Ben Sasse

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. There are so many different procedures in the Judiciary Committee. You defined yourself as a rookie who has been here for 7 years. I am a rookie to your rookie, and I am new on Judiciary. So there are a lot of ways. The way you are defining it is usually the model, but there is a whole bunch of stuff that happens. You asked for the question that falls into that, but perhaps there is another comment that you can make.

Mr. SASSE. I thank the Senator for his question. I told the Senator from Maryland I would get out of his way, and I thank him for the time.

Mr. SASSE. The Senator from Maryland was first. I have 40 seconds to comment, but thank you. I respect the Senator from Virginia, but I would like to note for the Record, as somebody who spent a lot of time in the working group under Senator Scott's leadership, that Senator Kaine repeatedly said it was a ``my way or the highway'' approach. I just think it is really important for the Record for us to admit that this is an open amendment process that has been proposed, and that some of the Democrats who came to some of the meetings to negotiate were frankly stunned when Mr. Scott went from 5 amendments to 20 amendments, to whatever number you want. That is the opposite of a ``my way or the highway'' approach. That language isn't true. An open amendment process where dozens have been offered is not a ``my way or the highway'' approach.

Mr. SASSE. Yes.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 342, S. 327.

Mr. SASSE. I further ask that the committee-reported substitute be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, June 23; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Wilson nomination; further, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m., for the weekly conference meetings; finally, that all time during adjournment, recess, morning business, and leader remarks count postcloture on the Wilson nomination. PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. SASSE

