impact the west virginia national guard and i have at the chance to regularly meet with servicemen in my state and abroad who i have enjoyed thank them. most recently i traveled to afghanistan where i met a unit from west virginia and today my visit with the front of his members and others shared their great pride not just for state and our country and why they are proud to defend our freedoms. thve also had the chance to hear many of the challenges that they face on a daily basis. >> c-span takes, c-span2 rather takes you live to the senate floor where lawmakers will continue working on a defense programs and policy bill. so far no votes were scheduled for today and you are watching live coverage of the senate here on c-span2. and to help secure rt benefits of more than 10 million workers and retirees in these multiemployer plans.

this is especially important since 150 multiemployer plans have failed or terminated, and that's been done already. and another are expected to run out of money in the coming ten years. 20 years from now many more plans are expected to fail. in all more than one and a half million americans would be affected by the failure of these multiemployer pension plans. now the virus has had its effect on these plans as well. we don't yet have a firm read on how much the economic downturn has affected plans' fundings or even the government's guaranty

plan, backing up those who have gone out of business, the pension benefit guaranty corporation we call that. we expect more details on those issues later this summer. now, things are going to get worse. one thing that we do know for sure is that this problem is only going to get worse and more costly to resolve if we wait longer to solve it. that's why all this concentration at this point. so now we have a real opportunity to get it fixed and hopefully this year. last november help committee chairman lamar alexander of tennessee and i released a draft plan to form -- reform the

multiemployer pension system, also protect retirees and at the same time secure the pension benefit -- the ppgc's and fund. we received many thoughtful and constructive comments and we've worked over the past several months to address those comments and to make our reform plan as effective and balanced as possible. so what is standing in the way? the usual thing is you've got to have bipartisanship to get anything done in the united states senate. so the short answer is that the democratic leadership doesn't seem to be very interested in working to find that bipartisan solution. they seem to think the no

strings bailout that they tried to force into the cares act in march and that now appears in the house's heroes act is somehow either take it or leave it proposition. that doesn't work very well, particularly in the united states senate where it takes bipartisanship to get anything done. and i would also hope that they're not playing election-year politics. and if they are, then they're playing that election-year politics with retirement security of millions of americans. that is, every day that goes on, the prospects of people retiring on what they thought they were going to retire on, these multiemployer plans, is getting less and less. so delaying a solution until next year is only going to make

it more costly. and it will still require bipartisan support. we can and we must do better. if we want a healthy multiemployer pension system for the long haul. we have a chance to fix this problem long term. otherwise we'll be right back here in five or ten years dealing with the same problem. to put this in perspective, let's consider what it means to do nothing and to leave the current law unchanged versus what chairman alexander and i proposed in several key areas. first, for retiree benefits. doing nothing means the ppgc insurance fund runs out of money

in 2027. if the fund goes broke, that means the ppgc will only be able to pay benefits equal to the premium revenues that it receives which are minimal compared to the potential claims that if we get this thing fixed, people will be guaranteed. that means retirees could receive benefit cuts in the range of 90%. let me say that another way. if these plans go broke and these people are forced into the government-run insurance backup plan, they'll potentially get 90% cuts in their retirement. so the necessity to work hard now to get this job done. now, in contrast what the plan

alexander and i are proposing would do would preserve benefits and ensure solvency of the ppgc's multiemployer system over the long run. it would save many failing plans by having the government pay a portion of benefits earlier than under current law. that would help the plan to stretch its assets much longer and at the same time preserve benefits as promised under that plan. second, for plans that aren't able to be saved, our proposal would increase the insurance guaranty amount from the current $12,870 maximum for a retiree with 30 years of service to over

$20,000. benefits will be preserved with the help of additional support from employer and union stakeholders and a modest retiree insurance premium for retirees and plans that face financial challenges. that premium would be no more than 10% and eliminated entirely for older and disabled retirees as well as for plans that are well funded. that's far better than the 90% cut that i already told you about if we just do nothing. doing nothing also means more and more plans will become underfunded or maybe even worse.

