Mitch McConnell

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I have 5 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Mitchell A. Silk, of New York, to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Brian D. Montgomery, of Texas, to be Deputy Secretary, and David Carey Woll, Jr., of Connecticut, and John Bobbitt, of Texas, both to be an Assistant Secretary, all of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Peter J. Coniglio, of Virginia, to be Inspector General, Export-Import Bank; to be immediately followed by an oversight hearing to examine the Securities and Exchange Commission. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on the Judiciary The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Select Committee on Intelligence The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, November 21, 2019, at 2 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing. Subcommittee on Intellectual Property The Subcommittee on Intellectual Property of the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, at 2.30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5363.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. McCONNELL. I know of no further debate on the bill.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 451, submitted earlier today.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Now, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, December 11; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the VanDyke nomination; finally, that all time during recess, adjournment, morning business, and leader remarks count postcloture on the VanDyke nomination.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. McCONNELL

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as the end of the year approaches and the House Democratic majority continues to pour its time and attention into impeaching the President, a number of key legislative items remain outstanding. For weeks, my Republican colleagues have been pleading with our Democratic friends in Congress to put aside their impeachment obsession long enough to complete some basic work for the American people. We have explained that American families cannot afford for Washington Democrats to obsess over impeachment and obstruct the things we absolutely have to do. So I am pleased that the last several days have brought at least some initial conversations that sanity and progress may be breaking through. We are still a long way from the finish line, but this week begins on a cautiously optimistic note. It appears that Democrats' willingness to block these basic governing items may be finally giving way. The National Defense Authorization Act is our annual must-pass vehicle laying out Congress's plan for addressing military funding and meeting the needs of our servicemembers. It is a responsibility that this body has discharged in a bipartisan manner every year, without fail, for 58 years. That is why it was so disheartening that Democratic leadership in both the House and the Senate broke with tradition and used this year's NDAA process to insist on all manner of partisan items, including nongermane domestic policy changes. This partisan approach left the future of the Pentagon's most urgent missions in the lurch. So I am encouraged that bicameral negotiations, with participation from the White House, reached a conclusion last week. Most of the partisan demands predictably fell away. The result is not either side's ideal bill, but it is one that should be able to pass both Chambers under the circumstances. I hope the bipartisan conference report will be signed and moved quickly through each Chamber so Congress can finally fulfill our responsibility to America's Armed Forces for another year. Then there is the appropriations process--another fundamental responsibility which, for the good of the Nation, is historically approached with a bipartisan willingness to find common ground. It seemed like that might again be the case when a bicameral, bipartisan deal was struck by the President and the Speaker of the House back in July, but then, when negotiations resumed in earnest back in September, some of our Democratic colleagues realized they weren't really ready to part with partisan poison pills. They ignored their own agreement and months of stalemate ensued. Fortunately, our appropriators are working hard to salvage the process. Last month, Chairman Shelby and Chairwoman Lowey and our other colleagues reached a deal on subcommittee allocations. I understand their hard work continued in earnest over this past weekend, with the goal of producing bills that both Chambers could consider before the end of this year. I am grateful to colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their hard work. I hope this progress continues, and we can consider appropriations measures this month. Now, there is still one more major piece of bipartisan legislation awaiting action by House Democrats. For months, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats have been slow-walking President Trump's landmark trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. Month after month, House Democrats kept 176,000 new American jobs in limbo, but, finally, after weeks of a full-court press from Republicans in the House and the Senate, we are seeing hopeful signals that Speaker Pelosi's months-long stalling campaign may at long last be coming to an end. Reports suggest the Speaker may finally allow the House to vote in the near future. For our country's sake, I certainly hope so. So what has been true for months is especially true now that time is short--it is going to take bipartisan collaboration and hard work for any of these outstanding legislative priorities to become law. Even if House Democrats do finally relent and allow these key priorities to move forward, it is now the eleventh hour, and it will require consent and cooperation for the Senate to consider legislation in a timely fashion. I ask for that collaborative spirit from my colleagues on both sides in the Senate as we move forward. We Republicans have been ready and eager for weeks to legislate on these key priorities. I hope these reports are accurate that leading Democrats may finally--finally--be willing to let Congress govern, and I hope we can move forward at a brisk pace and in a bipartisan way.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with respect to the Halpern nomination, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCONNELL

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, for weeks now, the Republicans have been asking the Democrats to take off their impeachment blinders and let Congress legislate for the American people. We have argued that American families deserve better than this partisan paralysis, where the Democrats literally obsess over impeachment and obstruct everything else. This very morning, for example, the Speaker gave a speech on national television to push forward her rushed and partisan impeachment, with not one word on the outstanding legislation the American people actually need--nothing on the USMCA or the NDAA or funding for our Armed Forces. It is all impeachment, all the time. Only in this town, only in Washington, does anybody think it is OK for our Armed Forces to go unfunded and for a major trade deal to go unpassed, because the Democrats are too busy hosting a panel of law professors to criticize President Trump on television instead of being busy on the things the American people actually need us to address. The Kentuckians I represent cannot believe our military commanders are being denied certainty, our men and women in uniform are being denied stable funding, and 176,000 new American jobs are being held up all because the Democratic leadership thinks there is more political advantage in obstruction than in doing their jobs. Well, the servicemembers and personnel in the Kentucky National Guard and at Fort Campbell, Fort Knox, and the Blue Grass Army Depot aren't going to simply stop doing their jobs. No, they are counting on us to pass critical defense legislation that reforms housing and spousal employment programs, that invests in construction, readiness, and modernization, and that locks in--listen to this--the largest pay raise in a decade. These bills touch every single State. Of course, there are major national and international issues at stake, as well, but the Democrats are still holding the NDAA hostage for a partisan wish list that is meant to appease trial lawyers, public sector unions, and their own far-left base. They are holding up the NDAA over unrelated, nongermane, leftwing wish-list items. Meanwhile, the Speaker and the Democratic leader are withholding their assent from important bipartisan provisions like the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which has previously passed both Houses and has been modified to resolve all concerns by the committees of jurisdiction. Unlike the Democratic leader's rhetoric on Syria in recent weeks, this bill would actually do something to stand up for the Syrian people and hold Assad accountable. So I hope the Democratic leader will allow this important demonstration of our support for the Syrian people to go forward. In the meantime, as if to underscore that the Democrats' top priority is performance art for coastal elites and not the people's business, I understand the Speaker of the House spent part of this week in Madrid, talking about climate change. She took an international flight to discuss carbon emissions. So the Speaker was in Spain, lamenting President Trump's decision to pull us out of the Paris Agreement. Maybe she pitched her conference's Green New Deal--its socialist plan to hurt our economy for American families--while bigger emitters like China go roaring right by. As an aside, over the past 15 years, the United States' carbon emissions have actually fallen significantly. We appear to be on track for another decline in 2019. Meanwhile, Paris Agreement signatories, like China and India, continue to emit more and more every year. China already emits, roughly, twice as much as the United States, and it is increasing every year. Kentucky and many other States know exactly what happens when Washington Democrats ignore these facts and decide America needs to take on unilateral economic pain for no meaningful change in global emissions. We are still trying to recover from the Democrats' last ``War on Coal.'' We certainly don't need the Speaker of the House to promise the Europeans that she is going to start a new one. So working Americans and their families are not well served by the Democrats' political performance art. What they really need are results. The only path to results is bipartisan legislation, and, fortunately, it is a well-trodden one. There are 58 consecutive annual defense authorizations to prove it. Always in the past we have been able to overcome these partisan differences and go forward. There is a bipartisan-bicameral agreement that the Speaker and the Democratic leader signed just a few months ago to help them find their way back to the table, but the agreement needs to be honored. I hope they do so sometime soon.