quorum call:

quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president i ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. morning business is closed. under the previous order the senate will resume consideration of senate bill 178 which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 26, s. 178 a bill to provide justice for the victims of trafficking. mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president i appreciate the courtesy of the distinguished republican leader, senator cornyn, letting me go forward for a few moments here. i just want to note that the executive director of the

vermont coalition of the run away and homeless youth programs somebody i know well for their work, wrote to me yesterday to express the concern of the coalition to express their support for the runaway and homeless youth and trafficking prevention act and urges us to put aside differences and work together to support those in need. he wrote differences of opinion and the deliberative role of the senate is part of what makes our democracy strong. sometimes unity of purpose should prevail particularly involving protections of the most vulnerable among us. there should be no doubt the legislation involved in the well-being of individuals who have been victimized by the most base of human behavior should be free from partisan wrangling. i encourage your efforts to remove partisan language of the justice for victims of trafficking act, in an effort to

ensure the act for the runaway and homeless youth effort will move forward unimpeded. i believe that reflects vermonters of all political stripes in that, and i know that the distinguished senator from texas and i and others want to help these greatly abused and abandoned children, and i hope we can continue to work to find a way forward. i yield the floor and i thank the senator for his courtesy. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with my colleagues, the senator from illinois and the senator from ohio and i think we're going to be joined by the senator from south dakota and perhaps others. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president before i turn to senator portman, i just want to put up a quote from one of the leaders of the antitrafficking movement,

the coalition against trafficking in women who expresses my sentiments exactly my frustration over a partisan filibuster of a piece of legislation which has enjoyed broad bipartisan support and how somehow that partisanship has infected what should be a bipartisan commitment to helping the victims of human trafficking. she said senate democrats are choosing a fan tomorrow -- chiewtion a phantom problem over real victims. i think that expresses the fact and my sentiments. but i want to turn to the senator from ohio first who has been one of the leaders in this effort. he has offered an important piece of legislation that has already been incorporated in the bill that perhaps he'll talk about, but also has some additional amendments that i know he would like to get a chance to get a vote on to further improve the bill.

but in particular, his provision bringing missing children home act with senator schumer, the senator from new york which is in the base bill, and senator feinstein, the senator from california, they have offered the combat human trafficking act which is already included in the base bill. with that, mr. president, i would yield to the senator from ohio for any remarks he'd care to make, and then perhaps we can engage in a colloquy with our colleagues. mr. portman: i thank my colleague from texas and i thank him for his leadership on this legislation along with senator klobuchar and others to bring it to the floor. senator grassley is with us as chair of the committee. i appreciate the fact that these two bills that we've worked on the last few years are included in your legislation that you mentioned. sadly, some of the most vulnerable youth are those who are missing or in foster care,

kids who end up being unfortunately, exposed to human trafficking, sometimes sexual trafficking. the idea of the missing children legislation is simple. it says let's help find these children as quickly as possible by having better information on them. i'll give you one example on that. in ohio we've had 71 kids who have gone missing since january 1. these are 71 children who are out there somewhere minors. and for those 71 children, we only have 22 photographs. so this is since january 1. one thing the legislation does is it says let's get the data including requirement of a photograph so that all of us can have the opportunity to help find these young people before they might become subject to human trafficking. in ohio, we unfortunately have this issue in all of our

regions, including in some of our smaller communities as well as our bigger urban centers where we have sex trafficking. they say children, and they get involved in this, the average age of getting involved in this is between 11 and 13 years old. so we've talked a lot on the floor over the last several days -- i've been out here a few times talking about these issues but these are the most vulnerable among us. these are crimes against children. so this is in the bill. and if we can pass this legislation, this additional information and again better awareness and training of child welfare agency officials better training for law enforcement and so on is all part of this. the other legislation you mentioned is about increasing the penalties thoans who are involved in -- on those who are involved in trafficking. we haven't had a major bill on this in 15 years and we've learned a lot on that process. there are better ways to give educators and prosecutors the

tools they need to stop this heinous crime. so, there are some really good provisions in this legislation that i have worked on on a bipartisan basis. you said one is with senator feinstein with regard to increasing the penalties. and the other piece of legislation is with senator schumer on bringing children home. but there are also a couple of amendments we would love to offer. we actually offered them. we haven't been able to get votes on this because this week we haven't moved forward on the legislation. i would just urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to allow us to move forward with the process. let's just go ahead and start having votes. there might be some disagreements on some parts of this bill. i had thought because it got out of the committee with a unanimous vote that there wouldn't be disagreements but if there are let's have that discussion and bbt. -- discussion and debate. but let's not let these again most vulnerable among us wait for us to work this out. let's go ahead and move forward with this legislation in a way that allows everybody to have their views be heard.

