Mike Lee

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, this amendment, amendment No. 855, would create a budget point of order--a point of order that would make it clear it is not in order to consider a debt ceiling increase using reconciliation instructions under this budget. While the language in this budget does not itself expressly authorize the use of reconciliation for this purpose, it does nothing to prohibit such language from being added in conference. So the point of order at issue would impact only legislation that attempts to use reconciliation instructions to pass a debt limit increase, and it would require an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the Members duly sworn and chosen. This is something the American people deserve to have debated and discussed independently. It is also something that ought to require an enhanced threshold. I encourage my colleagues to support amendment No. 855.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the Federal Government owns almost two-thirds of the land in Utah and almost half of the land in the 11 coterminous States in the Western United States. But unlike other property owners, the Federal Government does not pay property tax. As a result, areas with high concentrations of Federal land, such as most of Utah and most of the Western United States, face budget shortfalls that affect the ability of those States to fund critical education, transportation infrastructure, and emergency services. To help compensate local governments for this loss of property tax revenue, the Federal Government created the PILT Program--PILT stands for Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program--to provide some funding for these revenue shortfalls. Historically, PILT payments tend to represent just a tiny fraction, just pennies on the dollar for what these jurisdictions could otherwise collect in property tax revenue. Now to correct the damage caused by this unfair system----

Mr. LEE. I ask my colleagues to vote for this amendment which would allow us to bring PILT into conformity with what these jurisdictions would otherwise receive from taxation.

Mr. LEE

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with the senior Senator from Illinois and the junior Senator from New Jersey, as well as the junior Senator from Arizona.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Yes.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, we rise today to speak in favor of the Smarter Sentencing Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that would make targeted reforms to mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. I was proud to join my distinguished colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, in introducing this legislation. He and I wish to thank our cosponsors, Senators Jeff Flake, Cory Booker, Ted Cruz, Pat Leahy, Rand Paul, Sheldon Whitehouse, Johnny Isakson, and Chris Coons. I also wish to thank the lead sponsors of the House version of the Smarter Sentencing Act, Congressmen Rauul Labrador and Bobby Scott. It is not often that you see a political coalition such as this one on Capitol Hill. It reflects the importance of an issue whose time has come--reforming our Federal sentencing laws. We come to the floor today to explain what the Smarter Sentencing Act does and to address some common misconceptions about our bill that have been expressed on the Senate floor. I ask my friend and colleague Senator Durbin: What problems does the Smarter Sentencing Act seek to address?

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I thank the Senator from New Jersey for this question, which really cuts to the heart of many of the most important reasons why we feel this bill needs to become law. First, the Smarter Sentencing Act would reduce Federal mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses in a very targeted way. Our bill would allow Federal judges to determine--on a case-by-case basis--when the harshest penalties should apply. We don't repeal any mandatory minimum sentences, and we do not lower any maximum sentences. This approach maintains a floor below which no offenders can be sentenced, but it gives judges the discretion to determine when the very harshest penalties should apply in a particular case. These changes in mandatory minimum sentences do not apply to violent offenses, and they do not apply to offenders who import drugs into the United States unless, of course, the offender's role is limited solely to transporting or storing drugs or money. Second, the Smarter Sentencing Act would modestly expand the Federal safety valve, which allows Federal judges to sentence a limited number of nonviolent drug offenders at levels below the mandatory minimum sentence. Our bill would expand the safety valve to nonviolent offenders with only a minor criminal history. Individuals who use weapons or play a leadership role in the offense in question would be ineligible for the safety valve in those circumstances. I ask the senior Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, to explain other important provisions of our bill.

Mr. LEE. It is not true. It is simply inaccurate. So those who insist that our exploding Federal prison population somehow has nothing to do with the explosive use of mandatory minimum prison sentences within our Federal system are simply wrong. In its 2011 report, the U.S. Sentencing Commission concluded that mandatory minimums have had ``a significant impact on the Federal prison population.'' From 1995 through 2010, the number of Federal prisoners serving a mandatory minimum sentence grew from 29,603 to 75,579. That is a 155- percent increase. It represents over one-third of all Federal prisoners. As of December 2014, over 59 percent of the 210,567 Federal inmates-- 125,000 inmates over all--had been convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum. Of these, 74.3 percent, which represents 91,806 inmates, were required to serve that mandatory minimum sentence or more. In 2013, 62.1 percent of all drug offenders were convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum. Over 60 percent of them received no safety valve relief and 70 percent of them did not receive relief for cooperating with authorities. Some have argued that those serving sentences for nonviolent drug offenses have long and violent criminal histories, but sentencing commission data shows this is inaccurate. In 2013, 49.6 percent of drug offenders had little or no criminal history, and only 7 percent of drug offenders were sentenced under the ``career offender'' sentencing guideline, which requires two prior convictions for a drug offense or a crime of violence. But here is the important point: The Smarter Sentencing Act reduces certain mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, but we do not lower the maximum sentence. That means a judge can sentence offenders all the way up to the statutory maximum if she determines it is appropriate under the circumstances. Some have raised concerns about how reducing mandatory minimum sentences might impact serious problems such as the heroin epidemic or narcoterrorism. Can the Senator from Illinois address that?

