes provide services that disseminate health information to pregnant women and mothers and support care for premature and ill infants. Inflexible funding rules and historically low interest rates have combined to result in a sharp increase in March of Dimes' pension funding obligations next year. This Act will extend more flexible rules to organizations that have a long track record of serving maternal and infant health needs. These rules, already offered to other organizations, will continue to protect plan participants while also smoothing out pension funding obligations. This change will ensure that resources are not diverted away from important maternal and infant health programs.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise today to say just a word about Veterans Day, but then to talk about our Nation's historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions. We will celebrate Veterans Day as a nation on Monday, so this will be an opportunity to stand as a Member of the Armed Services Committee and as a Senator from a very militarily connected State to echo the words of Senator Thune from a few minutes ago that we owe a huge debt to our veterans. Also, November 10 is the 244th anniversary of the Marine Corps. As a father of a U.S. marine, I also want to specifically offer my congratulations to the Corps. One of the joys of serving in the Senate and being on the Armed Services Committee from a State that has the military tradition of Virginia is the ability to meet wonderful leaders all around my commonwealth, all around the country, and all around the globe. For those serving our country, we are in their debt. I do want to point out that we are having a debate on the floor over the Defense appropriations. The Senator from South Dakota spoke a little bit about that. I just want to lay out from the Democratic perspective what is at stake. It is not support of the military that is at stake. As an Armed Services Committee member, I am devoted to making sure we get to the right appropriations level for the Department of Defense. What is holding this up is not one party or the other not supporting the military. What is holding this up is that Democrats do not approve of the practice that has been engaged in by President Trump of rummaging through the Defense Department's budget to come up with money for a border wall, which our military leadership says is a nonmilitary issue. We do not believe that once Congress appropriates money for a defense budget, the President should be able to use an emergency declaration to go into the coffers of the Pentagon and cannibalize projects that affect our military families to use for the border wall. To the extent there is a dispute right now, that is what the dispute is about. It is not support for the Defense Department or not; it is whether we should allow a rummage sale in the Pentagon budget to fund a border wall. If you are going to have a discussion about border wall funding, let's do that separately, but let's not cannibalize the Defense Department's budget to do it.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I want to wish a happy 25th anniversary to North of the James magazine and congratulate it on reaching this milestone. I want to thank editor Charles McGuigan and all who worked tirelessly to make the publication what it is today. The magazine started off in a garage in Richmond's North Side neighborhood. It has been exciting to see the news outlet grow and become an integral part of the community it serves. North of the James has served as a unique, hyper-local voice that Richmonders can relate to. This is evident by the loyal readership in the area throughout all these years. I am proud that this year, Charles McGuigan was awarded first place for the feature writing portfolio by the Virginia Press Association. He also was awarded second place for the feature titled ``Kaity Kasper: Blazing into that Good Night.'' I was proud to be featured by the magazine in 2012, and I was humbled to be among great Virginians, like Oliver Hill, who have been on the cover over the years. Local news is a vital part of our communities. Whether it is keeping readers informed about art exhibits and food or shining a spotlight on Virginians, we are grateful for North of the James' dedication to serving Richmonders for the past 25 years. I know they will keep up the great work.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their eloquent words on behalf of the Federal contractors. If you are a Virginia Senator, and if you are a Maryland Senator, you meet Federal contractors on any occasion all around the State. We often think of the Federal contractors as significantly located in the DC- Metro area or in Hampton Roads, but some of the smallest counties in Virginia have significant Federal contractors. So I am very happy to join my colleagues and applaud Senator Smith's efforts in this regard. All Americans were affected by the unnecessary shutdown at the end of last year--people trying to go to parks to enjoy time with their families or visiting other Federal installations that were down. We saw the lines of Federal employees waiting outside of Jose Andres's DC Central Kitchen in cold January weather. Federal employees, many in uniform, were trying to get free meals. Some of the most affected, as my colleagues have explained, were workers who were suddenly without paychecks through no fault of their own. These workers--800,000 of them--worked directly for the Federal Government. We were able to secure backpay for those workers and in a very positive way. This is something that the body did together, which I think is important. We not only got a backpay bill for Federal workers for those affected by the last shutdown, but we put in a guarantee that in any future shutdown they would get their pay. Once you have done that as a guarantee, why have a shutdown? If you have guaranteed that people will be paid, why would you lock them out of their office and deprive them of the ability to serve their fellow Americans? Hundreds of thousands of contract workers were not included in that backpay bill, and thus they have been left behind. Many of these Americans are paid on an hourly basis. They are not annual salary employees, and they do live paycheck to paycheck. When the shutdown hit, they went home without pay for weeks--5 weeks--and no word on when or whether their job would start back up again. The people I meet who are in this category are very hard-working. They are security guards; they are cafeteria workers; they are cleaning staff; they are IT workers--people whose diligent functioning in their jobs sort of keep the lights on and the enterprise going. Missing a whole month's pay is not a trivial thing for most American families, and many of the families had to borrow, rely on friends and families to get by, and used the services of soup kitchens or clothes closets. Many likely are still carrying debt incurred because of the shutdown. Some had to make withdrawals from their Federal Thrift Savings Plans, with penalty and interest because of that. The individuals were affected, but it is also, bluntly, their families, and even the communities and local businesses in and around where there are these contracting employees. During the shutdown, I asked Virginians to share stories with me, and many did. These are Federal employees who were affected by the shutdown, but it was not just the employees who shared it, it was also these contractors. Of course, I did hear a number of stories of Virginians coming together. I had a chance to go work as a volunteer at the DC Central Kitchen, and what struck me is how many of the volunteers were people who had been furloughed. They weren't being paid, and they wanted to serve their fellow Americans, but because they were being locked out of their office, they decided to go to the Central Kitchen and work serving meals to their Federal colleagues. Alongside some of the stories that were coming together, I did hear tough stories about people who ended up forgoing necessary expenses. I will just read a couple to you. These are all from Virginians who are Federal contractors. Michael, from Herndon said: Like many of your constituents, I work as a government contractor for a small business. My entire household income depends on serving government clients, which I am unable to do in light of the government shutdown. My company is losing revenue every day and has arrived at the point where we must force employees to use vacation, take leave without pay, or be furloughed. Unlike federal employees who will almost certainly receive back pay once the shutdown is resolved, my employees and I have no such recourse. I've lived in the Washington DC area for almost 25 years and worked exclusively in serving the government industry, and this is the first time I've been compelled to contact my elected officials. Bottom line: I'm struggling. My employees are struggling. Our families are struggling. Small business[es] are the engine of economic growth and stability in our region and the shutdown is destroying us. Please work with all parties to reopen the government as soon as possible. Sukumar, from Great Falls said: I am the CEO of a small business in Virginia which is 100% focused on federal contracts. After two weeks of shutdown and no end in sight, we are nearing a point where were are losing revenue (because our people can't work), invoices are not getting paid by the Government and we are facing a dire cash flow situation. This will affect our ability to make payroll needing to borrow monies at higher interest rates and increase the perils of shutting down our business. Many of our furloughed employees are having a tough time paying bills and making ends meet. Some of them are contemplating a private sector career, leading to the loss of valuable talent to serve the government. Virginia, from McLean said: I am a federal contractor working in Washington D.C. and a lifelong Virginia resident. I have been furloughed due to the government shutdown, and because of my status as a contractor will not be receiving compensation after this is over. . . . This is not a vacation for me, nor is it a vacation for any federal worker. . . . It's impossible to plan for lost pay when you are unsure how much pay you might be losing, and it's impossible to amend deadlines when you aren't sure how many projects are going to go unattended to and for how long. Many argue that federal workers should have savings to prepare themselves for the shutdown but I am a young person, this is my first job. A Washington Post article from January detailed the struggles of many low-wage workers, including one who lives in the District, Julia, a contracted janitor for the last 27 years, most recently at the Department of Agriculture, who cares for her elderly mother with dementia. She has had to use the last of her sick days to keep money coming in. All told, she lost $1,000 in savings, went into debt, and relied on the charity of churches for free meals. Again, these are people who make the life choice--they could have made other choices, but they make the life choice to serve our government, meaning serving by, of, and for the people. They did that not for grand fame or glory or riches, but they do have an expectation that they will not be gratuitously kicked around--maybe a thank-you or maybe just being treated fairly. I think we did take a step forward when we passed the backpay bill to guarantee that Federal workers would be treated fairly. I think Senator Smith's amendment, which I am proud to be an original cosponsor of, that I hope we will have a chance to take up, would remedy the situation with respect to these workers. This is not for every contractor. This is the Fair Compensation for Low-Wage Workers Act, so it is specifically focused on compensation for the contractors who receive low wages, those who are most vulnerable and were most affected by losing salary for 5 weeks. Here is the good news: The House included this provision in its appropriations bill this past summer. It is not in the appropriations bill we are now considering in the Senate. I implore the majority leader and all of my colleagues to do for these low-wage Federal contractors what we did for Federal employees: recognize the hardships the shutdown caused these workers and their families and add backpay for Federal contractors, which is the bill we are getting ready to vote on. This would be a little step forward and a precedent. We haven't necessarily done this in the past, but just as the guarantee of backpay for Federal employees, I believe, starts to build in a little bit of firewall against a shutdown, I actually think having a rule, a norm, that we would provide backpay for low-wage Federal contractors also starts to provide a little bit of a firewall against a shutdown. I think we should all be anti-shutdown, and having mechanisms that make it harder to shut the government down, or less likely that we would shut it down, is something we should all support. Without us intervening and doing right by these workers, many of them will take years to recover from the financial hole the shutdown put them in. I ask my colleagues to join together and support Senator Smith and her amendment. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Delaware for his comments. I rise to continue to speak about the U.S. retreat from Syria and our alliance with our Kurdish allies. The hasty withdrawal of the United States from northern Syria produced vivid and painful pictures of U.S. troops being pelted with stones and rotting vegetables as they walked away from the Kurdish allies they had stood alongside in the fight against ISIS for years-- those Kurdish allies who had fought so valiantly with the United States--our best battlefield partners--in the defeat of ISIS. The Trump retreat has been pitched by the President as a great victory for American foreign policy. It isn't. It is a grave failure that will ultimately make our country less safe. It is paving the way for potential ethnic cleansing. That has been testified to by administration officials. In the last 2 weeks, 176,000 Kurds--more than half of them children-- have been displaced. President Trump claims that the Kurds understand we are doing them a great service. That is just flatly wrong. The Trump retreat empowers Russia, empowers Iran, empowers the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, who is an international pariah because he is responsible for human suffering at an unimaginable scale, and it also empowers Turkey, which, despite being a NATO member, has undergone a troubling slide toward authoritarianism. The Trump retreat has led us to abandon a steadfast U.S. ally, the Syrian Kurds. It is more than just abandoning them and walking away from them; the President reached out personally to say that they were no angels, thrashing them on the way out of the door. For what reason? The Trump retreat has already led to more than 100 ISIS prisoners escaping, according to the testimony of the special Ambassador who has been charged to be the envoy for the region, Ambassador Jeffrey. The President declared that they had ``been largely recaptured,'' but when Ambassador Jeffrey was asked yesterday about the President's claim, he stated: ``We do not know where they are.'' Based on testimony from military leadership and diplomats--testimony which was just read by Senator Carper--it is pretty clear that the President has increased the likelihood of a resurgence of ISIS with this move. We hope that does not happen, but it has largely been predicted by our defense leaders. What is the grand strategy here? If you look at this highly consequential decision, which is literally a life-and-death decision, and you look at how it was made, it becomes pretty clear to me that there wasn't a grand strategy. President Trump encouraged a career State Department diplomat, Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, who