you know, some of the legislation that i talked about comes out of meeting with folks back home on this issue and talking to victims who have been through this horrible process and gone through the very difficult process of recovery from it. some of our amendments that we're wanting to offer would help with regard to that issue helping to respond to these again, young people, often children who are involved in this. but it also comes out of the work that's been done right here in the senate through a caucus that we formed about two and a half years ago. the senator from connecticut senator blumenthal, and i cofounded this caucus. we cochair it. we meet every month and we bring people in from around the country who are experts on this issue. some are experts on child welfare, law enforcement people who are involved in trying to stop the issue. others are the experts because unfortunately, they found themselves in very difficult

situations. and among others, some have come forward and talked about how as a young girl they were taken in by ab-- a trafficer and increasingly, this is true in ohio unfortunately drug abuse is part of this. they become dependent on the trafficker. it is to me a form of bondage because these are young people who become addicted. in ohio, it's typically heroin now. and so it's keeping these young people really trapped in this dependency. and so the drug treatment and the drug recovery, it's always just a recovery from having been trafficked. this is an opportunity for us to take the information that we've received through this caucus that we formed. i think the members who are involved in that caucus, including all the members on the floor today would agree that it's been a good experience for our staff and for us to raise

the awareness and consciousness of this issue. now we've taken some of this information and put it in legislation. let's get it passed. we're going to have plenty of time for politics around here, trust me. we'll have lots of that the next week and the week after and the next couple of years but there are certain issues where we should be able to move forward on a bipartisan basis. i thank my colleague from texas for allowing me to speak briefly and my colleagues from south dakota and illinois who are here to talk about this issue and my hope is that even today we can begin the process of having votes, moving forward with amendments and getting this good work done to help the most vulnerable among us. mr. cornyn: mr. president i thank the senator from ohio for his leadership on these issues. he's worked long and hard to address them and bring us to the point we're at today. i just want to emphasize one point he made at the beginning and that is the average age of

the people who are targeted for human trafficking are girls between the age of 12 to 14. and so this is a very vulnerable part of our country. i know we get wrapped up, get wrapped around the axle up here about procedure about politics, about a lot of different issues, but we ought to be keeping our focus on them, on the victims these children, these girls who are the hapless victims of these pimps and johns and other people that make money selling their bodies. and we ought to be trying to figure out what can we do to help them. and they are the ones who are going to be the real loser if we get so balled up around here because of all the political maneuvers that we take our eye off the ball. that's why our friends at the coalition against trafficking in women talked about the phantom problem over real victims.

the focus ought to be on the real victims. the phantom problem that they are the shiny object that they're trying to hold up is basically they're trying to relitigate something that's been the law of the land since 1976, that's been included in a lot of pieces of legislation they voted for. this is a phony issue a phony diversion from what should be the focus which is the victim. i want to turn to the senator from illinois who has been a leader on the issue. he's been a warrior on dealing with people who run some of these web sites the back page in particular, but also trying to figure a way to integrate some of our veterans who are leaving military service into the investigation of these crimes. so i'd like to tirn turn to the senator from illinois for any comments he would like to make. mr. kirk: withmake.kirk

mr. kirk: with the help of senator blumenthal that would also help us find these exploiters. let me say that the amendment that i was trying to offer early this week on the save act i intended to go after backpage.com, which would be the largest provider of slavery-related services in the country, making about $30 million a year off of slavery. we really ought to be able to charge them for the costs of cleaning up the mess that they create. mr. cornyn: the senator from illinois his focus is actually where we ought to be having this focus, which is how do you take some of the profits out of this modern-day slavery and redirect it to help the victims? that's what this bill does. and it ends some of the impunity that some of these purveyors of human flesh are -- that they're

reaping, the rewards they're reaping and plows it back in to help the victims. but i know the save act to be a particular focus. in talking to the senator from california senator feinstein i know she is very concerned about how the internet has become integrated as part of the business model of some of these perpetrators of this crime. and i'm also told the senator from illinois may be aware of this that some of the veterans that would participate -- mr. kirk: under the hero act we havei.s.ahiring some of the vets to find some of the people online. we should thread the needle very carefully, make sure under the commun kietions decency act freedom in america does not mean you have the freedom to enslave others. with the victory in the civil war, which i apologize to the member from texas, we have

