Eric Schmitt

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, well, game time--we are about ready to take up a bill, potentially, that deals with a situation that I think should be and is near and dear to the hearts of all our constituents. And this is not a partisan issue. This is about a uniquely American institution: college sports. College sports are at a tipping point, in a place that they have never been before, because over the last decade or so, and in the course of litigation, no rules can be enforced. Now, I would freely admit that the old system had its challenges, too--the idea that athletes couldn't be compensated for their name, image, and likeness. I think that was wrong. That has been rectified. But what we have now is a system that is unstable and threatens, in particular, women's sports and Olympic sports in the long-term. For a very, very long time, the business model, effectively, of college athletics was college football subsidized all of the other nonrevenue sports. Basketball is, essentially, a break-even proposition for the most part. Maybe it makes a little money. But all of those other sports and the 500,000 student-athletes in this country that have an opportunity to compete, to learn what it is like to have that kind of commitment, that grit; who show up on time, persevere, build relationships with people from different backgrounds-- you know, I had the opportunity to play in college and throughout my life before that, and what is left of that is the Congressional baseball team, I guess. But when you are on a team, you want to win, and you want to win with your teammates. For me, I didn't care where they came from, what their race was, what their religion was. We were a team. There are a lot of really, really important leadership lessons that come from that. And that is a risk. Now, some might say: The stands are full; you know, revenues are robust. All those things are true, but the reality is we have entered into this new phase with something missing: a governing body that can establish and enforce rules. That is at the heart of what the Protect College Sports Act is all about. It is to grant limited antitrust exemption status for a governing body, the NCAA, to enforce rules; meaning, 5 years of eligibility. I think most people think it is nuts that you have 27-year-olds right now competing with 17-year-olds. I think most people think it is nuts that you might have somebody transfer four times. Well, guess what. Graduation rates are plummeting. I personally think that if you are the second-string quarterback at the University of Arkansas or somewhere else and you get an opportunity to play at Louisville or wherever, that you should be able to move one time. But the chaos--if you talk to people, any coaches, and even players, by the way, who testified, this is not a good situation. It is completely unstable. People are making decisions based on tweets and injunctions that may come down on a Friday afternoon. You have seen it over the last couple of weeks: people who went professional coming back to compete on a team where somebody had spent--you know, they are 18 years old and spent the fall camp getting ready for the season and may be displaced. None of those problems--none of those problems--are going to go away. I think we are in a rare moment here in this Chamber where we are at a time for choosing--no more roundtables, no more hypotheticals. This is what we get paid to do: to try to solve hard problems. What is unique about this is it doesn't fall into traditional partisan categories. There is no real ``red jersey, blue jersey'' on this thing. This is identifying what the problem is and working together to find a solution. There are a lot of components of this bill. I want to go through some of them. There are going to be a few other speakers. But this would provide one national standard for NIL. You have kind of a patchwork right now, State by State. Let me be clear, when this bill--or, hopefully, this bill passes, and a student-athlete will still be able to go get an NIL deal. Arch Manning or whoever, Austin Simmons, the great quarterback at the University of Missouri--they can still get their deal from Nike. Nothing in this bill prohibits that. And while we are talking about it--because I am sure you are going to hear some criticisms from some people who are going to use some pretty--well, I will let them speak for themselves the language they are going to use about this. The reality is, through the course of litigation, there is something called the House settlement. The House settlement established a revenue-sharing system with a cap of what is essentially $21.5 million right now. OK, there are some football teams right now, which shall remain nameless, that have a football roster valued at over $40 million. How is this happening? Because that cap doesn't mean anything. Nobody can enforce anything. They are working around the cap. So what this bill would do is set in statute that cap plus a retention pool number of $22.5 million and a $5 million number that doesn't count against the cap if it goes to women's sports. So if anybody tells you we are taking money out of the system, we are not. Actually, we are ensuring that this marketplace still exists but with guardrails, with some stability, with some certainty. The idea that somebody could, you know--this is a semester-by- semester thing. The roster turnover that we have seen, for fans, is a challenging thing. For players, they should have the ability to move but not every year. If you ask somebody what is their honest opinion about this, it is ridiculous. At the end of the day, if you are losing money on your football program or all of your money is going to your football program, you are not going to subsidize women's tennis anymore or even baseball. Men's baseball doesn't generate revenue for 99 percent of the programs that are out there. So the menu will shrink. The opportunities for those 500,000 student- athletes--whatever their color is--that will shrink. That number will shrink if we don't do something. If you would have asked me a few years ago about whether Congress should get involved in this, I would have been very, very skeptical. I am a fan, first and foremost, as I come to this. And I have tried to look at this as a lawyer, look at this as a lawmaker, look at this as a fan: What are the solutions that are necessary? And what we are doing here is something that this body--this Congress--is the only entity on the planet could do--nobody else. The conferences can try to enforce their own rules. They did it with some success recently with the pro situation in the SEC, in the Big Ten. But if this stuff is challenged, they have no legal ability, because of our antitrust laws, to actually enforce these rules. So we are giving that limited antitrust protection to enforce eligibility in 5 years, to enforce the one-time transfer. I think that is important, that ability to enforce those rules. The athletes--let's talk about the student-athletes for a second. Not only has that market been established--that is where it is right now. Now, I will tell you that maybe the one group that doesn't like this is the sports agents--the rich sports agents who wear Gucci suits and alligator shoes. They may not like this because there are no rules for agents right now. An agent can charge 30 percent on an 18-year-old, and, in some instances that I have heard of, they are lifetime earnings. That is nuts. The percentage an agent gets in the NFL is in the single digits-- the low single digits. People are being taken advantage of. A buddy in the classroom might get you a better deal if you go to Wisconsin. Well, guess what. It wasn't a better situation. Maybe you didn't end up there. Maybe you ended up with less money. That agent or your friend or the ``hanger-oner,'' he doesn't care; he got his cut. So this bill establishes rules for agents to get rid of scammers and the fraudsters from taking advantage of our student-athletes. And as I mentioned, you can still get your own NIL deal outside of the rev share and number, but it has to be for legitimate business purpose. There are examples after examples, but that is not actually the case right now, which is why you have this influx. And if you think for a moment Western Kentucky can compete with Ohio State in the long term, you are fooling yourself. Even, honestly, schools within the Power Four--within those particular conferences, it creates a great disparity. What fans really want is parity. This helps establish that. It helps create a structure by which teams can compete. It restores structure to that transfer portal. I think the thing that probably most people see--I have learned a lot of what is going on behind the scenes. But what people see, front and center, is probably the transfers where an entire defense is gone or an entire offense is gone. I am talking a lot about football just because it is football season and that is what most people see. It is the second most popular sport in this country. And while I am talking about that, it is worth mentioning that the bill, for the first time, provides the option--the option for conferences to pool their media rights. It is totally voluntarily. The SEC and the Big Ten don't want to do it. It is never going to happen. But college football is about $4 billion all in. The NBA has half the audience. It is $8 billion all in. Part of the reason for that is they are negotiating one unified rights deal. This would allow the conferences to have a unified rights deal if they want to, and that additional revenue--the billions and billions and