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

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I want to start by saying thank you to my friend from South Carolina--Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee spoke, but I mean my desk mate, Senator Scott from South Carolina--not only for his leadership and hard work and the hard work of Jennifer and the rest of that their team. Over the course of the last 2 weeks, they have been working around the clock to lead our six- person working group on this project. I want to thank Tim, not just for his leadership, but for his speech 30 minutes ago and for his spirit. That speech is a speech that needs to be watched by every American. I sincerely hope that the 100 people in this room will come together and try to get an outcome and not just maintain a political issue as has happened so often around here. I think if we had the process that was the custom in the Senate until a few decades ago of committees happening in the morning and the Senate convening for most of the afternoon--if this room were actually full when Tim Scott delivered his speech, it would be real tough for people to be talking about not voting on the motion to proceed next week and getting on this piece of legislation where we could then debate it and argue about it and fight about technical pieces here and there and figure out how we make it better. We would be on a piece of legislation, and we would be trying to get an outcome. I sincerely hope that is true. I sincerely hope people listen to Tim Scott's speech from today. George Floyd's murder, obviously, shocked the nation. It shocked us in two ways. It shocked us, on the one hand, because we saw a man being murdered for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, and we saw three other police officers stand by while he was murdered. But it also shocked us because it reminded us, yet again, that America's struggle for equal justice under the law is far, far from over. The American creed is a beautiful thing. The American creed celebrates the dignity, the inherent self-worth, the fact that we believe, as so many of our Founders believed, that people were created Imago Dei--created in the image of God as image bearers. That dignity is male and female, Black and White. Every man, woman, and child in this country is created with inherent dignity. They are beautiful, and that creed is beautiful. That proposition that all men are created equal should inspire every generation of Americans. We aren't doing a very good job right now of passing on the glories of that creed to the next generation. It is a beautiful and profound creed, but throughout our history, our failures to live up to that creed have been ugly over and over again. George Floyd's murder was horrific for that man and for his family and for everyone in his communities--Minneapolis, Houston, and other places where that man had made a mark. But it was also horrific because it was yet another reminder of all the ways that we fail to live up to our creed. The creed is beautiful, and our execution has so often been ugly. When communities of color have lost faith in law enforcement, we aren't living up to that creed. When an American tells you that he fears being pulled over for driving while Black, we need a lot more conversations in a lot more communities so people know this experience. Again, Senator Scott is one of my closest friends in this body. The experiences he has had with law enforcement in South Carolina are different from the ones I have had with law enforcement in Nebraska. The experiences he has on Capitol Hill with law enforcement have been different from the experiences I have had on Capitol Hill. No one should be wearing skin pigment or racial heritage as something that changes our experience of law enforcement, yet it is regularly the case. That is ugly. The creed is beautiful. Our attempts to become and to be a more perfect Union and to live up to the glories of that creed are an important part of our shared project together. At the risk of sounding too theological, east of Eden, sin is always ugly, and that includes America's original sin. That tells us that we have work to do together. We have work to do as 330 million Americans, but we have work to do as 100 Senators. What that should mean is that next week we are going to be in this body trying to live up to that creed and to do more. There is a lot of technical stuff inside this bill. As Senator Scott said, 70 percent of what is in this bill is pretty darn noncontroversial, largely because it is lifted and summarizing many pieces that are also in the House of Representatives' Democrat bill. The JUSTICE Act puts forward a number of commonsense reforms that seek to force more accountability. This has been stated on the floor many times today, but I want to say it again: When police use lethal force, there is a voluntary opportunity today for them to report that to the FBI. We want to make that mandatory. We want all that data to be captured and to be passed along so there is a lot more transparency on all lethal uses of force. The commonsense reforms include increasing police resources. There is a lot of training that needs to be done better across this country. There are a lot of practices in local law enforcement--when you look at the 15,000, 16,000, whatever the current number is of local entities that have the capability and capacity to have law enforcement authorities, those policing powers, there is a lot of diversity in their practices. Some of those practices are improving but are still bad. Senator Scott and our legislation want to try to use the Federal grant-making powers to squeeze out some of those bad practices. We want to see trust rebuilt between this Nation's communities and the police. We reject the false binary that you have to make a choice between being on the side of communities of color or being on the side of law enforcement. No, we don't want that to be the choice. We want the choice to be law enforcement to get better and communities of color to have more trust. We want to see more collaboration. We want to see more progress. Frankly, that is what the vast majority of individual police and that is what the vast majority of police departments want. The overwhelming majority of Americans--Republican and Democrat, women and men, Black and White--the overwhelming majority of Americans want us to build more trust. We can do that in this body next week. We want to strive toward equal protection under the law. That starts with trying to narrow the differences and figuring out what we can do to move forward together. That is what this bill does. This bill is an architectural frame to do a bunch of good things that are pretty darn noncontroversial and to do a bunch of things that we can build on in a debate and amendment process. We should be passing something 100 to 0. There will be debate. There