established the real principle is that there's an ever-expanding rule of freedom here in the united states that does not include human slavery empowered by the internet. mr. cornyn: i would thank the senatorsenator from illinois and i take no offense in the fact that the south lost the civil war. mr. kirk: i think your state is sometimes called the recent unpleasantness. mr. cornyn: sam houston actually esigned his seat in texas rather than participate in successionsecession. i know that you've worked very hard on a bipartisan basis with senator blumenthal, the senator from connecticut and others on this legislation. that's really what i find so baffling is what has been a uniquely bipartisan effort has now turned into a partisan

filibuster and i frankly ampere plesmed by that -- am perplexed by that. maybe we'll have some folks come out and explain why they're filibustering this bill they voted for in the judiciary committee. we got a unanimous vote in the judiciary committee. we had 10 democratic cosponsors, and yet the democratic senator senator reid, now says they're not going to allow a vote on any amendments and they're going to kill this bill because they don't want to vote for a bill that includes a provision they have voted for time and time again and indeed which has been the law of the land for 39 years. so i thank the senator from illinois -- and i know we're joined by the the senator from south dakota, who is the head of our conference in the republican conference, and who i know has been very concerned about the dysfunction in this place and actually we saw this as an opportunity to start demonstrating we can actually do the people's business once

again, after coming off of a very tough election, tougher for our democratic friends than it was for our side of the aisle but where voter after voter said they were sick and tired of the dysfunction here. we want to be able to show that we can actually be responsive to the needs of the most vulnerable people in our country. so i would yield the floor to the senator from south dakota for any comments he'd care to make. mr. thune: i appreciate it. i thank the senator from texas for his leadership on this issue, as well as the senator from iowa, senator grassley, for moving this legislation to the floor. as the senator from texas who has authored and been involved with this legislation for a really long time, knows if there was ever an issue -- ever an issue that we deal with here in the united states senate that goes beyond the line of partisan politics it's this. it's this. i mean, we're talk about untold stories of thousands of american children and adults who are sold into modern-day slavery. those stories are bone-chilling and are undeniably some of the

most deplorable acts of humankind. and what the senator from texas's bill was designed to do is start attacking this issue in way that we reason for a very long time and gives law enforcement the tools in order to target these traffickers to bring them to justice provides the tools that are necessary to help restore the lives of the victims of these heinous heinous crimes. and so i would ask the senator from texas because it is interesting to me that we are where we are. i mean, this is clearly a bipartisan issue. so much so that my understanding is when this was marked up, debated, and voted on in the judiciary committee that it came out unanimously. in other words all the democrats on the committee voted for it. is that correct? is that the way it proceeded from the judiciary committee? mr. cornyn: i would say he's absolutely correct, which is one way why i'm so perplexed about

where we find ourselves today. 10 cosponsors on the democratic side for this underlying bill that was filed on january 13, was marked up in the judiciary committee a month later and got a unanimous vote. and i would just add to that, in response to my friend's question that we also saw something we haven't seen here in a long time on the senate floor. that is an agreement by all 100 senators that we would proceed to consider this bill and begin the amendment process and debate process without having to jufn through all the -- jump through all the procedural hoops that we traditionally have to do on cloture motions and the like. so what happened a couple of days ago when apparently some of our friends woke up and found this -- what's been called a phantom problem is really just very disturbing. mr. thune: yes and could i just ask as well, because the senator from texas in drafting

this bill, my understanding is that the bill itself is 68 pages or thereabouts long. is that correct? mr. cornyn: i would sty my friend, that's correct. this includes the strikeout provisions ofprovisions of the substitute. so the text is roughly about half of that. but the provisions that our friends discovered a couple days ago was written in plain sight and it incorporates by reference a bill stloated for, which is the last -- a bill stloated for which is the last appropriations bill we voted for in the last dame-ducklame-duck session. mr. thune: this bill was filed on january 13. when was it plarkd up? mr. cornyn: it was marked up or passed out of the judiciary committee roughly a month later. mr. thune: so this has been around now this legislation has been here in the senate at least for weeks months. mr. cornyn: months. the. mr. thune: and it's 6 pages long. it's been -- and it's 68 pages

