Ben Sasse

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. OK. That is a helpful clarification. The Senator was saying a lot of different things, and I thought he was arguing for a UPI of 14 grand. I just wanted to clarify that point. The Senator believes a lot of things very differently than I do, but I appreciate the fact that he argues forcefully for his positions. I think this body would benefit from having more people who spoke as bluntly and directly as the Senator from Vermont. I hope his positions will be voted down again and again and again and again, but I appreciate the way in which he argues for his positions. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. SASSE

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

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, my chairman on the Finance Committee, Chairman Grassley, who just left the floor, called me a scholar, and I think he meant it as a compliment, but it doesn't feel like that today. It actually feels like the fact that I have been reading this this afternoon is a sign of the fact that this institution is broken in significant ways, and there are not a lot of productive things happening outside a group of four people who are renegotiating a car deal again and again and again and again. I did spend a good chunk of my afternoon reading these 1,119 pages. You might wonder what this is. This is Nancy Pelosi's last-minute additional Christmas wish list of progressive items that she wants added to the coronavirus relief bill that has been being negotiated here over the course of the last 96 or so hours. I wanted to read this because I think we owe it to our constituents to know what is in bills before people pass them. And I want to say, in full disclosure, the wish list keeps growing so rapidly and radically that this thing could be like 50 percent obsolete since 3 or 4 hours ago when I started digging into it. There may be another bill that is another 1,200 pages thick. But this is the one that I have been reading today, and the Speaker has obviously decided that she doesn't want to waste any crisis. The American people face two unprecedented emergencies. We face a public health emergency that is genuinely disastrous, and we face a consequent resultant economic emergency that puts at risk lots and lots of families' livelihoods, lots of dinner tables around the country. There are 5,997,000 firms in the United States--so just a hair shy of 6 million firms in the United States. And lots and lots and lots of those--the overwhelming majority of firms--and 47 percent of all employment are small businesses in America. These are firms of 500 or fewer employees. These are family businesses. These are corner stores. Lots and lots and lots of these people live on an average--their businesses live on an average--of 16 days of cash. So when the country is shut down in the midst of something like the coronavirus crisis, there are lots of businesses that have only about 2 weeks before they may cease to exist and just go poof or go down some other pathway that leads them to become dependencies of the State. So we have two massive crises in this country--one public health and one economic. And this place often lies and pretends that there is some piece of legislation that can solve every problem on Earth. That isn't true, but in this case, both of these emergencies need lots and lots of help and bandaids and salve and lifelines, life preservers from this institution, and that is why so many people around here have been working all night overnight 3 or 4 days in a row. A number of us have been in this Chamber until midnight or 1 a.m. multiple nights. I am a 4 a.m. wake-up guy, so I am usually in bed by 9 p.m. When I am here at midnight or 1 a.m., it is well past a period of coherence. So when we are working around the clock, it is because there is an emergency. Lots and lots and lots of stuff in this 1,119-page additional bid from Nancy Pelosi have nothing to do with the coronavirus emergency. So I want to take us through some of what is in this piece of legislation, but I am going to pull up for a minute as I recognize that the majority leader, who is at the center of this negotiation, has entered the Chamber. So I am going to yield to him and let him make whatever updates he wants to give us in this Chamber, and then I will return to this piece of legislation after the majority leader.

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I want to be clear. This negotiation has been messy. There is lots and lots in this bill that I don't like. There is lots in this bill that is also critically important and urgent for the American people. There are a bunch of things in here that I think stink. I don't like firm-specific money in legislation. So I don't like much of the airlines section of this bill. The airlines didn't do anything wrong at this moment when all their travelers fall off because of the pandemic before them, but there are pieces of the way any legislation like this is written, when it has specific firms in it, that I dislike and I think should be done more effectively over time. But this is following a model of how these portions of legislation have been written around here in the past. I don't like the direct payments that Washington is going to try to renew long after the American people have defeated the coronavirus. There is a lot in this legislation that I don't like. But there are things we should all be applauding. This legislation tries to turbocharge vaccine development. We need what our friend, the Senator from Montana, called the Manhattan Project for the vaccine accelerator. We need to go lots faster figuring out how to remove barriers to enable companies at this time that seek to be effective over efficient in ways that pluralize lots and lots of pharmaceutical firms competing all at once and taking three or four steps of the vaccine development process and trying to run them in parallel instead of in sequence, because the American people and the world need this vaccine. There are things to be proud of in that part of the legislation. I like the fact that this legislation--not the Pelosi legislation, but the composite compromise bill that the Senate has been working on over the last four days--tries to help small businesses stay alive during this period of zero revenue with well-structured loans. I think that Senators Rubio and Collins and their two Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle have done a really good job. It is a crazy, eye-popping pricetag at about $350 billion, this small business loan program, but it is a necessity at this moment, and it is legislation that people should be proud of. I like the fact that this bill works in the appropriations section-- not the whole bill, not the whole draft text, as I wish it would. But in the appropriations section, it works hard to get more than 51 percent of the appropriations section of the money to Governors to allow them to make differentiated spending decisions, which they can make more effectively than we can make in Washington, DC, where we look out across 325 million people in an undifferentiated way. Our Governors are better at building public-private partnerships than the Congress is. In my State, Omaha and Lincoln have different economics than the rural parts of the State, but Omaha and Lincoln are different than Nashville and Memphis. And National and Memphis are different than L.A. and Seattle. So this bill works hard to try to take a big chunk--a majority of the appropriations section of the legislation--and drive it back to Governors. There are things that are good in this bill. There are things that I think are weak and clunky in this bill, but it was negotiated in a bipartisan way in good faith on topics and issues that were related to the coronavirus emergency. It wasn't a Republican bill. It wasn't a Democratic bill. It certainly isn't my favorite bill or piece of legislation around here, but it was a good-faith, bipartisan attempt that people were negotiating on all weekend. But, instead of taking that legislation--urgent, necessary legislation--and passing it quickly, Democrats have now decided to allow Speaker Pelosi to block it through proxies here in the Senate so she can rewrite the bill with a ton of crap that has absolutely nothing to do with the public health emergency that we face at this moment. So I have been reading the legislation this afternoon. We have families suffering and small businesses that are closing literally by the hour. We have doctors fighting to prevent their hospitals from being oversurged and overwhelmed, and what is Speaker Pelosi trying to do? She is trying to take hostages about her dream legislation--all sorts of dream legislative provisions that have nothing to do with this moment--and say: The American public can't get access to the public health piece of legislation or the economic relief pieces of legislation unless she gets hostages that are entirely unrelated to this moment. We are better than that. Democrats in the Senate are better than that. Many of them are privately embarrassed about this. I don't understand how they voted today to filibuster this bill for a second time when in private many of them tell us: Well, this is just part of the negotiation and our leaders want us to vote this way, but I am really uncomfortable with it because I don't think we should be dealing with unrelated issues. I had multiple Democrats today tell me they don't think they should be dealing with unrelated issues, things that are not about the health and economic emergencies before the Nation. Here is why we stopped. Here is why the bill that is before us, again, is not my favorite piece of legislation--not Republicans, not Democrats--but a bipartisan, good-faith piece of legislation. The reason we are not voting on it is because 1,119 pages of new Nancy Pelosi demands that we should consider. I promise you that every Washington, DC, lobbyist right now has been combing over these 1,200 pages this afternoon because they wonder what goodies they can claim credit for or what goodies that are against their sector they should go against. We shouldn't be debating anything in an emergency moment like this with another 1,119 pages being dropped in at the last minute with other demands. So I decided to start digging through it. Let me give you a few highlights--or low lights. Here is page 421, line 22: (1) MINIMUM STUDENT LOAN RELIEF AS A RESULT OF THE COVID-19 NATIONAL EMERGENCY.--Not later than 270 days after the last day of the COVID-19 emergency period. . . . Think about what this means. Not later than 270 days--that is 9 months after the emergency is over. Then the Secretary of Education has to do all this new stuff. Nobody who wants student debt loan forgiveness should pretend this is about getting emergency cash into the economy for liquidity or solvency, because the Nancy Pelosi demand about loan forgiveness says here that this is for something 9 months after the emergency. This is something that many Democrats want. As a former college president, I actually think this is a bad idea, but there are intellectually defensible reasons to argue for it. There are reasonable cases to be made, but they have tried to make them in the past and not been able to pass the legislation, and it has nothing to do with the coronavirus. Not later than 270 days after the last day of the COVID-19 emergency period, the Secretaries concerned shall jointly carry out a program under which a qualified borrower, with respect to the covered loans and private education of loans of such qualified borrower, shall receive in accordance with paragraph (3) an amount equal to the lesser of the following: (A) The total amount of each covered loan and each private education loan of the borrower; or (B) $10,000. So what this says is you can feel the Bern with a $10,000 public and private loan cancellation project a year in the future, or depending on how long this emergency goes, this emergency could be with us through a trough in the late summer and another peak in the fall and winter. We may be in the emergency for more than a year. So Speaker Pelosi says: Well, the Cabinet officials in the executive branch shouldn't probably be burdened with this now because it obviously has nothing to do with the coronavirus, but in the future we want to bake into law a $10,000 loan forgiveness program that has nothing to do with coronavirus. That is wrong. This institution has been bleeding public trust for a long time. When we pass a $2 trillion piece of legislation in the middle of an emergency, there are going to be lots of things wrong with it. There are going to be lots of reasons why the public looks back and says: Why aren't you all more competent? Why couldn't you have done this better? Why wouldn't you have done that better? Boy, this feels clunky. Why would these people be included in the direct payments, but those people wouldn't? You have to earn $2,500, but we are using the 2018 tax returns to be able to determine whether or not you earned your $2,500 to be able to qualify for the $1,200 per family, and it phases out from 75 to $95,000? There are a lot of hard-policy, mechanical, technical issues that need to be navigated, and some of them will be imperfect. And later, the public will say: Why did you do it this way instead of this way? And those will be fair questions. We will have to defend the members of the task forces who wrote that part of the legislation--a bipartisan task force that worked on that piece of legislation all weekend. But what will be completely impossible is to tell the public: Well, the reason we did the loan forgiveness program, which had nothing to do with coronavirus, this way rather than that way was because--why?