Ben Sasse

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I know that Senator Grassley is going to join us momentarily, so I will cut in line until he arrives. But I would like to thank Senator Crapo for his leadership in organizing this. It is a little odd to be doing this on the Senate floor when we should be having markups and hearings in the Senate Finance Committee, but the Senate Finance Committee has not been considering any of this proposed legislation despite the fact that we are dealing with New Deal-size and -level legislation. Yet the Finance Committee is not considering it, so I thank Ranking Member Crapo for bringing us to the floor. I want to talk about some of these taxing and spending issues, but I want to make it clear that I am not here to talk about this because I am obsessed about the marginal tax rates for the top 1 percent of Americans. I am not. It is not why I ran for office. But I am here today to talk about this because, as a China hawk, I am obsessed with the fact that the American people, the American Government, American technology companies and lots of companies that aren't today thought of as technology companies but will increasingly be technology companies operating in different verticals--I am obsessed with the fact that our firms and our people are going to need to be able to compete with the Chinese Communist Party. The future of everything, from technology to trade, to global security and defense issues, is going to go one of two ways: It is either going to be led by the Chinese Communist Party or it is going to be led by the United States and our allies and Western values. The future of not just global economics but global security policy over the next 3 and 5 and 7 and 10 years is going to be radically shaped by which direction we go. Failure is not an option. This next century is going to be defined either by oppression, censorship, and brutality--the sorts of things that we are seeing in Xinjiang right now as the Uighurs are brutally oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party--or we are going to see a world that is led by Western values and beliefs in trade and human rights and open navigation of the seaways and transparent contracts and the rule of law. That is the proper context in which we should be considering this taxing-and-spending debate, and it would be helpful for the American people if we would discuss President Biden's tax-and-spending spree in the context of that global technology and diplomatic competition with the CCP because these dangerous policies in this $3.5 trillion or whatever pricetag it is going to end up at--this piece of omnibus legislation is going to hurt our ability to compete against Beijing. Spending is out of control. The American people, last November, just 10 months ago, elected an evenly divided Senate. Yet somehow progressives believe they have a mandate to radically remake America. You actually hear a lot of them use language about radically transforming America, as if an American public that voted for a 50-50 Senate was voting for some sort of radical remaking of American policy as a newer-new, bigger-big New Deal. They have spent trillions of dollars that we don't have already this year, and now they are looking to add another $3.5 trillion to expand cradle-to-grave government propositions about how government should interfere and interact with the average American's life. Well, what is government? What a government is supposed to be is a compact for the common defense. The first and most fundamental principle that government exists to do is make sure that everyone is free from violence and chaos and tyranny so that they can organize their lives and local communities. That is the first thing government is supposed to be. Yet we also believe that government has some social safety net responsibilities. Stated in a summary fashion, you might say that the government is supposed to be the army and we also have some social safety net insurance programs attached to them. It seems like, when you listen to Senator Sanders speak, he thinks of it exactly the opposite: The government is a giant insurance company that just happens to own a navy. And sometimes it sounds like he doesn't even really care if we own a navy; he just conceives of the government as a giant insurance program where everything is compulsory and government decides what programs people need to have and what services they want. The vast majority of the American people don't want that and they didn't vote for that, and a 50-50 Senate shouldn't be trying to deliver that. This year, the President and my Democratic colleagues have increased spending in every area--social, environmental, and economic policy- related. If there was an opportunity to spend over the course of the last 8\1/2\ months, they have taken it. A couple trillion here, a couple trillion there, and pretty soon, you are talking about real money. Now it is time to pay the piper, and my colleagues are talking about raising taxes. But this isn't just any tax hike we are talking about. When you look at the corporate rates that we are looking at, we would be talking about the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. These are just the new taxes. Yet even that doesn't pay for all of the new spending. So we are talking about new legislation that would radically raise taxes to the highest corporate tax rates in the industrial Earth and yet still not pay for all of the new spending they are talking about. When deficits grow forever, opportunities shrink. We have a Member of the House of Representatives who, in her supertelegenic way, figured out how to get attention last week by wearing a dress that said ``Tax the Rich'' on the back of it. What the dress should really read is ``Tax the Young'' because history tells us very clearly that when you deficit-spend at the level they are talking about doing here, this is a tax of current older and wealthier people against younger people. That is how inflation works. That is how debt and deficit work. The dress should have read ``Tax the Young.'' These are tax hikes that make communist China a much better business environment than the United States. Under the President's plan, Americans would have a 32-percent combined rate, compared to a much smaller Chinese tax rate, at their baseline nominal level. But it is important to recognize that the Chinese tax code currently incentivizes high-tech businesses with an even lower 15-percent rate. So we are talking about north of a 30-percent rate against the Chinese Communist Party trying to make sure they attract investment by taxing their technology and digital companies at a 15-percent rate. This is the definition of shooting yourself in the foot. My friends on the other side of the aisle are a lot of smart folks, and they know that tax rates actually matter for international investment and for competitiveness. One of the ways you know they know is because, for months, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been out seeking a global minimum tax arrangement. She is admitting the obvious truth--that a new tax increase will saddle American firms with a burden that other companies across the globe don't have. The CCP is not going to bail us out, as we would potentially raise taxes to the highest rates in the world, by also raising their tax rates to bail out President Biden's domestic agenda. Beijing looks at our endless debt, at our entitlement crisis, at our tax hikes, at our disunity, and they see a strategic advantage. These China-friendly tax hikes would raise the cost of doing business in America. These China-friendly tax hikes would drive innovation overseas. These China-friendly tax hikes would lead to more corporate inversions. These China-friendly tax hikes will hurt American R&D. If you want the 21st century to be defined by global Chinese Communist Party leadership, you would tax and spend just like this legislation seeks to do. Reckless spending doesn't steward a great nation. Super tax hikes do not promote innovation. Competition with the Chinese Communist Party is the defining national security issue of our time, whether my colleagues in this body want to admit it on a regular basis or not. While the Chinese Communist Party plunders American intellectual property, steals American ingenuity, and pours investments into their state-run technologies, Washington is debating whether or not we should punish innovative firms and innovative Americans. This isn't strong. This isn't smart. And the American people know better. I yield the floor to Senator Grassley.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in memory and in honor of Corporal Page, a 23-year-old marine from Nebraska. He gave his life defending Americans and our allies in the chaos of the Kabul airport as many tried to escape the capture of Afghanistan by a band of blood-thirsty terrorists. Corporal Page is 1 of 13 heroes who gave his life that day defending the Kabul airport in the midst of that chaotic evacuation. The American people owe these men and women a debt of gratitude that we will never be able to repay. Corporal Page lost his life while honoring our Nation's promise that we would leave no one behind. He and his fellow marines never wavered. They didn't fail in executing their duty. They were given an impossible mission, and these men and women fought to the end. It is now our duty to stand with these families, the families of each of these 13, and to honor their sacrifices. Last Friday, in Omaha, thousands and thousands and thousands of Nebraskans lined the streets to give Corporal Page a hero's welcome as his body was returned home. As his family said, ``Our hearts are still broken, but we are the lucky few who know what it is'' to have the entire city of Omaha give you a hug. We are called to gather around one another. We are called to join with the grieving and to mourn the loss of these brave men and women. Corporal Page was a Nebraskan who made his family and his State and his entire Nation proud. He left for boot camp shortly after graduating from Millard South High School, and he was proud to serve in the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment with his fellow marines. He enjoyed playing hockey. One of my kids played hockey against him. He went to Millard South High School, but he played hockey for Westside and the Fremont team my kids played on. They got to compete against him and know him as a competitor. He enjoyed hunting, being in the outdoors. He especially enjoyed the water. He was a Boy Scout in Troop 331. He loved spending time with his family and friends. He was a member of his local church, the Lutheran church of Millard, St. Paul's Lutheran Church of Millard. Like so many Nebraskans, he was a die-hard sports fan, his favorite team being the Chicago Blackhawks. Corporal Page gave the last full measure of devotion to his country. His mission was clear. In the chaos of Kabul, Corporal Page was there to protect and save lives, and that is exactly what he did. Marines held the line and pulled both Americans and our Afghan allies to safety. Marines pulled children out of hell, gave them water, and got them to safety. Corporal Page gave his life so that others would live. Nebraskans will never forget him. Heroes like Corporal Page didn't fail us, and we can't forget them. We must keep our promise to honor his family, to teach our families about their sacrifice, and to strive to live lives of gratitude. It is times like this where we rediscover the heart of our country. Communities that pull together--as happened last Friday and will happen this Friday at his funeral at St. Paul's Lutheran--we pray together, make meals for each other, and we are reminded of the sacrifice so many families have made. Today, and in the days to come, we in Nebraska will honor Corporal Page, and we across this country will honor the 13 who fell that day. Your sacrifice is a debt we can never repay. I yield the floor.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. I ask for a recorded vote, and I ask for the yeas and nays. Vote on Amendment No. 2023

