John Thune

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I send an executive resolution to the desk for consideration of certain nominations en bloc and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. THUNE. In order to place the executive resolution on the calendar, I object to my own request.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, December 2; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; further, that the Senate recess following the cloture vote on the Freeman nomination until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings.

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I would say to the Senator from South Carolina the answer to that is yes.

Mr. THUNE. The answer is yes.

Mr. THUNE. Yes.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, let me just reiterate what the Senator from South Carolina said, and that is that this measure that we passed does, indeed, give important protections to Members. I think it is an important defense of the separation of powers. It protects Democrats, and it protects Republicans, alike, from a weaponized Department of Justice that is pursuing political enemies. The measure was never meant to enrich Senators. It has always been true, under our rules, that Members wouldn't keep damages they recover under this measure. I would hope that we can work together to pass a resolution to reflect what has always been true and what I have been saying all along, and that is that this measure is about accountability and not profit. Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of this resolution at desk; further, that the resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. Mr. President, what this would simply do is it would preserve the important elements of this, which I think are critical to the protection of the article I branch of the government, constitutionally, but address the question that has been raised about personal enrichment, which I have said, again, is not the case here. This would clarify that any damages awarded under this law would be forfeited to the U.S. Treasury. No individual Senator could benefit. That was the case before, but this would clarify that. And it seems to me, at least, if you want to address the concern that has been raised by the Senator from New Mexico about Senators trying to get hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the Justice Department and the Federal Government--taxpayers--this would address that by simply saying anything that is awarded--a settlement that is awarded under this statute--would be forfeited to the U.S. Treasury. But it would preserve the important protections that are in place under the statute when it comes to Members' personal information. I happen to think--and that was what animated this--that individual Senators, Members of the article I branch of our government, should not be subject to a weaponized Department of Justice or prosecutors who go around the law. So this strengthens the law and ensures that, in the future, that doesn't happen. It is, in my view, again, something that protects this institution, something that protects individual Senators. The unanimous consent request that I am offering here would clarify, in the form of a resolution, that it would apply to the Senate. By the way, this only applies to the Senate. Frankly, there is a good argument that, if I am a Member of the House of Representatives, I would want the same protections included here. That wasn't the case. When we drafted this, it was in response to a statute that covered the Senate only. So this specifically applies to Senators. And this resolution that I am offering here and asking unanimous consent for would clarify--make crystal clear--that any damages awarded as a result of claims brought under this statute would be forfeited to the U.S. Treasury and not be allowed for an individual Member to take advantage of. Just to be clear, no personal enrichment, accountability, and, I think, protection for the article I branch of our government, which, in my view, based on what we saw and what we are seeing as the facts continue to come in from the Arctic Frost investigation, there was clearly a violation of the law and a law that needs to be strengthened and clarified so protections are in place for future Members of the U.S. Senate. Again, I would argue, someday, probably, Members of the House would want that same protection. So that is my request, Mr. President; that the resolution be agreed to--the resolution at the desk makes that clear--and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening objection or debate.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I would simply respond by saying again, in clarifying this question of personal enrichment, I am not sure exactly what that is predicated on. Clearly, the attempt being made here was to give standing to Members whose personal, private information was collected by a prosecutor who went around the law. The law requires notification when a U.S. Senator's personal information is acquired. What happened was that the prosecutor threatened legal action if the carriers that were collecting this data on individual Senators provided the notice that was required under the law. The prosecutor clearly went around the law. I just believe, for the future protection not only of this institution but of individual U.S. Senators, it is going to be critical that we codify some of these protections in ways that aren't currently covered in the law. As I said before, if there is some question about the monetary judgment that might come or of the damages that might be awarded, this is what we are attempting to clarify right now, and that is that no individual Member--and frankly, that is already true under our rules, but this would further clarify that. But if the Senator from New Mexico is interested in amending or modifying this in some fashion that preserves or retains the protections on an individual Member's data--which, frankly, again, as I said before, I think is a really important protection not just for this U.S. Senate but for U.S. Senators in the future--I think there is a willingness to be able to address that. But I think, again, the suggestion that this is a bunch of U.S. Senators who are trying to figure out a way to enrich themselves at taxpayers' expense just is completely, completely unfounded and is inconsistent with the facts.