will amendment votes underneath that will be contentious, but we should ultimately be getting onto a piece of legislation to start the process 100 to 0, and at the back end we should be passing something 100 to 0 even though, in the middle, there should be a bunch of amendments where people argue about the best way that we do the particulars. There is no reason we shouldn't be moving forward. We can get this done. We can take another step to make America's beautiful creed a reality for every single one of God's children. That is what we should do, and we should do it without delay. I yield to the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I have 7 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, at 9 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Donald L. Moak and William Zollars to be Governors, U.S. Postal Service, and Hon. Mark A. Robbins, Carl E. Ross, and Elizabeth J. Shapiro to be Associate Judges, Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Committee on the Judiciary The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, a 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship The Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Veterans' Affairs The Committee on Veterans' Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, at 3 p.m., to conduct a hearing. Select Committee on Intelligence The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I had not planned to make a floor speech right now, but I wanted to commend you on both your legislation and on an important point that I think you enumerated both for this body and for the Americans watching. First of all, good piece of legislation. I supported it. I wanted it to move out of the Banking Committee and get to the floor. It is important legislation. Congratulations, and thanks for your leadership. Second of all, as you began your speech, you distinguished between the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party. I think many of us are worried that the No. 1 long-term national security threat this country faces is the technology race with the Chinese Communist Party and the way that they use fake private sector companies to steal from U.S. public and private sector entities. When we talk about the problems--those of us who would consider ourselves China hawks--we regularly end up using a shorthand, ``China,'' when we have all spent a lot of time in the SCIF and in private, and we know we mean the Chinese Communist Party, but we don't always adequately qualify that for people who may be entering the debate or new to the debate or looking to politicize the debate. So I think it was very important, the points that you made that our enemy here is not the 1.4 billion Chinese people; our opponent here is the Chinese Communist Party, which is only about 90 million people--6 or 7 percent of the population--and even a lot of those people don't actually believe Communist propaganda and nonsense about the fact that so many of their people and people beyond their borders are not perceived by the Chinese Communist Party as actually having dignity. Some people just join the party because they need to for local reasons--to get ahead or to maintain their property or their entities. So the Chinese Communist Party is a tiny subset of what is happening in China, and our battle, our fight, our problems are not with the Chinese people; they are with the Chinese Communist Party. One of the ways I learned this lesson was by having used a shorthand for Vladimir Putin a few times in the past, and I said ``Russia'' when I meant ``Vladimir Putin.'' I think the American people stand interested not just in the future of the Chinese people but also of the Russian people, and both these countries are led by some really bad actors. One time I made a speech here on the floor about some of the terrible things Vladimir Putin was doing to oppress his people and to meddle in our election and other elections. After the speech, which I thought covered the points I needed to cover, Gary Kasparov, the former world chess champion, came and said: Can I talk to you? We went to lunch, and he said: If you actually want to fight against Vladimir Putin--because freedom-loving people in the United States and in Russia should be opposed to Vladimir Putin--it would be helpful that you not, in disparaging Vladimir Putin, say a whole bunch of bad stuff about the word ``Russia'' and you accidentally--he said to me--referred to our problem as ``Russia'' when you meant ``Putin.'' I think I have learned that lesson with regard to Russia, but I think a lot of us around here don't always sufficiently distinguish between China and the Chinese Communist Party. So I just wanted to affirm and underscore your message--not just good legislation that is good for Americans, is good for investors in the United States and abroad, is good for a level playing field, but as we oppose the bad actions of the Chinese Communist Party--their intellectual property theft and their manipulation of currency and numbers and public health data and on and on and on--our opponent is not the Chinese people, and we should say that both so the American people understand it and so that the Chinese people understand it. So I commend you on the way you introduced your legislation today. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 would say very briefly that I appreciate the comments from the Senator from Illinois explaining his position. It seems to me that from where he started, he should actually be supporting the amendment, and then we should figure out what we need to do to push on the Department of Labor to actually modernize their systems. But I just want to say in public something that has been negotiated for the last 8 or 9 hours--and we haven't been able to get conversation partners, really, on that side of the aisle--which is that you are absolutely right that the Department of Labor says that there are massive system problems in the States. So given that we are entering a recession at this moment, we are going to have lots and lots of needy Americans, and the calls on the State departments for unemployment insurance benefits are substantial right now. So I would just say, taking you in good faith that you would like to upgrade these systems so that we could do this thing, which doesn't accidentally stimulate unemployment by disincentivizing work, I have been trying all afternoon to get people on that side of the aisle to say: Hey, maybe we can't get this solved by day one of the new unemployment insurance benefits, but by week 8 or 9, maybe we should have been able to get to a place where the Department of Labor had the resources to help these departments of unemployment insurance deal with this. So I will follow up with you offline because I would like to work with you on trying to upgrade these systems. I have one more thing to say, but if you want to get in a word, please, go ahead.