billions more--can be used to protect women's sports and Olympic sports that are at risk. If you talk to anybody that actually knows this stuff, they will tell you that those opportunities are going to be limited. They are still going to have to comply with title IX, but they will do a one-for-one reduction in sports. So I mentioned that you have got the rev share pool, you have got the retention pool, you have got the money--the $5 million that doesn't count against that cap, if it is for women's sports. I think that is really important. There are a lot of different components with this bill that I have talked to a ton of colleagues on both sides of the aisle about. This is not a perfect bill. I probably have never voted for a perfect bill. I have filed perfect bills. I have filed a lot of perfect bills, but voting on perfect bills is a different matter. So there are going to be things--there are some things in this bill that I don't like actually. But, on balance, the time has come for the U.S. Senate to do something that it actually rarely does, which is to meet the moment. We are in a moment. This has the endorsement of every conference, all the schools, the NFL Players Association, student-athletes that have come here, legendary coaches who have seen the changes, HBCUs, the SWAC conference, the SEC, the Big Ten, all of them. They all recognize that there is a choice now, a binary choice, which is to do something to correct the major issues and provide stability so that we can continue to enjoy college athletics, which like I said, what we get to enjoy on Saturday afternoon or whenever a game is being played--I have two daughters, I think it is great what is happening with women's sports--that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. It is a uniquely American institution. We can do that, or we can find some reason to not support it. We can grandstand and try to pretend that you are advocating for somebody that is being left out of this, but the truth is this bill will solve a ton of problems that are so obvious you would have to be not paying attention or not want to notice. And so I think that college athletes are protected; our sports that fans love are protected. It has become--college sports have become, in some ways, a professional league. I don't think it has been stripped of loyalty, continuity, the meaningful relationships of fans and their teams. This bill reestablishes that while still giving student-athletes a lot of options. I also wanted to say something about what sports mean to our constituents. I would say culturally, we do a lot of things up here that back home people wonder what are you talking about, what are you doing. This is a cultural issue. This is something that our folks back home do care about, and I think they want to know, they want to know when we see it, when everybody sees the challenges and the chaos that we can work together to get something done. I think at the heart of it, the restoring faith that this body can act in a way that takes a lot of different viewpoints from a lot of different groups and individuals and gets you to a place where a piece of legislation like this can get across the finish line. I want to thank--look, the bill is before you, but Senator Cantwell from the State of Washington has done a ton of great work on this; Senator Cruz from Texas. The three of us have spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people, getting input, making changes, trying to make the bill better. And I just don't think we can pretend inaction is a satisfying answer here. So we are all going to have an opportunity to vote on this, to proceed to this bill, and I hope that we do it. We are going to get one shot at this. We are going to get one shot. And I don't know--I am not Nostradamus. Nobody in here is. I don't know that we ever will again any time soon. I don't know what is going to happen whenever. I don't know if we are going to move on to other things, but we have got a moment here, like I said, that we can meet and actually do something. You know, if you want to put it--let me take a step back. I think this vote, this bill will define the trajectory of college athletics for decades, and that doesn't happen every day that we are confronted with those kinds of issues with a solution in front of us that has been worked on in a bipartisan way to try to solve these issues to protect an American institution--college sports. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Madam President, if the motion for the Senate to adjourn with pro forma sessions scheduled until September 14 would have been a recorded rollcall vote, I would have voted no.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Madam President, reserving the right to object. I have been advised to address this so-called Delaney Hall Closure Act. My colleague's bill, though, really doesn't do anything to address the issues that he has raised. He doesn't hire a single doctor. He doesn't ask a single nurse. It doesn't require a single inspection. It simply orders the Department of Homeland Security to close Delaney Hall, cancel its contract, and permanently prevent ICE from using the facility again. Two pages, three commands: Close it, cancel it, never open it again. That is abolition with a short title. The diagnosis is ideological, and the prescription was written before the patient entered the room. If something goes wrong at a hospital, you investigate what happened. You identify the failure. You discipline the people responsible. You repair the facility, improve the procedures, and make the hospital better. You don't unlock every door, abandon the building, and announce that healthcare itself was the crime. If the bridge needs repair, you fix the bridge. You don't blow it up and congratulate yourself for preventing future traffic accidents. Yet that is the theory behind this bill. A tragedy did occur; therefore, Democrats say law enforcement must disappear. But closing Delaney Hall doesn't eliminate the need for detention. It leaves three choices: transfer detainees somewhere else, possibly further from their families, lawyers and doctors; crowd them into another facility and further strain medical staff; or release people the law says should remain in custody, while this ceases the removals, and so they are not completed. The bill provides no replacement capacity, no transfer plan, no continuity of care requirement, no additional medical funding. It removes a thousand-bed facility from the system and calls the resulting chaos compassion. And let us be clear about why immigration detention exists. It is used to ensure appearances at immigration proceedings, facilitate lawful removals, and to protect the public from criminals. My colleague and my friend from New Jersey says many detainees have not been convicted of crimes. That is beside the point. A person doesn't need a criminal conviction to lack a lawful right to be in the United States of America. That is our immigration laws. That is how we have operated for decades. And anyone detained can leave detention whenever they want. They must simply agree to return to their home country. What Democrats demand is for illegal aliens to remain in America and be above the law. Now, I am willing to take my colleague's concerns seriously. If Delaney Hall needs more doctors, let us fund more doctors. If it needs more nurses, better medication tracking, stronger inspections, faster emergency response, or better communication with families, let us write those regulations into law and pay for them. I would gladly work with my friend the Senator from New Jersey on additional resources for safe and secure ICE detention facilities. But there is one problem. My colleague and others on his side have vowed to not give ICE one more penny. We have just lived through this with a shutdown. We heard these words on the floor from many Members of the other side. They also voted against a bill that allocated 45 billion to further fund and sustain the capabilities of ICE in their detention facilities. So the position apparently is this: Vote against the beds. Vote against the facilities. Vow to deny the agency another dollar. Then point to a stray condition and demand that the facility close. You can't pull the batteries out of a smoke alarm and then pose behind the ashes demanding to know who failed. You can't starve a system, condemn the strain, and call abolition the only human solution. That is not good-faith oversight. That is not serious governance. That is not a viable solution. Democrats oppose the funding needed to enforce the law. They oppose the facilities needed to hold people safely. They oppose the removals that detention makes possible. Then, when the system shows any pressure, they point to that pressure as proof that enforcement itself must end. The sequence never changes: defund, obstruct, investigate, abolish. The goal for many Democrats is very clear. It is not better detention facilities; it is no detention at all. The bill does not make one detention facility safer; it shuts down a facility and pushes the problem somewhere else. A serious Senate would let the current investigation run its course, correct failures, and strengthen the system. An unserious Senate shuts down the building and pretends the law no longer needs enforcement. I object to using a pending investigation as a ploy to dismantle law enforcement. I object to defunding ICE and then blaming ICE for lacking resources. Fix what is broken. Hold wrongdoers accountable. Protect every person in Federal custody, of course, but we must enforce the law. For those reasons, I object.