Mr. LEE. Those who make that argument--those who suggest that by passing this bill we would reduce the bargaining power of prosecutors-- are mistaken. The sentencing commission data on this point shows that the longer a mandatory minimum sentence is, the more likely a defendant is not to plead guilty and to cooperate and instead to insist on going to trial. Sentencing commission data also showed that rates of cooperation for crimes that have no mandatory minimum sentence are the same and even higher for drugs that do have rigid mandatory minimum sentences. The reality is that defendants are most likely to cooperate when they have information to give. That is why high-level drug offenders receive relief of mandatory minimum sentences at much higher rates than lower offenders. Defendants who organize or manage a drug trafficking enterprise have the most information with which to bargain as they enter into discussions with prosecutors. Low-level offenders who have less responsibility and less knowledge often don't have much information to offer, no matter how long a mandatory minimum sentence they might face in a particular case. Judge William Wilkins, who was appointed to the bench by President Reagan and served as the first chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, said the following: There are few Federal judges engaged in criminal sentencing who have not had the disheartening experience of seeing major players in crimes before them immunize themselves from the mandatory minimum sentences by blowing the whistle on their minions, while the low-level offenders find themselves sentenced to the mandatory minimum prison term so skillfully avoided by the kingpins. Some of them claim the Smarter Sentencing Act will add up to $1 billion in Federal spending. Senator Flake, is that true?

Mr. LEE. Yes, and I would like to conclude my remarks in a moment by wrapping up. Before I do that, though, I notice on the floor with us is my friend Senator Whitehouse, who happens to be another supporter and cosponsor of this bill and who is also the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I would ask Senator Whitehouse to say a few words about this bill.

Mr. LEE. I thank Senator Whitehouse. Mr. President, I would like to conclude by thanking my colleagues for their help. First of all, thanks to Senator Durbin for working with this Senator over the last couple of years in developing this legislation. I thank my other cosponsors as well. I thank Senator Booker, Senator Whitehouse, and Senator Flake, who have joined us today. This is truly a bipartisan, bicameral effort that brings support from across the political spectrum. Excessive mandatory minimums do not make us safer. The last 30 years have shown us that they are applied unevenly and they leave a gaping hole in the communities they impact most heavily. Now we as a society have to pick up the tab. We must decide if we will continue to pay the high fiscal and social costs that mandatory minimums impose. It is important for us to remember these costs do have many manifestations. Sometimes in this body we focus only on the fiscal pricetag that can be expressed in raw numbers, but doing that allows us to ignore too often the high human costs--the families and the communities that have lost brothers, sons, fathers, uncles, and nephews, people who could be back in their communities contributing meaningfully to their success, who are instead sent away for sometimes far too long of a prison sentence. We can continue down this current path or if we could try something smarter, that perhaps would be better. The Smarter Sentencing Act gives us an opportunity to do precisely that--to do something smarter, to rely less on prison, and to do more with scarce resources. Instead of just paying for prisons, it would allow us to work smarter in pursuit of justice. I hope all my colleagues will join us in supporting the Smarter Sentencing Act. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, we have new research that shows there are two big problems we face as a result of these mandatory minimum sentences within our Federal system. First, they are not needed to ensure public safety in many instances, and second, they are having a very negative impact on certain disadvantaged communities. Last year, the National Research Council of the National Academies issued a major study of incarceration in the United States. One of their main conclusions is that mandatory sentencing and excessively long sentences generally do not have a significant deterrent effect and are ineffective unless targeted at offenders with a very high rate of recidivism or extremely dangerous offenders. The National Research Council concluded: ``[We] have reviewed the research literature on the deterrent effect of such laws and have concluded that the evidence is insufficient to justify the conclusion that these harsher punishments yield measurable public safety benefits.'' And recent data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent and bipartisan Federal agency, shows that shorter sentences can accomplish the same goals without compromising public safety. Our communities have paid a high cost for the stiff sentences that mandatory minimums require. The National Research Council found that high incarceration rates are concentrated in poor, minority neighborhoods, and that the incarceration of significant numbers of residents in these neighborhoods actually compounded existing social and economic problems such as unemployment, poverty, family disruption, poor health, and drug addiction.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to grant floor privileges to a member of my staff, Derek Brown, through the end of the day.