-- because it was a northbound train and people could load it with a whole bunch of swampy stuff. You may believe in loan forgiveness. Make the case and win an argument for loan forgiveness. Don't do it on the backs of a national emergency, when in Nebraska I have families calling me from Omaha where spouses have just been put in new institutions in the last 2 or 3 weeks because of declining dementia, because of Alzheimer's. And as soon as they got put in an institution, that institution got put on a quarantine lockdown, and a husband is only in his late sixties, but he is losing his entire mind and memory. He doesn't understand why he is there, and his wife and kids can't visit him anymore, and he doesn't know what the heck is going on. That is a genuine tragedy. That is not an occasion for Nancy Pelosi to try to get a loan forgiveness program done that she couldn't get done by regular legislation. It is wrong, and the Democrats in this body, most of them, know it is wrong. None of them are going to come down here and make an argument. None of the 47 Democrats in the Senate are going to come to the floor of the Senate and say: You know what we ought to do during this national emergency? We ought to do a student loan forgiveness program right now. Someone might mention it in a long list, implying that the program may have to do with liquidity. But if you actually read what happens in the legislation, there is no loan forgiveness until 270 days after the coronavirus national emergency is over. Page 570. Not even a coronavirus can put a pause on our culture wars. Line 14: The Congressional COVID-19 Aid Oversight Panel in conjunction with SIGTARP-- I don't know what that acronym means-- shall collect diversity data from any corporation that receives Federal aid related to COVID-19, and issue a report that will be made publicly available no later than one year after the disbursement of funds. In addition to any other data, the report shall include the following: (1) EMPLOYEE DEMOGRAPHICS.--The gender, race, and ethnic identity (and to the extent possible, results disaggregated by ethnic group) of [all] the corporation's employees, as otherwise known or provided voluntarily for the total number of employees (full- and part-time). . . . I am just going to skip ahead a couple of paragraphs. (3) PAY EQUITY.--A comparison of pay amongst racial and ethnic minorities (and to the extent possible, results disaggregated by ethnic group) as compared to their white counterparts and a comparison of pay between men and women for similar roles and assignments. (4) CORPORATE BOARD DIVERSITY.--Corporate board demographic data, including total number of board members, gender, race and ethnic identity of board members. . . . Et cetera, et cetera--I am skipping ahead here. Page 572, the next page: (e) DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION OFFICES.--Any corporation that receives Federal aid related to COVID-19 must maintain officials and budget dedicated to diversity and inclusion initiatives for no less than 5 years after. . . . Blah, blah, blah--none of this has anything to do with the coronavirus. There are all sorts of real racial issues in America that need to be addressed, but none of this has anything to do with the coronavirus. If you want to argue for this legislation, argue for this legislation once people in nursing homes in Nebraska aren't being locked out of being able to visit their family members with Alzheimer's and dementia. Page 681, line 16: ``SEC. 325. SAME DAY REGISTRATION. ``(a) IN GENERAL.-- ``(1) REGISTRATION.--Each State shall permit any eligible individual on the day of a Federal election and on any day when voting, including early voting, is permitted for a Federal election . . . to register to vote in such election at the polling place using a form that meets the requirements under section 9(b) of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (or, if the individual is already registered to vote, to revise any of the individual's registration information); and ``(B) to cast a vote in such election. ``(2) EXCEPTION.--The requirements under paragraph (1) shall not apply to a State in which, under a State law in effect continuously on or after the date of the enactment of this section. . . . You see, what this is about is same-day voter registration, because November 3 is just 225 days away, and if there is anything the American people are worried right now about, it is that they would like Washington, DC, to take away the authority of 50 secretaries of State and determine how you conduct local elections in America. This has absolutely nothing to do with coronavirus--absolutely nothing to do with coronavirus. This isn't a Republican v. Democratic scream. This is nonsense. This is where 99 percent of the American public, if they were in this Gallery, would be shaking their head and rolling their eyes and saying: What? You guys are trying to decide that the Federal Government should, for the first time in U.S. history, change the way local elections are conducted by Secretaries of State in America? By the way, there is no one in the Gallery for a reason-- because the Gallery is shut down because we are in the middle of a pandemic. So this probably isn't the time to be having a debate about whether the Federal Government should micromanage the way our 50 States conduct their elections. I think this is a bad idea. But if you want to argue for this idea, let's do it as soon as the pandemic is over. Come and actually make an argument. Quit trying to exploit the crisis. Page 725--there is almost no section of American life for government that can't be touched in an emergency if you want to play exploited politics. Line 12:

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, we are in the midst of two crises at once--one health-related and one economic. I tend to think that the prudent path forward on the health front is that even as we hope for the best, we should continue planning for the worst. If this nasty disease continues to ramp in roughly the same proportions as it has in Italy and Spain, it will overwhelm our hospitals. So I think the social distancing recommendations from the President and from the CDC over the last 4 days are a prudent action. At the same time, we are also in the midst of a genuine economic crisis. Lots of moms and dads are worried that they might be laid off, and lots of businesses are evaluating whether they are going to make payroll and whether they are still going to be in business months down the line. They are scared, and DC needs to act more urgently than we usually do, but just saying we need to act urgently is not a substitute for actually having good ideas and actually advancing good policies. There is a herd mentality around this building right now where a lot of normally smart people are literally saying things like: The most important thing is to be fast, even if the ideas that are being advocated for are not really ready for prime time and can't really withstand the scrutiny of debate. That is a really dumb idea. It is a ready-fire-aim approach. We do indeed need to work fast, but working fast is no substitute for working smart. Again, I agree that this virus and the strategies necessary to contain it are producing some of the worst economic upheavals we have seen in a generation. Further, we need to be preparing for these unexpected economic hardships to last for 6 months or even longer. But that fact is a reason to prepare; it is not a reason to panic. That fact is a reason to debate hard and fast but still to debate what good policy looks like; it is not a reason to allow garbage policies to get by because someone simply says: No, no, no, we have to go faster. You can't ask questions about the policy. Over the next 48 to 72 hours, this body will be making some crucial decisions about somewhere between one and four spending packages. I agree with the President that this is an unprecedented economic situation and that the Federal Government, at the health level, obviously has a fundamentally crucial role to play in helping us get through this pandemic, which recognizes no borders or boundaries; thus, the Federal Government has to spend real money. As the third or fourth most conservative Member of the Senate by voting record, that is not language I use a lot, saying that we are going to have to spend real, significant amounts of money, but that is clearly true in this moment. But saying we should spend real money is not the same as saying we should spend like idiots. Unfortunately, Washington, DC, so far has been handling our responsibilities exactly as a lot of voters fear. Right now, the proposal on the table, which just came over from the House of Representatives, is for Washington, DC, to pull out its checkbook-- which is really your checkbook--and just start firing. If you are an industry with a good lobbying team, you are told to line up at the door of the Treasury Department and get in line because bailout after bailout is probably in the offing. Right now, the plan around here is basically just to start shoveling money out of a helicopter, and the most important debate is whether Democrats or Republicans get to shovel the money first. This is a bad idea, and Washington should know better because 12 years ago something just like this was tried, and the consequences were really significant and lasting. They are still with us. I want to be clear. I am not talking primarily about the total price tag. The price tag matters, but the point I am trying to debate today is whether we are going to spend the American people's money wisely or foolishly, and we are not having a lot of debate about that. We are hearing a lot of people saying that the only important question is whether we can act fast enough. If you act fast but you spend money that is ineffective, you didn't effectively act fast. The Congress 12 years ago shoveled lots and lots of money into supposedly shovel-ready projects which still can't be found today. One trillion dollars in spending, and you can go to your Governor and you can go to your State legislature and go to your business roundtables and you try to find people who know where the $1 trillion of shovel- ready money went--I challenge you, that is not an easy thing to achieve. More than just the spending and the debt, though, it also produced serious backlashes of national political movements on both the right and the left. The Occupy Wall Street movement, some of which became the Bernie Sanders constituency, and the tea party were both spawned out of 2008 and 2009 and are still with us in lots of ways that are not ultimately constructive for our body politic. We don't need a policy where Washington, DC, handpicks winners and losers. There is no one here in this Chamber who is actually competent to do that. We are indeed in a period of extraordinary uncertainty, but no politician actually knows what happens next week, let alone 6 months from now, and humility would require us to admit that a bit more. The proposal currently on the table from Speaker Nancy Pelosi is to blow through a massive amount of money on a policy core that isn't actually well thought out. When you ask hard questions about the bill that has come over from the House, there is nobody who actually defends it as really good, well-thought-out policy. That is why the first version of their bill, which passed so urgently last week at 120 pages, last night required over 90 pages--we are right at 90 pages--of technical corrections. Think about that. Imagine your kid does homework and--you say you wrote a 12-page essay, and after you turn it in, you say that 9 of the 12 pages actually have to be thrown away and rewritten. That is what happened last night in the House of Representatives. They tried to pass a 90-page fix to a 120-page bill that was supposedly really urgent last week. By the way, when you talk to the architects of that legislation in private, when the cameras aren't rolling, and you ask them hard questions about how their policy actually works, everyone starts pointing at everyone else, and a lot of people admit that the bill might actually accelerate layoffs from small businesses. Think about that. The reason this first bill--if it ends up remaining independent rather than being bundled with the other ideas that are coming down the road in the form of industry-specific bailouts--this first bill, which is supposed to slow the pace of layoffs from small business, when you ask questions about it, the architects of the bill will admit to you in private that it might actually accelerate the pace of layoffs from small business. Nonetheless, despite admitting that today's version of the Rube Goldberg policy might have the opposite of its intended effect, the main answer you get is ``We have to go very, very fast.'' This is wildly irresponsible, what is happening here. Once the first couple hundred billion dollars of money is gone, that means there is less money left for the next round of stimulus and action and recovery and relief that are required. But besides money, it also means that there is less public trust left. There are gonna be more rainy days ahead in the coming weeks and months, and there is not a lot of grassroots American trust in the wisdom or the work ethic of this institution. Simply screaming that we should go faster is not a substitute for debating and advocating for the actual policy. We have many politicians pretending right now that they know how to centrally plan rifle-shot bailouts industry by industry. It is not true, and even they don't believe it. This is a game of pretend: Hurry up and look busy. If you are not sure what to do, just spend more of the people's money, but do it faster. That is not good policy. That is not good stewardship of our responsibility. The Senate is supposed to exist to calm down the passions that lead the House to move fast and write policy that is bad enough that a 120-page bill requires 90 pages of technical fixes. The Senate's actual job in our bicameral constitutional structure is to ask hard questions of legislation just like this. Here is the good news: We don't have to mindlessly go down this path again. We can do better than this. We can affirm the policy goal that we do need to help get resources to the people who need them, but we can also make smarter, more responsible, less risky decisions right now that will provide a lifeline to people in need but will also leave room for further action in the future, hopefully, as we know more in the coming days and weeks. So here is an alternate idea: Instead of DC pretending it is omnicompetent, let's admit that a complex situation like what is actually happening in the small business environment in all 50 of our States will actually require differentiated solutions. Let's be sure we are accurately naming the problem here, because I am not talking now about the public health issues, like speeding the development of a coronavirus vaccine, where DC obviously needs to maintain a leading role, but I am talking precisely about the economic problem of the next 90 days. What is that economic problem? The question before us is, How do we minimize the number of layoffs, and how do we minimize the number of small business bankruptcies that are looming across our country? How do we make sure that more families can keep putting bread on the table rather than becoming long-term dependencies on the State? We should be laser-focused on what the question is that we are actually debating in this Chamber this week. That is the question. Over the next 90 days, are there policy steps we can take to minimize the number of bankruptcies and layoffs that are going to affect American families so painfully? Here are some needed truths: The