insolvent resulting in major benefit cuts and then that very small benefit that's covered from the government's guaranty program, the insurance fund that we call the ppgc. the grassley-alexander plan would provide relief to the failing plans and without an upfront benefit cut, it would restore the benefit cuts that some plans chose to make under the multiemployer pension reform act in 2014, and it would increase the ppgc insurance guaranty amount by more than 5 50%. third, for other plans not on the brink, doing nothing would

mean that the current minority of multiemployer plans that are better funded would continue to shrink with many more likely to move into the danger zone in the coming years. our plan would provide significant funding reforms with emphasis on reforms to help prevent that from happening. in other words, these are pretty good shape now, wouldn't get worse. key variables like the discount rate that plans use to estimate future assets and liability values would be subject to new standards to help ensure that plans are funded to provide the benefits it promised. but we've taken to heart

comments we've heard from stakeholders that those changes need to be phased in over a sufficient period of time to allow plans to transition smoothly. our plan would institute other changes to improve the early warning system so multiemployer plans can avoid flirting with the underfunding danger zone. it also provides needed oversight for plans in trouble, and it would provide unions and employers the opportunity set up composite plans, a new type of hybrid retirement plan that enjoys wide bipartisan support. something pretty important to note, the fundamental tenet of grassley-alexander reform plan

is that all stakeholders have a role in fixing the multiemployer pension system that has been on the current path to failure for now four decades. employers and unions have a role in ensuring that adequate contributions are made to the plans to ensure sufficient funds to pay the promised benefits. plans have a role in ensuring that the ppgc insurance fund backing up those benefits is adequately funded through reasonable premiums with higher risk plans contributing more for that insurance backup. employees and retirees have a role in contributing to the insurance coverage that protects

their benefits just like they do now for auto, home, and life insurance. and last but not least is the federal government. i don't want to shock people, but if you study this, you'll know that the government had a role in setting out the rules that have governed these plans and regulating the operation of these plans. so the government has a role in fixing the resulting situation where we are this very day. and that means taxpayers' funds may be needed to help the ppgc provide the partition relief for plans on the brink of failing, but those funds must come with important reforms to ensure that

taxpayers are not back here on the hook again in five or ten years. this legislation that i'm talking about looks way ahead solving two problems, the multiemployer -- the multiemployer pension plans that are individually, dozens of them, and also the insurance fund, the ppgc that the government has for backup so it doesn't go broke by 2027. we accomplish two big problems all at once. now, as i just said, we don't want to be back here in five or ten years. unfortunately, no matter how sensible of a reform plan we come up with, it has no chance of success unless our democratic colleagues are willing to sit down and discuss a comprehensive solution.

the other side has the idea of my way or the highway. that approach is not the pathway to successful solution. that was clear when they tried that tactic during the negotiations of the cares act in march. so how many times do i have to say it -- and we all know it, all 100 senators know it. nothing happens in congress without bipartisanship. i've invited our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. i've had more than one conversation with speaker pelosi asking all to join me and senator alexander in finding a bipartisan solution. that invitation still stands, and we remain ready to talk. let's use the time that we have

to negotiate a balanced, sensible solution to this increasingly critical problem so we're ready for whenever that opportunity presents itself to enact that solution this year. the retirees in each of our states, the businesses in each of our states, and the unions in each of our states that support these pension plans and our long-term federal budget deserves no less consideration than what i've laid out here. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. leahy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from from vermont. mr. leahy: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: madam president, what may seem like a long time ago but is only three months

ago, when congress came together in a rare bipartisan fashion and we passed the cares act. we did that to help address the unprecedented needs of the country and the american people as it began to address a global pandemic. it was the third emergency appropriations bill congress has passed this year to address the impact of the coronavirus. yet despite its scope and its size, we knew then -- and we all acknowledged then -- that it would not be the last one required. and since that time, we all know the number of covid-19 cases have continued to grow at an alarming rate, as have the number of deaths. i wish we could say we were through the worst of it and that