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

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I rise today to honor one of the greatest teams to ever wear the black and gold, the 1960 Missouri Tigers. They finished 11 and 0. They conquered the Big Eight. They defeated the Navy Midshipmen 21 to 14 in the Orange Bowl in Florida. But their greatness can't be measured by their record alone; their story is about something deeper--perseverance after humiliation, accountability in the face of injustice, and the integrity of men who kept their word. To understand what they accomplished, we must go back 2 years. Dan Devine arrived at Missouri in 1958 and inherited a program searching for its footing. His first team brought one terrible afternoon in Norman, OK. The Sooners beat Missouri 39 to nothing. It was a humiliating, dismantling, and devastating loss. After the game, Coach Devine stood before his players in the visiting locker room, knowing full well many of those men would graduate having never beaten OU. Coach Devine looked at the younger men and made a promise: Two years from that day, Missouri would return to Norman, and Missouri would win. That was no small pledge. Oklahoma ruled the conference at that time. The Sooners hadn't lost a conference game at home since 1942. Norman was where the soaring dreams of visiting teams came crashing down to reality. But a promise had been made by Coach Devine, so for 2 years, the Tigers went to work. By the fall of 1960, Missouri had become a machine--powerful, disciplined, relentless. The Tigers went into Happy Valley and beat Penn State. They traveled to Lincoln, NE, and shut out the Cornhuskers. They defeated the powerhouse that was Colorado. Eight games, eight victories--not a single team put up double digits against them. Then came the return to Norman. Oklahoma struck first. For a moment, the Tigers were seeing ghosts. For a moment, the boys in black and gold had ``Boomer Sooner'' ringing in their ears. For a moment, it felt like 1958 all over again. But this Missouri team did not panic; it answered. Norris Stevenson, one of the great pioneers in Mizzou history, tore down the sideline for a 77-yard touchdown. Later, with Oklahoma threatening to seize the momentum, Stevenson broke free again, this time from 60 yards out. He finished with 169 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Missouri finished with 41 points. And when the clock hit triple zeroes, the scoreboard read ``Missouri 41, Oklahoma 19.'' Two years from the humiliating loss on the field, Dan Devine and his players walked out of Norman as victors--a promise they had kept. The Tigers returned home undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the Nation. Only one obstacle remained between Missouri and an unblemished season. Unfortunately, that obstacle was Kansas. Rivalry games can produce strange results. Sometimes, the underdog rises. Sometimes, the favorite has an off day. And sometimes, Kansas simply uses a player who wasn't eligible to be on the field. The Jayhawks defeated Missouri on the scoreboard. For a few brief and fraudulent weeks, they called themselves conference champs, but there was a problem: The Jayhawks had discovered that the only way they could execute better than Missouri was by breaking the rules. The Big Eight ordered Kansas to forfeit the victory and stripped the Jayhawks of the conference title. Kansas could keep the memory of the final whistle; Missouri kept the title. That distinction matters. A football game, yes, is a contest of strength, but it is a contest that is governed by rules. Without rules, victory means nothing. A championship obtained by cheating is not a championship at all. The people of Kansas have spent more than six decades trying to turn a blatant penalty into a moral victory, but the truth is harder to bear, and facts are stubborn things. Missouri finished 11 and 0, reminding the conference and the American populace that cheaters never truly win. But Missouri's season wasn't finished. On January 2, 1961, the Tigers took the field in Miami against fourth-ranked Navy. Watching from the stands was President John F. Kennedy. Navy had a Heisman Trophy winner named Joe Bellino. Missouri had a defense built to break the will of its opponent. The Tigers held that year's Heisman winner just to 4 rushing yards. Then they overcame a 98-yard fumble return. They absorbed every blow Navy could deliver, and when the night was over, Missouri had won 21 to 14, securing the first bowl victory in school history. Every generation needs examples of men who stuck to their word. Dan Devine made a promise in the ashes of defeat. His players believed him. His players were descendants of those who fought in Europe and the Pacific. His players were hardened by parents who had weathered the Great Depression. They accepted their coach's promise as their word when they spent 2 years earning the right to fulfill it. They did not complain about the humiliation they had experienced in Norman; they prepared for a return. They didn't allow the Kansas dishonesty to define their season; they trusted that the truth would prevail. When adversity followed them to Miami, they answered it with discipline, toughness, and ultimately victory. More than six decades later, the 1960 Tigers still embody the character of Missouri. We are a people who work. We are a people who endure. We are a people who keep our promises. The men of that team brought home a Big Eight championship and the Orange Bowl championship game in a perfect season, but their greatest legacy was the example they left behind: Stand firm, do the work, keep your word, run the ball, and never surrender what was rightfully yours. Today, I am proud to honor Coach Dan Devine, Norris Stevenson, and every member of the undefeated 1960 Missouri Tigers. Their promise was kept, their championship was earned, their record remains perfect, and Kansas still lost. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 833, which is before the desk.