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to a gentleman from Rosebud, TX, who has helped this Senator from Utah on occasions too numerous to count and in ways impossible to measure. For over 4 years Brian Phillips has dutifully served as my communications director. As he prepares to pursue new opportunities, I want to pause and acknowledge his service to me, to my office, to the people of Utah, and to our Nation. The role of communications director in a Senate office is not for the faint of heart nor is it for the arrogant or overconfident. Many believe the job of a communications director is to rack up style points, political positioning, and positive spin. I have learned from Brian that a true communications director is laser-focused on substance, rock solid in his principles, and devoted to creating a space for people to hear and understand a message. He has expanded my view of what communication truly is and what it can be--what it should be. Brian brought to my office the grittiness of his Texas roots, his passion from years on the campaign trail, the wisdom of one who has been tested in tough times, and the vision of a conservative reformer who has seen the view from higher up. I am certain there were times when Brian wondered what in the world he had gotten himself into with a freshman Senator and a ragtag team from Utah. I am also certain we are all better in what we do because he was willing to stand with us. Brian is more than a communications director. He is a trusted counselor. I trust Brian's assessment of complex situations and count on his counsel to navigate challenging circumstances and to maximize seemingly hidden opportunities. No one has prepared me better to answer hard questions or deliver vital messages at critical moments. I would put Brian's uncanny sixth sense--his ``Spidey'' sense, as he calls it-- about what lurks around corners up against anyone's communications professional anywhere. Brian is a master at leading people into strategic thinking, sometimes through heated discussions, but always to the higher ground of meaningful dialog. Brian is comfortable with and capable of engaging people from across the professional and personal spectrum. I have watched him work with Senators and staff, with interns and individual Utahns, jaded journalists and passionate groups of grass-roots activists. He sets everyone at ease, provides an honest assessment, pushes when needed, pulls when necessary, and through pushes, pulls, nudges, and shoves, gets everyone to the best possible place. To watch him work is extraordinary. There are many in this town who simply look out for themselves. There are many who judge their success by their own headlines, bylines, and story lines. I am most thankful that Brian Phillips put me and my staff, along with the people of Utah and the people of this Nation, ahead of his own interests. Because he put others first, he has created a legacy that will last. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, in November 2014, the President of the United States issued a series of Executive orders effectively granting amnesty to millions of people who were in the United States unlawfully, outside of what our laws allow--laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States. In other words, under article I, section 8, we, as a Congress, are given power to establish a uniform system of laws governing immigration and naturalization. If our laws allow someone to come in, they may come in, but if they do not, then those people need to make sure they go about getting into the country legally and lawfully. If and when the President of the United States, or anyone else for that matter, thinks these laws are inadequate, there is a way to change them. The way to change them is to go back to the Congress of the United States, go back to the lawmaking body, go back to that entity recognized in article I, section 1 of the Constitution, to the very first substantive line which says, ``All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.'' Unfortunately, the President of the United States chose not to change the law that way. Unfortunately, the President of the United States, contradicting his own prior statements, chose to take Executive action to legalize millions of people currently in the United States illegally. Ultimately, this is an issue that ought to be of concern to every one of us. It is an issue that is neither Republican nor Democratic. It is neither liberal nor conservative. It is simply an American issue. It is simply an issue that flows from the rule of law, flows from the notion that ours is a system that runs under the rule of law and not under the rule of individuals. There is a means by which we as a Congress can resist the encroachments of an overreaching Chief Executive. It is the same means identified by James Madison in the Federalist papers, and that means involves the use of the power of the purse. Congress, of course, funds the operations of the Federal Government. The President of the United States cannot do that all on his own. So should we choose to do so, as Congress has chosen to do on so many other occasions--when we see something within the government, whether implemented legally at the outset or not, when we see something we don't like, we can choose not to fund that. We have, over the last few weeks, tried to do precisely that in response to this Executive action. One month ago the House of Representatives passed a bill to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, with the understanding that at midnight tonight that funding stream would expire. At the time the House of Representatives passed that legislation, the House of Representatives--a body most accountable to the people at the most frequent intervals--made a decision. They said, We are going to keep everything else within the Department of Homeland Security funded, and the House of Representatives said, We will, however, direct the Department of Homeland Security not to spend any money implementing certain Executive orders issued by the President, in November 2014 and previously, dealing with Executive amnesty. The Senate has been trying to proceed to that bill for nearly 4 weeks. Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have refused to allow us to proceed to that bill. They have blocked our attempts. They have engaged in obstruction and they have not allowed us to proceed to it. Why? Because they didn't like that appropriations rider. They didn't like that spending restriction. Apparently, they do not think we should be exercising that power described by James Madison and foreseen by our Founding Fathers as that last great protection against an overreaching Executive. So they refused to allow us to get onto the bill. As we are on the verge of getting on the bill--as we are just getting onto the bill--all of a sudden, they say, OK, we are OK with doing this as long as we are the only ones who get to offer amendments, as long as we get our amendment--the amendment that strips out all of the spending limitation language in the House-passed bill. We are OK with it as long as we, the Democrats, get our amendment, but no Republican gets his or her