feds don't know the precise answer because there isn't a single precise answer. The answers--plural--are going to vary across our continent-sized Nation of 325 million souls. If we pretend that we have a one-size-fits-all solution for this problem or if we pretend that DC can be fair, going industry by industry with rifle-targeted bailouts, we are going to screw up badly. The lobbyists are going to dominate the day, not the public interests. Again, I am open to spending in this moment, but that is not an excuse for failing to spend well. We need to spend the people's money well, we need to steward our callings with humility, and we need to spend much better than this current House bill does. Let's take the money that is being proposed and let's direct more than half of it to our Governors so they may distribute it to families and small businesses. I trust Pete Ricketts, who is my Governor. I trust Pete Ricketts a heck of a lot more than I trust Nancy Pelosi. Part of it is that Pete and I have more aligned political philosophies, but that is not really the point. The real reason I trust Pete Ricketts at this moment is the same reason why Senator Feinstein would trust Gavin Newsom at the moment, and that is because my Governor is on the ground with his 1.9 million people. He is not in DC looking across a 325-million-person nation as if our problems are undifferentiated and as if the solutions can be one-size-fits-all. That is not going to work. That is going to waste the vast majority of the people's resources. We have 50 different States with 50 different circumstances and needs. Californians have needs that Nebraskans don't in this moment and vice versa. We can get money to the Governors quickly, and they can distribute it in ways that will best help their people. The House's one-size-fits-all approach, this nationalized leave policy in this first bundled bill, is going to cause a lot of people to fall through the cracks. Why is it that different industries and different-sized firms are being treated so radically different? It is because of who was last in the Speaker's office lobbying about the bill as they cobbled together the first 120 pages that needed 90 pages of corrections. The Rube Goldberg bill is going to create a handful of political winners, but it is going to create a whole lot more economic losers. Parts of these relief packages will need to come from DC in targeted ways; I admit that. Part of this is going to need to come from DC, but the idea that all of it can or that all of it should is arrogant. It is wrong, and it will be ineffective. Our Governors know their States and their people. Our Governors know how to build public-private partnerships. Congress doesn't. Our Governors know so much better than we do what their workforce needs were before the coronavirus struck and what their workforce needs are going to be in late Q3 or in Q4 when, hopefully, the economy is humming again. Simply put, our Governors know how to target this money much more efficiently than we do so that much more of that money will make its way to Main Street. Lots of Governors have led well in the past 3 weeks. I mentioned my Governor, Pete Ricketts, and how his strong leadership has been laying the groundwork to help shield our State from some of the worst ravages of this virus. Likewise, I would recognize Governor DeWine from Ohio, who is showing strong leadership on what it looks like to put facts front and center. What we need right now at the State, at the local, and at the Federal levels is not just any action. We need responsible, effective, defensible action. This is not a time for Washington to go on an ``anything goes'' spending spree. It is not an opportunity for Washington's connected insiders to exploit personal relationships to put their pet projects first on things that they wouldn't have been able to get passed if it weren't a time of crisis. We don't have to go down that path. Instead, we can more efficiently and more wisely spend the people's resources. We can give our States and our Governors the lead in making sure that the majority of the money and the majority of the resources get where they are most needed. We can help families and businesses keep afloat during this storm by admitting that 50 laboratories of democracy are going to be more effective than a rifle shot approach from Washington. We can create room for further action, but we can also acknowledge that the particular needs are going to evolve in the coming weeks. We need less instant certainty and more humility in this building. We should not pretend that the only government is the Federal Government. Congress should eat more humble pie. There is a reason why even the least popular Governor in America is more popular than almost everyone who works in this Chamber. There is a reason for that, and the main reason is that while Members of Congress spend lots of our time playing pundit, sadly, Governors actually lead. They manage budgets; they make decisions; they lead departments; and they engage their community in the actual private sector, not just hire lobbyists who work for the private sector. They are physically on the ground with the people they serve. That means they know a thing or two about the businesses in their community. It means they know a thing or two about the industries that are rising and falling in their cities and in their rural areas. They have a kind of decentralized knowledge about this crisis and what is needed at this moment that people in Washington, DC, lack. Cable news is focused on Wall Street, but here is the deal: Main Street is going to be the place where lots of the pain is ultimately shouldered from this crisis, and when Wall Street needs something, Wall Street hires K Street, and Congress is told by K Street what they want, and that is usually what ends up in the bill. When Main Street needs something, they drive to Lincoln; they drive to Indianapolis and Nashville and Columbus and Albany and Sacramento; and the granular understanding of their particular problems is almost always more nuanced than is understood here. That is why, as long as Congress is debating this spending this week, I am going to be fighting to make sure that we give more than half of all this money to our Governors to distribute. They know how to spend this money better than this DC-centric House of Representatives bill. That is the way we can actually get this done and help our people grit through this time of unprecedented economic uncertainty.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I would like to address Senator Durbin's comments and his unanimous consent request through the Chair. First, I am glad the Senator from Illinois wants to reduce infant mortality rates and wants to reduce maternal mortality rates. I agree on both of these goals. On the subject of infant mortality, the Senate is going to vote on one infant mortality bill in about an hour. The senior Senator from Illinois said a moment ago that there are two anti-choice pieces of legislation this afternoon. For reporters and the public paying attention, Lindsey Graham's bill is about abortion. I support Senator Graham's bill. I don't exactly agree with the characterization of it as leading with the anti-choice language, but it is an abortion bill. The second piece of legislation we are considering today is not in any way an abortion bill. The anti-choice legislation rhetoric that you are using doesn't have anything to do with the actual legislation that we are considering this afternoon. Yet I hope that you would consider on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act the fact that it is addressing some cases of mortality by making sure babies who have survived abortion get care. These are babies who are already born and outside the mother. The Senator's passionate speech about infant mortality suggests that either we are doing more cynical posturing around here or that folks plan to actually support this bipartisan piece of legislation. I hope it is the latter. I sincerely hope that the Senator would vote in accord with the positions he took earlier in his career and that we would vote in favor getting important stuff done on this legislation. In addition, as for the comments he made on the subject of maternal mortality rates, I agree with him. Many of these tragedies are preventable and, I believe, despite being the second or third or fourth most conservative Member of the Senate by my voting record and believing in small government, I agree we underfund a lot of these pieces of public health investment, and I would like us to do more to address preventable maternal tragedies as well. Therefore, in a moment, I am going to ask if the senior Senator from Illinois would agree to modify his unanimous consent request to include the Grassley amendment. I will use all of the appropriate parliamentary language at the end but, for public understanding, this amendment, the Grassley amendment, would give States $2.5 billion new dollars to address maternal health and at-risk communities. In addition, this amendment would give $200 million to address maternal mortality under the Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant Program. We are talking about more funding, fully offset, for at-risk moms--no politics, no gimmicks. It is in line with the policies that the senior Senator from Illinois was just advancing. It is my belief the pro-life position is pro-baby, pro-mom, and pro- science. If the Senator from Illinois wants to spend another $2.7 billion to help moms, I am aligned with him. It would be great if we could get that done forever. If, however, we are trying to change the subject from the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and that means we can't advance a deal to protect these moms and babies, that would be disappointing. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator modify his request to include the Grassley substitute amendment, which is No. 1240. I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from its consideration and that the amendment be considered agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, in reserving the right to object and in turning this all the way around, we have an objection to an objection to an objection, but let me just agree to the last point my colleague from Illinois made. I think it would be great if this Chamber had 80 or 90 or 95 or 100 people in it instead of how it is now. We are at three today, which is a high-water mark. Usually, there are one or two people in here. Senator Barrasso is here. We have four. We are setting a record. I don't think a lot of us think that the month we all spent here was ideal. Last month, during the impeachment, there was one thing that was new in that a lot of Senators spent time talking to each other. So, to the Senator's grand point of wishing we were debating, we are aligned. I do want to say one more thing before I object, which is the Senator said he is not questioning my sincerity. I appreciate that. The Senator asked that I not question his sincerity, and I am not. I am questioning his logic, though, because he summarized it as if there were two issues at play. He said anti-abortion legislation and maternal health funding. Yet there are three issues at play on the floor today. One of them is Lindsey Graham's pain-capable bill, which is a pro- life piece of legislation. One of them is Senator Durbin's funding request about maternal delivery health. Those things are true, but there is a third thing which, again, he obscured by saying the debate here is that of funding maternal health or of having anti-abortion legislation. The piece of legislation we are voting on today--the Born- Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act--is not about abortion. I am pro-life, and I am going to support Lindsey Graham's bill. Yet the bill we are voting on does not change anyone's access to abortion. It doesn't have anything to do with Roe v. Wade. It is about babies who are already born. This morning on TV, those on CNN made up this insane phrase. They said it was a fetus that had been born. What the heck is that? It is another way of saying they don't want to debate the actual debate we are having on the floor today. We are going to vote once on Lindsey Graham's pro-life legislation, and I am going to support it. We are also going to vote on a piece of legislation called the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. These are about babies who are born, who are outside their mothers. What is actually happening is that the senior Senator from Illinois is wanting to obscure the debate because he wants to use euphemisms about choice so that we don't have to admit to the American public that what is actually happening on the floor today is probably going to be like it was last year--with 44 Democrats filibustering an anti-infanticide bill. There is nothing in the bill that is about abortion--nothing. It is about infanticide. That is the actual legislation. We have 44 people over there who want to hide from it and talk in euphemisms about abortion because they don't want to defend the indefensible because they can't defend the indefensible. We are talking about killing babies who are born. That is the actual legislation we are voting on today in the Senate. That is what the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is. Is it OK in the eyes of the U.S. Senate for us to say: ``Well, you can't actively kill the little baby. You can't take a pillow and put it over her face and smother her to death, but you can back away and kill her that way''? That is what Ralph Northam--the disgraced Governor of Virginia--was talking about when he said: Well, once the baby is born, if she survives an abortion--and we wish that it would not happen--then we will figure out a way to keep her calm for a little while, while the doctors debate what they want to do. What he means is, kill the baby, and that is the legislation we are voting on today. There are three buckets. Lindsey Graham's Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a bill about abortion. There is another bill that is about babies who have already been born. News flash, CNN: If you are a baby and if you have been born and if you are outside of Mama, nobody calls that a fetus. You just want to call it a fetus because you don't want to cover the actual story that is being voted on in the Senate today. Then there is a third piece of legislation, which is Senator Durbin's counterproposal about maternal preventable deaths and investments in that category. I am interested in that category as well, but the Senator from Illinois doesn't actually want to talk about the legislation that is on the floor, so he is changing the subject. Therefore, I object.