Mr. SCHMITT

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

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I object to this mass amnesty bill. Last week, Democrats asked the Senate to extend Haitian temporary protected status. Today, they have dropped the quotation marks. Instead of extending temporary status, this legislation would convert temporary status into permanent status--green cards, permanent settlement. At least the bill last week continued the same old Washington lie. Today, Democrats finally admit what this scheme was always designed to be. Temporary was always meant to be permanent. It is the final stage of the scam. But that is how Democrats do mass amnesty. First, they declare an emergency. Then, they import hundreds of thousands of people. They then extend the program over and over and over. Then, they unleash activist lawyers against anyone who tries to enforce the deadline. When the American people finally elect a President to end this chaos, to end this abuse, Democrats demand mass amnesty. And when the American people finally elect a President who enforces the law, Democrats change the law and hand out green cards. That is what this bill does. It turns a program created for temporary emergencies into a pipeline for green cards and citizenship not only for people who have temporary status--not only for people who once had TPS; this bill reaches beyond our borders and allows people who were already removed from this country to apply for permanent residency from abroad. Think about how crazy that is. The law was enforced. The alien was removed. The case was closed. Yet Democrats want to erase the removal, reopen the border, and bring that person back with a green card. Under the radical, new Democratic immigration platform, deportation isn't deportation; it is merely an inconvenience before a green card arrives. This bill does not merely reward those who broke our laws and remained in our country; it reaches around the entire globe to reverse deportations and to restart mass migration. But even that is not enough. This bill also creates an ICE blackout. Information provided in these applications can't be used for immigration enforcement. The bill even threatens penalties against law enforcement who properly use the information. So Democrats want the information we have about foreigners to be placed behind a legal shield so it cannot be used to enforce immigration law. Republicans want to handcuff illegal criminals; Democrats want to handcuff law enforcement officers so they can't do their jobs. They are not hiding the choice anymore. They will punish the officer before they punish the illegal alien. Why are illegal aliens more important to them now than protecting American citizens? Oh, but it doesn't stop there. This bill ensures that any President-- any future President--can't end TPS. So what is missing from the bill? Americans; American citizens and the impact mass migration is having on our people. This bill has no consideration for American wages; no consideration for American housing; no consideration of schools, hospitals, or communities; no consideration of whether mass migration serves the national interest of the American people. Every question is about what the foreign country needs; no question about what America needs or what American families need. That tells you everything that you need to know. To today's Democrat Party, immigration policy is written for foreign governments, immigration lawyers, activist groups, and leftwing organizations waiting to file the next lawsuit. The American people are treated as a logistical obstacle. Their votes--our votes--are an inconvenience. Their communities--our communities--are an afterthought. Their country is treated as common property for the rest of the world. Democrats are becoming more and more radical by the day on this issue. Yesterday, they insisted that temporary programs must never end. Today, they demand permanent residency for all--permanent residency for people who already left, legal shields against law enforcement, and more ammunition for activist lawsuits. And they will turn around and call us cruel. You will hear it shortly. It will be said about me blocking this bill. Let me speak clearly to my Democrat colleagues: There is nothing compassionate about betraying your own citizens--the very citizens who put you in office. There is nothing compassionate about flooding the labor market with more foreign workers while Americans struggle for a decent wage. There is nothing compassionate about flooding the housing market and putting young families behind the eight ball. There is nothing compassionate about diluting American citizenship. America is a nation, not a global waiting room, not a refugee camp, not a lifetime stay at a taxpayer-funded hotel. Our immigration laws exist to serve the American people. Foreign nationals do not have a right to permanent settlement here. Today, I speak on behalf of the American people who have been ripped off by this scam for far too long. No more. We had an election on this issue. The Democrats have not gotten the message. They want the United States of America to be a global refugee camp cloaked behind their compassion. There is no compassion for the American people--the guy that swings the hammer, who is working 7 days a week so he can pay for the benefits of an illegal alien who they don't ever want to leave this country. The American people are a sovereign people who have the right to decide who enters this country, who remains, and who has to leave. This bill reverses that principle. This Democrat bill tells the American people that their elections cannot end a temporary program, that the President cannot enforce the law, that their officers cannot use information in front of them, that their country belongs to everyone but them. Only the migrant's claim matters. Only the foreign country matters. Only the ambulance-chasing immigration lawyer matters. I reject all of that completely, in public, for the world to see, because I stand by my brothers and sisters of this country. Last week, I objected to the Democrats' attempt to give 350,000 Haitians extended TPS. Today, I am objecting to this Democrat attempt to give millions of illegal aliens mass amnesty, green cards, and work authorizations. I will always object to this mass amnesty. I will always object to this mass migration. I will always object to putting American workers last. I will always object to tying the hands of our law enforcement. So therefore I object.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I object to this legislation, which would once again extend Haitian temporary protected status. Washington has invented a new definition of temporary--it means permanent. Haitian TPS was supposed to be just 18 months when it began in 2010. Sixteen years later, 350,000 Haitians are still here. Today, after the Supreme Court cleared the way for President Trump to end TPS and send them home, Democrats are trying to change the law to keep the 350,000 Haitians here permanently. Not on my watch. I rise today to block the bill, and also do something else, to make clear that those supporting this bill have a message for the American people: Your vote doesn't matter. Your community doesn't matter. Your livelihood doesn't matter. They are trying to use Washington's oldest immigration trick: Call it temporary, extend it forever, and cash in on a new voter base. The American people voted to end this scam. Washington Democrats are voting to keep it alive and remind you who they think is really in charge. Here is the truth Democrats won't say out loud: They never, ever plan to end any of these programs. They call them temporary to get them started, then they manufacture an excuse for every extension--another year, another election, another deadline ignored. By the time the public notices, temporary status has become permanent residency in everything but name. Democrats can use this scam to build a new political constituency, a new voter base. Haiti was first designated for temporary protected status following the 2010 earthquake. The designation was supposed to last for 18 months; it has now lasted 16 years. Yet, we are still being told that this is a temporary program. In Washington, temporary, apparently, means forever. A child born when Haitian TPS began is nearly old enough to vote or sponsor their family for green cards now. That is how long Washington has been calling this program temporary for the Haitians who are here. TPS was created for emergencies. Democrats turned it into a one-way racket towards permanent mass migration. Here is how the racket works: An emergency creates temporary status. Then the emergency passes, but the