amendment. That isn't fair. I wish to make clear that those of us who are supporting this have not objected to the running of the time. Those of us who are supporting this have not objected to anyone else getting amendments. Those of us who are supporting this simply want a vote. We want a vote on a product that is even narrower than what was sent over from the House of Representatives. In a moment I will be calling up my amendment No. 265 and I will be asking this body to consider it and vote on it. What it says is that we will not allow the Department of Homeland Security to spend any money on implementing the November 2014 Executive amnesty Executive order. That is what we are trying to do. In the event it is objected to, then I will be moving to table the procedural mechanism by which other amendments are being blocked. I implore all of my colleagues to remember themselves as operating within the constitutional framework, in which, far more than our status as Democrat or Republican, as liberal or conservative, we are here to defend our own power, our own authority that we have been given by our own people. I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment. I ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment No. 265.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I move to table the McConnell amendment No. 258 for the purposes of offering my amendment No. 265, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stand before this body this afternoon to encourage my colleagues--particularly my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--to take into account the need to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The House of Representatives acted responsibly in passing legislation to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, and they did so acting more than 1 month in advance of the scheduled expiration of the existing funding stream for the Department of Homeland Security. This was a good move. It was likewise a good move of the majority leader to bring up this bill for consideration nearly 1 month before the expiration of the existing funding. I applauded this effort and still do. One of the reasons it was so important is it would help us avoid the cliff effect. What I mean by that is the dynamic that occurs every time we have a scheduled expiration of funding and the House and the Senate wait until the last minute, sometimes with only 1 or 2 days, sometimes with only 1 or 2 hours to spare before we act. What this does is effectively shuts out the voices of most Members of the House and most Members of the Senate. It strips us of our right to offer improvements, amendments, to legislation before that legislation has a chance to become law. Ultimately this enures to the advantage of just a few people, and it results in the effective disenfranchisement of so many people throughout America whose voices don't have an opportunity to be considered through their duly-elected Senators and Representatives. That is why this time it was going to be different. That is why this time it was so great the House and the Senate acted early in bringing up this legislation. Nevertheless, it has been 2 weeks since we brought up this bill, the bill passed by the House to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. Two weeks, and we have cast vote after vote trying to get on the bill--just trying to consider the bill--and we have seen those efforts to get on the bill blocked by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Earlier today I heard colleagues on the other side of the aisle trying to explain their reasons for continuing to block consideration of this bill. I heard arguments that suggested that although they want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, they don't want to consider this bill because, as some of them have put it, they don't like everything the House of Representatives put into the bill. They don't like the provisions in the bill restricting the administration's ability to use those funds to carry out--to implement--the President's Executive orders issued in November of this last year, Executive orders that would have the effect of granting amnesty to millions of people currently inside the United States illegally. Look, people are entitled to their opinions about how best we should proceed, how best we should deal with those who are currently inside the country illegally. There are a lot of opinions about this, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But Americans are overwhelmingly united behind the uncontroversial proposition that when Congress has established a law in a particular area, as it has with our immigration code, in order for that law to be changed, it needs to be changed by congressional action. The House needs to pass it, the Senate needs to pass it, and the President needs to sign it into law. As the President has acknowledged repeatedly, he lacks the authority to make those changes on his own. He lacks the authority to act unilaterally. He lacks the authority under our system to behave as if he were a government of one. Ours is not a government of one. In fact, our Founding Fathers, while they disagreed on a number of issues, they were united behind one core principle behind our 227-year-old governing document that has fostered the development of the greatest civilization the world has ever known. They were united behind the proposition that bad things happen when too much power gets consolidated into the hands of the few or, even worse, into the hands of one person. That is why they put in place this system that would split the powers of government into three coequal branches, and within the legislative branch--which many of them tended to view as wielding potentially the most dangerous power--they split up that power into two bodies and then split up the power within each of those bodies so no one person and no one group of people could accumulate too much power. They certainly never intended a system in which we would have a virtual monarch, albeit a monarch serving for a term of years who could by the stroke of a pen change the law according to his own will, change the law in order to suit his own political interests, change the law without going through Congress. Yet that is what has happened, which brings me back to arguments made today and over the last few days by my colleagues across the aisle. They say we are fine with funding the Department of Homeland