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, just for the record and just so we all have it clear, the Senator talks about infanticide, and he is right. Active infanticide is illegal under Federal law as there are no crimes for it in half of the States. More fundamentally, what the Senate is considering today is passive infanticide. Whether they are born in glistening NICUs at fancy hospitals, with a lot of rich cars in the parking lots, or whether the babies are born in the unfortunate circumstances of abortion clinics in strip malls, whether they are 1 day old or 5 days old, it turns out that they die if you wander away from them and deny them care. If you don't give them warmth and if you don't give them food, they die. Passive killing, passive infanticide, is not illegal under Federal law. The Senator said infanticide is illegal, and he is half right. Active infanticide is illegal under Federal law. You cannot take a pillow and smother a newborn baby to death. What you can do and what does happen in abortion clinics across America--and it is why we held a Judiciary Committee hearing on this 2 weeks ago so as to hear from medical and legal community experts who know what the practice looks like--is the taking of that vulnerable, innocent, little, tiny fetus, putting her on a cart, walking her down the hall, putting that cart in a closet, and leaving her to die by exposure. That is what we should prevent, and that is what this legislation is about. I thank the Presiding Officer.

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

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, this afternoon, we are going to vote on the simplest bill in the history of the U.S. Senate. It is the simplest bill we have ever considered here. It says that if a newborn baby survives an abortion, she deserves medical care. That is the bill. That is it. Sadly, a lot of Senators are going to come to the floor, and they are going to read or they are planning to read--I hope they will reconsider--but they are planning to read talking points that were written for them by Planned Parenthood, and they are going to talk about a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't have anything to do with the bill we actually have before us. Senators are going to muddy the issue, and, sadly, too many in the press are going to report with headlines like ``Abortion Restrictions'' and with anti-science jargon like ``A Fetus That Was Born.'' That was an actual portion of the headline this morning: ``A Fetus That Was Born.'' Sadly, a lot of folks seem determined to look the other way. Looking the other way from the issue that we are considering today in this body shouldn't be an option, so let's start with four straight, undeniable facts--four simple facts. First, Federal law does not criminalize the denial of care to newborn babies who survive abortions. Federal law doesn't criminalize the denial of care to babies who survive abortions. Second, we know that babies sometimes survive abortions, and the data backs that up. If Senators don't like this inconvenient fact, they can take it up with the CDC and the States that have mandatory reporting about babies who survive abortions. Third, this bill, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, simply says that if a baby survives an abortion, she should get the same degree of medical care that any other baby would get at that same gestational stage. It is really important--same care that would be provided to any other baby at the same gestational stage. It is a short bill. I know my colleagues are busy, but all of them could read the bill. So instead of coming to the floor and reciting prepackaged talking points that Planned Parenthood wrote for you, take a few minutes and actually read the bill, and you will find that the talking points don't actually match up with the actual bill you are called on to vote on today. Those are the facts. Finally, this is not about abortion. My colleague, the senior Senator from South Carolina, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has a really important piece of legislation that he is going to speak on in a moment, and I am going to support his legislation. It is a really important pro-life piece of legislation. I am in favor of it. But my legislation, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, is not actually about abortion. It is about babies who have already survived a botched abortion. My legislation is not about Roe v. Wade. It is about what happens after a baby is already born when an abortion failed to accomplish the purpose it had--the sad purpose, in my view-- the purpose it had to terminate that pregnancy. This is about the babies who have already been born. This is about whether that baby who has survived the abortion and is now lying on the abortion table or on the medical table--whether or not that cold, naked baby alone has a right to medical care. We all know the answer. The answer is, of course she does. Every baby dies if you leave her to passively die of exposure. Whether she was born in a gold-plated hospital with a lot of fancy, expensive cars in the parking lot outside that NICU unit or whether she was born in the unfortunate circumstances of an abortion clinic in a strip mall, every little baby who has already been born--they will die if you deny care to them. So, of course, we shouldn't do that. Of course, the U.S. Senate should stand up and defend those babies. We all know that denying care to the most vulnerable among us is barbaric, and this body ought to be able to stand 100 to 0 against that barbarism. It is inhumane, and it is passive infanticide, and the Senate should today condemn and prohibit that practice. Is that practice what my colleagues really want to defend? I can't believe they do. The 44 who filibustered this legislation a year ago this week, when you talk to them one to one, they get really uncomfortable, and they try to change the subject to all sorts of other culture war debates because they don't want to have a conversation about the actual legislation and the actual babies we are considering today. Why? Because they are scared to death of Planned Parenthood's army of lobbyists, that is why. It is not because any of them really want to defend the morally reprehensible and the morally indefensible practice that is passive infanticide. None of them want to defend it. They are just scared. Last year, 44 Senators filibustered this legislation. They said that it was OK to look the other way while newborns were discarded. They said that Federal law should not ensure that these babies are treated with care. They seem to have a hard time saying that human beings outside the womb have the same right to life as you and I ought to have and that we get care; we need care. They need care, and they should get care. Put down your talking points. Please read the bill before you vote today. Read the expert testimony that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee allowed us to hold in his committee room 2 weeks ago, where we brought in both medical and legal experts to talk about what happens in these abortion clinics. For those in this body who are not on the Judiciary Committee or who didn't do the preparation for today's vote, I want to summarize the testimony of one of the people who came before our Judiciary Committee--Jill Stanek, who now works for the Susan B. Anthony List. She was at an Illinois hospital in the 1990s and early 2000s. Here is a quote from her: Of 16 babies Christ Hospital aborted during the calendar year 2000, four that I knew of [were born alive, and they] were aborted alive. That is 25 percent--4 out of the 16 abortions at that hospital. She continues: Each of those babies--[there were] two boys and two girls-- lived [somewhere] between 1\1/2\ and 3 hours. One baby was 28 weeks' gestation [age]--7 months old--and weighed two pounds, seven ounces. Numbers from the CDC and the States that report data on abortion survivors--that is about 8 of the 50 States that do some reporting and data collection on this--tell a story of babies who were breathing, whose hearts were beating, who stretched their arms, wiggled their fingers, and kicked their legs. This is the actual data. You want to talk about being pro-science--being pro-science is pro-baby. What happened to the babies? Medical practitioners have testified before Congress about walking into rooms where living babies were lying naked and alone on countertops, where they would be left to expire by themselves--alone, cold, naked, and denied care. Opponents of this bill don't want to deal with the facts. They prefer to stick to talking points and claim that this never happens. If they will not listen to the medical experts, perhaps they will take the word of the Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam. In January of last year, disgraced Governor Northam was explicit during a radio interview in which he said that a baby born alive during an abortion ``would be kept comfortable. . . . then a discussion would ensue'' about whether that baby should be left to die. That is actually what Governor Northam was talking about on the radio in Virginia. What he did is make the terrible faux pas of saying in public the true stuff about this procedure and this practice of walking away and backing away from these babies and letting them die. He just decided to talk in public about the reality of what happens in some of these abortion clinics. Governor Northam is not an outlier. Just 3 weeks ago, one of the Democratic candidates for President was asked point blank on national television about infanticide: Would he be comfortable if a mother invoked infanticide to kill her now already born-alive child? Mayor Buttigieg's response: ``I don't know what I'd tell them.'' Really? Somebody asks you if you can kill a baby who has already been born, and you say you don't know what to say? Every one of us, especially somebody running for the highest office in the land to uphold the laws--laws that promise to protect the right to life--should be able to say without any hesitation that leaving babies to die is unacceptable. This isn't horrid stuff, people. There are actually some horrid debates we have in this Chamber. This isn't one of them. This is about babies who have been born alive and whether you can decide to kill them. There is really no debate to be had here, which is why so many people who were planning to speak on the other side decided not to speak this afternoon, because you can't defend the morally reprehensible procedure that is backing away, that is passive infanticide. There are no exceptions. There are no special circumstances. We should protect every human being, no matter how small they are, no matter how weak they are. And if the Senate says that it is OK to ignore born-alive babies, what we are really saying is that we are OK with a society where some people count more than other people. We would be saying that we want a society where some people can be pushed aside if other people decide those folks are inconvenient, a society where we can dispose of you if you happen to come into the world a certain way. It is unbelievably telling that Planned Parenthood, NARAL, which is the extremist abortion lobby and their armies of lawyers and slick public relations teams and influence peddlers, cannot draw this line. It is pretty amazing. This bill is not about abortion. Again, I want to be clear. We are voting on two things today. One of them is a piece of legislation about abortion. It is the pain-capable bill. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is going to speak in favor of it in a minute. I am an original cosponsor of his legislation. I support it, and I am going to wholeheartedly vote for it. But the other piece of legislation we are going to vote on today isn't actually even about abortion. This should be 100-to-0 no-brainer. This bill is not about Roe v. Wade. This bill will not change one word of abortion law in the United States. My colleagues can vote up or down, but they can't pretend that they don't know the stakes of what we are talking about. America is a country built on the beautiful principle of equality, and the terms of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act are intended to reflect that. A child born alive during a botched abortion should be given the same level of care that would be provided to any other baby born at that same gestational stage, which is just to say that a born-alive baby is a human being with fundamental human dignity, which is undeniable. They should receive the care and affection due to every other human being. Today, we have a chance to advance our commitment to human dignity. We can protect those babies who come into the world under the worst of conditions. We can welcome them into a world with love and hope and help and care. My colleagues, please do not turn your backs on those babies. I yield the floor.