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 473.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar No. 296, with the exception of Col. George H. Sebren, Jr., Calendar No. 448, Calendar No. 491, Calendar No. 519, Calendar No. 542 through Calendar No. 549, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk with the exception of PN89; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and that the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 472.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 136, H.R. 4016.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I have spoken a lot over the years about the need for a strong military. I believe that keeping cutting-edge responsibilities we have in America at the cutting edge of military capabilities is one of the most important responsibilities we have in Congress. I often say that if we don't get national security right, the rest is conversation. The need for a strong national defense has been put into stark relief over the last few years as the world has grown more dangerous and as we have seen serious gaps in our own preparedness. And after 4 years of underinvestment during the Biden administration, Republicans made it clear that we would work to put our military back on the right track by investing in modernization to ensure our military is ready for today's threats and tomorrow's. We have followed through on that promise since taking office at the beginning of this year. That began with a major investment in our military capabilities in the One Big Beautiful Bill. We also prioritized passing the Senate's National Defense Authorization Act, which includes significant reforms to weapons-buying as well as more than 100 amendments adopted through regular order on the Senate floor. This week, we continue those efforts with the Defense appropriations bill, which will provide the resources to continue our mission of rebuilding our military capabilities. That starts with the men and women serving in uniform. This bill funds a 3.8-percent pay raise for our troops, and it supports military members and their families with investments in housing, childcare, and education for military families. It also funds bonuses that will, hopefully, help to ensure that we can sustain the record-setting recruitment success we have had this year, a complete turnaround, I might add, from recruitment challenges of the not-so- distant past. The Defense funding bill makes critical investments that will help ensure our servicemembers have the military capabilities that they need to meet the challenges of the 21st century. That includes funding shipbuilding efforts and expanding our Air Force fleet, accelerating delivery of the Golden Dome for America, and investing in munitions, drones, and emerging technologies. I do want to emphasize, though, that while this bill and the One Big Beautiful Bill make important investments in rebuilding our military, this can't be a one-time exercise. These are the types of investments that we will need to sustain in the coming years if we want our enemies to think twice before attacking us. I appreciate the work that our colleagues have done to produce a robust funding bill. This bill reflects the priorities and input of a lot of Senators, and it has garnered significant bipartisan support coming out of the Appropriations Committee by a vote of 26 to 3. And it is not the only one. The Appropriations Committee, under the leadership of Chair Collins, has advanced a number of bipartisan full-year funding bills. We have already brought three of those bills to the floor under an open process. We passed them in August, the earliest the Senate has passed appropriations bills since 2018, and that package was signed into law last week. That is how the appropriations process is supposed to work. Unfortunately, that is not how it was working the last few years under the Democrat majority. So when I became majority leader, I made it clear that I wanted to get back to regular order. And as I said, we were making progress on that this year; that is, until Democrats needlessly chose to shut down the government. Before the shutdown, we were getting ready to bring the Defense funding bill to the floor. We just needed a few more weeks under a continuing resolution so we could finish our work. But Democrats took advantage of the situation for leverage, and they kept the government shut down and appropriations work halted for 43 days. Despite their recent actions, I know a number of my Democrat colleagues do share Republicans' interest in seeing regular order restored. Well, now it is time to act like it. As I said before, during and now after the shutdown, this is our chance for regular order. We don't have time to waste. We have already wasted a lot of time on a completely avoidable government shutdown. Let's get to work. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time on S.J. Res. 89 be expired, the joint resolution be read a third time, and at 1:45 p.m. tomorrow, the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.J. Res. 130, the joint resolution be considered read a third time, and that the Senate vote on passage of H.J. Res. 130.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent now that the Senate recess for 1 hour.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I have 17 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:

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 136, H.R. 4016.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, after 43 days, the longest government shutdown in history is over. Shellshocked government employees are getting paid again. The air travel situation is improving. Nutrition programs are back on a secure footing. But the damage remains. How many of those government employees now getting paid again are staring at credit card debt taken on to cover necessities during the month and a half they worked without pay? The newly restored salaries don't contain extra to cover the interest on that debt. How many small businesses are struggling, thanks to the hit that their business took during the shutdown? How long is it going to take to catch up on the 43-day backlog in government services the shutdown created? The pain the shutdown caused was immense, and all of it--all of it-- could have been so easily avoided. Republicans offered Democrats a clean, nonpartisan funding extension. We did not make a single demand. We didn't ask for a single partisan policy. We didn't add a single partisan policy rider. We simply asked Democrats to extend current funding levels for a few weeks so that we could continue bipartisan work on appropriations. Instead, Democrats chose to plunge the country into chaos because the far left of their party demanded a showdown with President Trump. That is right. All of this pain, all of this profound financial stress, all of this economic damage is because the far left demanded a showdown with President Trump. And Democrats fell in line. It is disturbing enough that the Democrat party was willing to shut down the government for 43 days--by far the longest government shutdown in history--but what is even more disturbing is the fact that a number of Democrats were prepared to let this shutdown continue even longer. Even as lines stretched around the block at food banks and air travel grew evermore precarious, progressive Democrats pushed to embrace the shutdown forever, as far as I can tell. The senior Senator from Vermont published an op-ed calling for a continued shutdown and continued opposition to President Trump, even though the President had exactly nothing to do with the clean funding extension that Republicans were proposing. And the junior Senator from Connecticut spent the last week of the shutdown advocating for continuing it and fretting that ending it would damage Democrats' ``brand.'' That is right, Democrats' ``brand.'' Neither Senator seemed to spend a minute seriously considering the incredible damage their shutdown was doing to hard-working Americans and to our country. Indeed, as we know from their own words, a lot of Democrats saw the pain of working people as leverage for Democrats in this shutdown, a useful tool to be deployed to advance the Democrats' political goals. I am grateful that we finally got eight Democrats to join Republicans to reopen the government and spare the American people from further pain. But the fact that a month and a half into the shutdown 39 Democrats still voted to keep the government closed remains deeply disturbing. Are Democrats going to continue hamstringing the necessary work of government at the behest of the far left? Are their partisan politics going to continue to obstruct the government's functioning? We have a lot of work left to do, starting with the need to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year beyond January 30. And there is a lot more we could accomplish, too, from improving our healthcare system to passing a farm bill, but not if the vast majority of the Democrat party continues to put partisan politics above the well-being of the American people. I hope Democrats will be content with their recordbreaking 43-day shutdown, and they will now be able to turn back to the business of the American people. The American people deserve better than the past month and more of Democrat-imposed misery. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

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