things could now return to normal. we know we can't. florida, texas, arizona, north carolina, alabama, oklahoma, just to name a few, are seeing an alarming spike in cases. health experts are ringing the alarm bell, including even the secretary of health and human services, who had previously spent a lot of time trying to defend this administration's anemic response. we all know this virus is far from vanquished. as numbers continue to rise across the nation and new hotspots emerge, it is clear we are going to need another emergency appropriations bill to address this epidemic. and frankly, madam president, we need it now. at times like this the country

needs real leadership and vision. we need to get out in front of this crisis, not make all kinds of response after the fact. now, we know that leadership is not coming from the white house. the president has made very clear in his statements that he believes opening the economy and fighting the virus are competing actions, and he gives the american people a false choice. i believe that only if we effectively fight the virus are we then able to open the economy, whether in my state or any other state. now, six weeks ago -- a month and a half ago -- the house of representatives passed the heroes act. it's a strong proposal.

it provides as soon as to struggle -- it provides assistance to struggling families, it supports state and local governments, it battles the virus by sponsoring a responsible funding program. it recognizes the sacrifice being made by grocery store clerks, first responders, nurses, doctors, truckers, and more. it makes critical changes to programs like snap, which supports some of those among us who are struggling the most. and so, let's talk about what we've done. the first week or the second week or the third week or the fourth week or the fifth week or the sixth week since the house passed that bill, what has the senate done? nothing in the first week, nothing in the second week, nothing in the third week,

nothing in the fourth week, nothing in the fifth week, nothing in the sixth week. in fact, the majority leader has publicly stated that he and the white house want to take a pause before considering any further emergency legislation related to covid-19. the white house alternates between silence on the issue and sending contradictory messages on what it thinks needs to be done. but while we wait, cases continue to climb, the death toll mounts and people continue to struggle. the people that have covid, you're not able to tell them to pause and it'll go away. you can't tell the doctors and nurses who are working almost around the clock, working to exhaustion, just pause -- just

pause while we think about this. that doesn't work. the fact is, they're dealing with this every single day and night, seven days a week. they would love to have a pause, but the reality is such they can't. and to those who say that it's premature to act on another bill, well, let's look at what we already know. at the end of july, the federal pandemic unemployment compensation program that congress included in the cares act, that expires. that's next month. next month starts tomorrow. this program provides an additional $600 per week in unemployment benefits to more than 28 million americans.

in many cases, the money is the difference between paying rent and getting evicted. the money keeps electricity on, it keeps food on the table, it feeds their children. at the same time, many state-initiated eviction moratoriums expire next month, which begins just in a few hours. as does the eviction moratorium for people in federally assisted housing included in the cares act. and the one-two punch of the expiration of federal unemployment benefits and the end of eviction protections has the potential to displace a record number of americans into homelessness. and what about our struggling small businesses? in my state of small, the small businesses -- in my state of vermont, the small businesses are the backbone of our economy.

what about them? as of today, the small business administration can no longer approve loans from the popular paycheck protection, the p.p.p. program. our parents are worried about their children, as they struggle to find safe child care. they wonder, are schools goingtope -- going to open in the fall or not? and when they open, many schools will be using some form of online instruction. but over 16 million children in this country do not have internet service at home. 12 million children do not have a home computer or a laptop to use. we can't wait until the fall to figure this out. it'll be too late. and i know for many of us, every single senator here has rural areas in her or his state, and a

lot of those areas there is no internet service. we also 0 know we need to protect our elections due to the pandemic, voters are using common sense and they're choosing to vote by mail in record numbers. something we have already done in vermont. but many states are unprepared to meet this demand. they look at us. every one of us will say, of course we want to protect voters. of course every vote counts. of course it is the american way to vote. of course we want people to vote. ha, ha, and ha. congress has provided only a fraction of the funding needed by states to prepare for the general election. so voters don't have to choose