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Thank you, Senator Daines of Montana and Senator Ernst of Iowa. I know Senator Braun is going to be here shortly. I want to speak about both pieces of legislation we are going to be considering tomorrow. Both of them are very important to distinguish. I know it has been brought up a few times tonight, but just to be sure we are all on the same page, Senator Graham's Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a very important piece of legislation, and I think my Born-Alive Abortion Survivor's Protection Act--both of them, which my colleagues here have spoken on, are very important pieces of legislation. They are important pieces of legislation, but they are distinct and have to be clarified to the American people, via the press, on how they differ. These two bills are different, but they are connected by a simple question, which is, Will the Senate vote tomorrow to protect babies? This is about as straightforward a question as you can possibly have. Will the Senate vote tomorrow to protect babies? Let's talk first about Senator Graham's legislation. Every mom and dad knows what it is like to see your child hurt, to see somebody fall down, maybe with something as minor as a scraped knee or a burnt hand on the stove or a finger slammed in a car door or a bedroom door. You know that experience of a deep breath that is going to be followed by the piercing cry. Something drops in the pit of your stomach. Every parent knows this feeling. You want to scoop them up. You want to grab them. You want to hold them, and you want to take away the pain. You would take Tenex for the pain, if you could, to protect your baby from that pain. You want to make it stop, and you want them to know that they are going to be okay. When your child hurts, you hurt, and it is far worse to watch your child hurting than to feel the pain yourself. So we have this gut feeling when it comes to pain. When we see someone hurting, we know this is not the way the world is supposed to be. Pain is not natural. This is not the order of things as it was meant to be, and so our heart leaps at the sight of someone in pain-- not just a child, but especially when it is a child, a family member, or a friend, or even a complete stranger. When you see somebody in pain, we want to make it stop. Human beings are compassionate; that is, we feel along with others. When they suffer, we suffer, and so we reach out to protect. We want to give comfort. Tomorrow, we have the opportunity to extend that reach of care and comfort and protection. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would protect babies as early as 20 weeks into pregnancy--that is halfway through--by inscribing in law our responsibility to protect innocent babies in the womb from the pain that is inflicted by abortion. The responsibility that we have when a 2-year-old skins her knee is also a responsibility that we have when a 20-week-old baby in the womb is threatened. The science is clear: Modern medicine is allowing surgeons to perform operations on in utero babies, and these intricate, amazing--amazing--little operations available nowadays are saving the lives of thousands of babies with what would have once been fatal conditions. These surgeons frequently administer drugs to the baby, just like they do to the mother. These doctors are treating two patients--not just one--and they do everything in their power not just to advance the health of both of the patients but to protect both of the patients from pain. They want to be sure that both patients are safe and comfortable and as well cared for as possible. Science has shown us that these babies feel pain, and the Pain- Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a simple recognition that, although the baby in the womb might be mostly invisible to us, we are not blind to her needs. We have a responsibility to spread that umbrella of law over every vulnerable person, no matter how small. Size doesn't determine dignity or worth. The question before us tomorrow is, Will the U.S. Senate vote to protect these babies? It is pretty simple. You are going to hear lots of crazy commentary talking about other stuff than what we are actually voting on tomorrow, but what we are voting on is, Should the U.S. Senate vote to protect these babies? I plan to vote in favor of compassion because I believe that being pro-mom and pro-baby and being pro-science are all bundled up together. So tomorrow, we are going to consider compassionate pro-science and pro-baby legislation, and I implore my colleagues, all 100 of us, ought to be doing the same. I also know that, although I am unapologetically pro-life, many of my colleagues in this body are not. So tonight, I also want us to talk about a different piece of legislation. It is motivated by that same care and that same concern with having the U.S. Senate vote to protect babies. It is actually a different piece of legislation than Senator Graham's important pro-life anti-abortion piece of legislation. I want to talk about this second piece of legislation. Even if you are unwilling to vote to defend unborn babies, I hope that my colleagues would at least consider joining with us in voting to protect babies that have already been born. Senator Graham's legislation is about protecting babies in utero. We have got a second piece of legislation before us tomorrow that is about protecting babies after they have already been born. Will we acknowledge that a baby outside the womb should not be left to die? That is what the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is actually about. One year ago tomorrow, the U.S. Senate, sadly, shamefully, shrugged its shoulders at babies who had already been born after botched abortions. A bipartisan majority in this body--let's be clear--a bipartisan majority voted in favor of protecting these babies, but we didn't have enough votes. We didn't have enough votes voting with us in this Chamber to break the filibuster in favor of infanticide. That is what happened a year ago tomorrow in this Chamber. Today, there is nothing in our Federal law that criminalizes the denial of care to a baby that has survived an abortion, so when a baby lives through an abortion procedure and ends up born and is outside mom, there is nothing in Federal law that criminalizes denying care to those babies and allowing her or him to die, and we have to change that. This second bill tomorrow is not actually about abortion. It is not about Roe v. Wade. It is about something different. It is about what happens after an abortion that didn't succeed in terminating the baby's life. When a baby survives and is lying on that table cold and naked and alone, what does our society do? Are we a country that protects babies that are alive--born outside the womb after having survived a botched abortion--are we a country that says it is okay to just sit back and allow that baby to die? That baby that is fighting for life, is it okay for us to just let that baby die? It is a plain and simple question, and we all know what the right answer is. There are hard calls that we consider in this body sometimes. There are a lot of gray issues. This isn't one of them. This isn't a hard call. Since last year's vote, we have brought before this body testimony from medical experts who have been involved in abortion procedures and who have had in their hands 1-pound little babies that had survived abortions. That was the purpose of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on this bill 2 weeks ago. In that, we heard testimony that made clear why this bill is necessary, and it made clear that the other side actually can't confront the arguments head on. That is what happened 2 weeks ago in the Senate Judiciary Committee. We were looking at the text of this bill. We had in front of us medical experts who had the experience with people who had babies who had survived abortions, and they talked about what happened in their clinics. Everybody who spoke against the Abortion Survivors Protection Act didn't talk about the bill at all. They talked about all these other things. Some of them aren't actually hard debates, but none of them had anything to do with the legislation that we were actually considering. That is because they couldn't actually defend opposing a bill that the purpose is simply to prohibit infanticide. That is why Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the Big Abortion doctors' lobby resorted to simple misinformation. That is all the hearing was by those who were opposed to the legislation. They say that what we are trying to do is prevent something that doesn't happen. That is not true. That is a myth. There are 8 States where we have some reporting information. We should have reporting information from all 50 States, but in the 8 States that we have, we have information about the babies that survive abortions and what happens to them. They wouldn't confront those facts, so they just made these blanket statements that this legislation deals with something that doesn't happen, but it does, which is why we had a hearing and why we brought in experts. Then the opponents of this legislation talked about completely unrelated things. They said that there are no such things as abortion survivors. We would like to introduce you to some of them. Perhaps they should also consult the CDC's records. Of the several States I mentioned, there were eight that reported data on survivors. Or they should talk to the Abortion Survivors Network. They should look into the eyes of spouses and friends and neighbors and coworkers and parents who are abortion survivors, and they should try to tell them that what we are doing is pointless or a waste. They can't do that because their position is morally indefensible. Who are the spouses and friends and neighbors who are not here today because they did not receive lifesaving medical care in their first moments of life? The terms of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act are simple: A child born alive during a botched abortion would be given the same level of care that is provided to any other baby born at that same gestational stage. That is it. That is all the second piece of legislation we are going to deal with tomorrow does. It says, when a baby survives an abortion, that baby should get the same level of medical care that is provided to any other baby at the same stage of gestational development. That is all it does. It doesn't create, as opponents charge, some mandate to prolong the suffering of a dying child. It doesn't do anything like that. It simply says, if a baby survives an abortion, it has to get the same level of medical care that would be provided to any other baby at the same stage of gestational care that had parents that wanted that baby. It doesn't force the doctor to do anything that violates medical best practice. It simply says that a baby who survives an abortion is a baby and should be treated as such, as a baby, with care and compassion. Do Senators in this Chamber believe their own campaign slogans? Our colleague from Vermont, who is on the verge of becoming the standard- bearer for the Democratic Party in our country, has declared: ``The mark of a great Nation is how it treats its most vulnerable people.'' Senator Sanders is right. America is dedicated to the proposition that all men and women, all boys and girls, are created equal--even the littlest ones, even if they happen to come into the world in the most horrific of circumstances and even if they are crippled or inconvenient or unwanted. America recognizes the immeasurable dignity of every human being, regardless of race or sex or creed or ability. If we are hemming and hawing about whether it is okay to let children die of neglect, we know we have lost part of our soul. Tomorrow, we have a chance to recognize and secure the dignity of some of the most vulnerable members of our society. We have a chance to protect those babies who come into the world under the worst of conditions, and we have the chance to extend to them the possibility of life and of love. Tomorrow, we can speak up for the voiceless. We can defend the defenseless. We can come to the aid of the innocent. This is not about Roe. This is not about politics. It is about a simple question: Will the U.S. Senate, tomorrow, stand for the proposition that babies are babies and they deserve care? Will the Senate vote tomorrow to protect babies? I defer to my colleague from the State to the east, Iowa, Senator Ernst.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to introduce into the Senate Record and into the impeachment trial record an op-ed that I wrote in the Omaha World-Herald this morning.