spent his whole life in this region, to come out of retirement and take a portfolio of responsibility for Syria and the anti-ISIS campaign. Ambassador Jeffrey was charged directly with this task, but Ambassador Jeffrey testified before the Foreign Relations Committee the other day that he was not even asked or consulted about the cause of action that this President took. Imagine how that would make you feel. You have retired. You are recruited by the President to come and lead the coalition against ISIS, to be responsible for the Syrian portfolio. The President makes a life- and-death decision about the Syrian mission and does not even ask you for your advice about it. This speaks volumes about the chaotic nature of the retreat. In July, Ambassador Jeffrey announced--and this was good news--that he and the team had convinced Britain and France to add troops to the mission--the anti-ISIS mission in Syria--to deal with this ISIS threat. That was announced 2 to 3 months ago. But what we heard after President Trump's announcement was that he did not consult with Britain and France, the nations that had made commitments and then bulked up their troop strength in the area. President Macron of France said he heard of President Trump's decision by tweet. So when neither the U.S. Ambassador charged with the responsibility of this mission, nor the British and French allies, who are also together with us on the battlefield, were consulted about this, that adds to the sense of chaos. I believe this: If the administration had come to Congress 3 months ago or 3 weeks ago and said: Here is our proposal. We want to empower Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Assad. We want to raise the risk of ISIS reconstituting. We want to walk away from the Kurds. We want to make other allies wonder about whether we will be loyal to them. And we want to send a message that protecting oil wells is more important than protecting allies--if the administration had come to the Armed Services or Foreign Relations Committee and said ``We have an idea. This is what we want to do. What do you think?'' I know what we would have done. I think virtually everyone in the body would have asked questions but would have laughed the strategy out of the room. But the President didn't come to Congress, didn't come to the relevant committees to share his thought or his idea about what should be done. Instead, he took the unilateral action, and now we are seeing the consequences of the Trump retreat. The Trump retreat was promoted at a press conference by the President yesterday with a branding, and the branding was ``Mission Accomplished and Promise Kept.'' That branding sent a very bizarre, chaotic, and contradictory message: We are protecting oilfields but not our allies from ISIS. We are pulling out of the region, but we are also putting thousands more troops in Saudi Arabia. We are pulling out of the region, but we have, in fact, added 14,000 more troops to the gulf since May. We are pulling back from the safe zone that we spent months trying to implement, just to put Russia in charge of that safe zone. We are empowering dictators, but we are abandoning allies. We are sending the signal in Saudi Arabia that the reason we are putting troops there is, as the President said, because they will pay for it, sending the message that our military are now mercenaries, that we would go to the country where the country will pay for it regardless of the human rights situation in that country. The withdrawal has made it very difficult for anybody to think about partnering with us in the future against a threat like ISIS. The Syrian Kurds and the Iraqi Kurds, by the way, are both very, very strong partners in the battle against ISIS. If ISIS does resurge, the normal reaction would be to go to our best battlefield partners and ask them if they would help us to defeat ISIS. The President has made it virtually impossible for us to go back to the Syrian Kurds and say: OK, well, now can you help us defeat ISIS again? And I think the President's actions this week have sent a message to other nations as well that when the United States asks you to get on the battlefield, you have to be worried about whether the United States will abandon you when it has decided your time is up. I want America--and I know the Presiding Officer does as well because of his background--to be the country that tells the world ``You can count on us,'' not the country about which the world says ``Don't believe a word they say.'' In my capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services and the Senate Foreign Relations Committees, I have spoken with a number of Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle about what we can do because I don't think the President is going to reverse course. But there are things we can do as the article I branch here to repair some of this or at least start on the road to repair. There is strong bipartisan support for the passage of the Risch- Menendez bill, which provides a path forward. This is a bill that deals with sanctioning Turkey for its behavior and calling the administration forward to present us with the anti-ISIS plan that should exist right now. I urge the Senate to take up that bill and pass it immediately. It has strong bipartisan support. I further urge the Senate to pass either the House resolution condemning the President's action or the resolution that Senator McConnell has introduced to condemn the President's action. I think either or both of those would be strong statements that the Senate could make. For some reason that has not yet been explained, the administration has refrained from implementing the mandatory CAATSA sanctions against Turkey following Turkey's purchase of the S-400 missile system from Russia. These are mandatory sanctions. By law, the President was supposed to have implemented them by now. We have heard from Brett McGurk, who is working in the region, that Vladimir Putin has looked at Americans and said: Hey, look, Turkey bought our system, and you guys haven't sanctioned Turkey yet, so you are a paper tiger. The actions of these sanctions are noticed in the region, and the region is wondering: They are mandatory. Yet the United States isn't implementing the sanctions. Why not? I call on the administration to reverse this decision and immediately implement the sanctions to send an important message to both Turkey and Russia. I call on Congress and the administration to be focused on the need for increased humanitarian assistance in the region. The 176,000 Kurds who have been displaced from their land already are likely to be followed by tens or hundreds of thousands more, and we should focus on what we might do in the humanitarian space to assist them. I believe that humanitarian assistance to international NGOs is important and, also, I would argue, humanitarian assistance to the KRG--to the Kurdistan Regional Government. Naturally, as the Kurds leave the space in northern Syria under attack from Turkey, one of the places they are likely to go is to Kurdistan and northern Iraq. In the first 10 days, nearly 9,000 Kurdish refugees from Syria have crossed the border into Iraq. So as we are looking to humanitarian assistance to deal with the scope of this crisis created by President Trump's action, I hope we will consider humanitarian support to the KRG as Kurds cross the border. I call on Congress to pass the bill that has been introduced by Senators Warner and Blumenthal, which would provide special immigrant visa opportunities for Kurdish translators and others who have worked alongside our military. This is something we have had a good track record of doing with people who supported our troops in Iraq and supported our troops in Afghanistan and then are left in harm's way because of that support. Those on the Kurdish side who have worked together with our troops in northern Syria, I think, should be extended the same special immigrant visa status. The administration should be asked to come to both Houses of Congress and testify about the plan to prevent a resurgent ISIS. This is something Americans should be afraid of. Maybe the administration has a plan about how they will try to protect against that happening, but whether they have a plan or not, they should come to Congress, and we should ask them about it. Finally, I want the White House to release the transcript of the call between President Trump and President Erdogan in which this deal was hashed. When I heard the testimony of Ambassador Jeffrey at the hearing yesterday--the testimony was public--that he wasn't consulted and that the British and French, who have just recently put in troops, weren't consulted, I still have real questions about why this decision was made. I believe those questions would largely be answered if the transcript of the call between Presidents Erdogan and Trump were delivered, whether in a classified or other context to Congress, so I call on the White House to release the transcript. I am going to conclude with this: Along with many of our colleagues today, I gathered here in the Chamber at 10:30 to go over to the memorial service for Elijah Cummings, and it was a powerful one. It was a powerful one. Not many Members of Congress--Senate or House--lie in state in the Capitol, and it was a moving occasion. I knew Elijah Cummings pretty well, being kind of a next-door neighbor of Virginia and Maryland. Over the years, we did a number of events together. One of the things that Representative Cummings used to say in one of these voices that sounded like it was coming out of the Old Testament--you know, it was a fire-and-brimstone voice--was this powerful, powerful statement: ``We are better than this.'' He would say that, and when he would say it, he would say it about a number of circumstances. He said it probably most recently, most vividly, when pictures emerged of children in cages at the border. But he would often say it, and he would say it to criticize actions. It would sound like a tough criticism. But as some of the eulogists today were mentioning that statement of Representative Cummings, I thought about ``We are better than this,'' what it means, and it suddenly struck me as not a critical statement. It suddenly struck me as an extremely optimistic and positive statement. I hadn't really thought of it that way until I heard it earlier today. Why do I say it was optimistic and positive? The statement ``We are better than this'' says that whatever the imperfections of the day, we are really more defined by our ideals than our imperfections. We are more defined by our values than our vices. And, sure, when he would use that statement, he would be criticizing an imperfection of the day--a bad decision or bad policy--but he would be criticizing it by saying that we as a country, we as a Congress, we as a Senate, even we as individuals are actually better than this. Our ideals are better than the way we are acting right now. If you look at reality, you can define it by its imperfection or you can try to define it by its ideals, and I would like to have a judge who looked at me and judged me by my ideals more than my imperfections, even while calling me to live up to my ideals. The fact that an Elijah Cummings, who had suffered throughout his life many kinds of second-class treatment of discrimination, even being routed into special ed classes as a kid because people thought he was slow when he was actually really, really gifted, the fact that he would go through life and still believe so strongly that our country's values and ideals were a more accurate reflection of who we are than our imperfections and vices is something that I found pretty inspirational as I thought about his life. I do believe we are better than this with respect to this particular issue. I think we are better than abandoning battlefield allies. I think we are better than empowering authoritarian dictatorships. I think we are better than suggesting we care more about oil than we care about people. I think we are better than facilitating ethnic cleansing of a proud population, including kids. I think we are better than this. So in the spirit of Representative Cummings, I am going to define us as a nation, us as a Senate, us as individuals more by our ideals than by our imperfect actions and then call us to live up to it. There are concrete steps we can take--some of which I have outlined--that I think will be more in tune with who we actually are and the ideals we hold. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President. As our Nation ages, we face a growing need for direct care professionals to care for older adults and people with disabilities. The U.S. Census Bureau projects the number of people aged 65 and older to more than double between 2015 and 2060, from nearly 48 million to 98 million. Approximately 61 million Americans are currently living with a disability. By 2024, 5 .2 million direct care workers will be needed across all care settings. Direct care workers, such as home health aides and nursing assistants, are the backbone of the long-term care workforce, providing daily assistance to millions of older Americans, people with disabilities, and others with chronic care needs. Direct care workers help ensure that older Americans and people with disabilities receive the critical care they need while remaining active members of their communities. However, direct care workers are often paid low wages and may face poor working conditions and economic insecurity. The majority of direct care workers are women and people of color. Some direct care workers do not have education beyond high school and lack access to a career pathway or advanced training. Twenty-four percent of home care workers live below the Federal poverty level and 52 percent of direct care workers rely on some form of public assistance to support themselves and their families. Today, I am pleased to introduce the Direct Creation, Advancement, and Retention of Employment Opportunity Act, or Direct CARE Opportunity Act, with Senator Hassan. I am proud to have partnered with my friend and colleague in the Virginia delegation Chairman Bobby Scott on this bill, who has also introduced the bill today in the House of Representatives. The Direct CARE Opportunity Act provides support for strategies to recruit, retain, and advance the direct care workforce pipeline. Our legislation would support the implementation of models and strategies to train more people in the direct care field, while allowing for local and regional innovation to address workforce shortages. We encourage retention and career advancement in a high- demand field where workers carry a large emotional burden and face barriers to economic mobility. Our legislation responds to the needs of our growing aging population, allowing older Americans, people with disabilities, and those with chronic illnesses to remain in their communities while receiving critical care and support, helping prevent costlier institutional care. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to see the Direct CARE Opportunity Act as a chance to invest in the professionals who care for millions of vulnerable Americans every day, ensuring they live with dignity and independence.