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, my amendment about doubling DARPA funding is really simple: It doubles DARPA funding. This amendment would provide an additional $3.5 billion a year to the base, $3.5 billion that DARPA currently receives over the next 5 years. To members of the Armed Services Committee, I would tell you, this amendment doesn't do anything to mess with your base authorization. Your work is not displaced. This is simply additive. Modern war isn't just about enemy landings; it is also about enemy hackings. And the Chinese Communist Party is currently pouring money into machine learning, AI, and quantum because they think if they achieve first- mover advantage in cyber, they will ultimately become the world's preeminent superpower. DARPA's job is to make sure that doesn't happen. We to need to make sure that Chairman Xi lies awake at night worrying about his critical infrastructure, his networks, and his vulnerabilities. And DARPA is currently doing that work, but DARPA is not funded for us to win the technology race. Money that goes to NSF, which is the core of the bill that is before us----

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, I would like to call up my amendment No. 2023 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, Winston Churchill is often credited with the apocryphal quote that ``we sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.'' This is still true, but the 21st century has gotten more complicated. We live in an era of hybrid wars. There are fewer D-days on enemy beaches and more zero-day exploits in enemy servers. Americans sleep soundly at night because, in addition to these rough men at the ready, brilliant men and women work around the clock to develop national security technology that defends our interests and undermines our enemies. DARPA--the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency--is on the frontlines of that work. They are racing against our adversaries. Our technology struggle against the Chinese Communist Party is the defining national security challenge of our time. Chairman Xi and his techno-authoritarian regime are fundamentally opposed to not just American values but American interests all around the globe. Our citizens watching this Chamber on most days might think that most of their political leaders are content to ignore this reality, but I assure my colleagues in this Chamber that the CCP is not asleep at the switch. Beijing is aggressively investing in machine learning and artificial intelligence and in quantum computing. They are hacking and stealing America's research and America's intellectual property. The Chinese Communist Party is on a mission, and they make no attempt to hide it. They want to become the world's preeminent superpower, and they think that by claiming first-mover advantage in the cyber domain, they can achieve this. We can't let that happen. My amendment to today's legislation is simple: It doubles DARPA's budget, $3.5 billion to $7 billion a year for each of the next 5 years. The work of the National Science Foundation is important as well, and I support that work. I support that research. But the NSF's research is broad. DARPA's research is directly applied to our most critical national security challenges. Cutting-edge, classified tech development is in DARPA's DNA. When we talk about identifying and disrupting the CCP's AI-enabled cyber and information campaigns, we want DARPA to be leading that work. When we talk about developing new technological tools to push back on the CCP's hybrid warfare, we want DARPA to be leading that work. If we want American democracy to outlast Chinese techno- authoritarianism, we can make this investment. Doubling DARPA's budget is a cost-effective investment that bolsters that work, and it bolsters the work of the Endless Frontier legislation we are debating this week, and I encourage all of my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak at some length, if time will permit me, about the same subject my friend from Washington State so eloquently addressed. My colleagues know that although when I speak, I sometimes get very passionate, I have not very often, in past years, risen to the floor for any extended period of time. I do that today because so much is at stake. For over 200 years, the Senate has embodied the brilliance of our Founding Fathers in creating an intricate system of checks and balances among the three branches of Government. This system has served two critical purposes, both allowing the Senate to act as an independent, restraining force on the excesses of the executive branch, and protecting minority rights within the Senate itself. The Framers used this dual system of checks and balances to underscore the independent nature of the Senate and its members. The Framers sought not to ensure simple majority rule, but to allow minority views--whether they are conservative, liberal, or moderate--to have an enduring role in the Senate in order to check the excesses of the majority. This system is now being tested in the extreme. I believe the proposed course of action we are hearing about these days is one that has the potential to do more damage to this system than anything that has occurred since I have become a Senator. History will judge us harshly, in my view, if we eliminate over 200 years of precedent and procedure in this body and, I might add, doing it by breaking a second rule of the Senate, and that is changing the rules of the Senate by a mere majority vote. When examining the Senate's proper role in our system of Government generally and in the process of judicial nominations specifically, we should begin, in my view, but not end with our Founding Fathers. As any grade school student knows, our Government is one that was infused by the Framers with checks and balances. I should have said at the outset that I owe special thanks--and I will list them--to a group of constitutional scholars and law professors in some of our great universities and law schools for editing this speech for me and for helping me write this speech because I think it may be one of the most important speeches for historical purposes that I will have given in the 32 years since I have been in the Senate. When examining the Senate's proper role in our system of Government and in the process of judicial nominations, as I said, we have to look at what our Founders thought about when they talked about checks and balances. The theoretical underpinning of this system can be found in Federalist 51 where the architect of our Constitution, James Madison, advanced his famous theory that the Constitution set up a system in which ``ambition must be made to counteract ambition.'' ``Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.'' As Madison notes, this is because ``[The] great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments by the other.'' Our Founders made the conscious decision to set up a system of government that was different from the English parliamentary system-- the system, by the way, with which they were the most familiar. The Founders reacted viscerally to the aggrandizement of power in any one branch or any person, even in a person or body elected by the majority of the citizens of this country. Under the system the Founders created, they made sure that no longer would any one person or one body be able to run roughshod over everyone else. They wanted to allow the sovereign people--not the sovereign Government, the sovereign people--to pursue a strategy of divide and conquer and, in the process, to protect the few against the excesses of the many which they would witness in the French Revolution. The independence of the judiciary was vital to the success of that venture. As Federalist 78 notes: The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. Our Founders felt strongly that judges should exercise independent judgment and not be beholden to any one person or one body. John Adams, in 1776, stated: The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society, depend so much upon an upright and skillful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that. Adams continues: The judges, therefore, should always be men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness and attention; their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any one man or any body of men. In order to ensure that judicial independence, the very independence of which Adams spoke, the Founders did not give the appointment power to any one person or body, although it is instructive for us, as we debate this issue in determining the respective authority of the Senate and the Executive, it is important to note that for much of the Constitutional Convention, the power of judicial appointment was solely--solely--vested in the hands of the legislature. For the numerous votes taken about how to resolve this issue, never did the Founders conclude that it should start with the Executive and be within the power of the Executive. James Madison, for instance, was ``not satisfied with referring the appointment to the Executive;'' instead, he was ``rather inclined to give it to the Senatorial branch'' which he envisioned as a group ``sufficiently stable and independent'' to provide ``deliberative judgments.'' It was widely agreed that the Senate ``would be composed of men nearly equal to the Executive and would, of course, have on the whole more wisdom'' than the Executive. It is very important to point out that they felt ``it would be less easy for candidates''--referring to candidates to the bench--``to intrigue with [the Senators], more than with the Executive.'' In fact, during the drafting of the Constitution, four separate attempts were made to include Presidential involvement in judicial appointments, but because of the widespread fear of Presidential power, they all failed. There continued to be proponents of Presidential involvement, however, and finally, at the eleventh hour, the appointment power was divided and shared, as a consequence of the Connecticut Compromise I will speak to in a minute, between the two institutions, the President and the Senate. In the end, the Founders set up a system in which the President nominates and the Senate has the power to give or withhold--or withhold--its ``advice and consent.'' The role of ``advice and consent'' was not understood to be purely formal. The Framers clearly contemplated a substantive role on the part of the Senate in checking the President. This bifurcation of roles makes a lot of sense, for how best can we ensure that an independent judiciary is beholden to no one man or no one group than by requiring two separate and wholly independent entities to sign off before a judge takes the bench? There is a Latin proverb which translates to ``Who will guard the guardians?'' Our judges guard our rights, and our Founders were smart enough to put both the President and the Senate, acting independently, in charge of guarding our judicial guardians. Who will guard the guardians? As a Senator, I regard this not as just a right but as a solemn duty and responsibility, one that transcends the partisan disputes of any day or any decade. The importance of multiple checks in determining who our judges would be was not lost on our Founders, even on those who were very much in favor of a strong Executive. For example, Alexander Hamilton, probably the strongest advocate for a stronger Executive, wrote: The possibility of rejection [by the Senate] would be a strong motive to [take] care in proposing [nominations. The President] . . . would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward . . . candidates who had no other merit, than that . . . of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instrument of his pleasure. Hamilton also rebutted the argument that the Senate's rejection of nominees would give it an improper influence over the President, as some here have suggested, by stating: If by influencing the