Mr. SASSE. Thank you.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. I send a question to the desk on behalf of myself, Tim Scott, and Marco Rubio.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, farmers and ranchers are in a tough spot. There are a lot of families who are on the edge of bankruptcy in my State and in ag country more broadly. As we get closer to Christmas and to the new year without having a trade deal with Canada and Mexico, the situation is getting bleaker. Let's be blunt about this. By needlessly stonewalling the USMCA trade agreement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats are taking Nebraska's agriculture hostage. This is petty, stupid politics at its worst. The USMCA trade deal is a free-trade win for our farmers and ranchers, and they desperately need this win right now. With hard work and grit, Nebraskans have cultivated one of the most powerful agricultural economies in the history of the world. We literally feed the world, and we do it with free trade because we grow so much more food than we could ever consume. We need export markets, and lots of people around the world want to be consuming our ag products. It is pretty simple: Trade with Canada and Mexico is a win-win-win. In 2018, Mexico and Canada bought more than $40 billion worth of American agricultural products. The U.S. International Trade Commission expects the USMCA to increase that trade by more than $33 billion. The USMCA trade deal is designed to reinforce those partnerships in ways that make sense for an economy that has changed a lot since NAFTA was passed in the 1990s. In the 1990s, ``Seinfeld'' was still on TV; we still watched movies on VHS tape; and we took our pictures with these things of which the pages probably don't know--cameras that had film. I will be honest. At my house, we still watch ``Seinfeld,'' but we have happily moved on from VHS tapes. My teenage daughters set us up on Hulu streaming, but I can't make the remote work. Over the last 20 years, we have seen a massive digital revolutionary change in nearly every sector of our economy. Farmers are using new tech to increase our productivity and to get more out of the most fertile land on God's green Earth than people have ever assumed possible. The USMCA trade deal makes that kind of basic improvement in our trading relationships with our neighbors, and we need that in this rapidly changing, evolving, and developing economy. For example, it scraps the old rules about importing cars that still have cassette tape players. Chuck Grassley, apparently, still has a car that has a cassette tape player, but he is proud of it, so we won't make fun of him here. Passing the USMCA would secure long-term stability in our trade agreements with our partners across North America, and it would also send a signal to other potential partners around the world that the United States is open for business. We need to bring Japan, the European Union, and others to the negotiating table, and passing the USMCA would strengthen our position significantly in setting up those trade agreements. Time is running out. If we don't pass the USMCA this year, we are going to send a very different signal to our potential partners. If Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrats can't get their act together on the USMCA, they will be telling the whole world that we may or may not be open for business--it all depends on short-term political posturing. That is the message they are sending now, and that is the message that might be cemented if this calendar year ends without our passing the USMCA. Try running a convenience store like that, and you will be out of business in a month. A lot of folks in San Francisco and New York City may not think much about beans and corn prices, but every farmer and rancher in Nebraska is beyond baffled that this no-brainer trade deal hasn't been passed yet. It is simply in the best long-term interests of everyone involved in this conversation. This is not something that should be slipping beyond this year; this is something that should pass now. We should call the vote on Christmas morning if that is what it takes. The Congress should not be leaving DC without passing the USMCA. Time is running out, and we don't want to let our farmers and ranchers face 2020 with the uncertainty and the confusion they now feel. These Nebraskans want to do business; they want to trade; and we want to win. Congress is the place where Americans deliberate about the long-term challenges we need to face for the future of our country, but instead of deliberation, right now what they see when they turn on their TVs or pick up their newspapers is just vicious partisanship and short-term posturing. The American people deserve better than this. The clown show in the House of Representatives shouldn't bring everything to a grinding halt. It shouldn't stop us from doing right for farmers and ranchers. The USMCA trade agreement would pass by large majorities if introduced on the House floor, and I speculate that it would get between 85 and 90 votes on this floor. Obviously, we can't take it up until the House votes. The House would pass it with a big majority. That means only Nancy Pelosi stands in the way of USMCA's certainty for the world's greatest producers. Everyone knows this, and Speaker Pelosi should be scheduling the vote. We have only 28 days left in 2019, but that is plenty of time to vote on the USMCA. That is plenty of time to get a win for our farmers and ranchers. Speaker Pelosi, please schedule the vote.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, first I would like to associate myself with the comments of my senior Senator about the necessity of the passage of the USMCA. The House of Representatives and the Speaker should schedule that vote immediately. There is clearly overwhelming support in both bodies for its passage. I would also like to underscore my senior Senator's comments about the tragedy of the irrigation tunnel collapse in Nebraska and about the character of Nebraska's farmers and ranchers. They have dealt with yet another catastrophe after 81 of our 93 counties went through a state of emergency earlier this year in a flood. I would like to just commend my senior Senator for a fine speech on a really important topic. (The remarks of Mr. Sasse pertaining to the submission of S.J. Res. 58 are printed in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')

Mr. SASSE. I yield back.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to ask each and every Member of Congress to answer this simple question: Is it right for the U.S. Federal Government to get into the business of policing Muslims', Jews', and Christians' religious beliefs, about whether or not they are acceptable? Is it the business of the Federal Government of the United States to determine true and false religion? Last week, a former Member of Congress now running for President, didn't blink an eye when he announced that he would strip religious institutions, colleges, churches, and other not-for-profit service organizations of their tax-exempt status if they don't agree with his political positions. That is a pretty major departure from what America is and what we usually talk about in this body. So we should pause, and we should call that what it is. That is extreme intolerance, it is extreme bigotry, and it is profoundly un-American. The whole point of America is the First Amendment, and the whole point of the First Amendment is that, no matter who you love and no matter how you worship, we believe in America that everyone--everyone-- is created with dignity. This is a fundamental American tenet. It is why this country was founded. Because we are all created with dignity, none of us has the right to dictate the conscience commitments of other people. The freedom of conscience is a fundamental American belief, and, thankfully, politicians have no business policing that. At the end of the day, there are really just two kinds of societies. There are societies that are about force and power, and there are societies that are about persuasion, about assembly, and about love. For more than 230 years, we have decided in this country that we are the latter. We are a community of persuasion, not primarily a community of power and force. In America, we don't think the center of life is defined by government. We think the frame of life is defined by government. Abraham Lincoln often, sort of apocryphally summarizing George Washington, used to talk about the silver frame and the golden apple. In America, the government is just the silver frame. It is the structure that defines the framework for the order of liberty so that the golden apple--the good, the true, and the beautiful, the things that you love and that you want to build--you go do by persuading people to join with you in a cause. Government doesn't define the center. Washington, DC, is not the center of American life. Washington, DC, is supposed to be a servant community that exists to maintain a framework for the order of liberty and guards us against enemies, foreign and domestic, so that your household and your neighborhood and your place of worship can be the center of life. We are not Chinese Communists who take Uighurs and throw them into camps. We are not Russian oligarchs who tell journalists what they can and can't write. We are not Venezuelan strongmen who beat the hell out of protesters. We are Americans. And in America, we disagree about many things. We disagree profoundly and vigorously, but then we come together and create a system where we work out our differences not with fists but with words. We work out our differences with civility and tolerance and respect and persuasion. All of this starts with the First Amendment. The five freedoms of the First Amendment--religion, speech, press, assembly, and protest--define who we are as a people and what we believe in common. And guess what. You can't separate these five. These five freedoms are all in the same amendment for a reason--because if one of them falls, they all fall. They stand or fall together, and you are a hypocrite if you pat yourself on the back for defending one of these five freedoms and then the next day, when another one is unpopular, say: Well, we don't need that one; we can throw it overboard. The five freedoms are interconnected and are interdependent, and they are all in that same amendment, the First Amendment, for a reason. These are the rights of conscience that belong together, and they cannot be taken or policed by government. That means that if a Texas politician pandering for a sound bite decides to make a boldfaced threat against Muslims and Jews and Christians--all Americans from every faith and every walk of life--we have an obligation to come together and defend our freedoms, so we should do that. That is what I am on the floor here today to do. I am introducing a simple resolution today that will give every Member of the Congress-- the House and Senate--the opportunity to tell our constituents whether we still believe in the First Amendment. It is an opportunity to show the American people that bigotry against religion in the name of partisan politics is not permitted in our system of government. This isn't a Republican or a Democratic premise; this is an American idea, that we condemn politicians who say they are going to police other people's religious beliefs. Congress doesn't target or punish organizations that are exercising constitutionally protected rights. This really shouldn't be complicated. Government doesn't rifle through your pastor's or your rabbi's sermon notes. Government doesn't tell your clerics what they can or can't say. Government doesn't tell your religious leaders how they will perform their services. Government doesn't tell you where or when you will worship. Government doesn't teach our kids how they are to pray. Government doesn't lecture you on Heaven and Hell. Government's job is not to define true and false religion. That is something much closer to the center of the frame, the golden apple. The silver frame is the humble job we have to do in public life, which is to maintain a framework for ordered liberty so that Americans, in their neighborhoods and over dinner tables, can try to persuade each other how to worship and what to believe by arguments, not by fists and not by the police. Government doesn't get to do any of that in this country because we recognize that government is not God. Americans reject the divine right of Kings, and we reject the infallibility of politics. Government doesn't try to make an example of your church or your synagogue or your mosque because some politician decided your views were out of favor. Your religious organization doesn't get taxed differently because a politician running for office decides to disagree with one of your beliefs. Whatever faith you are from in America, whatever party you are in, we believe in America that all 225 million of us are created equal, and we believe that whether your faith is traditional or progressive, it is yours, and it is between you and your religious community and your God. It is not the domain of politicians. Government can't force you out of the public square because of the faith you hold--at least that is what we have always believed in the past. It is what we believed for more than 200 years. We are not perfect, of course. We have fallen short of that idealism time and again. That doesn't mean the ideas of the American founding in the First Amendment are wrong; it means that our ideals need to be strived for yet again and reaffirmed. I want to give every Member of Congress the opportunity in the coming weeks to do just that. The resolution I am introducing today ought to get a vote so House and Senate Members can be on record for our constituents about whether we affirm the First Amendment and in particular the free exercise of religion and the free assembly clause. I am going to read it for everyone's benefit. It is pretty short. This is the resolution being submitted: Whereas the settlement of the 13 colonies was driven in part by those seeking refuge from government-sponsored religious persecution; Whereas the Framers of the Constitution of the United States recognized the centrality of freedom of conscience to the establishment of the United States, enshrining in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances''; Whereas churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious organizations have played a central and invaluable role in life in the United States; and Whereas Congress has recognized the importance of religious institutions by enacting a variety of legal protections for those institutions, including exemption from income taxes: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That-- (1) the protections of freedom of conscience enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States remain central to the experiment of the United States in republican self-government under the Constitution of the United States; (2) government should not be in the business of dictating what ``correct'' religious beliefs are; and (3) any effort by the government to condition the receipt of the protections of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States, including an exemption from taxation, on the public policy positions of an organization is an affront to the spirit and letter of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. I don't care what some nitwit said on CNN last week to satisfy his fringy base and try to get a sound bite in a Presidential debate. The American people ought to know that this