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President. As our Nation ages, we face a growing need for direct care professionals to care for older adults and people with disabilities. The U.S. Census Bureau projects the number of people aged 65 and older to more than double between 2015 and 2060, from nearly 48 million to 98 million. Approximately 61 million Americans are currently living with a disability. By 2024, 5 .2 million direct care workers will be needed across all care settings. Direct care workers, such as home health aides and nursing assistants, are the backbone of the long-term care workforce, providing daily assistance to millions of older Americans, people with disabilities, and others with chronic care needs. Direct care workers help ensure that older Americans and people with disabilities receive the critical care they need while remaining active members of their communities. However, direct care workers are often paid low wages and may face poor working conditions and economic insecurity. The majority of direct care workers are women and people of color. Some direct care workers do not have education beyond high school and lack access to a career pathway or advanced training. Twenty-four percent of home care workers live below the Federal poverty level and 52 percent of direct care workers rely on some form of public assistance to support themselves and their families. Today, I am pleased to introduce the Direct Creation, Advancement, and Retention of Employment Opportunity Act, or Direct CARE Opportunity Act, with Senator Hassan. I am proud to have partnered with my friend and colleague in the Virginia delegation Chairman Bobby Scott on this bill, who has also introduced the bill today in the House of Representatives. The Direct CARE Opportunity Act provides support for strategies to recruit, retain, and advance the direct care workforce pipeline. Our legislation would support the implementation of models and strategies to train more people in the direct care field, while allowing for local and regional innovation to address workforce shortages. We encourage retention and career advancement in a high- demand field where workers carry a large emotional burden and face barriers to economic mobility. Our legislation responds to the needs of our growing aging population, allowing older Americans, people with disabilities, and those with chronic illnesses to remain in their communities while receiving critical care and support, helping prevent costlier institutional care. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to see the Direct CARE Opportunity Act as a chance to invest in the professionals who care for millions of vulnerable Americans every day, ensuring they live with dignity and independence.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I also rise to talk about gun violence. I express my appreciation for our Republican colleagues. Those of us on this side of the aisle feel very strongly about this issue. I understand we have gone a little bit past the time. I will try to be quick. I feel very strongly about it too. Let me just talk about two Virginia tragedies, and let me tell the story of a hero whose name we should all know. It has been interesting. I sat on the Senate floor and listened to a number of my colleagues' speeches. As they talked about gun violence and mass shooting in the United States, very few have mentioned that 12 people were killed in Virginia Beach in a mass shooting on May 31. They mentioned Odessa, they mentioned El Paso, and they mentioned Dayton. Why not Virginia Beach? Because there have been so many tragedies since May 31. The Virginia Beach shooting of 11 governmental employees and a contractor who was just there to get some permits for a building permit he was seeking happened barely 3 months ago, but it has already receded into the memory of virtually anybody outside of Virginia because the gun tragedies since have been the ones that have crowded into our minds. The fact that that has been allowed to happen--that we are so used to it now that the killing of 12 people in a mass shooting barely 3 months ago escaped people's memories--tells us we have become used to a situation we should never have been able to tolerate. In the Virginia Beach shooting, one of the reasons 12 people were killed quickly was the shooter used high-capacity magazines that would contain dozens and dozens of munition, which made the rescue operation conducted by brave first responders extremely difficult. We say we care about our first responders. When I talk to our first responders, they say: If you care about us, do something to restrict high-capacity magazines. Don't you want us to be able to stop a shooting in progress? Don't you want us to stop a murder and keep the homicides and carnage down? It is hard to do it when we are up against somebody with such a massive amount of firepower. If you care about first responders, if you want us to stop crimes in process, then enable us to put meaningful restrictions on high-capacity magazines. I think that was a powerful lesson from the Virginia Beach shooting, that had the magazines been smaller, they could have stopped the carnage earlier. There may have been those injured or killed, but it would have been less of a toll. I want to point this out before moving to the next issue. As a society, we tolerate high-capacity magazines. Many in this Chamber are hunters. Many in this Chamber are familiar with hunting laws. In Virginia, as in most States, there are rules that have been on the books for years. If you hunt a deer in Virginia, we limit the amount of rounds you can have in a rifle or shotgun. We put a limit, and that limit has been accepted for decades. Why do we limit the size of magazines in hunting animals? Because it wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be sportsmanlike. It wouldn't be humane to allow an animal to be hunted with a magazine of near-unlimited capacity. If it is not humane to hunt an animal with a massive magazine, then why allow near-unlimited magazines to be used to hunt human beings? This is a rule we accept, and we should accept it for weapons designed to hurt humans as well. The second tragedy in Virginia occurred when I was Governor a number of years ago--the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech. I won't go into it because I will segue when I talk about a hero, but the shooting at Virginia Tech happened because of a weakness in the background check system. The individual, the young man, Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people was prohibited from having a weapon because he had been adjudicated mentally ill and dangerous, but weaknesses in the background checks system enabled him to get a weapon anyway. We learned a powerful and painful lesson that day, which is that if your background check system has loopholes and gaps, disasters will result. So I join with my colleagues who say H.R. 8--that has come from the House and is a comprehensive background check system bill that keeps weapons out of the hands of people who are dangers to themselves and others--is something we should absolutely pass. Last, let me tell the story about an American hero. I have told this story on the floor before but not for a number of years. I want to tell this story because I think everybody should know this individual's name. The name of the hero I want to describe is a man named Liviu Librescu. Liviu Librescu was one of the 32 people who were killed at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. Let me tell you about him. He was born in Romania--and he was Jewish--during the Holocaust. When Germany occupied Romania and began to take over the country, Jews were persecuted. Liviu Librescu was then a young child. His family was sent to concentration camps, and many of them perished just because they were Jewish. Liviu, as a young child, was hidden by relatives and friends and miraculously managed to survive the Nazi campaign of anti-Semitism against Jews. Many Jews left Romania because they felt their neighbors and friends didn't protect them. Liviu Librescu decided to stay. ``I am a Romanian and am going to stay in Romania and make my country a peaceful place where Jews can live in peace with their fellow men and women.'' He ran into a second problem. He went to the university. He was a talented scientist and engineer. But then the Soviet Union moved in and essentially occupied Romania. They punished him because he was Jewish and because he wouldn't join the Communist Party. He was a world- renowned engineer published in journals around the world. First, they prohibited his ability to travel to academic conferences and then prohibited his right to publish. Over the years, the Soviet-dominated Government of Romania took away virtually every right he had. He started to try to figure out a way to immigrate to Israel. In the early 1970s, at a time when some Eastern European Jews were allowed to immigrate to Israel, Liviu Librescu finally escaped Soviet-dominated communism after having survived the Holocaust and moved to Israel. It was his dream. Liviu Librescu was teaching at the Technion in Israel, one of the premier scientific engineering institutions in the world. He got an offer after a few years to come be a visiting professor in Blacksburg, VA, at Virginia Tech for 1 year. He came in 1958. This Romanian Jew, professor at an Israeli technical university, came to Blacksburg, VA, in the mountains of Appalachia, for 1 year, and he fell in love with Blacksburg. He stayed in Blacksburg, at Virginia Tech, for the rest of his career. On April 16, 2007, Liviu Librescu--now 22 years in Blacksburg--was teaching an engineering class in one of the two buildings that were the subject of the attack by the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho. On the morning of April 16, 2007, he had undergraduates and graduates in the class. When he heard shooting start in the classroom, he instinctively knew he should protect his students. Liviu Librescu was now over 70 years old, this Holocaust survivor. He stood in front of the classroom door on the second floor of this building and told the students: You have to jump out the window. I am going to do everything I can to protect your life. Jump out the window. He stood there in front of the classroom door and absorbed bullet after bullet. Every student of Liviu Librescu's was able to escape from that building, save one. There was one student who couldn't get out in time and who had let others go first. Liviu Librescu was killed, and one student in his class was killed, but he saved the lives of all of these other young people. April 16, 2007, was a day that was a very special day in Liviu Librescu's life. Most in the classroom wouldn't have known it. That day was Yom HaShoah, which is a day that occurs every year on the Hebrew calendar and is a day that is celebrated and commemorated in Israel. It is a day to commemorate, remember, and never forget the Holocaust. That is what Yom HaShoah was. Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, knew what that day was. He knew what it meant. He made a choice. The commemoration of the Holocaust is not just about remembering the violent perpetrators and is not just about remembering the victims; it is also about remembering that there wouldn't have been millions of victims had there not been so many bystanders. That is what Yom HaShoah is about. It is about victims, perpetrators, and also about bystanders in that the Holocaust would never have happened had there not been so many bystanders. What Liviu Librescu decided to do that day was not to be a bystander. As violence was occurring around him, he decided: I will not be a bystander. I will try to take an action to save someone's life. Think about it. He survived the Holocaust. Think about it. He survived the Soviet takeover of his country. Then he came to this Nation and loved it, but he could not survive the carnage of American gun violence. He did, at least, decide he wouldn't be a bystander. That is what we are called to do in the Senate of the United States-- not to be bystanders. We do not have to demonstrate the courage of a Liviu Librescu and place our bodies in front of a classroom door and absorb bullet after bullet to save somebody else's life. I don't think I would have the courage to do that. I don't know how many of us would have. We are not called to make a sacrifice of that magnitude, but I do think we are called to make some sacrifices, and I do think we are called not to be bystanders. If we are going to be true to that calling, we have to be willing to take up and debate and to vote on commonsense measures to keep Americans safe from gun violence. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to object in the strongest possible terms to President Trump's continued raid on the budget of the U.S. military. As a candidate, the President promised the American public that he would build a border wall with Mexico and that Mexico would pay for any wall that he would build. The President has broken his promise. It shocks me that, as Commander in Chief, he now insists that it has to be our troops, our military families, and our Nation's security that has to be sacrificed for his foolishness. Frankly, it shocks me even more that Republican colleagues in this body seem perfectly willing to let him do that. If you will not stand up for the men and women in our military, whom will you stand up for? If you will not stand up for important projects in your own State, whom will you stand up for? If you will not stand up to protect your Defense authorization bill or your Defense appropriations bill when they are being cannibalized, when will you stand up? We will have a vote soon to block the President's destructive efforts to weaken our military and to trample on the power of Congress to set the Nation's budget and appropriations levels. I am hoping that my colleagues, Democratic and Republican, will stand up. Let me first address the need for a secure border. I have called the President's insistence on using military monies to build the wall foolishness. What do I mean by this? I don't challenge the need for border security. I strongly supported a comprehensive immigration reform package in 2013 that included vast amounts for border security, much more than the President has asked for. The bill had strong bipartisan support in the Senate, but the Republican-majority House refused to even take the bill up in committee, much less on the floor of the House. Had we passed that bill in 2013, it would have been a powerful step forward for immigrants, Dreamers, employers, TPS recipients, the American economy, and the security of America's borders. In February of 2018, I worked with a bipartisan group of 16 Senators--8 Democrats and 8 Republicans. We put a proposal on the table, a permanent fix for Dreamers and a major investment in border security. In fact, we put an investment in border security into that bipartisan bill that had every penny that the President asked for for the next 10 years, $25 billion, but President Trump attacked that bill and killed the bill, even though he had earlier indicated that he would sign it. There was $25 billion for border security over 10 years, with basic guidelines to ensure that the monies were spent wisely and not foolishly. I learned something from that experience. What I learned is that I don't believe the President cares about solving the border security issue. The substance of it means nothing to him, or he would have embraced a deal that gave him every penny he asked for in February of 2018. He could have had a deal a long time ago if this mattered to him. What the President cares about is big campaign rallies with people chanting ``build a wall'' so he can continue to stoke his political machine. That is what I call foolishness. It gets worse. A foolish insistence on political sloganeering over problem-solving is one thing, but taking money out of the military budget--from key priorities affecting our troops and the lives and safety of our troops and their families--is something much worse. It is disrespectful, and it is dangerous. The President proposes to raid the military construction budget to the tune of $3.6 billion to build 173 miles of border fencing. That is an average cost of $4,000 per linear foot of fence. For reference, a standard 6-foot fence costs $25 a foot, and a standard 6-foot brick wall costs $90 a foot. The proposal is to spend $4,000 a foot on fencing. Let me give you examples of projects in Virginia and elsewhere that are being slashed to build this $4,000-a-foot