status stays. The deadline arrives, but Washington extends it. The voters demand enforcement; the Democrats refuse. Every click moves towards permanence; none moves back toward the law. That is the TPS racket. Democrats have decided that mass migration must continue and that no President chosen by the American people, who ran on this issue, by the way, will ever be permitted to end it. That is the real purpose of the bill. Its supporters will wrap this bill in language of compassion, but they never seem to have any compassion for the American worker, competing against an ever-expanding cheap labor supply. They have no compassion for families priced out of housing, workers whose wages are undercut, schools punished and pushed beyond capacity, or communities forced to absorb decisions Washington made for them that they voted against. Their compassion always flows outward, but the bill always arrives on your doorstep. America is not a global refugee camp. America is not a get-rich scheme for the Third World. America is our home. And when houseguests become squatters, you don't delay enforcement; you call the sheriff and you send them home. That is exactly what we must do here today. If Democrats want 350,000 Haitians to stay permanently, they should say it plainly. Introduce a bill. Put your name on it. Vote for the permanent status. Then explain that vote to the American people. Quit with the games. But stop calling permanent immigration temporary. The voters are not stupid, and they already made their choice. The voters demanded enforcement. President Trump is delivering on that, but Democrats are fighting to keep the same old scam alive. I have the power to stop this nonsense bill, and I am going to use it. That is why I am here today. So I object to the bill, which would keep 350,000 Haitians here permanently. I object to changing temporary to permanent. I object to flooding American communities with cheap foreign labor. I object to treating foreigners as the priority and Americans as the afterthought. I object to mass migration. Temporary must mean temporary; and elections have consequences, therefore, I object.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, today I rise to recognize Steve Holley, an outstanding Missourian who over the course of his life went above and beyond to support the Show-Me-State's brave first responders. One of the founding members of St. Louis Guns `N Hoses, where firefighters and police officers square off in boxing, MMA, and other athletic matches for charity, Steve served for many years as the organization's executive director. A lifelong advocate for BackStoppers and other first responder support networks, over the course of his life, Steve helped raise millions of dollars to support the families of fallen and injured officers. Steve was also a dedicated family man and was a proud husband, father, and grandfather. I am also proud to have been able to call him a personal friend. Although he tragically passed away this June, he leaves behind a legacy of selfless service that few can match, and his dedicated lifetime of work will continue to help countless families for years to come. Steve was truly one of the Gateway City's greatest, and he will be deeply missed. May God watch over his family in the coming months.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Wendy Sullivan, one of the Show-Me-State's leading disability advocates. Since beginning her career, she has spearheaded the transformation of disability services across the Midwest and helped equip countless families with the resources needed to thrive. For the last 30 years, Wendy has served as CEO of Easterseals Midwest, and under her stewardship, Easterseals has expanded from a relatively small support organization helping a few hundred individuals to supporting over 25,000 across Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois and now employs well over a thousand dedicated workers who endeavor to provide aid close to home. She has also helped Easterseals Midwest expand the services it offers, merging with the Center for Hearing and Speech to provide needed audiology and communication assistance to countless families. Wendy's spirit of service shines outside of the workplace as well. Over the years, she has served in leadership roles with the Missouri Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, the St. Louis Disabled Advisory Board, and the Governor's Mental Health Taskforce, just to name a few of her roles. This December, she will finally begin her well-earned retirement. She has gone above and beyond in supporting households with disabled family members, and as a fellow disability advocate, I am deeply grateful for her decades of service. She is truly one of the Gateway City's greatest and am proud to represent outstanding individuals such as herself in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I rise today to honor Daniel Newberry, who serves as a park ranger with Ozark National Scenic Riverways. Earlier this spring, Daniel and his colleague Jacob were dispatched in part of a joint operation between the National Park Service, Carter County Sheriff's Office, Missouri State Highway Patrol, and West Carter Ambulance District. In the pre-dawn hours, a woman suffered a medical crisis and waded into Missouri's Current River, not resurfacing for several minutes. Despite the cold temperatures and dense fog that morning, Daniel and Jacob searched the area around the river until they located and rescued the woman from the frigid waters and ensured that she could receive the needed medical attention to survive. Daniel Newberry and many other park rangers across our great Republic go above and beyond every day to protect our fellow Americans from harm as they enjoy our Nation's natural beauty, but their work responding to crises such as this often go unnoticed. I sincerely appreciate Daniel's selfless work every single day. He is truly a Champion of Missouri, and I wish him all the best as he continues serving the people of Missouri.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, today I want to honor Jacob Crowley, a park ranger at Ozark National Scenic Riverways. On a bitterly cold spring morning earlier this year, Jacob and his coworker Daniel responded to a call where an individual suffered a medical emergency in Missouri's Current River. Working closely with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Carter County Sheriff's Office, and West Carter Ambulance District, these rangers braved near-freezing temperatures and dense fog in the pre-dawn hours to search the riverbank and waters for the person in crisis. Before long, these two brave men were able to help find and rescue the woman in distress and safely deliver her to emergency medical staff. Jacob's bold and selfless efforts played a key role in saving her life. Park ranger Jacob Crowley is a shining example of what a public servant should be, going above and beyond to protect our fellow Americans. He exemplifies the very best of our Nation's first responders and has more than proven himself to be a Champion of Missouri. I deeply appreciate his lifesaving work and continued dedication to our great State and to our great Republic. May God bless Jacob and his family.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, this July, we celebrated the 250th year of the great American experiment. Yet 239 years ago this September, a similarly important moment in our Republic's history took place. Eleven years after our Nation's founding, 55 men met in Philadelphia to revise America's first governing charter. Recognizing that the Articles of Confederation were too deeply flawed to guarantee effective government and safeguard our homeland, the Convention crafted a new Constitution to guide our great Republic forward. Like the mortal men who shaped it, the Constitution made compromises that modern people may be critical of, but none should deny the revolutionary impact this great document has had in transforming the United States into the bastion of liberty we are blessed to live in today, spreading democratic ideals across the world, and making our country the envy of the free world. As the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, I am happy to recognize Constitution Week this year, which runs from September 17 to 23. This celebration highlights the importance of the beating heart of our great Republic, which continues to guide our Nation forward today. May God bless the American people, and may God bless the United States of America.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I ask that the Senate proceed to executive session and the Chair execute the order with respect to the Holding nomination at 1:45 p.m. today.