body stands for the historic First Amendment. That is what we all took an oath to uphold and to defend, and that is what we ought to vote to affirm again. Let's do it. S.J. Res. 58 Whereas the settlement of the 13 colonies was driven in part by those seeking refuge from government-sponsored religious persecution; Whereas the Framers of the Constitution of the United States recognized the centrality of freedom of conscience to the establishment of the United States, enshrining in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances''; Whereas churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious organizations have played a central and invaluable role in life in the United States; and Whereas Congress has recognized the importance of religious institutions by enacting a variety of legal protections for those institutions, including exemption from income taxes: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That-- (1) the protections of freedom of conscience enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States remain central to the experiment of the United States in republican self-government under the Constitution of the United States; (2) government should not be in the business of dictating what ``correct'' religious beliefs are; and (3) any effort by the government to condition the receipt of the protections of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States, including an exemption from taxation, on the public policy positions of an organization is an affront to the spirit and letter of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to ask each and every Member of Congress to answer this simple question: Is it right for the U.S. Federal Government to get into the business of policing Muslims', Jews', and Christians' religious beliefs, about whether or not they are acceptable? Is it the business of the Federal Government of the United States to determine true and false religion? Last week, a former Member of Congress now running for President, didn't blink an eye when he announced that he would strip religious institutions, colleges, churches, and other not-for-profit service organizations of their tax-exempt status if they don't agree with his political positions. That is a pretty major departure from what America is and what we usually talk about in this body. So we should pause, and we should call that what it is. That is extreme intolerance, it is extreme bigotry, and it is profoundly un-American. The whole point of America is the First Amendment, and the whole point of the First Amendment is that, no matter who you love and no matter how you worship, we believe in America that everyone--everyone-- is created with dignity. This is a fundamental American tenet. It is why this country was founded. Because we are all created with dignity, none of us has the right to dictate the conscience commitments of other people. The freedom of conscience is a fundamental American belief, and, thankfully, politicians have no business policing that. At the end of the day, there are really just two kinds of societies. There are societies that are about force and power, and there are societies that are about persuasion, about assembly, and about love. For more than 230 years, we have decided in this country that we are the latter. We are a community of persuasion, not primarily a community of power and force. In America, we don't think the center of life is defined by government. We think the frame of life is defined by government. Abraham Lincoln often, sort of apocryphally summarizing George Washington, used to talk about the silver frame and the golden apple. In America, the government is just the silver frame. It is the structure that defines the framework for the order of liberty so that the golden apple--the good, the true, and the beautiful, the things that you love and that you want to build--you go do by persuading people to join with you in a cause. Government doesn't define the center. Washington, DC, is not the center of American life. Washington, DC, is supposed to be a servant community that exists to maintain a framework for the order of liberty and guards us against enemies, foreign and domestic, so that your household and your neighborhood and your place of worship can be the center of life. We are not Chinese Communists who take Uighurs and throw them into camps. We are not Russian oligarchs who tell journalists what they can and can't write. We are not Venezuelan strongmen who beat the hell out of protesters. We are Americans. And in America, we disagree about many things. We disagree profoundly and vigorously, but then we come together and create a system where we work out our differences not with fists but with words. We work out our differences with civility and tolerance and respect and persuasion. All of this starts with the First Amendment. The five freedoms of the First Amendment--religion, speech, press, assembly, and protest--define who we are as a people and what we believe in common. And guess what. You can't separate these five. These five freedoms are all in the same amendment for a reason--because if one of them falls, they all fall. They stand or fall together, and you are a hypocrite if you pat yourself on the back for defending one of these five freedoms and then the next day, when another one is unpopular, say: Well, we don't need that one; we can throw it overboard. The five freedoms are interconnected and are interdependent, and they are all in that same amendment, the First Amendment, for a reason. These are the rights of conscience that belong together, and they cannot be taken or policed by government. That means that if a Texas politician pandering for a sound bite decides to make a boldfaced threat against Muslims and Jews and Christians--all Americans from every faith and every walk of life--we have an obligation to come together and defend our freedoms, so we should do that. That is what I am on the floor here today to do. I am introducing a simple resolution today that will give every Member of the Congress-- the House and Senate--the opportunity to tell our constituents whether we still believe in the First Amendment. It is an opportunity to show the American people that bigotry against religion in the name of partisan politics is not permitted in our system of government. This isn't a Republican or a Democratic premise; this is an American idea, that we condemn politicians who say they are going to police other people's religious beliefs. Congress doesn't target or punish organizations that are exercising constitutionally protected rights. This really shouldn't be complicated. Government doesn't rifle through your pastor's or your rabbi's sermon notes. Government doesn't tell your clerics what they can or can't say. Government doesn't tell your religious leaders how they will perform their services. Government doesn't tell you where or when you will worship. Government doesn't teach our kids how they are to pray. Government doesn't lecture you on Heaven and Hell. Government's job is not to define true and false religion. That is something much closer to the center of the frame, the golden apple. The silver frame is the humble job we have to do in public life, which is to maintain a framework for ordered liberty so that Americans, in their neighborhoods and over dinner tables, can try to persuade each other how to worship and what to believe by arguments, not by fists and not by the police. Government doesn't get to do any of that in this country because we recognize that government is not God. Americans reject the divine right of Kings, and we reject the infallibility of politics. Government doesn't try to make an example of your church or your synagogue or your mosque because some politician decided your views were out of favor. Your religious organization doesn't get taxed differently because a politician running for office decides to disagree with one of your beliefs. Whatever faith you are from in America, whatever party you are in, we believe in America that all 225 million of us are created equal, and we believe that whether your faith is traditional or progressive, it is yours, and it is between you and your religious community and your God. It is not the domain of politicians. Government can't force you out of the public square because of the faith you hold--at least that is what we have always believed in the past. It is what we believed for more than 200 years. We are not perfect, of course. We have fallen short of that idealism time and again. That doesn't mean the ideas of the American founding in the First Amendment are wrong; it means that our ideals need to be strived for yet again and reaffirmed. I want to give every Member of Congress the opportunity in the coming weeks to do just that. The resolution I am introducing today ought to get a vote so House and Senate Members can be on record for our constituents about whether we affirm the First Amendment and in particular the free exercise of religion and the free assembly clause. I am going to read it for everyone's benefit. It is pretty short. This is the resolution being submitted: Whereas the settlement of the 13 colonies was driven in part by those seeking refuge from government-sponsored religious persecution; Whereas the Framers of the Constitution of the United States recognized the centrality of freedom of conscience to the establishment of the United States, enshrining in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances''; Whereas churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious organizations have played a central and invaluable role in life in the United States; and Whereas Congress has recognized the importance of religious institutions by enacting a variety of legal protections for those institutions, including exemption from income taxes: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That-- (1) the protections of freedom of conscience enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States remain central to the experiment of the United States in republican self-government under the Constitution of the United States; (2) government should not be in the business of dictating what ``correct'' religious beliefs are; and (3) any effort by the government to condition the receipt of the protections of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States, including an exemption from taxation, on the public policy positions of an organization is an affront to the spirit and letter of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. I don't care what some nitwit said on CNN last week to satisfy his fringy base and try to get a sound bite in a Presidential debate. The American people ought to know that this body stands for the historic First Amendment. That is what we all took an oath to uphold and to defend, and that is what we ought to vote to affirm again. Let's do it. S.J. Res. 58 Whereas the settlement of the 13 colonies was driven in part by those seeking refuge from government-sponsored religious persecution; Whereas the Framers of the Constitution of the United States recognized the centrality of freedom of conscience to the establishment of the United States, enshrining in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances''; Whereas churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious organizations have played a central and invaluable role in life in the United States; and Whereas Congress has recognized the importance of religious institutions by enacting a variety of legal protections for those institutions, including exemption from income taxes: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That-- (1) the protections of freedom of conscience enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States remain central to the experiment of the United States in republican self-government under the Constitution of the United States; (2) government should not be in the business of dictating what ``correct'' religious beliefs are; and (3) any effort by the government to condition the receipt of the protections of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States, including an exemption from taxation, on the public policy positions of an organization is an affront to the spirit and letter of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I request the yeas and nays.

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SASSE

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

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, today is a good day for this body, for the State of Nebraska, and for every American who is committed to the rule of law, including our first freedom, which is religious liberty. In a few minutes, we will be voting to confirm Brian Buescher to be the U.S. Federal district judge for the District of Nebraska. Brian is a born-and-raised Nebraskan. He is a husband, a father of five, and for nearly two decades he has served his home State admirably in the legal profession. His nomination is an honor for our State, and it is a testament to his integrity and to his tireless service. At the same time, Brian's confirmation process has been an occasion for one of the most baffling displays of constitutional confusion and prejudice I have seen in my time here. Brian is a Catholic, and he is a member of the Knights of Columbus. The Knights of Columbus is the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the world. The organization has 1.6 million members. It raises millions and millions of dollars every year for charity, and they contribute millions--literally millions and millions--of hours of volunteer and charitable service for their neighbors. Like a lot of Catholic men in Nebraska, Brian joined the Knights of Columbus as a way to give back to his community. This is not a scandal. This is actually just really basic--sometimes really boring--love of neighbor, but it is the kind of stuff that makes communities work. According to some of my colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brian's association with this extraordinary charitable organization-- again, really mundane, the Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the world--according to some of my colleagues, the Knights of Columbus is an extremist outfit. One of my colleagues suggested that Brian needs to resign his membership in the Knights if he were confirmed to the Federal bench to avoid the appearance of conflict and bias--really bizarre stuff. To be clear, the Knights of Columbus is not some shadowy organization from a Dan Brown novel. The Knights is a bunch of guys who organize fish fries, and sometimes they sell Tootsie Rolls, but basically what they are doing is helping to fund organizations like the Special Olympics. That is what they do in Omaha, in Lincoln, across Nebraska, and across the country. It is really weird that we are talking about the Knights of Columbus as an extremist organization. In this weird rebirth of McCarthyism, it seems that the Catholics are to replace the Communists. This isn't just Brian. We have had other nominees come before the Senate Judiciary Committee this year being asked questions laughably close to: Are you now or have you ever been involved in the organization of a fish fry? We have people asked questions that sound like they are going to be called to account for what their prayer may have been at the last pancake feed: Have you or your colleagues ever been involved in any plot to overthrow the government at a fish fry? One of our nominees was asked: How long has the dogma lived loudly within you, and if you had to rank the dogma on a volume scale from 1 to 10, just how