fence. In Virginia, we will lose $77 million in MILCON projects that the Department of Defense has told the Senate they need. There is $26 million being taken away from improvements to a Navy ship maintenance facility in Portsmouth. Here is what the DOD said about the importance of that work on the ship maintenance facility: The building has been cited for a number of life safety violations. These violations include no sprinkler protection, inadequate fire alarm placement, lack of a mass notification system and inadequate egress. IMPACT IF NOT PROVIDED: Approximately 330 personnel working more than 256,000 manhours annually, will remain in a high- risk environment, with continuing significant rework, higher stress, and additional operating costs due to inadequate working environment. That is what this cut will mean to that facility. There is $41 million being taken away from improvements to hazardous chemical storage facilities in Portsmouth and Norfolk. Here is how the DOD describes the impact on that cut and why the dollars were needed: If this project is not provided . . . Norfolk will continue storing hazardous materials in non-conforming storage facilities that do not meet current life safety/fire safety code requirements. Noncompliant firewalls, inadequate fire suppression systems, fire alarms, and inadequate ventilation. There is $10 million being taken away from a cyber facility that was recently announced to be located at Joint Base Langley Eustis. Needless to say, the cyber protection of our Nation is a higher and higher priority every day. Here is what DOD says will happen if those funds are not provided: [We will be] unable to reach operating capability without a facility that includes the required SCIF-- a classified facility-- space from which to operate. Having the required SCIF space is necessary for the team to receive the intel and perform the training required to perform in the cyber mission space. Continued use of leased space is costly and represents an enhanced security risk. Those funds are being cut. Just to give a few examples, $75.4 million is being taken away from heating plant improvements at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. Here is what that means, according to the Department of Defense: Failure of the boiler is expected within the next 3-4 years. That was requested in 2017. Loss of heat and power during Eielson's sub-arctic winters, with temperatures as low as 65F below zero, would be devastating to facilities and missions housed in those facilities. If the situation were deemed critical enough, the base would be forced to consider evacuating facilities due to a lack of heat and power. Once closed, the facilities would freeze and require many millions of dollars of repair to return to usable condition. Completing the planned replacement of all boilers will guarantee continued steam and power generation to support the flying mission. That money is being taken to fund the wall. There is $62 million being taken away from improvements to a school on the base at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Here is what that means, according to the Department of Defense: The existing school structures do not comply with current building codes, Anti-Terrorism & Force Protection standards, and sustainability standards. Heating, ventilation and air conditioning and electrical systems are not sufficient. IMPACT IF NOT PROVIDED: The substandard environment will continue to hamper the educational process and the middle school will not be able to support the DOD curriculum and provide for a safe facility. The continued use of deficient, inadequate, and undersized facilities that do not accommodate the current student population will continue to impair the overall educational program for these students. There is $13 million being taken away from improvements to a childcare center at Joint Base Andrews, here in the DC area. Here is what that means, according to the DOD: The current facility-- a childcare center-- has suffered from sewage back-ups, heating, ventilation and air conditioning failures and mold and pest management issues. This project will accommodate 165 children and staff. As of Feb 2018, 115 children are on the Priority 1 waiting list. . . . Why would we do this to these military families and their kids when they are sacrificing to volunteer and serve the country--take the program away, take away the funding for the childcare development center they need--to spend it on a wall that the President promised Mexico would pay for? We are now making these families pay for it. We are now making their children pay for it. We are now making the troops pay for it. There is $15 million being taken away from a healthcare center at Camp Lejeune, a healthcare center for military members and their families. Here is what that means, according to the DOD: This project solves the problem of providing primary care services to the active duty operational forces . . . located in substandard infrastructure throughout the installation. [The] current capacity is insufficient and cannot accommodate more than half of the population resulting in a dispersion of patients and personnel. [Existing facilities] in some cases lack basic requirements such as sinks, proper ventilation, and exam rooms with doors. IMPACT IF NOT PROVIDED: Required medical and dental services for Marine in-garrison care will continue to be provided in substandard, inefficient, decentralized and uncontrolled facilities. My son was based at Camp Lejeune for a number of years. That one stings. Why would we take money out of the healthcare facility for marines who are living on the garrison? Finally, $8 million is being taken away from the space control center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. This is interesting because the Armed Services Committee just worked together with the administration to enhance a space force, a space command, because it is a higher priority. It needs to be. We all agree it needs to be because of advances that are being made in space capacities by China, Russia, and other nations. Yet the proposal is to take $8 million away from the space control facility. Here is what the DOD says that would mean: There are no adequate facilities located at either Peterson or Buckley AFBs for this space control squadron. The only solution that meets all mission requirements is to construct a new facility on Peterson AFB. If this facility isn't constructed, the military will be unable to stand up ``the space control mission and equipment, with operational and strategic mission impacts due to inadequate facilities.'' We have just reached a deal with the administration to elevate the space force to meet the challenges of our principal nation-state competitors. Yet these monies are being taken away. Will we really do this? Will we really do this to the safety of this country, to our security, to our troops and their families? Will we allow the President to unilaterally hurt these patriotic people, when he has long been able to find a fair and comprehensive immigration deal with Congress that includes border security funding? Will the Senate majority say a word, raise an objection, show support for the military, show that Congress sets the budgets and appropriations, not the Executive, make clear that no President--not this President or any President--should be able to move money around at will to support a blatantly political agenda at the expense of critical defense priorities? That is what we will be voting on soon. I urge my colleagues to reject the President's foolish and dangerous raid on our military. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, on July 30, 2019, I was absent for the following rollcall votes due to a commitment in Williamsburg, VA, for an event surrounding the 400th commemorative session of the Virginia General Assembly. Had I been present I would have voted ``nay'' on confirmation: Sean D. Jordan, of Texas, to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas--rollcall vote 241, PN205; ``nay'' on motion to invoke cloture: Mark T. Pittman to be U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas--rollcall vote 242, PN207; ``nay'' on motion to invoke cloture: Jeffery Vincent Brown, of Texas, to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Texas--rollcall vote 243, PN510; ``nay'' on motion to invoke cloture: Brantley Starr, of Texas, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas-- rollcall vote 244, PN512; ``yea'' on motion to invoke cloture: Stephanie L. Haines, of Pennsylvania, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania--rollcall vote 245, PN453; ``yea'' on motion to invoke cloture: Ada E. Brown to be U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas--rollcall vote 246, PN524; ``yea'' on motion to invoke cloture Steven D. Grimberg, of Georgia, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Georgia--rollcall vote 247, PN566; ``nay'' on motion to invoke cloture on Jason K. Pulliam, of Texas, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Texas--rollcall vote 248, PN454; ``yea'' on motion to invoke cloture on Martha Maria Pacold, of Illinois, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois--rollcall vote 249, PN780; ``yea'' on motion to invoke cloture on Steven C. Seeger, of Illinois, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois--rollcall vote 250, PN782; and ``nay'' on motion to invoke cloture on William Shaw Stickman IV, of Pennsylvania, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania--roll call vote 251, PN727.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise today to talk about an experience that I had on Sunday. Sunday was the day, July 14, that President Trump had preannounced that massive deportation and immigration raids were about to begin. It looks like those raids maybe didn't start on Sunday, but the communities of immigrants in Virginia and elsewhere, who have been experiencing tremendous fear, had that fear dramatically accelerated by the announcement. On Sunday, my wife and I, who live in Richmond, went to a town called Kilmarnock, about an hour and 10 minutes away from us, where my wife's parents are in a nursing home. They are 95 and 93 years old. We went down to spend the day with my in-laws and to take my mother-in-law to church at the local Episcopal church where she has long been a member. I was struck by the readings. It was a day of fear for many immigrant communities, and the readings that occurred in the Episcopal church, which are readings that are delivered in Catholic and Presbyterian and other churches on a set schedule, struck me as I was thinking about the fear in these communities. For the Old Testament reading, normally, in most churches around the globe, Catholics and Episcopals read from Deuteronomy, but for some reason, the pastor of this church--it was his goodbye ceremony, and he was leaving after serving for an interim--had switched the Old Testament reading and instead put in a reading from the Old Testament Book of Amos, Chapter 7, verses 7 through 9. This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord asked me, ``What do you see, Amos?'' ``A plumbline,'' I replied. Then the Lord said, ``Look, I am setting a plumbline among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.'' A plumbline is a device used when you are constructing something. It is just a weight on a string, nonmagnetized, and it will show up and down so that you can build something that is square and that has a solid foundation. It is a reading about principles and values and what is a solid foundation. The Gospel reading that we heard in our tiny church in Kilmarnock and around the world was the Good Samaritan story. Jesus is being pestered by a lawyer: What do I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said: You know the answer. Tell me the answer. And the lawyer does. He is smart. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says: Fine. You know the answer. Just live that way. But the lawyer, either to trap Jesus or because he was confused or he was trying to figure it out, says: But who is my neighbor? And then Jesus tells the story of a person beaten on the road to Jericho and lying at the side of the road. Some passed by pretending not to notice, though they do notice. Some noticed and sort of half go over to help but don't do anything. But one person, a Samaritan--and in the Bible, Samaritans were despised minorities because they didn't worship like other people did--actually is the one who actually goes and helps. As everyone knows, in the story he takes care of the person who is beaten. He takes him to an inn and pays the innkeeper and says: I will even pay you more. I will settle up. Make sure that you nurse him back to health. This Samaritan was the one who was the neighbor. When Jesus then goes back to the lawyer and says: Which was the one who was the neighbor to the person who was beaten, the lawyer was so infected by the prejudice of his day that he can't even say ``the Samaritan.'' Again, Samaritans were despised people, much like refugees or migrants or migrant kids seem today to be despised people. The lawyer couldn't even make his lips say the word ``Samaritan.'' Who is the neighbor to the person who was beaten? He can't even answer the question--the Samaritan. But he does know the answer, and instead he says: The one who showed him mercy. Those were the readings that we heard--that the Lord will set a plumbline to try to determine whether the nation--in that instance, Israel--was behaving properly or not, and in terms of what the plumbline is, what is the moral standard. The Lord is encouraging us to be neighbors, and not just to the people like us, not just to the people who are our next-door neighbors but even to people who are down on their luck, beaten, despised, and hurting. Sunday was also another day. It was Woody Guthrie's birthday. Woody Guthrie was a great American songwriter known for ``This Land is Your Land'' and so many other songs that are part of who we are as a people. Woody Guthrie wrote a song in 1948 called ``Plane Wreck at Los Gatos,'' and the song is more commonly known by the name ``Deportee.'' We lived this history before. In 1948 in California, there was an effort to deport so many people. There are times when we desperately want immigrants here to do the work, and then there are phases where they get deported. Woody Guthrie was listening to the radio. This is a man born on July 14, the day that the President announced that the deportation raids would start. Woody Guthrie was listening to the radio in January of 1948, and he heard a story about a plane that was taking deportees back to Mexico. The plane crashed in Los Gatos Canyon, near L.A., and the pilot and some others were killed, and 32 deportees were killed. Woody Guthrie was struck that when the story was told on the radio, they mentioned the names of the pilot and the copilot and the others who were working on the plane, but as for the 32 deportees who were killed, their names weren't mentioned. They were ``just deportees.'' Here are the lyrics to the Woody Guthrie song written based on an incident in January 1948, but our history repeats itself. The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning, The oranges piled in their creosote dumps; They're flying `em back to the Mexican border To pay all their money to wade back again Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita, Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria; You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane, All they will call you will be ``deportees'' My father's own father, he waded that river, They took all the money he made in his life; My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees, And they rode the truck till they took down and died. Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted, Our work contract's out and we have to move on; Six hundred miles to that Mexican border. They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves. We died in your hills, we died in your deserts, We died in your valleys and died on your plains. We died `neath your trees and we died in your bushes, Both sides of the river, we died just the same. The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon, A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills, Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves, The radio says, ``They are just deportees.'' Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards? Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit? To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil And be called by no name except ``deportees''? Along with several other colleagues earlier this week, I filed a bill called the Stop Cruelty to Migrant Children Act. It is a bill that has 40-plus cosponsors. It would do a number of things. It would set safety, health, and nutrition standards in these facilities whose pictures we are seeing--pictures that set an embarrassing example of a nation that should want to set a good example. It would set minimum standards for food, nutrition, and healthcare. It would guarantee that children in these facilities would receive three meals a day and that the meals would be of adequate nutritional value. It would end the practice of family separation, unless ordered by a court, so the presumption would be that families could not be separated. It would provide additional resources for lawyers so that people can follow the rule of law and present evidence and present a case for asylum or refugee status, if there is a case to be presented. It would allow the restart of programs like the Family Case Management Program, which was a successful program that enabled people to be placed in community settings, not cages or jails or institutions, and have management to make sure that they then come to court dates on time. The bill has a number of provisions that I think are worthy, but the thing that is the most important about the bill to me and why I agreed to cosponsor it is that I just think it puts our country in a position where we are setting the right example, not the wrong example. It puts our country in a position where if the plumbline of right and wrong is applied to us, we are on the right side of that judgment. It puts us in a position where as we are being directed to be good neighbors-- including to people who are hurting, including to people who are suffering--we would be able to look ourselves in the mirror and look the world in the eye and say: The United States believes that we are good neighbors, and we are behaving in a neighborly way toward people. These issues are of massive importance to the individuals involved. There was a story earlier this week about a border agent inquiring of a young girl: You are going to be separated. Your parents are going to be separated, and you have to decide whether you go with your mother or your father. Why make a child of tender years make that choice? The young girl's name was Sofia. Many of us know the Virginia author, William Styron, and his book ``Sophie's Choice.'' Sophie is forced to make an existential choice between her children in a concentration camp in Poland during World War II. That is the choice. That is the existential choice in the heart of that novel. When tiny Sofia is being told: We are separating your mother and father, and you have to choose between them, should a child have to do that? None of us would tolerate that for our own family members. None of us would tolerate that for a member of our community. So is it fair to do that to a child of tender years because she happens to be somebody who has come from Central America? These issues are of immense importance to those involved, to the Sophies, to the father and daughter who tried to get across a river a few weeks ago and drowned as they were trying to do it. They had come thousands of miles, and they were so close. All they wanted to do was apply for asylum legally: Can you accept my application? We are not trying to sneak across. We want to apply legally and have the laws of your country apply to us if we can justify that we should come. Please do that. When they reached the border, we are taking so few applications now that they waited and they waited and they waited, and they eventually tried to cross a river and were drowned in the process--that heartbreaking picture of them having come so far and being so close that they could touch the bank. They almost got to touch the bank of this Nation they had dreamed might offer them a better life. Their case, had they been able to apply, may or may not have been accepted. There is no guarantee they would have met the standards, but all they wanted was the opportunity to apply to enter this greatest Nation on Earth. So I will just conclude and say I hope, in the days ahead--and I know there are discussions going on between Members of this body and between Members of this body and the White House about what we might do. I just want us to do something we can look in the mirror and be proud of. I want us to do something that we can use as an example for ourselves and for others. I want the plumbline that separates good and bad behavior and foundations that are morally strong versus those that are shaky and weak to judge us fairly. I want us to be neighborly. I want us to be neighborly in the best traditions of whom we have always been. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

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

Mr. KAINE

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

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I thank my colleague from West Virginia because this is a matter of the heart for him. He has worked so hard on this as a Governor of West Virginia and as a U.S. Senator. It has been my honor to work together with him on this and so many other issues. I will begin with a little bit of history. We are right in the midst of Virginia's 30th anniversary of the Pittston Coal strike. It began on April 5, 1989, in Southwest Virginia. The Pittston Coal Company, which was headquartered in Pennsylvania, terminated all healthcare benefits for approximately 1,500 retirees, widows, and disabled miners. That anniversary is being celebrated right now. When these healthcare benefits were terminated, it led to a strike. It lasted from April of 1989 until February 20 of 1990--nearly 10 months. Then-president of the United Mine Workers Union, Rich Trumka, who is now the president of AFL-CIO, was asked during this time period as the miners and their families and the retirees made great sacrifices for striking: How long can you hold out? They were seeing the benefits they were getting as strikers--instead of a $600-a-week strike benefit, which was the original plan, the funds had dwindled down, and they were getting $200 a week. That was all they were getting during the strike, and when Rich Trumka was asked ``How long can the miners hold out?'' he said: We can hold out one day longer than the Pittston Coal Company. That is, in fact, what happened. In February, they reached an agreement. It was a historic labor strike that was because of healthcare benefits and because of the need of the people who do one of the toughest jobs in this country--a job that will rack its pain on your body in a physical way, unlike any other kind of work. Losing healthcare is tough for anybody, but for somebody working underground in a mine, it is absolutely catastrophic. As my colleague mentioned, we are here to talk about the American Miners Act, which he is leading and I am proud to cosponsor. The UMWA Pension Plan is projected, right now, to become insolvent by 2022, and this could be advanced and come even sooner if there is another major bankruptcy. My colleague talked about the history of this pension plan. During the Presidency of President Truman and in the aftermath of that strike, there was an agreement that there would be employer contributions into the pension plan based on every ton of coal that was sold. The employer contributions have declined significantly in recent years as coal companies have gone out of business and other companies have creatively used the bankruptcy laws, as my colleague indicated, to skate out of their obligations to these hard-working miners and their families and retirees. If we do not intervene, if we do not pass the American Miners Act or something essentially identical, 87,000--87,000--current beneficiaries and an additional 20,000 vested retirees could lose all or part of their pension benefits. The insolvency of the mine workers' pension would put further pressure on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which is already facing other shortfalls. And it is not just pensions; it is also healthcare. Because of a recent bankruptcy of the Westmoreland Coal Company, as my colleague mentioned, 1,200 miners and their families, largely widows and others, are slated to potentially lose healthcare coverage very soon. That would include 800 Virginians who could lose health coverage by the end of the year. I remember when my colleague was leading the successful effort in 2017. To fix one of the issues with healthcare benefits for these families, I attended a roundtable session with many of them in Castlewood, VA, at the UMWA field office there. I went in at a midweek, midafternoon time when you wouldn't normally expect a lot of people to attend a meeting, and the room was absolutely packed with people who were so very, very frightened. They were slated, at that point, to lose health coverage. Remember, this was at the end of April. It was about April 20 when I was there with them. They were looking at me with fear in their eyes, asking what they should do: Should I go out and buy insurance on my own? But who is going to cover me? Look at my age. Look at my physical condition. Look at the conditions my wife is dealing with. It wasn't uncommon to be dealing with a working or recently retired miner with a spouse who had cancer, and the threat of losing health insurance in that circumstance was existential. I could look him in the eye, and I couldn't really promise him anything except that we would try. We were able to get a fix at that point that saved healthcare for thousands and thousands of miners, and we did that with our colleagues in this body--Democratic and Republican--and in the House as well. Well, it is time for us to step up again. Here is what the American Miners Act would do. It would shore up the pension plan to ensure that workers receive the benefits they have earned. The bill would also safeguard healthcare coverage for workers who are projected to lose their coverage because of the Westmoreland Coal Bankruptcy. It builds on the bill that we passed in a bipartisan way in 2017. Lastly--and this is really important. I am so happy that in working on the bill, Senator Manchin and I decided to do this. The bill is going to ensure financing for medical treatment and basic expenses for workers suffering from black lung because we are extending the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund. Right now, that is also--because of a revenue source that was sort of sunset--scheduled to be stopped, and then the trust fund will dwindle down, and those suffering from black lung will also lose the protections that they have. This American Miners Act not only protects pensions and not only protects folks who are having their healthcare bankrupted by Westmoreland but would extend the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund that is so very, very important. The best news is that the bill is fully paid for. We are not asking to increase the deficit. We are not asking to increase tax rates. The bill is fully paid for. We would simply extend an existing tax to protect the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, and then we would utilize an existing source of revenue that we used before--mine reclamation funds that are currently oversubscribed and are not being used to help backstop healthcare needs. So this is a bill that would do an awful lot of good for an awful lot of people, and we are not coming here just asking without paying for it. We have a solution on the table so that we can pay for it. My hope is that the body will come together the same way we did in 2017 to protect these hard-working people and their families and their widows who have done the hardest work that just about anybody does in this country and whose bodies have suffered as a result, and they need to have us having their back. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Affordable Care Act and to discuss the devastating impact its potential elimination would have on rural families and rural communities. My State, Virginia, has so many rural communities, and in that, I am with every other Member of this body, and I want to talk specifically about them. The Trump administration has sought for years to end the Affordable Care Act using every tool available. They have worked on that task here in Congress to repeal it and sabotage it and even dismantle it in the court system. Today marks another milestone in that deeply troubling effort. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in a case that could strike down the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. If the ACA were struck down, families and communities around the country would bear life-altering consequences, and the healthcare system would be thrown into chaos. Tens of millions of Americans would lose healthcare coverage and protections for preexisting conditions, among the countless other consumer protections that have been put in place by the ACA. A number of my colleagues are going to be on the floor this afternoon speaking about particular aspects of this that trouble them. I want to focus on one in particular: how important the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion is to rural America and how much is at stake for those communities should the Affordable Care Act be eliminated. Medicaid expansion enables low-income, rural residents to get affordable, quality health insurance so they can get the care they need. It is often the case that insurance companies do not compete with the same intensity in rural communities because there are just not enough patients. So it is common in rural America for somebody wanting to buy an insurance policy on the exchange, for example, to maybe have only one option. Medicaid expansion has turned out to be a huge benefit for many low-income people living in rural America. Many of those who are receiving insurance pursuant to Medicaid expansion were previously uninsured, and so for some, it is the first insurance they have had in their lives. A particular impact of Medicaid expansion has not been on just individuals receiving that Medicaid but on the hospitals that are sort of the healthcare and even economic pillars in rural communities. Rural hospitals often have a difficult time making the finances work. Again, lower patient volumes make it difficult. Medicaid expansion has meant that the care they have been providing that in the past might not have been reimbursed at all--they are now able to at least get a Medicaid reimbursement, and that has been a significant financial benefit to these hospitals. Mr. President, you understand this because your State is like mine, and there are a lot of rural communities. Rural hospitals are often the lifeblood of rural communities. They can be the largest employers in a town or a county. They often do a tremendous amount of outreach on healthcare and other philanthropic efforts not just within the hospital walls but outside the hospital walls--sponsoring the Little League teams and doing the things that make a community a community. Residents of rural communities need access to healthcare, but they also need access to jobs and good healthcare information. Rural hospitals