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on another matter, while we wait for our Democratic colleagues to let this legislation move forward, the Senate has used the time to confirm more of President Trump's impressive nominees for the Federal courts. Some of my friends across the aisle complain that we devote too much time to nominations. First, I would like to remind everyone that district judges are the kinds of nominations that, historically, have sailed right through the Senate in big groups by voice votes. If our Democratic colleagues want to spend less time voting on district judges, they should take it up with the Democratic leader, who is forcing us to take cloture vote after cloture vote. As of this morning, we have taken cloture votes on 81 district judge nominees. By this point in President Obama's Presidency, we had taken one cloture vote on a district judge nominee. Let me say that again. As of this morning, we have taken cloture votes on 81 district judges. By this point in President Obama's Presidency, we had taken one cloture vote on a district judge nominee--just one. At the comparable point in the five Presidencies preceding President Obama's, combined, we had not taken a single cloture vote on a district judge's nomination--not one. Yet, 3 years into the Trump Presidency, there have been 81 cloture votes and counting just on district judges. So there is your answer on floor time. More broadly, I want to take a moment to help clarify why I and millions of other Americans care so much about having Federal judges who believe in the radical notion that words matter and that a judge's job is to follow the law and the Constitution. Take, for example, the subject of religious freedom. The liberty of conscience and the freedom to live out our faiths has been a foundational principle from the Republic's earliest days. Many of the first Europeans who arrived in the New World came here after having fled religious persecution. James Madison wrote that religion ``must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.'' Samuel Adams said in the summer of 1776 that America would be the ``last asylum'' for ``freedom of thought and the right of private judgment.'' Let me contrast the Founders' understanding with a couple of current events. Last month, New York State convinced a district judge to throw out the Trump administration's conscience protection rule for healthcare providers. This straightforward rule ensured that healthcare workers could not be forced to perform or assist with medical procedures that profoundly violated their religious beliefs. Yet the radical Democrats in New York could not abide by this basic protection for people of faith. Instead, they wanted to force Christians and other people of faith who work in healthcare to either assist in procedures like abortion or lose their jobs--so much for freedom of conscience. New York's behavior is part of a disturbing trend. Powerful interests on the left want to shrink freedom of religion until it means freedom to go to church for an hour on Sundays as long as it doesn't impact the rest of your life. That shrunken interpretation is nothing like what our Founders intended, and, candidly, I am not sure how much longer the modern Democratic Party will even believe in that. A few months ago, a Democrat who is running for President told CNN that the government should take away the tax-exempt status of churches and religious institutions that disagree with leftwing positions. He was not some fringe candidate. He was a guy whom the Democrats and the mainstream media had likened to John F. Kennedy. He was openly suggesting the Federal Government should punish churches if liberals don't like their social views--how appalling. These disturbing signs have not been limited to the courts or to the Democratic campaign trail. Absurd anti-religious arguments have appeared right here in the Senate. In the last several years, some of our Democratic colleagues have tried, literally, to impose religious tests on nominees for Federal office. Just take the ``no religious test'' clause and the First Amendment and throw them right out the window. Get rid of them. Judge Brian Buescher, now a district judge in Nebraska, was attacked by two Democrats on the Committee on the Judiciary for being a faithful Catholic and a member of the mainstream, worldwide Catholic group the Knights of Columbus. He was attacked for being a member of the Knights of Columbus? In written questions, one Senator called standard Catholic teachings ``extreme positions'' and asked if he would dial down his personal faith practice if confirmed. That happened in the Committee on the Judiciary of this Senate. As our colleague Senator Sasse observed at the time, the Democrats were transparently implying that Brian's religious beliefs and his affiliation with his Catholic, religious, fraternal organization might make him unfit for service. It was plainly unconstitutional. Judge Amy Coney Barrett, now a circuit judge on the Seventh Circuit, was likewise subjected to a religious test during her confirmation hearing. One Democratic Senator literally asked: Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic? She was asked that in the Committee on the Judiciary. Another offered this bizarre and ominous remark: ``The dogma lives loudly within you, and that's a concern.'' So, look, these warning signs on religious freedom are literally popping up everywhere the modern political left rears its head. Religious freedom in America has never--never--meant and will never mean solely the freedom to worship privately. It has never meant and will never mean the ability to practice only a subset of faiths acceptable to some subset of politicians. What it means is the right to live your life according to the dictates of your faith and your conscience, free from government coercion. If those statements strike anybody in this Chamber as remotely controversial, that is exactly why President Trump, Senate Republicans, and millions of Americans are focused on confirming Federal judges who will apply our Constitution as it was originally written.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 543.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 533.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 534.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 530.