Mr. SCHMITT

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

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, on July 4, 1776, 56 men crossed a line from which there was no return. These men knew the King they defied. They knew the empire would come for them. They knew the prisons that could hold them and the gallows that could take them. They had wives, children, homes, names, property, and honor. They signed anyway. They made a bold declaration to the world that had never been made before. It was, in fact, revolutionary. Our rights come from God. Government rests on consent. Citizens are not subjects. America is a nation. Those truths made America possible, and every generation that inherits America must decide whether or not those truths still command it. That is why I rise today in support of repassing the Declaration of Independence. The declaration is America's birth certificate. It is the first great act of an American union. It is the character of a free people. It is the public oath by which 13 Colonies became one American nation. It presupposes America is one people, and that matters because a people is more than a population. A people has memory. A people has duties. A people receives an inheritance and decides whether to defend it. The declaration is the public oath of a people who knew it had received an inheritance and would have to defend it. It is an oath of liberty under God. It is an oath of self-government under law. It is an oath of one people bound across generations, accountable to the Creator, responsible for the Republic, and charged to carry freedom forward. That oath still binds us. That errand has not expired. America's deepest crisis is a loss of memory. We do not lack experts; we lack fathers. We do not lack managers; we lack patriots. We do not need more people trained to administer decline. We need citizens formed to love and defend the good. The Constitution can divide power. It cannot supply virtue. That is why the declaration still matters. It tells every King, every court, every Agency, every President, every Congress, and every officeholder the same exact thing: Your power is borrowed. Your authority is limited. Your office exists to serve a people whose rights you did not create and cannot erase. A Congress that forgets the declaration forgets why Congress has power at all. The truths of the declaration entered history through flesh-and-blood men--men with names, men with families, men with property, reputations, and everything to lose. Adams saw the break before others would name it. Jefferson gave cause its words. Franklin faced danger with wisdom and wit. Hancock signed with a boldness that made caution look small. They were men in danger. They acted when delay would have been easy. They acted when fear could have been dressed up as prudence. They acted because the hour had arrived. Heroes see that line. Then they cross it. The first American heroes chose sacred honor over safe submission. They acted when the safe men counseled waiting. Heroes do not wait for permission from the powerful. Heroes do not ask whether courage is fashionable. Heroes do not poll cowardice before obeying duty. Liberty was won by men who risked everything. America was born from courage, conviction, duty, and faith in almighty God. The oldest lie in politics says that the many exist for the few. The declaration broke that lie. Once they signed, the words had to travel. A declaration made in the name of people had to reach the people. Then the declaration moved. Copies went out on a rider. They entered churches, courthouses, taverns, army camps, town squares, and homes. The declaration belonged to the people before it belonged to the archives. Americans had to hear they were free. They had to hear what freedom would require. One of those copies reached George Washington in New York, where he was preparing to face the empire the signers had defied. He had it read aloud to the army. His men already knew what they were fighting for. They had left their farms, their shops, their families, and their homes because they knew liberty was worth the cost. But now Congress has spoken for the country. Now their cause had been declared before the world. The British were coming. The army was raw, exposed, and outmatched. So Washington put the words before his men. He let them hear from the voice of their own Congress that they were no longer fighting for grievances; they were fighting for a nation of their own. At Valley Forge, men endured because liberty demanded endurance. They endured because their children deserved more than submission. They endured because they knew a free people could survive if courage did not fail. Patrick Henry said it best when he gave his countrymen the choice every free people eventually faces: [G]ive me liberty, or give me death! The same fire moved beyond the army. It entered the life of the people. It traveled wherever Americans carried the sense and cause of liberty. It moved from hand to hand, from town to town, from father to son, from battlefield to courthouse, from pulpit to schoolhouse. Then it moved west. As the American people moved west, the Declaration moved with them. It moved into river towns, frontier trails, farms, churches, courthouses, and homes. I come from the great State of Missouri. In Missouri, we know the Declaration did not stay on the Atlantic coast. It moved through St. Louis and Jefferson City. It moved with Lewis and Clark. It moved with Daniel Boone and the frontier families who cut homes out of the wilderness. It moved with farmers and soldiers and preachers, rivermen, mothers, fathers, shopkeepers, builders, and pioneers. It inspired the naming of Missouri towns like Liberty, Independence, and Defiance. Missouri is what the Declaration looks like when it walks west and builds a country. America was made by people like that, a nation that builds, a nation that discovers, a nation that dares, a nation that refuses to live on its knees. Our ancestors did not fight, bleed, freeze, build, plant, sail, preach, settle, invent, and die so their descendants could be taught to apologize for existing. That inheritance now rests in our hands, and too many powerful voices in this country teach the next generation to receive it with suspicion instead of gratitude. We are done being ashamed of America. We love our country. We honor the men that built it. We give thanks for the inheritance they placed in our hands, and we intend to keep it. America 250 is a time to remember that inheritance and renew national pride. We can see the damage in the numbers. A generation ago, American pride was nearly universal. After 9/11, more than 90 percent of Americans said they were proud to be an American. Today, Gallup puts that number at 58 percent. PRRI puts it at 51 percent. On the left, the collapse is even sharper. Gallup found that only 36 percent of Democrats are extremely or very proud to be an American. I take no pleasure in saying that. PRRI puts Democrat pride at 31 percent. Only 28 percent of Democrats say they are proud of America's 250-year history. Only 11 percent say America is the greatest country in the world. Only 27 percent plan to display the American flag this Fourth of July. That is a national forgetting made visible. Elite culture gives that damage a vocabulary. A recent essay in the New Yorker Magazine set out to answer the question: Is national pride worth trying to salvage? It asks: Is patriotism problematic? The most revealing line in that essay is its claim that patriotic education means learning to forget. No serious country--no serious country--can survive that kind of contempt for gratitude. America does not need historical amnesia; America needs honest memory, memory of sin and sacrifice, failure in correction, courage in renewal, fathers and sons, graves and glory, memories strong enough to produce citizens. That phrase reveals the deeper fight. A fight over patriotism is a fight over memory. Memory matters. A people that forget its heroes will soon be ruled by men who despise them. A nation that sneers at its fathers will leave its children orphans. A republic that mocks sacrifice will produce citizens unworthy of freedom. The dead, the living, and the unborn are joined in one chain of obligation; we receive before we create, we owe before we choose, we hand down what we did not make. That is why citizenship is not just paperwork. That is why borders matter. That is why children matter. That is why memory matters. That is why the Declaration matters. Memory carries authority with it. A people that remembers its inheritance also remembers its right to govern. The Declaration says the people are sovereign; no king, no queen, the people. The modern regime says the people are a problem to be managed. That is the fight. A great nation needs men who can say what is true. The old founding is enough. The question is whether we are enough for it. Calvin Coolidge gave that truth its anniversary form 100 years ago. He said: If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are all endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. And that is final. No real progress moves beyond those truths. Every movement away from them leads us backwards. Coolidge said that in America's 150th. We stand at the threshold of her 250th. America 250 cannot become a fireworks show arranged by people embarrassed by their country. A nation cannot celebrate its birthday while forgetting why it was born in the first place. America 250 should tell the country one thing: The founding was good, the Declaration is true, and the American people still have the right to govern themselves. The American people are real. The American flag is not a symbol of shame. The American Nation is not an administrative unit. Our Republic is the greatest inheritance ever placed in the hands of a free people. We should act like it. We should speak like it. We should teach like it. We should govern like it. That is why Congress should act. That is why the Declaration should be spoken again from the center of American government. America is the country of Washington's army and Jefferson's pen, of Adams' fire and Franklin's wit, of Hancock's signature and Henry's thunder, of Lexington and Concord, of the Delaware crossing, of Valley Forge, of river towns and frontier trails, of farms and factories, of steeples and courthouses, of soldiers and sheriffs, of mothers and fathers, of sons and daughters who deserve a country of their own. America lives because real people--real people--carried a real inheritance across real farms, frontiers, battlefields, churches, courthouses, and graves. This is America: a nation, a people, a place, a bold declaration, a grand experiment, an inheritance, a duty, a country with a soul. That country is now in our hands. We were asked to prove that the blood, labor, prayer, sacrifice, and courage of those who came before us were not wasted on a generation too timid to say what is true. Let Congress repass the Declaration of Independence. Let the American people hear it again. Let the children of this Republic learn that they are heirs to heroes. Let the enemies of this Republic learn that Americans still know who they are, and let this generation take its place in the long line of patriots who understood that freedom is inherited only when it is fought for. Mr. President, not withstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4828, which is at the desk.