provide that. I have seen the impact of rural hospital closures in Virginia firsthand. Two rural hospitals in Virginia closed in recent years because Virginia did not expand Medicaid initially. In the last year, Virginia has done Medicaid expansion, but before Medicaid expansion was done, we saw hospitals close in two communities in Virginia: Patrick County, which is a south side Virginia county that is on the border with North Carolina, and Lee County, which is a far southwestern Virginia county that is on the border with Kentucky and Tennessee. Two hospitals have closed in those communities. I got a letter from a mother in Christiansburg, VA, which is actually up near Virginia Tech. Her name is Robin, and she wrote about the closure of the Pioneer Hospital in Patrick County in 2017. She wrote this: My mother who recently turned 70 still lives in the county, and we are approaching a point of either moving back to Patrick County or moving my mother to Christiansburg where we currently live. My son has severe food allergies that could lead to anaphylactic shock (which would require immediate medical attention) so this variable also weighs very heavily on my mind when considering the options of how to manage my family's land and take care of my mom. I don't want to live somewhere without access to emergency health care. It seems inconceivable that this is the case in the era in which we live now. . . . Please help get my home county back on the medical map to give its economy and its people a fighting chance. Blacksburg is probably an hour and a half to 2 hours away. The mother is living in a county that now has no hospital--she has turned 70--so she doesn't have access to the care that she needs. The daughter is trying to decide: Do I move back? But I have a son who needs care because of allergies. Do I have to move my mother out of the home where she would rather stay? Rural hospitals across the country are struggling to keep their doors open for a number of reasons, but here is an amazing set of statistics. Whether a State expands Medicaid pursuant to the ACA is a massively significant factor in rural hospitals' financial outlook and decisionmaking. Without Medicaid expansion, rural hospitals may be forced to cut vital services or even close. Here is the data point that really says it all: Since January 2010, 107 rural hospitals have closed in the United States, and 93 of those 107 hospitals were in States that had not expanded Medicaid at the time of the closure. Hundreds more rural hospitals are at risk of closure. Rural hospital closures disproportionately occur in States that have not expanded Medicaid. The success of the Texas case would wipe out the ACA, including Medicaid expansion, and deeply penalize these rural hospitals. A comprehensive 2018 study published in Health Affairs found that Medicaid expansion is directly associated with hospital financial performance and that expansion substantially reduces the risk of hospital closure, particularly in rural areas. The study also found that going back to pre-ACA eligibility for Medicaid would drive even more rural hospitals to closure. So we think about Robin's dilemma of a mother living in a rural area where the hospital has closed. If the ACA is struck down and there is no Medicaid expansion, this is going to be faced by more and more rural communities across the country, and that means this is a dilemma individuals and their families will ultimately face. Research from Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute indicates that the uninsured rate for low-income adults in rural communities fell three times as fast in States that expanded Medicaid as compared to States that did not expand. Turn that around. States that expand Medicaid find that rural families have a dramatically higher likelihood of having insurance than those in rural areas where the States haven't expanded Medicaid. As of now, 36 States, including Virginia, have expanded Medicaid and 14 have not. I am thrilled that earlier this year Virginia, after a multiyear battle, finally announced that Medicaid expansion was happening. In less than a year after expansion, nearly 293,000 adults are newly enrolled in Medicaid in Virginia, many of whom never had health insurance before in their lives--293,000 adults in a State where the population is about 8.5 million. That is a significant number of people who have received insurance through Medicaid expansion. They risk losing their eligibility if the administration is successful in its efforts to gut the ACA. If we care about rural residents and rural communities, there are a number of things we can do. First, we need to stand up against the administration's attempt to end the ACA, including its Medicaid expansion. I have now been in public life for 25 years since I was elected to the Richmond City Council in May 1994. I will say that in all of the elections I have been in, up or down, and all the various legislative and other battles, the single most dramatic moment in my life as an elected official was standing on the floor of this body at 2 o'clock in the morning when Senator John McCain, fresh out of a hospital after being diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumor, cast the deciding vote, and by one vote--one vote--we saved the Affordable Care Act. I have never in my life in the public realm experienced something that was so dramatic and so consequential. We have to continue to stand up. I would have thought that vote might have moved us to a new chapter where we would be talking about fixing and improving rather than repealing, but that is not the case, as evidenced by the lawsuit today. But my hope is that we will resist efforts to sabotage and destroy and instead join together in efforts to improve. I have joined with my colleagues to cosponsor a resolution allowing Senate legal counsel to intervene in the lawsuit, to defend the Affordable Care Act. The second thing we can do to help rural communities is focus on the 14 States that haven't yet expanded Medicaid and provide them a clearer path and encouragement to do so. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of something called the SAME Act, which would extend the same level of Federal assistance to every State that chooses to expand Medicaid regardless of when the expansion occurs. I think that is important. Let's use the original Medicaid Program as an example. It was passed in 1965. It was not a mandate; it was an option. The last State-- Arizona; State 50--that joined didn't join until 1982. There was a 17- year period between when the first State joined the then-voluntary Medicaid Program and when the last State joined. Let's make sure that whenever States join, they are treated the same. If this bill passes, States that choose to expand now--these 14 States--we would make sure that they get the full Federal level of assistance as was available to those States that initially joined, and that should help remaining States get off the sidelines. Finally, we need to stand up against administrative sabotage to the Affordable Care Act. We shouldn't promote skimpy insurance plans. We shouldn't slash funding for enrollment, outreach, or marketing. We should build on and improve and, yes, fix--because it is not perfect-- the ACA to extend its promise of affordable coverage to even more Americans. That is why I have introduced Medicare-X legislation to establish a public insurance plan that could be offered on the ACA exchanges, beginning in rural areas. My bill would also make the ACA's tax credits more generous, expand tax credit eligibility to additional families, and allow for an enhanced reimbursement rate in rural communities where low patient volumes often pose financial challenges to healthcare providers. In closing, the ACA has meant the difference between life and death for many families across the country, and I run into them every day. I am going to be standing with some Senate colleagues on the steps of the Senate in a few minutes talking about a youngster from Winchester, VA, who has a series of significant healthcare challenges that would essentially in the past have made him uninsurable because of preexisting conditions but who now--because of that protection within the ACA, he and his family at least have the peace of mind of knowing that he can't be kicked off insurance or turned down for insurance because he happened to be born with a condition over which he had no control. If the ACA were to be struck down, families and communities would suffer, and I think that in Virginia, that would particularly be the case in our rural communities. Again, I am just going to hold up this issue of our rural hospitals. We need to protect rural hospitals not only because of the healthcare they provide but because they are employment centers and centers of community outreach. When we see the closure of rural hospitals overwhelmingly being in States that have not expanded Medicaid, that tells us how valuable that portion of the ACA has been to stabilize the provision of rural healthcare. I will continue to fight to protect the ACA and the health of my rural communities in Virginia and elsewhere. I encourage my colleagues to do the same. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today, I wish to discuss the importance of strengthening the defense industrial base, particularly as it relates to shipbuilding. On July 21, 2017, the President signed Executive Order 13806, directing the Department of Defense to lead a whole of government assessment of the health of the manufacturing and defense industrial base of the United States. The report was released on October 5, 2018, and outlines current risks in the defense industrial base. Within the military shipbuilding sector, concerns range from an overreliance on single and sole source suppliers, to a capacity shortfall for maintenance and modernization work, to insufficient competition and unstable demand. The DoD report said: ``Industries involved in the manufacturing of shipbuilding components were among the hardest hit by the global shift in the industrial base over the last 20 years. Of the top ten highest grossing industries in Navy shipbuilding, six are in the manufacturing sector. Since 2000, these industries experienced a combined decline of over 20,500 establishments.'' We cannot afford to shrink our military shipbuilding industry any further. These issues are particularly acute in my State of Virginia. Not only is Virginia home to Newport News Shipbuilding and Norfolk Naval Shipyard, we have hundreds of military shipbuilder suppliers, a number of which are considered by the Department of Defense to be fragile. These companies are essentially national treasures, from Hunt Valve out of Roanoke to Jo-Kell in Chesapeake, KITCO Fiber Optics in Virginia Beach, and Hampton Machine Shop in Newport News. These companies want stability and predictability in funding; they want to be certain our Nation is serious about a 355-ship Navy. These are issues that our committee has been working on for some time. In testimony last fall before the Seapower Subcommittee, the Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, James Geurts, told our committee that ``advanced funding and anything we can do to help the supplier base will drastically reduce risks going forward. What we are seeing in most of our construction programs as a key risk is supplier fragility, either single sources or single producers where we have to ramp up production.'' Chairman Inhofe has paid close attention to those concerns, and I very much appreciate how far this bill goes to address the issues outlined in the industrial base report. This bill authorizes funds for the third year for the submarine supplier base initiative, which is helping critical suppliers across the Nation; authorizes additional funding along with incremental funding authority for both LPD 31 and LHA 9; accelerates the acquisition of LHA 9; adds funding for advance procurement for the DDG program; and requires DoD to assess the savings a multiyear procurement would yield in the LPD program, and the savings we could achieve through a block buy of two LHA's. The bill also reauthorizes CVN 75, the USS Harry S Truman. It leaves no room for indecision on the future of this asset. It is critical that the DOD's current and prospective shipbuilding programs, the Virginia class and Columbia class submarine programs, the new Frigate program, destroyers, specifically take action to maintain the domestic supply base and not allow foreign sources to undercut the pricing of the domestic supply base. We ask the administration to help us in every way to stay focused on helping our military shipbuilding industrial base meet the Navy the Nation Needs.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to speak in favor of the Udall amendment, a bipartisan amendment. I am a proud Virginian. The Commonwealth of Virginia is more connected to the Nation's military service by our map, by the installations in Virginia, and by personnel than any other State, and I am the proud father of a U.S. marine. I love serving with my colleagues on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees. Tomorrow we are going to vote on a question that cannot be more fundamental: Can President Trump take us to war with Iran without coming to Congress for authorization? That is the question. Can President Trump take us to war with Iran without coming to Congress for authorization? This is a matter of the utmost importance for this body, for the American public, and for our troops. Americans, especially those who have family serving in the military--and many of those families have seen their loved ones deployed multiple times since 2001--want to know what each Senator thinks about this important question. The Udall amendment to the NDAA, which has bipartisan sponsorship, is very simple. It states that no funds will be expended in a war with Iran or on Iranian soil, except in self-defense, unless Congress takes the affirmative step of specifically authorizing those hostilities. My colleague from Arkansas talked about lawyers dancing on the head of a pin, as he tried to suggest that ``self-defense'' was not a clearly defined term. I think most of my colleagues who read the language will believe it is incredibly clear; the President has the power to defend the Nation from an imminent attack or ongoing attack without asking anyone for permission. That is specifically stated in our resolution. There is no confusion about it. There is no attempt to limit a President's power to defend the Nation, but if the President decides that we need to go on an offensive war against a sovereign country, this amendment would suggest he could not do so unless he came to Congress. Those voting for this amendment will say clearly that no war should be started unless Congress votes for it. Those opposing the amendment will say clearly that it is OK for the President to go to war against Iran whenever and for whatever reason on his own. Those who vote against this amendment, in my view, are essentially giving the President a green light to wage war anywhere, against anyone, on his own. That is not a power we should give to this President or any President. I believe, in my 6\1/2\ years in the Senate, there has only been one vote as serious as the vote we will cast tomorrow morning. Why do I believe war should not be started without a vote of Congress? The Democratic leader outlined the clear constitutional history in this regard. It is Congress that declares war. The history and context of that provision in article I is very plain. At that time in the world, in 1787, war was for the Executive. It was for the King, the Emperor, the Monarch, the Sultan, the Pope, but the drafters of the American Constitution wanted to dramatically change history in this Nation and say that war for the United States of America should be a matter not for the Executive to declare but, instead, for