President be meant restraining him, this is precisely what must have been intended. And it has been shown that the restraint would be salutary. The end result of our Founders was a system in which both the President and the Senate had significant roles, a system in which the Senate was constitutionally required to exercise independent judgment, not simply to rubberstamp the President's desires. As Senator William Maclay said: [W]hoever attends strictly to the Constitution of the United States will readily observe that the part assigned to the Senate was an important one--no less that of being the great check, the regulator and corrector, or, if I may so speak, the balance of this government. . . .The approbation of the Senate was certainly meant to guard against the mistakes of the President in his appointments to office . . . The depriving power should be the same as the appointing power. The Founders gave us a system in which the Senate was to play a significant and substantive role in judicial nominations. They also provided us guidance on what type of legislative body they envisioned. In this new type of governance system they set up in 1789 where power would be separated and would check other power, the Founders envisioned a special unique role for the Senate that does not exist anywhere else in governance or in any parliamentary system. There is the oft-repeated discussion between two of our most distinguished Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Reportedly, at a breakfast that Jefferson was having with Washington upon returning from Paris, because he was not here when the Constitution was written, Jefferson was somewhat upset that there was a bicameral legislative body, that a Senate was set up. He asked Washington: Why did you do this, set up a Senate? And Washington looked at Jefferson as they were having tea and said: Why did you pour that tea into your saucer? And Jefferson responded: To cool it. I might note parenthetically that was the purpose of a saucer originally. It was not to keep the tablecloth clean. Jefferson responded: To cool it, and Washington then sagely stated: Even so, we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it. The Senate was designed to play this independent and, I might emphasize, moderating--a word not heard here very often--moderating and reflective role in our Government. But what aspects of the Senate led it to become this saucer, cooling the passions of the day for the betterment of America's long-term future? First, the Founders certainly did not envision the Senate as a body of unadulterated majoritarianism. In fact, James Madison and other Founders were amply concerned about the majority's ability, as they put it, ``to oppress the minority.'' It was in this vein the Senate was set up ``first to protect the people against their rulers; secondly, to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led. . . .The use of the Senate is to consist in its proceeding with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.'' Structurally, the Founders set up a ``different type of legislature'' by ensuring that each citizen--now here is an important point, and if anybody in this Chamber understands this, the Presiding Officer does-- the Founders set up this different type of legislative body by ensuring that each citizen did not have an equal say in the functioning of the Senate--that sounds outrageous, to ensure they did not have an equal say--but that each State did have an equal say. In fact, for over a century, Senators were not originally chosen by the people, as the Presiding Officer knows, and it was not until 1913 that they were elected by the people as opposed to selected by their State legislative bodies. Today, Mr. President, you and I do stand directly before the people of our State for election, but the Senate remains to this day a legislative body that does not reflect the simple popular majority because representation is by States. That means someone from Maine has over 25 times as much effective voting power in this body as the Senator from California. An interesting little fact, and I do not say this to say anything other than how the system works, there are more desks on that side of the aisle. That side has 55. Does that side of the aisle realize this side of the aisle, with 45 desks, represents more Americans than they do? If we add up all the people represented by the Republican Party in the Senate, they add up to fewer people than the Democratic Party represents in the Senate. We represent the majority of the American people, but in this Chamber it is irrelevant and it should be because this was never intended in any sense to be a majoritarian institution. This distinctive quality of the Senate was part of that Great Compromise without which we would not have a Constitution referred to as the Connecticut Compromise. Edmund Randolph, who served as the first Attorney General of the United States and would later be Secretary of State, represented Virginia at the Constitutional Convention, and in that context he argued for fully proportionate representation in the debates over the proper form of the legislative branch, but ultimately he agreed to the Connecticut Compromise. After reflection, that so seldom happens among our colleagues, myself included, he realized his first position was incorrect and he stated: The general object was to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man-- Referring to every man who agreed to the compromise-- had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy; that some check therefore was to be sought against this tendency of our Governments; and that a good Senate seemed most likely to answer this purpose. So the Founders quite intentionally designed the Senate with these distinctive features. Specifically, article 1, section 5 of the Constitution states that each House may determine its own rules for its own proceedings. Precisely: ``Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.'' The text contains no limitations or conditions. This clause plainly vests the Senate with plenary power to devise its internal rules as it sees fit, and the filibuster was just one of those procedural rules of the many rules that vest a minority within the Senate with the potential to have a final say over the Senate's business. It was clear from the start that the Senate would be a different type of legislative body; it would be a consensus body that respects the rights of minorities, even the extreme minority power of a single Senator because that single Senator can represent a single and whole State. The way it is played out in practice was through the right of unlimited debate. I find it fascinating, we are talking about the limitation of a right that has already limited the original right of the Founding Fathers. The fact was there was no way to cut off debate for the first decades of this Republic. Joseph Story, famous justice and probably one of the best known arbiters of the Constitution in American history, his remark about the importance of the right of debate was ``the next great and vital privilege is the freedom of speech and debate, without which all other privileges would be comparatively unimportant, or ineffectual.'' And that goes to the very heart of what made the Senate different. In the Senate, each individual Senator was more than a number to be counted on the way to a majority vote, something I think some of us have forgotten. Daniel Webster put it this way: This is a Senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for the exhibition of champions. Extended debate, the filibuster, was a means to reach a more modest and moderate result to achieve compromise and common ground to allow Senators, as Webster had put it, to be men--and now men and women--of absolute independence. Until 1917, there was no method to cut off debate in the Senate, to bring any measure to a vote, legislative or nomination--none, except unanimous consent. Unanimous consent was required up until 1917 to get a vote on a judge, on a bill, on anything on the Executive Calendar. The Senate was a place where minority rights flourished completely, totally unchecked, a place for unlimited rights of debate for each and every Senator. In part this can be understood as a recognition of our federal system of government in which we were not just a community of individuals but we were also a community of sovereign States. Through the Senate, each State, through their two Senators, had a right to extensive debate and full consideration of its views. For much of the Senate's history, until less than 100 years ago, to close off debate required not just two-thirds of the votes, but it required all of the votes. The Senate's history is replete with examples of situations in which a committed minority flexed its ``right to debate'' muscles. In fact, there was a filibuster over the location of the Capitol of the United States in the First Congress. But what about how this tradition of allowing unlimited debate and respect for minority rights played out in the nomination context, as opposed to the legislative process? First, the text of the Constitution makes no distinction whatsoever between nominations and legislation. Nonetheless, those who are pushing the nuclear option seem to suggest that while respect for minority rights has a long and respected tradition on the legislative side of our business, things were somehow completely different when it came to considering nominations. In fact, it is the exact opposite. The history of the Senate shows, and I will point to it now, that previous Senates certainly did not view that to be the case. While it is my personal belief that the Senate should be more judicious in the use of the filibuster, that is not how it has always been. For example, a number of President Monroe's nominations never reached the floor by the end of his administration and were defeated by delay, in spite of his popularity and his party's control of the Senate. Furthermore, President Adams had a number of judicial nominations blocked from getting to the floor. More than 1,300 appointments by President Taft were filibustered. President Wilson also suffered from the filibusters of his nominees. Not only does past practice show no distinction between legislation and judicial nominations in regards to the recognition of minority rights, the formal rules of the Senate have never recognized such a distinction, except for a 30-year stretch in the Senate history, 1917 to 1949, when legislation was made subject to cloture but nominations were not. Do my colleagues hear this? All of those who think a judge is more entitled to a vote than legislation, in 1917 it was decided that absolute unlimited debate should be curtailed, and there needs to be a two-thirds vote to cut off debate in order to bring legislation to the floor. But there was no change with regard to judicial nominees. There was a requirement of unanimous consent to get a nominee voted on. So much for the argument that the Constitution leans toward demanding a vote on nominations more than on legislation. It flies in the face of the facts, the history of America and the intent of our Framers. This fact in itself certainly undercuts the claim that there has been, by tradition, the insulating of judicial nominees from filibusters. In both its rules and its practices, the Senate has long recognized the exercise of minority rights with respect to nominations. And it should come as no surprise that in periods where the electorate is split very evenly, as it is now, the filibustering of nominations was used extensively. For example, my good friend Senator Hatch who is on the Senate floor--as my mother would say, God love him, because she likes him so much, and I like him, too--he may remember when I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee back in the bad old days when the Democrats controlled the Senate during President Clinton's first 2 years in office, a time when the Democrats controlled both the Presidency and the Senate but nonetheless