Mr. SCHMITT

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

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, we are back. We are back to finish the job now, to make sure that ICE and CBP have the funding they need to carry out the mission we have set out in Federal immigration law. There was a time when this wasn't controversial. There was a time when Democrat Presidents actually gave speeches about our border and making sure that we deported people who were here illegally. But that is a long time ago now. The Democrats have made their central plank of everything that they hold onto in this town about open borders, mass migration, and anti-law enforcement. We saw this iteration with the ``defund the police'' movement. It simply gravitated to the ``defund ICE'' movement. They don't actually think, as a sovereign country, we should be able to tell people who can come in, how long they can stay, and when they have to leave. This is a fundamental issue for a sovereign nation, and so we are back now on reconciliation, once again, to make sure that their operations are indeed funded. I won't even get into the idea of what a departure from the norms this has been, for a policy reason, to hold up an appropriation, but that is what happened. But now, through the process of reconciliation, Republicans are going to right that wrong, get this right. And the Democrats, they can talk all day long about how they don't want to deport criminal illegal aliens, because that is really what this is about. I also want to tell the truth about something else very plainly. Mass migration drove up the cost of living for the American people. More deportations will bring that down. For years, Washington treated immigration as a border issue alone. It is that, but it is also a pocketbook issue. It shows up in rent, wages, downpayments, crowded schools, strained hospitals, and city budgets buckling under the policies their citizens never voted for. Illegal aliens do not stay at the border. They went to New York City, Chicago, Denver, towns and suburbs all across this country, into the same labor markets, housing markets, classrooms, emergency rooms, and public benefit systems already under strain. Americans are forced into a bidding war with the entire world. Teenagers looking for a summer job, young couples trying to buy their first home, families trying to make rent, workers trying to get a raise--all of them are told to compete with millions of new arrivals, many here in violation of our laws. This was a policy of choice. Washington flooded the labor market with workers and the housing market with renters at the same time. The result was exactly what any honest economist would predict: lower wages, higher rents, higher home prices, higher taxes, a weaker American middle class. From 2021 to 2024, more than 20 million people came into the United States, the largest short-term surge in American history. During that same period, rents skyrocketed, housing prices surged, and communities were priced out of their own neighborhoods. The United States is short roughly 10 million homes. Washington imported millions and millions and millions of people into that shortage and then acted surprised when prices went up. There is nothing mysterious about this. Add millions of renters to a tight housing market, and rents rise. Add millions of buyers, and home prices rise. Make housing unaffordable, and family formation gets delayed. Since 2010, the median age of the first-time home buyer in this country has gone from 30 years old to 40 years old. The median downpayment for a first-home buyer now is more than $40,000. That is way more than the median net worth of Americans under 35. A young American couple can work hard, save money, follow the rules, and try to start a family. Washington's answer is to make them compete against a migration wave their own government invited, subsidized, and refused to remove. That is a betrayal. HUD's own report admits that immigration drove as much as 100 percent of rental price growth in States like California and New York, and roughly two-thirds of rental demand nationwide. The same thing is happening in the labor market. Over the last 25 years, immigrants accounted for nearly three-quarters of all growth in the prime-age civilian labor force. Since 2019, the American-born workforce has not grown at all--not at all. And since February 2020, roughly 90 percent--90 percent--of new jobs have gone to foreign-born workers. That is a labor market that Washington built: more workers for corporate America, more competition for American workers, more pressure on wages, and less bargaining power for citizens. The fiscal costs are staggering. A recent congressional study estimated the lifetime net fiscal cost to government at about $68,000 per illegal alien. But best estimates show deportation costs roughly $13,000 per removal. Deporting 10 million illegal aliens would save American taxpayers at least a half a trillion dollars. That money could be used and should be used to strengthen American households, schools, hospitals, police departments, and our neighborhoods. Instead, Americans are being taxed to subsidize lawbreaking. A country that does that has broken the faith of its own citizens. Look at New York City, Chicago, and Denver. Sanctuary politicians attacked immigration enforcement, declared themselves morally superior, and watched their budgets buckle. Services are strained. Citizens are told to accept less. When the bill came due, the same politicians demanded more money from taxpayers. That is the sanctuary city model: benefits for illegal aliens, fiscal strain for citizens, and moral vanity masquerading as compassion. It is not compassion to make citizens finance their own dispossession. They call it compassion. They call it growth. Strip away the language, and look at what the system does to real people. It lowers wages. It raises housing costs. It strains public services. It rewards lawbreaking. It transfers wealth away from citizens. It turns the American dream into a luxury good. So let's be clear about the alternative. If mass migration raises the cost of living, more deportations will lower it. Remove illegal workers from the labor market, and wages will rise. Remove illegal renters from the housing market, and rent pressure falls. Stop subsidizing lawbreaking, and taxpayers save money. Enforce the law, and citizenship starts to mean something again. The economy exists to serve the people of the Nation. The people of the Nation do not exist to serve the economy. For far too long, Washington inverted that principle. It built an economy for global capital, instead of American citizens. It opened the border in the name of an ideology that treats America like a labor market with a flag attached to it. That experiment, ladies and gentlemen, has failed. It failed the people we represent. But this decline was chosen. What was chosen, though, can be reversed. We can secure the border. We can end mass migration. We can carry out more deportations. We can restore an economy that serves American citizens again. This fight is about whether Americans can afford to live in the country their ancestors built. It is about whether citizenship still carries a promise. It is about whether this Nation remains a home for its very own people and whether we are going to fight to make sure America remains a home for Americans. Now, for the first time in a generation, we have a chance to choose something different--to secure the border, to carry out these deportations, to restore sanity to the labor market, to bring down housing demand, to put American taxpayers first, and to rebuild an economy that serves the American people once again.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, today, I rise to honor Hannah Harper of Willow Springs, MO. Since she was a child, the Harper family has been firmly immersed in the American staples of bluegrass and folk music, and this background has helped mold her into a truly remarkable vocalist. A lifelong Missourian with deep roots in the Ozarks, she has balanced raising a family with her rapidly growing musical career. Her ability to address real life topics through her art, such as the challenges and blessing of parenthood through her heartfelt song ``String Cheese,'' is truly inspiring. Recently, Hannah won the 24th season of American Idol. I have no doubt that she has a bright future ahead of her and will continue to bring our home State's unique musical heritage to the national stage. Hannah Harper has represented the Show-Me-State very well, and I am proud to call her a fellow Missourian and parent to three wonderful children. I wish her all the best, both in her family life, as well as in her career.