Security, but we don't like all the provisions put in there by the House of Representatives. We don't like those provisions that would restrict the President's authority to spend money implementing the President's Executive amnesty program. Again, Americans, regardless of how they feel about amnesty, as a matter of policy, are overwhelmingly of the opinion--and correctly so-- that this is a decision that needs to be made by Congress and not the President of the United States. Secondly, this is the kind of issue we deal with, with some regularity, within Congress. Within the system as it has evolved, within the system as dictated by operation of the rules of the House of Representatives, typically--and for more than a century exclusively--it has been the role of the House of Representatives to initiate appropriations bills when we are trying to fund a government program that starts in the House, and that has been the case for well over a century. So they have the prerogative of starting a bill to fund the government, and that is what they did. When it comes over here, if you don't like it, that is fine. This is a great place to be if you don't like a bill as it starts out. The U.S. Senate has been called the world's greatest deliberative legislative body with good reason--because our rules, when properly followed, protect the right of every Member to make sure his or her views are adequately aired and protect and preserve the right of each and every Member to offer improvements to bills and offer amendments to make changes to legislation before it is put into law. Our rules are very clear on this. It is unfortunate that in the last few years under the previous leadership those rights were trampled. Those rights were suppressed. We often didn't have those rights. We often had legislation that came up without a fair, open opportunity for each Member to offer amendments. But we have moved on. We have a new majority leader, a majority leader who has, to his great credit, stood behind his commitment to protect the right of each Member to offer amendments to legislation. I thank him for that and encourage him to continue following this because it is good for this body. But because it is good for us and because our rules already provide for it and because we are following those rules now, as evidenced by the fact that we have now voted on more amendments on the floor in the form of a rollcall vote to pending legislation just in the last few weeks than we did in the entire last Congress, as evidenced by that, we don't need to fear the old order anymore. We don't need to fear the possibility of legislation coming into this body, and if we proceed to it, that that legislation will be without the opportunity to offer amendments. So if Members don't like something in this bill, vote at least to proceed to it, vote at least to allow the debate to begin, but that, alas, is not what my colleagues across the aisle have chosen to do. What they have chosen to do is to say: No. No, no, no. They are obstructing. They are obstructing the process as it was designed by the Constitution and as contemplated by the rules of the Senate and the rules of the House of Representatives. They are saying, no, we will not consider this because we don't like some provisions of this bill. Yet they are also saying at the same time we want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. I agree with exactly half of that statement. I agree with them I think when they say they want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. At least I will take that at face value. But if they truly do, then why on Earth would they not proceed to it? And if they don't like some of the other provisions, let them offer amendments. Let them change that. At the end of the day, we have to come to terms with the fact that not all of us are going to like every part of every bill that comes over from the House of Representatives. In fact, I dare say it hardly ever happens that any one Member of this body immediately, automatically feels great about every jot and title, about every section, every syllable, every paragraph of a bill that comes over from the House of Representatives. That is exactly why we have the rules we do. That is exactly why parliamentary procedures, as they have evolved over the centuries, generally have as their central feature the protection of Members of any body such as this of the right to offer amendments, to offer helpful suggestions. But under our rules in the Senate, that cannot operate, it will not operate, it is not available, it doesn't exist unless we first vote to proceed to the bill. So I invite my colleagues across the aisle--I challenge them--if they want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, vote to get on this bill. If they care about America's national security, there is a way to prove it. There is a way to prove they mean what they say when they say they want to keep it funded. Vote to get on this bill. It doesn't mean they have to agree with me, but it was not only acceptable but entirely appropriate and even necessary for the House to act to protect the constitutional order and to do so by restricting the President's ability to spend money to implement his Executive amnesty program. People don't have to agree with me on that, but if Members want to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded, they can and they must and they will vote to proceed to this bill. Now we may disagree on what amendments you offer, but the Senate majority leader has repeated his offer, to make sure that we have an open amendment process, and we will. In light of that, there is no excuse--there can be no excuse for my Democratic colleagues to continue to insist on the one hand that they care about our Nation's security and funding the Department of Homeland Security, while voting on the other hand against proceeding to this funding bill to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. There is no excuse and there can be none. It is most unfortunate that we have gone now 2 weeks without being able to proceed to this bill--2 weeks in which we could have offered amendments, 2 weeks in which my Democratic colleagues may well have succeeded in getting rid of some or perhaps all of the provisions they don't like added by the House of Representatives. They may have ended up with a piece of legislation that is exactly what they would have written had they started it over here, but they didn't