the country remained very divided, numerous filibusters resulted, even in cases not involving the judiciary. I remind my friends, for example, that the nomination of Dr. Henry Foster for Surgeon General, Sam Brown to be ambassador to the Conference on Cooperation and Security in Europe, Janet Napolitano to be U.S. attorney in the District of Arizona, and Ricki Tigert for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation head, were all filibustered. We controlled the Senate, the House, the Presidency, but the Nation was nonetheless divided. Some may counter that there should be a difference between how judicial nominees should be treated versus the treatment accorded executive branch nominees, the Cabinet, and the rest. Constitutional text, historical practice and principle all run contrary to that proposition. On the textual point, we only have one appointments clause. It is also instructive to look at a few historical examples. In 1881, Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes nominated Stanley Matthews to the Supreme Court. A filibuster was mounted, but the Republican majority in the Senate was unable to break the filibuster, and Stanley Matthews' Supreme Court nomination failed without getting a vote. In 1968, the filibuster to block both Justice Abe Fortas from becoming Chief Justice and Fifth Circuit Court Judge Homer Thornberry to occupy the seat that Justice Fortas was vacating was one where the Democrats controlled the Senate, and the Republicans filibustered. The leader of that successful filibuster effort against Justice Fortas was Republican Senator Robert Griffin from Michigan. In commenting on the Senate's rejection of President George Washington's nomination of John Rutledge to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Republican Senator who mounted a successful filibuster against Fortas on the floor-- translated, Fortas never got a vote, even though he was a sitting Supreme Court Justice about to be elevated to Chief Justice-- what did the Senator from Michigan who led that fight say about the first fight in the Senate? That action in 1795 said to the President then in office and to future Presidents: ``Don't expect the Senate to be a rubberstamp. We have an independent coequal responsibility in the appointing process; and we intend to exercise that responsibility, as those who drafted the Constitution so clearly intended.'' There is also a very important difference between judicial and executive nominees that argued for greater Senate scrutiny of judicial nominees. It should be noted that legislation is not forever. Judicial appointments are for the life of the candidate. Of course, no President has unlimited authority, even related to his own Cabinet. But when you look at judges, they serve for life. An interesting fact that differentiates us from the 1800s, when these filibusters took place, and 1968, when they took place: The average time a Federal judge spends on the bench, if appointed in the last 10 years from today, has increased from 15 years to 24 years. That means that on average, every judge we vote for will be on that bench for a quarter century. Since the impeachment clause is fortunately not often used, the only opportunity the Senate has to have its say is in this process. The nuclear option was so named because it would cause widespread bedlam and dysfunction throughout the Senate, as the minority party, my party, has pledged to render its vigorous protest. But I do not want to dwell on those immediate consequences which, I agree with my Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, would be dramatic. He said: If we come to the nuclear option the Senate will be in turmoil and the Judiciary Committee will be in hell. However serious the immediate consequences may be, and however much such dysfunction would make both parties look juvenile and incompetent, the more important consequence is the long-term deterioration of the Senate. Put simply, the nuclear option threatens the fundamental bulwark of the constitutional design. Specifically, the nuclear option is a double-barreled assault on this institution. First, requiring only a bare majority of Senators to confirm a judicial nominee is completely contrary to the history and intent of the Senate. The nuclear option also upsets a tradition and history that says we are not going to change the rules of the Senate by a majority vote. It breaks the rule to change the rule. If we go down this path of the nuclear option, we will be left with a much different system from what our Founders intended and from how the Senate has functioned throughout its history. The Senate has always been a place where the structure and rules permit fast-moving partisan agendas to be slowed down; where hotheads could cool and where consensus was given a second chance, if not a third and a fourth. While 90 percent of the business is conducted by unanimous consent in this body, those items that do involve a difference of opinion, including judicial nominations, must at least gain the consent of 60 percent of its Members in order to have that item become law. This is not a procedural quirk. It is not an accident of history. It is what differentiates the Senate from the House of Representatives and the English Parliament. President Lyndon Johnson, the ``Master of the Senate,'' put it this way: In this country, a majority may govern but it does not rule. The genius of our constitutional and representative government is the multitude of safeguards provided to protect minority interests. And it is not just leaders from the Democratic Party who understand the importance of protecting minority rights. Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker wrote in 1993 that compromising the filibuster: would topple one of the pillars of American Democracy: the protection of minority rights from majority rule. The Senate is the only body in the federal government where these minority rights are fully and specifically protected. Put simply, the nuclear option'' would eviscerate the Senate and turn it into the House of Representatives. It is not only a bad idea, it upsets the Constitutional design and it disserves the country. No longer would the Senate be that different kind of legislative body'' that the Founders intended. No longer would the Senate be the saucer'' to cool the passions of the immediate majority. Without the filibuster, more than 40 Senators would lack the means by which to encourage compromise in the process of appointing judges. Without the filibuster, the majority would transform this body into nothing more than a rubber stamp for every judicial nomination. The Senate needs the threat of filibuster to force a President to appoint judges who will occupy the sensible center rather than those who cater to the whim of a temporary majority. And here is why--it is a yes or no vote; you can't amend a nomination. With legislation, you can tinker around the edges and modify a bill to make it more palatable. You can't do that with a judge. You either vote for all of him or her, or none. So only by the threat of filibuster can we obtain compromise when it comes to judges. We, as Senators, collectively need to remember that it is our institutional duty to check any Presidential attempt to take over the Judiciary. As the Congressional Research Service, the independent and non-partisan research arm of Congress, stated, the ``nuclear option'' would: . . . strengthen the executive branch's hand in the selection of federal judges. This shouldn't be a partisan issue, but an institutional one. Will the Senate aid and abet in the erosion of its Article I power by conceding to another branch greater influence over our courts? As Senator Stennis once said to me in the face of an audacious claim by President Nixon: Are we the President's men or the Senate's? He resolved that in a caucus by speaking to us as only John Stennis could, saying: I am a Senate man, not the President's man. Too many people here forget that. Earlier, I explained that for much of the Senate's history, a single Senator could stop legislation or a nomination dead in its tracks. More recent changes to the Senate Rules now require only \3/5\ of the Senate, rather than all of its Members, to end debate. Proponents of the ``nuclear option'' argue that their proposal is simply the latest iteration of a growing trend towards majoritarianism in the Senate. God save us from that fate, if it is true. I strongly disagree. Even a cursory review of these previous changes to the Senate Rules on unlimited debate show that these previous mechanisms to invoke cloture always respected minority rights. The ``nuclear option'' completely eviscerates minority rights. It is not simply a change in degree but a change in kind. It is a discontinuous action that is a sea change, fundamentally restructuring what the Senate is all about. It would change the Senate from a body that protects minority rights to one that is purely majoritarian. Thus, rather than simply being the next logical step in accommodating the Senate Rules to the demands of legislative and policy modernity, the ``nuclear option'' is a leap off the institutional precipice. And so here we collectively stand--on the edge of the most important procedural change during my 32-year Senate career, and one of the most important ever considered in the Senate; a change that would effectively destroy the Senate's independence in providing advice and consent. I ask unanimous consent to be able to continue for another 15 minutes. The PRESIDNG OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, the debate about the legislative filibuster is not a debate about S. 1 or S. 101 or S. 901. No, this is a debate about nothing less than the nature and durability of American self- government. Quite apart from the wrestling over which particular bill was filibustered 8 years ago or 4 years ago or 2 years ago or tomorrow, the decision about whether or not to eliminate the filibuster is the Senate's most important policy debate in decades. Eliminating the filibuster would obviously have all kinds of policy consequences, from tax rates and labor law to energy and infrastructure. But that is not why the debate is so important. This isn't fundamentally a debate about this or that policy. The debate about the filibuster is deeper than that because it is a debate about how and whether we debate at all. This matters a whole lot in a country this big, in a continental nation, because it is right at the heart of how peaceable self-government works at all. If we just blow that up, if we act as if it is just a matter of time before the filibuster goes away and all we really have is red-versus-blue jerseys anyway, if we just end the Senate's rules as they have existed for 240 years, we will dramatically alter not just this institution but our entire form of self-government, and in the process we will dramatically escalate the fevered pitch of America's recent arguing. We shouldn't ignore the deep and long-term significance of what setting the Senate's rules on fire would mean simply because terms like ``supermajority requirement'' don't fit really neatly into our modern, made-for-cable-TV, soap-opera variety of politics as entertainment, politics as sport, even politics as religion. ``Supermajority requirements'' are a whole bunch of syllables, and it just doesn't make for great sound bites. But make no mistake. If we set the Senate's rules on fire, we are going to cause dramatic, horrible consequences in American civic life. Almost every single Member of the newly minted Democratic majority in the Senate has resolved in recent weeks that the legislative filibuster needs to be abolished, or, in their most recent focus group term, to be ``reformed'' out of existence. This move would be directly contrary to over two centuries of tradition in this country and in this body. It would be directly contrary to the Founders' explicit purposes for why this institution was created at all, and it would be directly contrary to the words of dozens and dozens