Mr. SASSE. The Presiding Officer is very liberal on these things. He is very easy.

Mr. SASSE. I would reclaim my time pretty soon.

Mr. SASSE. Six hundred per week.

Mr. SASSE. Twenty-six.

Mr. SASSE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SASSE. I don't think that any of us think that a math debate is the most productive way to spend our time in the Senate, but just so we are all talking on the same song sheet: $400 a week, add $600, is $1,000 a week. Divided by a 40-hour week, that is $25 an hour. I don't know how you explain that to people who are making 15, 16 bucks an hour in Delaware, that you are now going to pay them $25 if they become unemployed. The Senator from Illinois said this is the program only for people who are involuntarily separated. If that is the way the program worked, it would be great, but anybody who has ever spent any time with unemployment insurance programs in your States knows that is not how it works. How it actually works is, once you create a disincentive to work, employers regularly work with employees to say: I kind of would like to drive you off the system, and I think you should recognize this would be better for you, too, if you can casualize it. That is actually what happens. I will yield the floor back to the Senator.

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, as Senator Tim Scott just said and as Rick Scott and Lindsey Graham just said, this amendment is really, really simple. All we are trying to say is that we should help everyone who needs to be helped without accidentally creating a disincentive to work. That is not good for anybody in the country or the country as a whole. We are in the middle of two unprecedented crises right now. We have a public health crisis, and we have an economic crisis into which we are just entering. We don't know how long the valley of this recession is going to be, but I want to be sure that every American who is watching tonight understands exactly what this debate has been about this afternoon. This debate is how you can be both pro-worker and pro-recovery, to be kind and charitable, and actually also, simultaneously, affirming the ongoing dignity of work and the necessity of work as our country battles through this virus and ultimately rebuilds our economy. Nobody here is arguing about whether we should help workers. Everybody on both sides of the aisle tonight wants to help workers. This is a debate about whether we are going to let a poorly drafted bill knock this Nation still harder in the coming months by unintentionally increasing unemployment. That is what this debate is about. Right now, as the coronavirus is threatening our economy, we know who the real heroes are. The real heroes are not politicians. There are a lot of people who have been working all night, five or six nights in a row, but the heroes who are going to beat this virus and rebuild America are not politicians. The heroes are the men and women who are stocking shelves, the men and women who are picking up trash, the men and women who are driving trucks and delivering takeout, many of them converting restaurants, which used to be sit-down, into takeout restaurants and putting food on the table for a lot of their neighbors. The Americans who are keeping the pharmacies open--they are the heroes. The daycare workers who are doing stuff to watch other ER doctors' kids--those are the heroes. The heroes are the Americans across all 50 States, across every town and village and suburb and city, who are doing the work, the ordinary jobs but, now, under extraordinarily painful and difficult circumstances. They are the heroes, the scrappers, and the doers. We should be celebrating them, affirming them, and helping them, once we get through this crisis, to get back to work. This bill has lots and lots of good stuff in it. I intend to support it, as well, but there are pieces of this bill that are broken and that we can fix tonight. If we don't fix them tonight, it is going to exacerbate our problems, and we will be coming back here in a month or 2 months, trying to fix these problems. These are the Americans who are going to get us through. They are the people who are going to keep our supply chains alive, and those supply chains are the lifeline for lots of Americans right now. Here is what is wrong with the bill. As it is currently drafted, it threatens to cripple the supply chain for many different categories of workers--some in health sectors and some in food prep and food delivery. This bill, as currently drafted, creates a perverse incentive for men and women who are sidelined to then not leave the sidelines to come back to work. This bill creates a perverse incentive for many employers who should be wanting to try to maintain the employer- employee relationship--it creates a perverse incentive for them to sever that employer-employee relationship. Many other pieces of this bill tried to tackle this problem in a really constructive way. The $350 billion for the Small Business Administration--it is trying to build bridge loan programs that help employers and employees be connected and remain connected through this downturn. The unemployment insurance piece of this should not work at cross purposes to what the bill is about in the overall argument. Nobody has a problem with the generous unemployment benefits that are in this bill. Nobody has a problem with the generous unemployment insurance benefits that are in this bill. They should be generous amid the national crisis we are in. But we don't want this piece of the bill to create an incentive for folks to stop working and to have their employers push them away when the employer and employee should be trying to rally around and together to help us build through this crisis. So we want to do something really simple. We want to fix what is broken here by saying that unemployment insurance benefits should be capped at 100 percent of the pay you had before you were unemployed. This isn't just about people who have already been made unemployed. This is about people who are going to be made unemployed in the coming weeks. All this amendment says--which we are voting on in a few minutes--is that we should cap the unemployment benefits at 100 percent of the wages you were just receiving while working. It should not be something the U.S. Congress does to create an incentive where you will get paid more by not working than you get by working. That is pro-recovery legislation that tries to keep our supply chains humming and tries to help us--325 million Americans--come together to beat this thing. We should vote for workers. We should vote for recovery, and we should vote to beat this thing and come out stronger on the other side. I yield the floor.