loud is the dogma? This stuff seems almost laughable, unless you pause and recognize that the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is asking nominees questions like this. This shouldn't be happening. Again, just so we are clear, a U.S. Senator, who has taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, asked Brian, as a faithful Catholic, to resign his membership in the Knights of Columbus to ``avoid the appearance of bias.'' The implication in these questions is really straightforward. It is that Brian's religious beliefs and his affiliation with his Catholic religious fraternal organization might make him unfit for service. Let's put it bluntly: This is plain, unadulterated anti-Catholic bigotry. This isn't a new thing in U.S history; it is just a new, new thing. John F. Kennedy, 60 years ago, was asked, as he was running for President, some really similar questions. It is also plainly unconstitutional. Every Member of this body, all 100 of us, has raised our hands and took an oath to defend the Constitution, which in article VI states in language so clear that even a politician has to acknowledge that it does what it says: ``No religious test shall ever be required as qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.'' I just want to say this again. This is just straight out of the Constitution, article VI. ``No religious test shall ever be required as qualification to any public office or public trust under the United States.'' That is why--because this was happening in the Senate Judiciary Committee--in January, I led a charge on the floor to push through a resolution to reaffirm our oath of office to the Constitution that rejects religious bigotry. I called on every Member of this body to affirm that we respect the freedom of every American to worship as he or she sees fit and to live out their faith in the public square. Fortunately, the Federal Government and politics, more broadly, is not in the business of trying to resolve questions of Heaven and Hell. That is not what we use politics for in this country. Here, we are only in this worldly business of trying to maintain the peace and the public order necessary so every individual can make their own decisions about ultimate matters, about last things for themselves under the dictates of conscience, not trying to submit to the whims of politicians or political movements. This is a great American blessing and we need to reaffirm it and we need to reteach it every occasion we have that opportunity. Happily, the unanimous support for that resolution was an encouraging step. Today, in a few minutes, when Brian Buescher is going to be confirmed as a U.S. district judge for the District of Nebraska, we will see another important step, which is a reaffirmation and a confirmation to the American people that people of every faith and of no faith--to Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, and otherwise--that in America, you have a place in the life of this Nation. We don't have to resolve every conflict, even conflicts and arguments and debates about things more important than politics. We don't have to resolve every conflict to agree that we will live peaceably today in this colony. This should be a reaffirmation of the basic American belief that there is room in this country to disagree. In fact, so much of what makes this country exceptional is that we do disagree about some of the most important things and some of the ultimate things. Yet we do it without severing all the temporal bonds that bring us together as friends, neighbors, citizens, and patriots. Brian is a good man, and I am convinced Brian is going to be a great judge. I suspect that he and many of his other fellow Knights of Columbus in Omaha are going to be organizing fish fries together again next spring, and I look forward to joining them at those fish fries. So today I am pleased to celebrate with Brian and his family and the whole State of Nebraska his confirmation to the Federal bench, and I celebrate, too, this victory for our principled American commitment to religious liberty for each and every American. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, we are just a few days away from the first official Democratic Presidential debate of the campaign season in Miami, but for anyone paying close attention, the first meaningful debate is actually about only 48 hours away in South Carolina. On Saturday, 11 Democrats, including 4 of the top 5 in the current polls, are going to take part in a candidate forum hosted by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. What is Planned Parenthood? Planned Parenthood is the country's largest abortion business. That is their mainstay of operation. Last year, Planned Parenthood reported committing more than 330,000 abortions--somewhere between one-third and one-half of all abortions committed in America last year. Planned Parenthood's president has said that providing, protecting, and expanding access to abortion is part of the organization's ``core mission.'' It does this work with the help of more than $500 million in annual subsidies from the Federal Government; that is, from taxpayers across this country, many of whom believe that abortion is immoral. Yet the position of Planned Parenthood is and has long been abortion at any time, anywhere, for any reason for free. That used to represent the most extreme position anywhere in the Democratic Party. It was shared by only a very small, hard-fringe portion of its elected leaders. Just to review some history, in 2008, Hillary Clinton was still calling for safe, legal, and rare abortion access, and as she would regularly emphasize, ``by rare, I mean rare.'' Yet, today, the radical things that the Nation's largest abortion business wants are basically indistinguishable from the position of every Democrat who is now running for President--abortion at any time, anywhere, for any reason for free. In fact, it is actually worse than this because the position of every Senator who is currently running for the Democratic nomination and of at least one Governor is that a living, breathing baby who survives an abortion procedure can still be left to die after birth. All seven Senators who are currently running for the Democratic Presidential nomination voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act earlier this year, and Governor Bullock of Montana vetoed a State- level version of that bill just before he entered the race. As things currently stand, it is entirely possible that the next Democratic nominee for the highest office in our land will be publicly agnostic about the moral status of post-abortion infanticide--morally agnostic about post-abortion infanticide. Let's be clear. These candidates are wildly and spectacularly out of the mainstream in American life. Over the last two decades, Gallup polling has consistently shown that a majority of Americans are opposed to unrestricted abortion access beyond the first trimester. The Gallup numbers actually show that well under one-third of Americans support abortion beyond the first 3 months, and a new NBC/PBS/Marist poll finds that fully four out of five Americans are opposed to all abortion in the third trimester. That includes a majority of self-identifying pro- choice voters. I want to say that again. A majority of self-identified pro-choice voters in America are opposed to abortion in the third trimester. So the polling of Americans is actually quite different than what the Democrats are going to pretend it to be over the next 2 days when they talk into their echo chamber. What is even more important than anything about public opinion is that the Democrats are also out of step with our fundamental American conviction that all men are created equal--all men and women and babies. Instead, they are increasingly committed to the proposition that some people are less than human and are, therefore, disposable. Sadly, though, the most radical leftwing voices are winning in their party's echo chamber, and Democratic candidates have now decided that they must prostrate themselves before the ``flush with cash'' abortion industry. This has consequences well beyond policy. As Democrats' abortion positions have become more extreme, they have no longer sought to even persuade fellow citizens with whom they disagree. Rather, they have become openly hostile to Americans who disagree on this great moral challenge. My colleague from New York, for instance, Senator Gillibrand, who will be attending this weekend's forum in South Carolina, made her feelings clear earlier this month in an interview with the Des Moines Register. In promising that she would appoint only judges who would uphold Roe v. Wade, here is what she said. Listen to this quote: I think there [are] some issues that have such moral clarity that we have as a society decided that the other side is not acceptable. Imagine saying that it's OK to appoint a judge who is racist or anti-Semitic or homophobic. [This is not an issue where] there is a fair ``other side.'' There is no moral equivalency when you come to racism, and I do not believe there is a moral equivalency when it comes to changing laws that deny women reproductive freedom. What? What are we talking about here? Are you kidding me? Did you catch what she just said? According to a sitting U.S. Senator and a candidate for the Democratic nomination to be President of the United States, holding pro-life views in America is no longer acceptable. It is not a fair position, she tells us. It is the moral equivalency of racism or anti- Semitism. Perhaps in the Senator's next interview she will suggest that pro-life Americans belong in a basket of deplorables. There is so much wrong with this statement that it is difficult to know where to begin. We could note the plain, simple fact that it is not pro-lifers who have an ugly link to racism. Rather, since the very beginning, the American abortion industry has been intimately connected to eugenics. This is the origin of the movement. As Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger put it herself--and think about this quote--``the unbalance between the birth rate of the `unfit' and the `fit' [is] the greatest present menace to civilization.'' Sanger's racial opinions are a matter of some dispute, but this part is clear--that she intentionally targeted efforts at Black neighborhoods in Harlem and in the Deep South. Many of the people involved in her efforts took things a step further--going so far as to forcibly sterilize African-American women whom they deemed to be unfit to procreate. We can also note that it is, in part, because of this ugly history that, today, Black women in America are 3\1/2\ times more likely to have abortions than White women, and in some parts of Senator Gillibrand's home State, Black children are actually more likely to be aborted than to be carried to term. We could also point to the continued eugenic use of abortion--for example, to kill children who have nonlife-threatening diseases. In the United States today, two-thirds of all babies in the womb who are found to have Down syndrome are aborted, and in some parts of Europe, the rate is pushing 100 percent. There are public ad campaigns in two nations in Europe that celebrate the fact that they have gotten rid of all of their Down syndrome babies. Instead of going point by point, I will just recommend that anyone who wants to better understand this disturbing history read Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion last month in Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky. Yet, according to my Senate colleague, perhaps Justice Thomas is one of those racists--you know, one of those notorious pro-life racists who is stalking America. In their leftward lurch to become the Planned Parenthood candidate, it is not just that the Democrats who seek this office are losing touch with where Americans actually are on the hard questions of abortion or with our fundamental American convictions, it is also, as my colleague from the State of New York has shown, that we are losing touch with even how to do politics like Americans, where you respect the dignity of people you differ with and argue about the ideas. You don't declare them an unfit and an unworthy, unacceptable other side. Americans have always had a genius for talking to each other. In our constitutional system, we set up debate fora like this to be able to facilitate, channel, and elevate debate--even heated, feverish debate about really sensitive topics. Our Framers held firmly to the principle that men and women in their exercise of reason could come to agreements by persuasion and by dialogue even if it took a long time and even if the topics were difficult. Anything less than that would be a violation of the basic dignity of our fellow citizens. Our Founders knew that hard political issues should not be resolved at gunpoint; they should be resolved by debate, which starts by assuming the dignity of your counterparty in that debate. We are watching that conviction go by the wayside right now. Slandering pro-life Americans as being, in effect, Klan members and Nazis is just a way to crush debate, not to persuade. It is a way of saying that these people--people like my mom, who prays outside abortion clinics; people like my daughters and my wife, who have spent a lot of hours volunteering at crisis pregnancy centers; and people like the overwhelming majority of Nebraskans, whom I get to represent, or Indianans, whom the Presiding Officer now gets to represent--are so morally repugnant that they don't deserve a voice, that they don't deserve to be treated like human beings, that they don't deserve to be engaged in debate, that they are not people you could possibly have a reasonable conversation with. This is crazy talk. It is not difficult to imagine where this approach leads. When we lose sight of the intrinsic and inexhaustible dignity of unborn children, we open the door to abortion's violence, and when we lose sight of the dignity of our fellow citizens in debate, we open the door to yet other kinds of violence. I have spent a lot of time with pro-lifers in my life, probably a lot more time than most of my colleagues who are going to be at the Planned Parenthood debate in South Carolina on Saturday. I will tell you what you will not find among these people is partisan caricature. What you will find are people who are passionately devoted to the dignity of every human being no matter how small or how vulnerable or what disease one might have been diagnosed with. You will find a lot of Americans, young and old, in the pro-life movement who care deeply about women who are in need. You will also find a lot of enthusiasm for promising in vitro surgeries and for scientific developments in ultrasound and neonatal technology. You will find fellow citizens who are ready to advance the basic American commitment to life through the tools of dialogue, persuasion, and respect. The dehumanization of our friends and neighbors, whether they are in the opposite party or in the womb, destroys our national life together and our national conversation. On both sides, we need to be constantly stitching back together that fabric that has been torn asunder. I suggest to the Democrats who are heading to the South Carolina debate this weekend to spend less time wrestling with each other in order to say more ridiculously extreme, clickbait things for high- propensity primary voters and spend more time listening to the voices of their pro-life fellow citizens. My guess is they will learn something, and our national debate will be the better for it. Thank you.