of the majority Senators--their words just in the last 48 months. This is no mere procedural change. If they go through with this, an already sick Senate would be committing institutional suicide. There really is no reason to be a U.S. Senator if the Senate doesn't exist to foster real debate that is bigger than simple majority power. This nuclear trigger would all but destroy the principle of consensus-building that the Senate demands and, thereby, all but ensure that minority rights in this country would become subject to more and more fickle, more and more power hungry, and, inevitably, more and more abusive simple majorities. America is built on a number of seemingly small, but actually quite grand, ideas. One of the very best of those ideas, one that is just elegantly simple--so simple that we regularly don't pause to reflect on it together and to teach it to our kids--is the simple idea that whenever possible, groups of different people should be allowed to make different rules for themselves. This is what our system of federalism is about. This is why we divide power both vertically and horizontally between legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and then also across the 50 States and versus the Federal Government. It is not actually an extravagant thought. Children on a playground kind of instinctively understand that if you can't get one giant game of kickball together, it is OK to let the playground divide up into a few different games of kickball and dodgeball. It is a grand American tradition that when we don't have to agree, we don't have to agree about everything. It is OK to allow some diversity. It is OK for not all workplace regulations to be exactly the same everywhere in the country. As it happens, America is a really big country, a continental nation, and we regularly don't agree. Californians don't always agree with Nebraskans. Virginians don't always agree with New Yorkers. People in regularly sunny Miami don't always see the world exactly the same as folks in regularly wintry Boston do. Ohio State fans don't have to wear the blue and gold of Michigan. It is a big country full of disagreements, and so our principle is, regularly, that wherever we can protect and respect differences, we should. We don't force folks to wear the jerseys of the teams they don't support. There is no reason to. I feel like there is some joke I should make about Oral Roberts versus Harbaugh--I know relative competitions against Ohio State--but prudence recommends skipping that. There are also circumstances, obviously, where we need to make big wide-ranging monopolistic government decisions. There are times when we have to have one-size-fits-all rules, but those one-size-fits-all obligations are not for everything. Even in those moments when they are required, we still want to work hard to protect the rights of minorities and dissenters. So how do we respect their rights and abilities to make rules for varying communities across a nation of 330 million people from shore to shore? How do we allow as many people as possible to make divergent rules as they see fit? One of the ways we have done that traditionally in the Senate is we have always made sure, here, where we come from all across the country--east to west, north to south--that we would be required to pass legislation not by 50 plus 1 but by 50 plus 10. What that means is that, most all of the time, even if you are in the majority, you can't just do everything you want. You can't just pass one, big, compulsory law immediately without lots of debate, because you rarely have 50 plus 10. You have to bring some people from across the aisle over to your side. If you are in the majority, it means that you have to learn the habit of sitting down with Members of the minority. You have to talk to them. As importantly, you have to listen to them. When this process of compromise works and a bill is passed, you are then guaranteed that the new law has the stamp of approval of at least some representatives of the minority on that issue, and it means that they will become your allies against quickly undoing that law next year. They will become your allies because the process of compromise has led you to listen to each other and say: Instead of doing the 51- percent thing, what harder work might be required to get to the 60- percent thing? If the process of compromise breaks down, that is a pretty important signal as well. When you are forced to make rules that are binding on diverse groups of people, it is in everyone's interest that you get as much buy-in as possible. That makes it more likely that the new rule will be respected and followed beyond just this 2-year Congress. Yet, if you shove a rule change through with a bare-knuckle majority, you ensure that 49 percent of the country is going to resent not just the rule but you. Pass laws today with a 50-plus-1 majority, and watch them be repealed tomorrow with a 50-plus-1 majority. Our Nation would just pinball from one policy agenda to another. It makes politics too central in the lives of the American people to allow a fickle 51-and-49-percent majority to change the whole direction of the Nation. Each election would become more do or die, more Flight 93ish than the last one. Each campaign would descend further and further into tribal ugliness. In a big and diverse country, the Senate exists to force lawmakers to build a healthy consensus before we try to make sweeping national, legal changes. The Senate exists precisely to force this kind of consensus-building. That is really why this institution exists. It is how we guarantee that we do not have laws on the books that are respected by half of the country and resented and hated or ignored by the other half of the country. The Senate's supermajority requirement has helped to ensure that big changes are not impulsive and narrow and instant but, rather, deliberate and broadly accepted. But there is an alarming trend in our time. Let's be clear: It is in both parties. It is not just the Democrats, who are now in the majority, who are interested in this kind of new, more instant, more urgent, more winner-take-all kind of politics. There is a new trend toward a bare-knuckles belief that this is the only kind of politics that works, that it is the only kind of way you can go forward. So my colleagues--again, in both parties--have decided that if you have the power, you should wield it, and you should wield all of it with no constraint. They might use this or that particular bill as a stalking horse for the attempted power grab, but let's be clear: Any particular bill is beside the point; it is about the new ``ends justify the means'' principle, which is the principle that there are no principles except that of flexing your power as vigorously and as brutally and as instantly as you can for as long as you can cling to power. Some of the Republicans who have already spoken on the floor this last week have warned the Democrats that they might very soon rue the day they made this decision. There is an age-old self-delusion in power that says: If you are in the majority, you will never have to be in the minority again, so why would you want to respect any rules that have traditionally protected minorities? You will always be driving the bulldozer and never be in its path. This debate isn't about policy. It isn't about any specific bill. You can listen to the activists on the outside who are advocating for it. They have been transparent about their purposes for the better part of a year that they would use whatever bill they think most politicall opportune at the moment to try to end the filibuster. Books published on this topic in the last 60 days haven't come about in the last 60 days. We should remember that if this happens, if a simple majoritarianism--a mere raw exercise of power--becomes what this body is about, we will have taken a step down a path toward the exercise of naked power that will be absolutely permanent. It cannot and will not ever be undone. Once the supermajority rules, once the filibuster is gone, it will be gone forever because no one--it is self-evident to make this argument--is ever going to voluntarily surrender power when the other party has just used a simple-majority power against them. No one will ever restore supermajority requirements when they have a simple majority and a simple majority has just become the rule against them. If you want to see American politics become more brutal, if you want to see American politics become more crude, if you want to see American politics become more demagogic, then stripping away the mechanisms that have forced us to work together would be the perfect recipe for bringing about this dystopian reality. If you want to see a politics that favors more candidates running for office with claims that they will be strongmen and tyrants, then make politics nothing more than a contest of wills between people who spend their campaigns promising to spend the next 2 or 4 years simply making the other side pay. If you want to see the rights and interests of minority groups scorned, dismissed, and trampled, then establish a legislative process where minority voices don't need to be heard at all. That is what would happen if we end the supermajority requirements that have always dominated the Senate from its first day. If you want lame, meme politics that aims only to ``own the libs'' or ``drink conservative tears,'' this is how you bring that crap show about. You would set the Senate on fire. All of you know this, though. Many of you have spoken in private about this being a rash move. Many of you have spoken in public about having been opposed to this before. I think of my friend Brian Schatz--and I am going to name him precisely because he is a real friend, not a Washington friend, where you claim someone is your friend right before you try to rip his face off. I actually like the guy a lot. I like working with the guy, and I would like to keep working with the guy. But it turns out, if you make the Senate into the House of Representatives, there is going to be almost no working together across the aisle because there will no longer be any incentive for it. All the politics that matter will happen during the private caucus lunches where 51 percent will try to keep their 51 percent to do whatever they want. The Senate is, obviously, not the greatest deliberative body in the world, but it still has a chance to recover. Set it on fire by ending supermajority requirements, and no one should ever utter the phrase ``great deliberative body'' again because there will be no more deliberation in this body again. Brian recently said that the filibuster is ``stupid and paralyzing.'' He also said: ``It is time to trash the Jim Crow filibuster.'' Yet, just 4 years ago, when Donald Trump was elected and the House Republicans were itching to have the Senate eliminate the filibuster because the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House, Senator Schatz and a bunch of his colleagues actually penned a public letter that defended the filibuster and all of its ``existing rules, practices, and traditions'' precisely because it advanced the deliberative purposes of the Senate. I don't remember Senator Schatz then calling it the ``Jim Crow filibuster'' when he wrote that letter or when he was blocking Tim Scott's police reform legislation last year by pointing to the Senate's supermajority requirement rules. I don't remember Senator Schatz calling it ``stupid'' when he filibustered COVID relief in September and again in October under the Senate's current rules. Look, I want to be clear. I am not picking on Brian; I am naming him precisely because I like him, and afterward, we can argue about this. With other people I have maybe less of a relationship with, it would be less useful to cite them than the people with whom I actually have a lot of comity and good will. I do want to keep working with Brian, but in a simple majoritarian body, there won't be bipartisan cooperation anymore. There isn't much right