Mr. SASSE. We were agreeing for a while, but I think it is pretty important here to underscore that your math isn't real. The reality is that in lots and lots and lots of States in the country, where people are earning $12 or $13 or $14 or $15 an hour right now, the unemployment option they are going to be offered is going to be more like $24 or $25 an hour. We are not talking about $1,000 over the course of these months. We are talking about cases where people might have an annualized wage right now of $30,000 and be looking at an unemployment benefit of $1,000 a week, which is $50,000 annualized. So your math isn't real. The reality is, it isn't $600 total. It is $600 on top of what the unemployment benefits already were in that State. So there are lots of people who are struggling to work hard and to love their neighbor. We have a lot of health aides in Nebraska who make 16 bucks an hour. That is a $32,000-a-year job. Their work is important. That is a vocation. People need them. There are sick people from COVID-19 and other diseases right now in Nebraska who need the benefit of those health aides, and you just told them in this bill--we just told them in this bill--yeah, your work is a little bit important, but look at this. You could make substantially more money if you didn't do the hard thing of trying to figure out what do we do with our kids today when school is closing, and I don't know how to do daycare, and my sister agreed to help take care of my kids, but do I really put the burden on her when I don't actually have to go to work to get this same money? In fact, I can get substantially more money by going on the unemployment insurance program. That is a disincentive to work that I don't think you believe in, I know I don't believe in, and I know nobody in my State believes in. It is not a Republican versus a Democratic issue. This is an American issue. We believe in workers, and we believe in work, and we don't believe government should come in and say: It is much better off to be a nonworker than a worker. You can make a lot more money being a nonworker than a worker. We are not talking about people who suffered layoffs last week. We are talking about creating a system here which will incentivize more unemployment next week. That is a mistake by this Congress, and we could and we should be doing better than that tonight. I know the Senator from Texas has been trying to get in. I yield the floor.

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I just listened to the speech by the Senator from Vermont. There is obviously a lot we don't agree on in life and policy, politics, and economics. He caricatured the entire purpose of this amendment tonight. The purpose of this amendment is to affirm work. Under his vision, I don't know exactly where he thinks the workers who stock shelves and drive trucks right now would come from because he made an argument about government subsidies that would be, on a permanent basis, higher than the wages of all those jobs. I don't understand how his economic system would ever actually work. But I would like to praise him here. Two things: One, he said something that politicians usually don't say. Usually when people say they will vote for something, they say the bill is salvific and utopian and going to do everything right, and if they are going to vote against something, they say it is the worst thing that has ever been written. Senator Sanders just said that this bill has a lot in it. It is big. It is clunky. We are in the middle of a national emergency. There is some good in it; there is some bad in it; and he is going to vote for it. I also believe this bill is big and clunky and stinky. There is a lot that is broken in it. There is some that is good and necessary and important. There is a lot that is bad and poorly thought out and not going to be implemented very effectively. On that, I am also inclined to vote for it. So I appreciate his candor in his admitting that this is kind of a big ``crap sandwich.'' In addition, I praise the Senator from Vermont for his candor in saying something that I totally oppose, but I appreciate his integrity and honesty in admitting it. He said, I believe--correct me if I am wrong, sir--he wishes the $1,200 emergency payment would be made monthly and permanently; is that right?

Mr. SASSE

Mr. SASSE. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 1577 and ask unanimous consent that it be reported by number.

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