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, today, I wish to honor Dennis Gannon, a truly remarkable public servant. Over the years, Dennis has led an incredible life marked by an unshakeable commitment to serving others. After retiring from years in the U.S. Army with the rank of major, he set out to establish his own business and has served two terms as county executive for Jefferson County, MO. During his years in this role, the county has experienced significant growth and completed several major projects, including efforts to bring overseas jobs back to Missouri and the county's landmark work to improve infrastructure at the Jefferson County Port Authority, transforming the county's place as a regional trade hub, an effort I was very proud to support. He has also volunteered his time to various organizations serving the greater St. Louis area and has served on the East-West Gateway Council of Governments and REJIS Commission leadership boards. The Gannon family's story is also uniquely American and defined by the same spirit of service. When he was a child, his father Jack worked as a butcher before later being elected to the Missouri State Senate, and his wife Elaine served 12 years in the Missouri General Assembly. Currently, his son also serves as the board president for Chelsea Football Club in the United Kingdom and played a key role in the development and opening of SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. This fall, Mr. Gannon will begin his well-deserved retirement from public service to spend more time with his family. I wish him all the best as he begins this new chapter and am proud to call him a fellow Missourian.

Mr. SCHMITT

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

Mr. SCHMITT

Mr. SCHMITT. Mr. President, I rise today because America needs to remember that our Nation was not built by men who asked permission from history. It was built by men who looked into the unknown and saw more than danger. They saw destiny. Mr. President, 222 years ago today, on May 14, 1804, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and the Corps of Discovery departed from the St. Louis area and began one of the most consequential journeys in the history of our Republic. But before they ever set foot in that wilderness, our Nation made its boldest wager yet. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase. He bought a continent on paper, sight unseen, believing that the future belonged to a people willing to bet on themselves, endure hardship, and build something greater than themselves. America 250 cannot become a yearlong exercise in nostalgia. It must be a national summons to remember what we inherited, to recover the courage that built it, and to rededicate ourselves to it. Jefferson understood something too many in this city have forgotten. Nations are not forged by committees of caution. They are forged by men with enough faith to act before every risk has been removed. Jefferson gave that honor to a small band of men who turned their restless, adventurous, and fearless American spirit into something that could be passed down for centuries. These were not soft men. They were not managed men. They were men born close enough to the Revolution to understand that freedom is not a theory. It is something fought for, defended, and carried forward across generations. But on the banks of the Missouri that day, there was no great spectacle, no crowds, no fanfare, and no guarantees. From the first settlements in Jamestown to the edge of the frontier in Missouri, every generation of Americans has carried a simple promise forward: that this Nation, this Republic, would belong to her people. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark came from those first families of Virginia in Jamestown. They were raised in the shadow of the American Revolutionary War. They were descended from those who bled for this budding Nation. Their kith and their kin had already fought to carve a nation out of the wilderness--an empire. They inherited not just land but virtue, discipline, leadership, and a willingness to stake everything on uncertain ground. Every mile they gained was earned-- through hunger, through bitter cold. Lewis and Clark faced rivers that threatened to sweep them away. They encountered Tribes whose intentions they could not know. They came face to face with grizzly bears, unlike anything Americans had seen before, and still they pressed forward--not because the path was easy but because their mission demanded it. That is what courage looks like--not one dramatic act but a habit formed mile by mile, hardship by hardship, by a people proving themselves worthy of the inheritance that they have received. That first summer, as they passed what would one day become Jefferson City and, later, near present-day Kansas City, they passed on the Fourth of July and paused. Hundreds of miles from civilization, surrounded by uncertainty, they celebrated the birth of this great Republic. They fired their rifles into the sky. They shared an extra ration of whiskey. And they toasted a nation that existed in that moment more in their hearts than in the world around them. Think about that. In the middle of an unknown wilderness, they celebrated freedom. That is America--not comfort first, not fear first. America is men in the wilderness raising a toast to liberty because they knew the Republic was real even when civilization was far away. And the expedition continued. The challenges only grew. Winter came hard and unforgiving. The mountains rose before them. The land itself seemed to push back against every step westward. Avalanches, freezing winds, starvation, exhaustion--staring fate directly in the eye in the high passes of the Rocky Mountains, the Corps of Discovery learned something that has defined the American story ever since: that progress is not given; it is earned--that destiny is not inherited whole; it must be claimed through sacrifice, endurance, and through faith. And so they climbed, they crossed, they endured until, in November of 1805, after more than a year of hardship, on the other side of the Continental Divide, William Clark wrote three simple words: ``Ocean in view.'' In those three words was the answer to every frozen mile, every doubt, every hardship endured along the way. The unknown had given way to proof. The continent was not a barrier. It was, in fact, a bridge. What had been uncertain before became the foundation of a nation stretching sea to shining sea. And from that journey flowed the America that we know today: the river cities of the Midwest and, of course, my hometown of St. Louis, that later was christened the ``Gateway to the West,'' and the beautiful and majestic Gateway Arch that now commemorates that heritage; the industries, the railroads, the settlements, and the towns that would rise across the continent. And the mighty Mississippi became the first economic superhighway. Lewis and Clark did not build all of that with their own hands, but they made it possible. And that path began in my State of Missouri. We often speak in this Chamber about budgets and programs and legislation, but beneath all of that lies a much deeper question: Who are we? Are we still the kind of people who build, who explore, who dare, who believe enough in ourselves to shape the future? Or have we become a nation content to manage decline, a people more comfortable explaining why greatness isn't possible rather than summoning the courage to pursue it? Lewis and Clark did not cross a continent so that their descendants would learn to live small. America was founded on a bold declaration and revolutionary ideas, but not just ideas; it is a nation; it is a people; it is an inheritance purchased by the sacrifice of generations who refused to accept the limits placed before them and entrusted to them to carry forward. From the pioneers who crossed the frontier to the workers who built our industries to the innovators who reshaped the modern world, this country has always been defined by people who honor the past by building something worthy of it. They did not worship ashes, but instead, preserved fire. That is the legacy of Lewis and Clark; not merely that they explored a continent, but that they revealed the character of the people capable of building a civilization upon it, a people who moved forward, a people who endure, a people who built. As America approaches 250 years of independence, that spirit is being called upon once again, the spirit of `76, the spirit of discovery, obtaining a continent, the spirit of St. Louis, the American spirit. Take the inheritance, carry the flag, and build the future. We face different challenges today, sure, but the test is the same. Do we have the courage to still act, the discipline to endure, the confidence to shape our own destiny, or will we allow the flame carried across this continent through hardship and danger to flicker and to fade? I do not believe the American people have forgotten who they are. I believe that spirit still burns. And like Lewis and Clark before us, it is now our responsibility to carry it forward faithfully, courageously, and without apology, not for ourselves alone but for the generations yet to come so that when they look back on us, they will see a generation that merely didn't just curate the future ruins of a great nation; they will see a generation that remembered who we were, a generation that took up the trail, a generation that carried the flag, a generation that kept the flame alive, and a generation who handed this Republic on stronger, freer, and more faithful to its inheritance than we received. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 729, which was submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. SCHMITT

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

Mr. SCHMITT

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