now, but there is still a chance for the reform of this institution. Ending the filibuster is to end this institution. To be clear, this isn't about Senator Schatz. I could give an hours'- and-hours'-long speech and go through all the flip-floppers in this Chamber who had one position 48 months ago and now have a completely different position. I don't need to name all of them. We should just ask, what changed? We know what changed. The only thing that has changed in the last 2 years is who is i power. When the Democrats were in the minority, you were fierce defenders of this indispensable Senate prerogative. That was the language that was used. The filibuster was standing between America and fascism, we heard. But now, when you have the slimmest majority--actually, it is just 50-50, and you need the VP's motorcade to break a tie--the filibuster is standing between you and some of your legislative goals; therefore, it needs to be tossed out. When you were using the filibuster to halt Senator Scott's police reform bill, the filibuster was an essential American institution that forced compromise. Now that it can be occasionally used to resist a 51-50 straight majoritarian exercise of power, it is supposedly exclusively a relic of slavery and a tool of Jim Crow. It is nonsense, and the people saying it know that it is nonsense. You used the same rule last year, and you were not racist when you used it last year. This is B.S. that has been focus-grouped, and particular bills are being used as the excuses to grab power that won't just be for this bill; it will be forever. It will be the end of the Senate. Was the filibuster really a tool of Jim Crow when it was used against Tim Scott last year? I don't think so, and I don't think any of you think so. If somebody wants to come to the floor and repent of their racism for having used the filibuster last year, please do, but that isn't what was happening, so stop with the nonsense rhetoric that is just for an MSNBC sound bite tonight. It is sad to watch so many of my colleagues who know better be bullied into this position of shortsightedness, and they do know better, because many of you say it in private, and you are being bullied by the fringes of your party. But part of the responsibility of being a U.S. Senator is standing up to the extreme fringes of your party. Part of the responsibility of being a U.S. Senator is to say: I know that people are angry. I know that people are yelling. I know that there are hotheads. But one of the jobs of a Senator and surely the job of this body is to try to find a way to allow cooler heads to prevail. We already have an institution that is instantly responsive to majorities--you only have to walk 200 yards to see it--and there is nobody who serves in this body who wishes they served in that body. We know what it looks like to have a simple majoritarian body, and the House was designed to do that. It is a good thing. The House was designed to reflect the energy of the people. When the people are hotheaded and they want something done fast and they want their majority to act, they call on the House and get a hearing, but the Senate's job, the Senate's purpose, is different. The House is actually allowed to act with a hothead precisely because the Senate exists to cool those passions. The Senate exists to act with a cool head. Our job is not to cater to sudden and instant majorities and to changes in the wind; the Senate's job is to enlarge and refine the House's judgments and to try to build a consensus that can last so that the majority's will can be advanced while the minority's rights are also protected. The bullies who want to permanently upend the way our legislature works don't understand that their short-term gain of this or that bill will come at a long-term cost of the entire structure of the rights and interests of our constitutional balance. It doesn't take a lot of courage to go with the current of a mob, but a lot of Senators who quietly want to resist this change--and there are many on that side of the aisle who want to resist this change--are worried that going against the tide means watching dollars and votes flow away. It means getting screamed at in restaurants. It means that your self-interest is to avoid the short-term pain and ride the short- term wave. Let me tell you, this feels pretty familiar. When I ran for this seat in 2014--it was the first time I had ever run for anything in my life-- one of the fundamental reasons I ran, in my having never sought any office of any kind, was that I thought the Senate had a chance to still be restored to its deliberative place in American life. We are living through a digital revolution that is disrupting the future of work, the future of war, the nature of local community, the neuron, synapse, and frontal lobe formations of our teens. The digital revolution is transforming American life everywhere, and this institution has a chance to help shape some of that for good instead of to just allow the tide to flow at full speed and consume this institution as well. So I said, I pledged--and when I said it to a largely red State in 2014, most people apparently didn't think I meant it--that I wasn't running just because I disagreed with a lot of President Obama's policies but because I would defend the constitutional system of limited government and a Senate that exists for a deliberative process even if someone in my own party came to power and urged instant, radical changes that disrespected large portions of America. I literally made the centerpiece of why I was running that I would resist someone in my own party who tried to do majoritarian, instant stuff. And I can tell you, I can introduce you to a whole bunch of Republicans on the ground in Nebraska who are really mad that, when I said that, I didn't precisely say it 17 different ways, where I named every person that they might later want to have all of that instant power. After the 2016 election, people started looking back at what I said the whole 2014 campaign and got more uncomfortable with what they voted for. So nobody has to tell me how unpleasant it is to stand up and say things that are unpopular in your own party. Over the course of the last 5 years, I have been smeared and censured many times. I have been cussed out by lots of people who once supported me and called me a friend. None of that was particularly fun, but so what? The oath I took and the duty I swore was related to the point of being a U.S. Senator, which is that if you are not willing to stand up to your own side every now and again, there is really no point in having this job. And the thing is, a lot of you know that. I am not going to say it is the consensus position on your side of the aisle, but there are a whole bunch of people going along publicly with the rhetoric of ending the filibuster and ending supermajority requirements, even as, at the exact same time, you tell me how much you regret the summer of 2013 decision to allow Harry Reid to end a much smaller Senate tradition about supermajority confirmations. Supermajoritarian confirmations are a small item compared to the change that is being considered here. Harry Reid's take-no-prisoners strategy of 2013 was something that was moved unanimously by the then- majority party, and many, many, many of you have talked to me in private about how much you regret it. Please consider the costs because this would be a much larger change. Whenever anyone, Republican or Democrat, has threatened to blow up the Senate supermajority requirements, they always have to tell themselves three lies. The first lie is that might makes right. The second lie is that the other side politically is your enemy, and they must simply be beaten down; they can never possibly be persuaded. And the third lie is that the Federal Government is the only government we have. None of these things is true. I resisted a President, nominally of my own party, when he beat me up, both in private and in public, for defending the filibuster when my party was in the majority. Republican Senate leaders stood up to him as well, despite lots of ridicule from House Republicans. A lot of people in the House Republican caucus wanted much faster politics, but their passions were a poor guide to long-term wisdom for a nation this big and diverse. It is better for America's hardest debates to be decided in a deliberative Senate rather than in the thunderdome. Republicans in the majority held firm against blowing up this central structural pillar of this institution, even when it would have benefited us politically. In other words, we faced the same choice then that you face now, and we decided that it was better to choose long- term stability over short-term legislative victories. It was the right choice for a nation this big and this diverse. A lot of Republicans think that decision was naive. Their argument was the other side hates us. They will definitely use all power against us whenever they can. And I know that many Democratic strategists on the outside, many people raising money, small-dollar fundraising online, they are making the exact same argument, but this isn't war, and we are not supposed to be permanent enemies. We want a politics of debate and of verbal jousting rather than of physical violence. And one of the most urgent political tasks we face today is to demonstrate that it is possible for people who deeply disagree and who are polarized in our division--we can still work together for the common good. We urgently need to protect and strengthen, not weaken and destroy, the norms that force us to come together and cooperate. But we don't need to be naive. We don't need to believe that that means we would always sing ``Kumbaya.'' We obviously don't in this body, but that doesn't mean we are free to be naive in the other direction as well. For every step we take that further divides, further infuriates, and further inflames half the country, it makes it far likelier that we will set a fire that we cannot put out. The American Founders understood the problem that we are facing. They were not naive about how politics worked and what it took, what kind of labor and sweat and relational hand-wringing and bread-breaking it takes to be able to work together amicably. They were working from a personal experience of repression, tyranny, and violence. And so they set out some basic principles of federalism, localism, and consensus building, of supporting majorities but without sacrificing minorities. And so they established a framework in which these principles could be balanced in a way that is responsive to changing conditions and needs. The Founders' concerns are still our concerns, but guess what. They built the Senate for this exact moment. We are constantly tussling over how to make sure that every voice is heard and every person has a place. We live in a divided time. We live in a divided nation. But they lived in a divided time and in a divided nation, and so they created the Senate to be a place that could deescalate red-hot anger, to take a deep breath rather than just assuming that a runaway majority of 50 percent plus 1 should advance whatever it wanted. Friends, colleagues, you know after the summer of 2013, the dominoes were worse than you had expected, and many of you--I don't know if it is most, but many of you hav talked about how much you regret the summer of 2013 decision. This decision is 100 times larger. Friends, please consider whether or not it is prudent to set the Senate on fire. It is the only deliberative structure we have in our government, and at a time when institutions are being consumed, let us not consume another.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I and then, after me, Senators Leahy and Peters be allowed to complete our remarks in their entirety before the scheduled vote.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. I ask for the yeas and nays. Senator Schatz and I add up to 22.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. I ask unanimous consent to begin the vote now.