do that. Meanwhile, they have the audacity to accuse Republicans of causing this problem. This is something I don't understand. There are those among them who insist that Republicans did this very thing in the last Congress. Well, there were times when Republicans voted in the last Congress not to proceed to something, but overwhelmingly--and if I recall correctly, perhaps entirely--when Republicans stopped their motion to proceed, when Republicans blocked cloture on a motion to proceed to the legislation, it was on the basis of a well-founded complaint that there would be no open amendment process. But there is no such argument to be made here. That argument has thankfully been taken off the table by our majority leader, who has thankfully opened up the Senate once again and made an amendment process possible. Perhaps my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are still fearing the shadow cast by the previous leadership exercised in the previous Congress in the Senate that blocked out the amendment process, that made amendments impossible. If that is what they are afraid of, they have no need to fear. The Sun is now shining. The opportunity to offer up amendments and have those amendments considered has been restored to the Senate. There is no reason to be afraid. No reason to be afraid, of course, unless we somehow do the unthinkable--unless we continue to kick this can down the road farther and farther until we have no options left on the table. We have just a few legislative days remaining between now and the time the existing funding for the Department of Homeland Security will expire. Our next vote has been scheduled on this, as I understand it, a week from Monday. I would implore each of my colleagues to reconsider their current strategy. Whether you like it or not, the way our system is set up is that the House of Representatives starts our spending bills. They have to pass spending bills first. If you don't like everything in the Homeland Security bill that the House passed--fine, vote to proceed to it and then change it. Change it back however you want. Propose amendments. I might not vote for all of them, I might not agree to all of them, but propose them. Have them aired out, have them considered by this body, by the American people, and let's have the debate, because our clock is ticking and our Nation's homeland security is too important for us to continue to put this off. But that is what we have been doing. That is what my colleagues who have been voting against cloture on the motion to proceed have been doing every time they voted no on this important issue. The time has come for this body to accept the fact that a new day has dawned and we now have the ability once again to offer amendments, and because that opportunity now exists again, there is no reason to be afraid to move to legislation that has been passed by the House of Representatives to keep one of our government's important departments operating--no reason to fear whatsoever. In fact, if you are worried about what you should be fearful of, you should be fearful of not proceeding to this bill. The next time we cast a vote on this, I encourage each of my colleagues to vote yes. Let's get on the bill and have an open, robust debate and whatever the outcome of that debate, we will get something passed. We will get it to the President, and we will make sure we keep this Department funded. Thank you, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the Land and Water Conservation Fund is used for a number of purposes, although the primary purpose involves the acquisition of new Federal land. Funding the acquisition of new Federal land at a time when Federal agencies can barely take care of the land they already have does raise some rather significant questions that need to be addressed. The Department of Interior faces a combined maintenance backlog of over $20 billion--$13 billion in our National Park Service alone. We struggle with ways to fund the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program, the intent of which was to mitigate the burden of Federal land to local communities where there is an abundance of Federal land that can't be taxed. Coming from a State that is dominated by Federal land ownership--two- thirds of the land in Utah is controlled by Federal agencies. Any new Federal land ownership must be examined with a healthy degree of skepticism. There are many issues that need to be considered and debated before we reauthorize any program that would potentially expand the Federal Government's land holdings. I certainly support opening our public lands for recreation, including for purposes related to hunting and fishing, and I believe that the Land and Water Conservation Fund could also be used to mitigate the negative impacts of Federal regulations on private property such as listings under the Endangered Species Act. But reform isn't likely to happen. In fact, reform may well be impossible if we allow this bill to pass as is without going through the proper procedures. This bill should be subject to debate and amendment, first at the committee level and then on the floor of the Senate. That is what needs to happen, and on that basis I object.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, Republicans in the Senate are ready to begin debating the bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. But in order to do that, we must first vote to proceed to the bill, and Democrats have blocked us from doing that. They have done that yet again today. This is simply a procedural vote, but it is a very important procedural vote. It is a threshold vote, without which other votes cannot and will not occur. Voting yes on a motion to proceed to this bill doesn't mean you support the bill. Regardless of which way you vote, it doesn't signal which way you lean on the underlying merits of this bill. It doesn't mean you support this or that amendment. It simply means you are willing to engage in an open, transparent, and public debate about the future of Homeland Security and about making sure the Department charged with this task is funded. Why would our friends across the aisle be afraid of that? Some may argue that they voted against proceeding to this bill somehow because they support funding Homeland Security, but that is not true. This bill funds Homeland Security. Why then are my friends on the other side of the aisle voting against proceeding to this bill? Well, the