the peoples' elected legislative body to declare. Once declared, the President, as Commander in Chief, needs to be that commander. I agree with my colleague from Arkansas. You don't need 535 commanders, but it is not up to the President to initiate or declare war, constitutionally; it is clearly up to Congress. The reason we should vote for this isn't just because of the constitutional provision. It is the value that underlies the constitutional provision. Why did the Framers put the question of war as a matter for the legislature? A congressional debate and vote is what is necessary for the American public and Congress to fully understand the stakes, to explain to the public and educate them why war is necessary--and especially, and most importantly, the debate and the vote by the legislative body is the evidence of support for the mission that American troops deserve if they are going to be sent into harm's way where they could be killed or injured or see their friends killed or injured. I believe it is the height of public immorality. There could be nothing more immoral in the public space than to order our troops into harm's way, where they would risk injury and death if Congress is unwilling to consider and debate and vote on whether a war is in the national interest. You have to go risk your life, you have to go be with others and potentially be injured or killed, but we don't want to have to vote on it. Could anything be more immoral than that? What this provision does is say that if we are going to be at war with Iran and, by example, with any nation, Congress should have the guts and backbone to come and cast a vote before we order our troops into harm's way. Why is this debate important right now? We are in the middle of discussing the National Defense Authorizing Act, but I also want to point out two very important things, one an event and one a statement that may have occurred in the last week, since many of us took the floor last Wednesday. On Thursday, a week ago today, President Trump ordered and then called off a missile strike against Iranian territory that would have been the start of a shooting war with Iran. It was a missile strike in the sovereign nation of Iran. Our military and all reasonable people understood that would have been responded to. So we were within 10 minutes. President Trump says he called off the strike on Iran with 10 minutes to spare. We were within 10 minutes a week ago of being in a war. The second thing that happened is, a few days ago, the President gave an exclusive interview to The Hill saying: ``I do not need congressional approval to strike Iran.'' Congress is irrelevant. I don't need to come to Congress. The quote that the Democratic leader mentioned a few minutes earlier was that the President said: It is good to keep them abreast of the situation, but I am not legally required to do so. How insulting for the President, who pledged at his inauguration to defend and support the Constitution, to not recognize that the article I branch--and we are the article I branch for a reason--must not be just consulted with but be on board with any wars expressed by their vote. This President is holding the article I branch in contempt. Will we grovel and accept that monumental disrespect or will we insist that the President must follow the law? For the record, I believe a war with Iran would be a colossal mistake. Its cause would be laid significantly at our feet by the United States and the Trump administration tearing up a diplomatic deal, tearing it up over the objections or over the recommendations of the then-Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, Joint Chiefs of Staff, tearing it up over the recommendations of our allies, tearing it up over the recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency. We tore up a diplomatic deal and raised the risk of an unnecessary war; that would be catastrophic. After 18 years of two wars in the Middle East, where we still have troops deployed, we should not be fomenting, encouraging, blundering toward rushing into a third war in the Middle East. It would suck lives and resources away from more pressing priorities of our citizens. Bogging ourselves down in another war against a smaller, weaker, faraway nation would divert our attention from acting firmly to counter our chief competitor, China. Furthermore, another war in the Middle East would represent another broken promise by this President. Just as he said that Mexico would pay for a border wall, just as he promised not to cut the Medicaid Program before supporting an effort to eliminate the Affordable Care Act and slash Medicaid, the President criticized the Iraq war as a candidate and said he would end wars in the Middle East, not expand or multiply them. I will give my colleague from Arkansas credit for having the courage of his convictions to come and state what he has stated on the floor. There are some in this body and the administration who have argued that a war with Iran would be a good thing or a necessary thing. Some have even suggested it would be an easy win. Let them come to the floor of the Senate and make that argument in full view of the American public and let Congress debate and vote and then be held accountable for decisions we make about war. As I conclude, I thank the majority leader for scheduling this vote, and I especially thank the Democratic leader for firmly insisting it must be held. Tomorrow we will all speak to a fundamental question about war but also about this institution: Can President Trump take us to war with Iran without even coming to Congress? I hope my colleagues will stand for the Constitution. We must provide assurance to our citizens, and we especially must provide assurance to our troops, that war is not based on the whim of this President or the whim of any President, but it must be based instead on a clear vote, following public debate by the peoples' elected legislature. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I also rise today with my colleagues to talk about the rumors of war we have been hearing in this body and in the news. I want to advocate for a very simple amendment whose timing is, I think, propitious as we discuss the National Defense Authorization Act. Why wouldn't we discuss what we are hearing from the White House and others? Why wouldn't we discuss the events that are happening on the ground in the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East? The amendment Senator Udall has prepared that is a bipartisan amendment that is before the body--and we hope for a vote early next week--is a straightforward one. No funds would be used to prosecute a war against Iran unless this Congress has a vote to authorize it, to authorize such a war. As my colleague from Oregon mentioned, that is what the Constitution suggests, and that is the debate we should be having. Part of the reason I feel so strongly about this is because I am a Virginian. We are the most connected State to the military mission of the United States. All States are connected and all States are Patriotic, but if you just add up the kind of per capita in Virginia-- our Active Duty, our Guard, our Reserve, our DOD civilians, like the nurses who work at the Fort Belvoir Hospital, the DOD contractors like the shipbuilders in Newport News, our military families--we are the most connected to the Nation's military mission. I am personally connected to this with a son in the U.S. Marines. So as a Virginian I feel very strongly about this, and I also feel strongly about it because we are proud of the Virginians, Madison, Jefferson, and others, who are among the Founders who crafted the Constitution. They tried to do some things that were pretty revolutionary then, and they are still revolutionary. Some of our Constitution was a great borrowing exercise--taking wonderful ideas from other constitutions and laws and assembling them together in a wonderful document they put together in 1787, but there were a couple of ideas in the Constitution of 1787 that were not chosen from elsewhere, that were really unique to our country and are still unique. One of the unique ideas is this: War is not a matter for the Executive, the King, the Emperor, the Monarch, the Sultan, the Pope. No, war is a matter that needs to be declared by the people's elected legislative body. That was revolutionary in 1787, and it is revolutionary today. The balance of power that was struck was that Congress would declare war, and then once declared, there would only be one Commander in Chief--535 Commanders in Chief would be a disaster. The decision to initiate war would be for Congress, and then the President, working in tandem with military leadership, would be the Commander in Chief to prosecute a war if declared, but there should be no shortcut and no substitute for the debate in this body before the initiation of war. The amendment that will be on the table--and then hopefully we will receive a vote on--that is bipartisan in nature would prevent funding for a war against Iran unless there is a vote of Congress to authorize such a war. The amendment does make clear that no previous congressional act--for example, the 2001 authorization--can be tortured and twisted and stretched and bootstrapped into a declaration of war against Iran. The administration has sort of been trying to lay that as a predicate, suggesting that an authorization that passed in 2001 that did not mention Iran would authorize war against Iran, when not a single person who voted for it in 2001 ever thought it was to be used in justification for war against Iran. The administration would like to try to use that as a justification, they have said, in testimony here on the Hill. Think about this: If they are so afraid to come to Congress and ask for an authorization that they want to try to use something from 18 years ago, what does it tell us about their confidence that they have a good justification that we need to be in a war? The amendment we have does not prevent the United States from defending itself from attack against Iran. The President has the power as Commander in Chief under Article II, and the War Powers Resolution specifies that power and doesn't codify it. It doesn't need to be codified, but it makes clear that power is always inherent in the Office of the President. Our amendment doesn't suggest that Iran's behavior is acceptable or consistent with international norms. I have been part of many efforts over the course of my time in the Senate to impose sanctions on Iran if they violated, for example, ballistic missile protocols, U.N. sanctions, or rules, and if they engaged in human rights abuses. The purpose here is not to stand up and defend Iranian behavior, but it is to stand for the proposition that we shouldn't be committed to a war without a vote of Congress. I will say that this administration's actions and rhetoric have been unnecessarily provocative. It was the United States that pulled out of a diplomatic deal that was working, not Iran. When President Trump pulled out of the diplomatic deal at the time he did, his then- Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson; his then-Secretary of Defense, James Mattis; his then-National Security Advisor, General McMaster; his then and current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford--all said that the Iran deal was working, that Iran was complying with it, and that the United States should stay in it. The President pulled out of the diplomatic deal nevertheless and in the year since has reimposed sanctions and taken a number of steps that are provocative toward Iran--diplomatic provocation, rhetorical provocation, economic provocation, and military provocation. We have been having a set of briefings--some classified--from the administration on this. I am not going to get into classified material, but one thing I will acknowledge--and I am impressed by this--is the administration's intel experts, when they brief us on the situation-- even yesterday--they will state that Iran's activities are--and this is pretty much a direct quote--in response to the ``U.S. Maximum Pressure'' campaign. The ``U.S. Maximum Pressure'' campaign that started with the United States backing out of the diplomatic deal is leading to Iran taking other actions that we don't like, but they are not taking those actions unprovoked. Their actions need to be understood as a response to the ``U.S. Maximum Pressure'' campaign. Senator Merkley talked about it. We pulled out of the deal. We reimposed sanctions. We designated part of the Iranian Government as a foreign terrorist organization. We misrepresented routine military operations in the region. We moved more troops and Patriot missiles and aircraft carriers and other military material into Iran's region. This is not their moving material into our region; it is our moving material into their neighborhood. Just this week, the administration announced the deployment of an additional 1,000 troops to the Middle East to counter Iran, and that is what this administration is doing--a ``U.S. Maximum Pressure'' campaign that tears up diplomacy and thus raises the risk of unnecessary war. I will also point out that it is not just U.S. activity that is provoking Iran. When the United States allows Saudi Arabia to get missiles they shouldn't have and when the United States observes the Saudis building a missile program--by public reports, possibly with the support of China--that is viewed as very dangerous by Iran. When the United States transfers nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia--not even briefing Congress about it--and the Saudis say they would try to build up a nuclear arsenal to counter Iran, it is a provocation. So the maximum pressure by the United States and nations like Saudi Arabia are leading to an unnecessary escalation of tension in the region. I want to conclude because my colleague from New Mexico, who is the author of this, also wants to speak about why we need to take it up, but let me just say this. I am going to state my position for the record. I think another war in the Middle East now would be a disaster. I think it would be catastrophic for the United States to tear up a diplomatic deal and then look our troops in the face and say ``Because we tore up a diplomatic deal, you have to now go fight another war'' when we have been in the Middle East for 18 years. I think it would represent just about as catastrophic a failure of American foreign policy as you could imagine. I think it would also have the disadvantage of taking our eye off the ball. I have always been taught to keep the main thing the main thing. I think the main thing right now in national security for the United States is to keep our eye on our principal competitor, which is China. When we take our eye off our principal competitor and we engage in wars we needn't be in, China will be the victor in that. That is a very dangerous thing for us. So I think it would be catastrophic for the United States to be engaged in another war in the Middle East, particularly a war against Iran right now. But if the President feels differently about that; if some of his advisers think we ought to be about regime change in Iran, as they have said; if some of them think it would be easy to beat Iran in a war, as they have said; if some colleagues here on the floor think we should be in a war with Iran, as some have publicly urged, let them come to the floor of the Senate, in full view of the American people, and make that argument. Let's have that argument right here in the greatest deliberative body in the world with the American public watching, and I will make my argument about why a new war in the Middle East would be catastrophic and see who wants to stand up and make the argument that a new war in the Middle East is something this great Nation should do. And if we then have that argument and cast a vote and I lose, I am going to be disappointed, but we will have done what the Constitution suggests that we must do. Our failure to have that debate is so unfair to our troops. It is unfair to our troops to put them in harm's way with Congress hiding under their desk, not being willing to state yea or nay on whether we should be engaged in hostilities. Let's honor the troops and the sacrifice we would ask them to make, follow the Constitution, and have this debate before the American public. That is what the amendment would essentially guarantee that this body would do, and that is why I so strongly support it. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to echo the comments of my colleagues on these bills that are pending here in the Senate. I hold up the Calendar of Business for the Senate for Wednesday, June 19, 2019, which is today. On page 15 of the calendar, item 29 is H.R. 8, ``An act to require a background check for every firearm sale.'' The status, which is listed in every Senate calendar, is ``Mar. 4, 2019.-- Read the second time and placed on the calendar.'' It is pending here before the Senate. The next item, No. 30, is H.R. 1112, an act to amend chapter 44 of title 18, U.S. Code, to strengthen the background check procedures to be followed before a Federal firearms licensee may transfer a firearm. On March 5, 2019, it was read the second time and placed on the calendar. In this body, we are not asking for something that isn't before us. No. The Senate calendar for today says these bills are before us. Yet one individual, the Senate majority leader, is keeping us from having a debate and a vote on these two matters. We could vote on it. Maybe we wouldn't have the votes, but we ought to be able to at least vote and be accountable to the American public for the positions on these issues. I rise in the shadow of yet another tragedy in Virginia. Every Senator in this body has had tragedies like these. I know the Presiding Officer has suffered multiple tragedies in Orlando and Parkland. I was the mayor of Richmond when we had one of the highest homicide rates in the United States, which had been driven by gun violence. I was the Governor of Virginia when the shooting happened at Virginia Tech. I was in the U.S. Senate when two Virginia journalists were murdered on live television by a disgruntled ex-colleague. Then, three Fridays ago, on May 31, in Virginia Beach, just as I had left the city after giving a talk there to a local bar organization, the news came about the shooting of 12 innocent people--11 city employees and 1 contractor who was at the city just to get a building permit--who had been gunned down, in this case, by an individual who had used weapons that had massive magazines--the 30-round magazines. They were the kind of magazines that were also at issue in the shooting in Parkland. This is why I take to the floor today. In thinking about these tragedies in Virginia and the repetitive nature of them, when the shooting happened at Virginia Tech when I was Governor, I had always hoped that it would have been the worst shooting in the history of the United States. It is a weird thing to say about your own State. What a bizarre thing to say about your own State--that this tragedy had happened on April 16, 2007, and that I had hoped it would have been the worst shooting in history whereby there had been 32 people killed. Yet, at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, 49 people were killed. In Las Vegas--and my colleague from Nevada is here--over 50 people were killed, and hundreds were injured. There is an escalating nature to these. Our teachers now have to do live shooting drills because of school shootings. They didn't have to do that when they were going through ed schools 10 or 15 years ago. They have to hold practices with little elementary school students. A teacher was telling me the other day about what it is like at the beginning of the year to take a group of second graders into a restroom, which is their designated spot near their classroom. The teacher is then instructed to stand in front of the door so that if a shooter starts to shoot through the door, it will be the teacher who will be killed rather than the students. The fact that we have normalized this and that we have practiced it is evidence of a sickness. Yet there are cures for sicknesses. These bills are cures for a sickness. We don't have complete cures, but they would make us safer. As was indicated, the Federal background requirement has prevented 3 million people since 1994 from getting weapons that they shouldn't have had. Some of those individuals, no doubt, may have found weapons in other ways, but the moment people are turned away from getting weapons they can't have, society is safer on those days. Sometimes they are turned away, and they never get the weapons--3 million times. Yet, because of glitches and weaknesses in the background check system, too many people who have been prohibited for decades from having weapons are still able to get them. The New York Times recently did a study of 19 mass shootings in which the firearms that had been used had been bought legally after there having been Federal background checks--19 instances in which the firearms had been legally purchased after there having been background checks. It discovered, though, in looking at those 19 cases that at least 9 of the instances had been those in which the background check systems had had glitches and flaws so that the people were able to get the weapons even though they shouldn't have been able to. Let me give you just three powerful examples. The young man who murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech was a student by the name of Seung-Hui Cho. He went to high school in Fairfax, which is not far from here. He had a serious mental illness. His counselors and teachers at his high school knew this young man. They knew his capacity and strengths, and they knew he had problems. They were able to wrap services around him so that he not only graduated but was a successful student. Then he went on to a college campus that was 200 miles away, and all of that knowledge was locked up in his high school and didn't transfer to the college campus. He was then with a new group of 35,000 people. The folks didn't know him, and they didn't know of the challenges he had. They didn't know what it took for him to be successful, because he would have been able to have been successful if the right things had been done. Over the course of his college career, he experienced increasing instances of mental illness and, at one point, was adjudicated by a local behavioral services board as being mentally ill and dangerous. That is one of the nine categories under Federal law. It is not just one's being mentally ill, because mentally ill people are, more often, the victims of violence rather than the perpetrators of violence. You have to be adjudicated mentally ill and likely be a danger to others. He was adjudicated in that way, and that prohibited him from getting a weapon. The local court system failed to introduce the record into the national criminal background check system. So, a few months later, when he went to a federally licensed gun dealer in Roanoke to purchase the weapons that led to the mass atrocity, even though he was prohibited, the weakness in the background check system allowed him to get the weapons and carry out the murders. I was able to fix some of this glitch by executive order when I was the Governor when what I really needed at the time from my legislature in Virginia was a commitment to universal background checks. The better the system, the safer we are. I could not get that from my legislature, but that was an instance in which, clearly, glitches in the background check system had led to this massive atrocity. In Charleston, this deranged young man who had sat in on a Bible study, had worshiped with people who had prayed for him and who had later forgiven him, and had then used his weapon to murder nine people had acquired a weapon despite his having been prohibited. He had been prohibited under Federal law from having a weapon. There is a part of the Federal law that is the subject of one of the two bills that is pending now before the Senate that says, if you are buying at a licensed gun dealer's and if the background check can't be completed within 72 hours, the dealer has to put the weapon in your hand even though you are prohibited from having the weapon. In the case of Dylann Roof, they could not complete the background check within 3 days. The weapon was put in his hand, and he murdered these people as they were at a Bible study in the middle of the week. Again, there was a weakness in the background check system. How sad they are, these shootings. They are sad however and wherever they occur--at a nightclub, at a school, at a corner in Richmond. We had the murder of a 9-year-old and the injury of an 11-year-old 2 weeks ago in a neighborhood park because of a driveby. Wherever it happens, it is horrible--but at synagogues and churches in Charleston? You will remember the instance in Sutherland Springs, TX, in November 2017 when someone went into a church and killed 26 people. Again, there was a weakness in the background check system. The gunman had been in the Air Force. While in the Air Force, he had been convicted and sentenced to 12 months confinement and had had his rank reduced because he had assaulted his wife and had broken the skull of his infant child. He had had a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force. With that adjudicated offense and with that discharge, he should have been prohibited from getting a weapon. Yet, in 2016 and 2017, he had purchased two firearms and had passed the Federal background check because the military adjudications had not been introduced into the system. The two bills I mentioned that are on the floor would do two things. They would make the background check system universal. However a weapon is transferred--in a Federal gun licensing, in a gun show, or between relatives and whether for payment or as a gift--you must determine before the gun is placed in the hand of an individual whether that individual is allowed to have a weapon or is prohibited. That is the first bill. The second one I mentioned would fix the Charleston loophole. It would establish that you don't just get the gun put in your hand if there is a glitch and it slows down the processing of your request. You have to be approved. There has to be a green light that says you are an allowed person before you get the weapon. To the extent that it might take longer than 3 days, it is in the interest of public safety to make sure that the person who is getting the weapon isn't prohibited. These measures are effective. The States that have gone to universal background checks can compare data pre and post, and they can compare their data with that of their next-door neighbors. The States that have moved to universal background checks have seen a reduction in gun violence. It is not the complete elimination. We are not able to do that. We didn't completely eliminate auto deaths when we required that there be air bags, but we have made people a lot safer, and that should be the standard here too. These laws are effective, and they are popular. Overwhelmingly, Americans support background checks. Finally, this is not even, really, a new law. The NRA used to take the position that it didn't want new laws but that it wanted to enforce existing laws. The background check bill isn't even a new law; it is just the enforcement of existing laws. If you have a group of people who are prohibited from having weapons but the only way to enforce that is through a comprehensive background check system, then the way to look at these two bills is that these are bills that are necessary to enforcing existing laws that have been on the books since 1968 and with a bipartisan consensus. We deserve a vote. These matters shouldn't just sit here on the Senate calendar day after day, week after week, and month after month without there being the opportunity to have a vote. As I conclude, there was a time in the Congress when there was something called the gag rule--for decades in the 1820s and 1830s. I think my timing is right. There was, essentially, something called the gag rule. Petitions with respect to the abolition of slavery were not able to be debated, and I fear that this is what we have come to in this body with respect to these issues. We haven't had a meaningful debate and vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate about the scourge of gun violence since the debate and vote in April of 2013, which was in the aftermath of the shooting in Sandy Hook. It has been more than 6 years, and I think it is time to do it. The bills are pending on the calendar. We should have that debate and have that vote. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President. When a U.S. servicemember gives their life in service to their Nation, they often leave behind family who we are equally indebted to. Ensuring that these survivors are provided every opportunity to succeed and get a quality education supports our values and upholds our promise to servicemembers and military families. Unfortunately, our ability to uphold our promise to dependents of servicemembers who were killed in action (KIA) in Iraq and Afghanistan following the attacks on September 11, 2001 has been affected. As a result of sequestration, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) sent a letter to institutions requiring them to reduce the Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant awards by about 6.2% or almost $400 per recipient for the 2018-2019 award year. These grants are critical for students to use for tuition, books, and room and board and any future cut would be significant for a young college student. Many children and dependents of servicemembers who were KIA in Iraq and Afghanistan are now reaching college age so more and more students will not be receiving as much in grants as they should be getting and rightfully deserve. Today, I am pleased to introduce with my colleagues Senator Lankford, Senator Tester, and Senator Scott (from South Carolina) a bipartisan bill called the Protecting our Gold Star Families' Act of 2019. This legislation will move the Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant program to the Pell Grant program to stabilize the funding source for these awards and ensure Gold Star families have access to the maximum Pell Grant funding available if they previously did not qualify for Pell Grants. Additionally the bill would align eligibility requirements under existing Department of Veterans Affairs grants such as the Fry Scholarship with ED and the Iraq and Afghanistan Service program to ensure that all Gold Star families are receiving the award. While Virginia public universities already offer tuition assistance to dependents whose parents were killed in action or were permanently disabled under the state's Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program (VMSDEP), these funds could be used to offset tuition at private institutions and could also cover additional expenses, including room and board, books, and supplies. Over 500 Virginians have attended or are currently attending college at public universities with assistance through VMSDEP and would qualify for these Pell Grants as well. Our Gold Star families have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. Helping them afford college is the least we can do. We should give our servicemembers a peace of mind that if anything happens to them, the nation they served will look out for their children and help them access a high-quality education. As more of our post 9/11 Gold Star children are starting to reach college age, now is the right time to improve the program. I hope that my colleagues will incorporate this bipartisan bill in a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.