Mr. SASSE. I ask unanimous consent for the Record to note that the junior Senator from New Jersey is very dramatic in the Chair.

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

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, we are doing a lot of red versus blue jersey stuff today. Until about 2 a.m., it is going to be mostly straight partisan votes. It would be good for us to find some common ground, and this amendment is an opportunity to do that. This amendment, modeled on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, is an opportunity to come together and to defend babies. It is pretty simple, actually. Every baby, whether she is born in a state-of-the-art hospital with a NICU unit or whether she is born in an abortion clinic in a strip mall, every baby is born with dignity and is created in God's image, and she deserves care. This amendment is aimed at making sure that babies who survive abortions get the same degree of care that any other newborn would. There is nothing partisan about that. That is why my Democratic colleagues, Joe Manchin and Bob Casey, both voted for this last year as legislation. We disagree on a bunch of stuff, but not this. There is a lot of complicated debate in this Chamber, but this isn't actually one of them. Here is a chance for 100 Senators to come together and support every baby. Every baby deserves a fighting chance.

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 192 and ask that it be reported by number, please.

Mr. SASSE. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act and applicable budget resolutions for the purposes of Senate amendment No. 192, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. Vice President, I want to say, before we begin, thank you for the way you have fulfilled your constitutional duties and your oath of office today. Obviously, it hasn't been easy. Colleagues, today has been ugly. When I came to the floor this morning, I planned to talk about the lesson of 1801 because I am kind of a history nerd, and I wanted to celebrate the glories of the peaceful transition of power across our Nation's history. It feels a little naive now to talk about ways that American civics might be something that could unite us and bring us back together. Now, 1801 blew everybody's mind all over the world, by the way. John Adams loses to Thomas Jefferson, and Adams willingly leaves the Executive mansion and moves back to Massachusetts, and Jefferson peacefully assumes power. People all over Europe said: That must be fake news. Those must be bad reports. There is no way any Executive would ever willingly lay down power. Yet Adams, in defeat, did something glorious to give all of us a gift. I wanted to celebrate that, and it feels a little bit harder now. This building has been desecrated. Blood has been spilled in the hallways. I was with octogenarian Members of this Chamber who needed to have troops and police stabilize them to get down the stairs at a time when a lot of our staffs were panicked and under their desks and not knowing what was going to happen to them. It was ugly today. But you know what? It turns out that when something is ugly, talking about beauty isn't just permissible; talking about beauty is obligatory in a time like that. Why? Why would we talk about beauty after the ugliness of today? Because our kids need to know that this isn't what America is. What happened today isn't what America is. They have been given a glorious inheritance for the 59th Presidential election. If the Vice President wasn't in the Chair and if the President pro tempore was, I would have made some joke that Chuck Grassley has voted in two-thirds of those 59 Presidential elections. He is laughing. It is not as good as ``hit deer, deer dead,'' but it still got a Grassley laugh. I don't think we want to tell the Americans that come after us that this republic is broken, that this is just a banana republic, that our institutions can't be trusted. I don't think we want that. We don't want that in this body, and we don't want that in our hometowns. I don't think we want to tell our kids that America's best days are behind us--because it is not true. That is not who we are. America isn't Hatfields' and McCoys' blood feud forever. America is a union. There is a lot that is broken in this country but not anything that is so big that the American people can't rebuild it, that freedom and community and entrepreneurial effort and that neighborhoods can't rebuild. Nothing that is broken is so big that we can't fix it. Generations of our forefathers and our foremothers--probably not a word--and our ancestors have spilled blood to defend the glories of this republic. Why would they do that? Because America is the most exceptional nation in the history of the world and because the Constitution is the greatest political document that has ever been written. Most governments in the past have said might makes right, and we saw some of that hooligan nuttery today. Might makes right. No, it doesn't. God gives us rights by nature, and government is just our shared project to secure those rights. America has always been about what we choose to do together, the way we reaffirm our constitutional system. We have some governmental tasks, and we all in this body could do better at those governmental tasks, but the heart of America is not government. The center of America is not Washington, DC. The center of America is the neighborhoods where 330 million Americans are raising their kids and trying to put food on the table and trying to love their neighbor. That is the center of America. We are not supposed to be the most important people in America. We are supposed to be servant leaders who try to maintain a framework for ordered liberty so that there is a structure that, back home where they live, they can get from the silver-framed structure and order to the golden apple at the center, as Washington would have said, which is the things that they build together, the places where they coach little league, the places where they invite people to synagogue or church. Sometimes, the biggest things we do together are governmental, like kicking Hitler's ass or like going to the moon. Sometimes, there is governmental stuff. But the heart of America is about places where moms and dads are raising kids, and we are supposed to serve them by maintaining order and by rejecting violence. You can't do big things like that if you hate your neighbors. You can't do big things together as Americans if you think other Americans are the enemy Look, there is a lot of uncertainty about the future. I get it. There is a lot that does need to be rebuilt. But if you are angry--I want to beg you--don't let the screamers who monetize hate have the final word. Don't let needlists become your drug dealers. There are some who want to burn it all down. We met some of them today. But they aren't going to win. Don't let them be your prophets-- instead, organize, persuade, but most importantly, love your neighbor. Visit the widower down the street who is lonely and doesn't want to tell anybody that his wife died and he doesn't have a lot of friends. Shovel somebody's driveway. You can't hate somebody who just shoveled your driveway. The heart of life is about community and neighborhood, and we are supposed to be servant leaders. The constitutional system is still the greatest order for any government ever, and it is our job to steward it and protect it. Let's remember that today when we vote.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. SASSE. I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4356 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I have a request for one committee to meet during today's session of the Senate. It has the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committee is authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Armed Services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday. December 15, 2020, at 11 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the nomination.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 8354, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I rise because in a few minutes, I am going to ask to enter into the Record a new report released last night by Adrian Zenz of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. It isn't often that we enter into the Congressional Record reports that are really things that we want our constituents to read, but this report is different. This report is a report that every American needs to know about because it makes clear two things. First, it makes clear that cotton from Xinjiang, which is about 20 percent of all the world's cotton; it is about 85 percent of all the cotton coming out of China, but it is about 20 percent of the global cotton, and it is a lot of the best cotton on the globe--is stained by slave labor. The second thing that it makes clear is that a lot of this cotton is destined for the United States. We are the ones demanding it, and our people are making a market for this blood cotton. Under the guise of Orwellian terms like ``poverty alleviation,'' the Chinese Communist Party is forcibly mobilizing minority labor--the Uighurs--to replace the majority Han Chinese labor market that has traditionally picked some of the Xinjiang cotton. Very young and very elderly folks are often sent into facilities, and everyone in between-- everybody who has a body that can move into the fields--is being sent into these cotton fields for the monthslong cotton picking season. Picking cotton is backbreaking labor, and these Uighurs who are being forced to do this as slaves are under constant surveillance. They are subjected to very long work hours, and they are forced to participate in political indoctrination sessions. Some of today's pickers have also done shifts and turns in CCP internment camps as well. We should be very clear about what is happening here. What is happening here is an unmitigated evil. There isn't another interpretation for this slave labor that is producing the Xinjiang blood cotton. This is an unmitigated evil, and it is obviously far more comfortable to ignore evil than to confront it head-on. Despite our many promises, it is easy to forget the human toil of totalitarianism. It is easier to just look