difference that might be found is that many of them also support the President's incredibly unpopular and controversial action to grant amnesty to 5 million illegals who are here illegally inside the United States, individuals who will now be eligible for work permits and in some cases entitlement benefits. But the American people do not support that. They certainly do not support the action the President took and the way he did it. They oppose the way President Obama went around Congress. They oppose the fact that President Obama ignored the law. They oppose the damage this policy will do to American workers who are already struggling to find work and remain employed. They oppose the crisis this kind of action is creating and will continue to create at the border, as we saw last summer with so many children making that dangerous trip to get into the country and to do it the wrong way, to get here illegally. Now that the American people have put Republicans in charge, in the majority, in the Senate, we are trying to keep our promise to them, to do what they sent us here to do, and to hold a vote on President Obama's action in this regard. But the Democrats seem to be reluctant to take that vote. They seem to not want to take it. Perhaps they are afraid of it; I do not know. Maybe that is why they refuse to even begin consideration of this bill, plain and simple. This effort to try to hide from the American people is embarrassing, and it is wrong. My friends across the aisle may say that they have an alternative bill and that we should pass their alternative bill immediately. There are at least two problems with this approach. First, that may have been the way the Senate functioned under the previous majority--writing bills in back rooms, waiting until the last minute to make bills public, then filling the tree, which means making it impossible for anyone to amend the bill once it gets to the floor, having virtually no debate, and then ramming the bill through without any input from the American people, without adequate debate here, without virtually any debate here. That is not the way the Senate is supposed to work. That is not the way the Senate does work and will continue to work under the Republican majority. Second, traditionally appropriations bills do not start in the Senate. In fact, the House has not considered a Senate-originated appropriations bill for over 100 years--since at least 1901, the period for which these kinds of records are readily available. Unfortunately for them, the bill the Democrats want is not supported in the House. Why? Well, precisely because it is not supported by the American people. It is time to stop delaying democracy. It is time to stop hiding from the American people. It is time to fund the Department of Homeland Security. It is time to have this debate and this discussion about the President's actions--actions that many people regard as unlawful, actions that people have different feelings about as far as the underlying policies but that the overwhelming majority of the American people look at and say: Look, even if I like the underlying policy here, I do not like the way the President did it. If the President does not like the law, he needs to change the law. The way to change the law under our constitutional system is to go to Congress and to get something passed through Congress. Ours is not a government of one; ours is a government in which we have two entities within Congress that are charged with making the law. The President cannot act alone. So my plea to my colleagues, particularly those across the aisle, is let's have a vote and then let's have a debate. When we have a vote and we have a debate, we will get to the point where we can fund the Department of Homeland Security and keep our Nation safe. We should not be keeping these important programs--we should not be holding them back simply out of a desire to protect the President and his actions that are outside the law.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act was first enacted in 1986. I would ask my colleagues, what were you doing in 1986? Mr. President, 1986 was a long time ago. In 1986 I was in the ninth grade. This was an age when not everyone had a personal computer. My family didn't have a computer. Most of the people I knew who had a computer had something like the Commodore VIC-20, which was a very small computer with very little processing power compared to what we have today. But this law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act--or ECPA, as it is sometimes known--was and still is an important law with an increasingly important objective; that is, to ensure that government agencies respect the Fourth Amendment in accessing an individual's electronic communications. In the nearly three decades since ECPA became law, technology has advanced rapidly, dramatically, far beyond the capacity of this particular law, ECPA, to keep up. The prevalence of email and the low cost of electronic data storage have made what were once robust protections vastly insufficient to ensure that citizens' rights are protected with respect to their electronic communications, such as email. There is no reason we should still be operating under a law written in the analog age when we are living in a digital world. This is a little bit like operating with a DOS-based operating system in the age of much more sophisticated software systems that help us interact relatively seamlessly with our computers. That is why Senator Leahy and I have come together to craft this truly bipartisan piece of legislation which would modernize ECPA and bring constitutional protections against worthless searches and seizures into harmony with the technological realities of the 21st century. The Lee-Leahy ECPA Amendments Act of 2015 would prohibit electronic communications or remote computing service providers--such as Gmail or Facebook or Twitter, for example--from voluntarily disclosing the contents of customer emails or other communications. It eliminates the ambiguous and outdated 180-day rule that some government agencies believe grants them warrantless access to the content of older emails. That is any emails older than the very young age of 180 days old. Instead, all requests for the content of electronic communications would require a search warrant--a search warrant required by the Fourth Amendment, a search warrant based on probable cause--and law enforcement agencies would be