long. it was naffed back in of -- it was introduced back in january. it was reported out unanimously. all the democrats voted for it when it left the judiciary committee. when it was brought up on the floor of the senate, all voted to get on this bill. so all of a sudden here at the 11th hour on a piece of legislation that clearly has unanimous support, i would think -- or thought should have had unanimous support, they are now objecting because there is language in this legislation which evidently 68 pages long is a lot to read. now, obamacare obviously was a story where it was argued that after it was passed we had-to-figure out what was in it. but that was several house pages. this is a 68-page bill. so you have an opportunity when the bill is filed people look at this, the bill goes to markup countless staffers and members of congress have read this thing and youal of a sudden now at the 11th hour there is an objection because

there is language included in this bill which was voted on by 55 democrats as recently as december. is that correct? was there a spending bill that came out of the congress last year in december of 2014? mr. cornyn: i would say to my friend, that was the cromnibus, so called, the continuing resolution omnibus bill that passed in november during the lame duck session included very similar language and was actually incorporated by reference into the justice for victims of trafficking bill. same bill -- the same language that our friends our democratic friends, voted for then and now they complain on this bill for no apparent reason. mr. thune: and is it correct that that particular provision referred to as the hyde amendment has been a part of spending bills dating back to 19 1976? so literally 40 years now the hyde amendment language has been included in bills that we passed

here particularly bills that are appropriations bills and spending and funding bills? mr. cornyn: i would say to my friend from south dakota, he's exactly correct. this has been the lawsuit of the land for 39 -- this has been the law of the land for 39 years in an area that has been very controversial, that is abortion generally, this has been one -- a rare area of bipartisan consensus, that no tax dollars be used to fund abortion. but this is really a red herring and the phantom problem that was reefortd toreferredto here. and i just can't believe that our friends on the other side, that they would throw their staff under the bus who were responsible for bringing to their attention what's in legislation, and i can't believe they would throw the victims who will benefit from this bill under the bus and say that they should have to pay the price for this phantom problem they

discovered. it gorks to me, gorks to just, to me, doesn't make any sense whatsoever. mr. thune: my friend who has been so instrumental in getting to this the floor a 68-page bill is readablable. when a bill has been reported out of the committee its h. it's been anized, open to -- analyzed open to amendment. it came out unanimously i.f.r. democratic voting for it, voting to a provision that literally has been a matter of policy in law in this country dating back to 1976 and was voted on as recently as december of last year. 55 democrats in this chamber voted for this language, very similar language in december of last year. and now they are objecting to a piece of legislation that they reported out unanimously on the judiciary committee which does

something to stop the brutal violation of the innocent in this country and they're objecting to it over this language. mr. cornyn: i would -- mr. president, if i could just interject. the senator from south dakota is exactly right. but i would add to that that not only does this enjoy broad bipartisan support within the senate and the congress, we have more than 200 law enforcement and victim rights organizations that have endorsed this bill that are begging us to pass it. groups like the coalition against trafficking in women because they know that we need to focus on take the profit out of this crime. but just as importantly, we need to get the services to the victims to begin to let them heal and get on with their lives. as we said earlier these are typically young girls 12 to 14 years of age. can you imagine the scars both

physical and psychological that they bear having experienced this terrible crime? and so every day we delay in getting this bill passed because of the political shenanigans here is another day that these victims of this terrible crime can denied access to the services they need. mr. thune: well, and if they survive, if they survive imagine how messed up some of these young victims are going to be for rest of their lives. we have an opportunity to do something about it. and, you know, they, on the other side, the democratic leader has described this as a sleight of hand. that's not what this is. this is a clear choice, this is a clear choice by democrats to choose partisan politics over the victims of human trafficking. it's as simple as that. and i would urge my democrat colleagues to stop stop the

partisan politics, stop derailing this important opportunity to come together in a spirit of bipartisanship to end human trafficking. putting part sang politics over the lives of hundreds of thousands of american children who fall victim to the brutal reality of human trafficking every year is just absolutely wrong. and to quote our distinguished colleague from the state of maryland senator milulski mikulski who said let's get it done and let's get it done now. i would say mr. president and to my colleague from texas life is too precious, these crimes are too serious for this issue to be caught up in the crosshairs of washington politics. this has got to stop. this has got to end. this is a piece of bipartisan legislation that will help literally hundreds of thousands, millions, i would say, of americans across this country and it is time that we begin to right the wrongs of