away. That is, of course, what the Communist leadership in Beijing is counting on. They are counting on the fact that U.S. citizens and corporate leadership and politicians will just be busy and will say: Well, that would be messy to have to confront, so we should just look away. We said we would never forget, but let's just not notice. So we should state this truth over and over and over again. Chairman Xi's dictatorship is enslaving more than half a million Uighurs, and they are being forced to pick blood cotton. That is what this report from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation last night clearly demonstrates The Chinese Communist Party is convinced that the American people and that the institutions of the U.S. Government will simply look away, so we need to say again and again that Chairman Xi's dictatorship is enslaving more than half a million Uighurs. They are being forced into slavery in the cotton fields. Much of that cotton is destined for U.S. markets, and Chairman Xi and his underlings are counting on the fact that although America raises a light of liberty in our rhetoric, they are expecting that we will just look away in practice and in fact in our marketplaces. We should not and we cannot give them that victory. Beijing's Communist Party doesn't care about basic human dignity. The genocidal leaders who are running the government in Beijing--and, again, we need to distinguish that. Every time we talk about topics like this, we need to distinguish between the leadership of the Communist Party in Beijing and the regular 1.4 billion Chinese citizens, many of whom have nothing to do with these evils and wouldn't countenance them if they had the power. The genocidal leadership of the Communist Party in Beijing is running systematically oppressive slave regimes against the Muslims and against other ethnic minorities. Their cruelty is unmatched. They are ripping families apart. They are forcibly separating children from parents. They forcibly separate husbands and wives. They send goons in to rape the wives whose husbands have been sent away, hoping that they can impregnate them with other ethnic children to sort of extinguish the Uighur population in this region. They are brainwashing children, and they have weaponized forced abortion and sterilization. They have systematically demolished mosques. What is happening in Xinjiang is not gray; what is happening in Xinjiang is evil. Chairman Xi's underlings do not believe that the Uighurs are human, and the racist Communist Party in Beijing believes that these men and women are little better than animals and that they can be exploited as slaves. In Xinjiang, cotton is king. How does Beijing try to explain this away? Well, of course, there are a whole bunch of lies that they try to use to cover it up. According to their propaganda, the Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are lazy people, and they need help to overcome their laziness. They need to learn about work, and they need to be helped out of poverty. These are the sorts of topline versions of their disgusting lies. But they don't really think that anybody is persuaded by these lies. What they expect is that the money will do the persuading for them. They don't think that these lies are ruled out in a way that is going to really be compelling to anyone. What they really expect is that we won't pay attention to where high-quality, cheap cotton often comes from and that we will just look away. And here is the painful truth: The global supply chains that have benefited from this blood cotton have gotten some really good cotton at really cheap prices. In 2019, an estimated 70 percent of Xinjiang's cotton was picked by hand, making it some of the highest quality cotton in the world and some of the most desirable cotton in any marketplace, and it is incredibly cheap because it is picked by slave labor. Xinjiang produces about 85 percent of China's cotton and about 20 percent of the world's cotton, and it is impossible to separate blood cotton from the small minority that is not picked in these slave fields. Here is what it means in America and around the world: It means that we are living in a sea of hypocrisy because we have a whole bunch of U.S. companies that celebrate individuality, individualism, make some unbelievably good commercials and talk about the expansion of human potential, at the same time being cosponsors of slave fields. That is what we are talking about here. We can't and we shouldn't simply look away. The extensiveness of the CCP's forced labor programs are such that many U.S. companies, including at least 82 identifiable global brands, have benefited from the Xinjiang slave cotton labor. Gap and Nike are two of the companies that are most obviously singled out, and the CCP has helped them cut their costs and expand their market access. In exchange, what they ask for is a really polite ``see no evil'' policy. The commercials that are aired in prime time at major sporting events in the United States are aired by companies that at the same time say: Please don't ask us about our supply chains. We don't want to have to give any account for that. These companies spend billions of dollars a year running ad campaigns touting values like self-determination. Yet they are quietly importing Communist values, particularly about the lack of human dignity. We don't want those values imported into the United States. We don't want to look away. We don't want to be people who say ``Never again and never forget'' and then just casually say ``I am never going to notice.'' We don't want to be those people. Today, I have written letters to both Gap and Nike asking them to help--asking them to please help make transparent to the American people what they know about their supply chains and how we should clean them up. We need to tackle the problem of this blood cotton from Xinjiang, and we need to give the American public, the American consumer, a transparent look into what these supply chains look like, where they come from, and how much blood they are tainted with. In the coming weeks, I and others will be reaching out to more companies than Gap and Nike, but those are the two letters I sent today. Americans in government and business and even Americans as we go to the store with our wallets as consumers in the retail marketplace-- we need to be aware of what is happening. We need to be a people who believe in defending human rights. The unjust status quo is very profitable, so many companies are now fighting this change. They are fighting this transparency. As attention in Congress has turned towards supply chain integrity concerns in recent months, companies have begun to deploy high-paid lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Americans who believe strongly in human rights and fundamental freedoms have been justifiably confused about these efforts to weaken legislation that seeks to ban imported goods that are made with Chinese Communist Party slave labor. Businesses that claim a fundamental respect for human dignity ought to share with their consumers and with their shareholders how they ensure the integrity of their supply chains because, again, 20 percent of the world's cotton comes from this part of China, and 85 percent of that cotton looks like it is tainted by blood cotton. Companies need to come clean if they have been asked by the CCP to stay silent about the human rights abuses in China. Companies need to reevaluate the costs and the benefits, and the costs are high of partnering with the genocidal regime. They need to do it themselves. These companies need to do it themselves because it is right, and they need to be pushed to do it because it is hard and because the competitive marketplace has many of their peer companies and competitor companies also benefiting from this same slave cotton. The U.S. Congress has become increasingly concerned about the Chinese Communist Party's pay-to-play shakedown of American companies. There is currently a bill under consideration in this body that forces a long overdue review of supply chains, and there are going to be many more bills and pieces of legislation like this coming. Companies, even if they don't want to do it for the right reason, should do it for the pragmatic reason of getting in front of this because this attention is not going to go away. The concern in this body and in this Congress about the blood in the slave supply chains in many of these industries is bipartisan. The United States celebrates the ideals of universal human dignity. The Chinese Communist Party explicitly rejects these ideals. In this ideological competition, Beijing is working to exploit something--they are working to exploit the moral concessions of American CEOs. CEOs and boards, you need to do better. American consumers, you need to ask hard questions. And this Congress needs to do some serious investigating. American and global companies that find their roots in these freedom- loving worlds and countries and that express public support for fundamental human freedoms that produce their success must act now. There is more to do than maximize the bottom line. That is not the only value. And the Senate is increasingly willing to act to ensure that American companies do not import misguided Chinese Communist Party values to these shores. Right now, it is too easy, it is too comfortable, and it is too profitable for many American and global companies to simply ignore the evil. We need to make the suffering in Xinjiang known. We need to speak about the Uighurs. These men, women, and children have God-given dignity, and we should not look away. Americans need to know about this evil so that we can, together, confront it. We need to dismantle Chairman Xi's lies, and we need to make it unconscionable for American businesses to profit from Chairman Xi's injustices. Mr. President, the report from the Victims in Communism Memorial Foundation released last night about the blood slave labor in Xinjiang can be found on the foundation's website at: https:// victimsofcommunism.org/publication/coercive-labor-in-xinjiang/. Thank you.

Mr. SASSE

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

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following nominations: Executive Calendar Nos. 875 and 881.