required to notify within 10 days any persons whose email accounts were searched, subject to some logical and narrow exceptions, of course. This legislation is also carefully crafted so that it would not impede the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct legitimate investigative activities consistent with the Fourth Amendment. I am pleased to say that our bill enjoys very broad support from the technology industry, from privacy advocates, constitutional scholars, and policy groups on both ends of the ideological spectrum in America. The Lee-Leahy ECPA Amendments Act of 2015 is truly bipartisan in nature. The Senate bill, in addition to Senators Leahy and myself as the principal sponsors, also has six additional cosponsors. We have Republican Senators Cornyn, Moran, and Gardner and Democratic Senators Shaheen, Merkley, and Blumenthal. I hope and expect that we will have a lot of additional Senators of both political parties who will join us in this effort. The House version of this bill has 228 additional cosponsors--a very critical majority. By working together as a Democrat from Vermont and a Republican from Utah, we hope all Senators will join with us to pass this meaningful, bipartisan legislation that would benefit all Americans. Congress should pass ECPA reform this year, and President Obama should sign these important privacy reforms into law. I will end this discussion as I began. What were you doing in 1986? As it relates to your interaction with the digital world with computers, I would imagine that even though your life might be in many respects similar to what it was in 1986, it is very different in the way you interact with computers, with technology, with the online world, which basically no one was even aware of in 1986. Since 1986 the world has changed. We need to change the world to keep up with the times. We need to change the law to hold in place those protections that have been in our Constitution since 1791 to make sure the privacy rights of the American people are respected. I encourage each of my colleagues to support this bill

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I wish to speak briefly in support of this resolution. First of all, I wish to thank my distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from Tennessee, for his leadership in introducing this legislation. The Senator from Tennessee has shown great leadership on this issue. With his mastery of the Senate rules, his familiarity with the procedures of the Senate, the Senate's history, and his love for the Senate as an institution, the sponsor of this measure understands and appreciates the importance of maintaining order in the Senate. It is to this issue I would like to speak briefly. When the Senate made this change in November of 2013, what happened was all of a sudden we had a split--a split that occurred between on the one hand the wording of the rule itself that governs cloture, on the other hand the precedent by which the Senate purports to be governed. So separate and apart from what the history tells us--from how often the Senate either has or hasn't used cloture on the Executive Calendar--there is this separate distinction that has now arisen. The cloture rule says it takes three-fifths--a vote of three-fifths of the Senators--to bring end to debate on a particular matter. The rule itself makes no distinction between the Executive Calendar and the legislative calendar. It makes no distinction between ordinary legislative business where we are legislating and making law on the one hand and on the other we are meeting to decide whether to confirm a Presidential nominee. The rule doesn't distinguish, but the precedent now does. When our colleagues on other side of the aisle voted in November 2013, appealing the ruling of the Chair, they reversed the precedent. They acted contrary to the language of the rule itself. This creates a certain amount of uncertainty, and that uncertainty I think needs to be resolved. We don't want to operate in an environment in which we have the rule saying one thing and the Senate precedent saying another thing. So it was out of a certain amount of practical necessity that we looked to this as an alternative. In order to bring Senate practice back into harmony with the rules of the Senate, the best way we could come up with to do that would be to change the language of the rule. Of course to change the language of the rule it takes 67 votes. While we are not certain what is going to happen, this is perhaps the only thing we could think of that could possibly get 67 votes--67 Senators saying yes, we can do that. So it is very important that we have rules that are clear--rules that will apply regardless of who is in the White House, regardless of which party happens to control the majority of the seats in this body. If, after all, we are making the rules that would govern the country, if, after all, we are being asked to confirm Presidential nominees to high positions, we need to be following our own rules. We have to remember also that one of the things we have prided ourselves on, one of the things that has distinguished the Senate from other legislative bodies--we call ourselves the world's greatest deliberative legislative body--is because from the very beginning this has been the kind of place where in theory we will continue to debate things as long as basically any one Member wants to continue to debate. Cloture is an exception to that. Cloture allows for three-fifths of the Senators present to decide it is time to bring the debate to an end, even if a minority of Senators want to continue. But it requires a supermajority. There are many reasons to do this, but one of the reasons I think is important to point out is because it protects the right of each Senator to continue to offer improvements, to point out flaws and offer potential improvements to legislation--the amendment process. The amendment process is itself of course different in the context of legislation than it is in the context of a Presidential nominee. I am personally not aware of any means by which one can amend a nominee. I am not aware of any process by which one can confirm a Presidential nominee's right hand but not his left. I support this change. I think this change is important for this body and for the continuity of the Senate rules and I am grateful to the senior Senator from Tennessee for his efforts in this regard, which I wholeheartedly support.