between exercising their constitutional right of voting or getting very ill. now, we know states cannot cover election costs on their own. they're cash-strapped already from responding to the epidemic. and these vote be will on state, local, and federal elections. "the wall street journal" has estimated state and local government have already furloughed or eliminated 1.5 million jobs since the pandemic began. that might look like just a statistic to some, but these are teachers. these are firefighters. these are health care workers. congress for the sake of this country need to enact funding

for state and local governments. we have to help them deal with lost revenue or our economy is not going to recover. it will never recover. it is imperative that america steps up and addresses the pandemic abroad. we are part of the world. the covid-19-related needs around the world are spiking. we can't defeat the virus right here at home if we do not act now to assist other countries in the global fight against this pandemic as we have in the past with other pandemics. senate republicans and president trump must demonstrate leadership. you are not going to stop this health crises by tweets.

you're going to stop it by real action. they're going to begin negotiations on the next relief bill now. again, real negotiations, not political-inspired tweets. if we do that, we can pass a bill next month because delay makes no one safer. it does nothing to box in the virus. it does nothing to reopen the economy. now in a few short days the senate is going to recess for two weeks. we lost that six-week window in june to address these issues because republican leaders refused to act. and if we do nothing else before the senate goes out of session, we should do what all the experts agree is needed in we're going to defeat this virus. create a comprehensive testing and contact tracing program and provide the resources needed to

implement it. for all 50 of our states. this is how other countries have succeeded in flattening the curve and contain the spread. yet in a shocking abdication of leadership, the president has thrown up his hands. he's walked away from this issue. he even sent a recent campaign rally that we should be doing less testing, not more. that's not leadership, that's politics. that's not leadership and that's not keeping americans safe. i want all americans to be safe. i don't care whether they're republicans, democrats, independents. i want all americans to be safe. his political press secretary tried to say he was kidding but he said he was not and a sign he wasn't kidding, the federal

government recently announced it shut down human rowtion federally -- numerous federally funded testing sites across the country, including six in texas where cases are rising. it's astonishing. i've been here with every president, republican and democratic alike, from a time of president ford. all these presidents in both parties are willing to show leadership in serious matters. but if this president can't or won't show leadership, then the congress must step in and do it. and i'll tell you what i learned when i came here.

and never expected to become the dean of the senate, but i think about it often. i was told by both republican and democrat leaders at that time that the senate can and should be the conscience of the nation. i've seen republicans and democrats come together and exercise that conscience at times when we so needed it. where is that now? we exercise it working with republican and democratic presidents. where is that now? nobody owns a seat in the united states senate, but we are given six-year terms where we should be able to think of doing the right thing and not just worry about the next tweet or the next newsbreak or what is said five

minutes from now. we have six-year terms so we can sit back and do what is right. let us be the conscience of the nation. i've always been proud of this -- proudest of this body when i've seen republicans and democrats come together and do that. i'll just tell you one item, the heroes act passed six weeks ago in the house, created the covid-19 national testing and contact tracing initiative. it requires the department of health and human services in coordination with state and local governments to develop a comprehensive testing, contact tracing, surveillance, and monitoring system. it provides $75 billion to implement it. if we want to save lives, if we want to reopen the country, and we want to get our economy going

again, we ought to at least pass this initiative. it does not help the country whether it's the president or anybody else saying at a political rally we're doing too much testing. we should slow down testing or i'll tell my people not to do as much testing. i want my family to be safe. i want my wife and my children to be safe and their children and their spouses to be safe. i want all vermonters, but i want everybody in all 50 of our states to be safe. and we need testing. now, i soon am going to ask unanimous consent on a particular item, and i understand that senator

alexander is going to come to the floor to object. so i will withhold making that request, again doing things the way i recall the senate being and give him time to come here. but, you know, madam president, think what i said, all senators should. there are only 100 of us. we represent over 320 million americans. across the political spectrum. they're all race, all economic backgrounds, they're all ages, but they have 100 people who can speak for them and speak for the conscience of this nation. madam president, i am proud to

be a united states senator, but i am not proud when we don't stand up and enact the conscience of the nation. what is the use of being one of the 100 people who represent this great country, who represent and know and hold the history of this country whorks have helped -- country, who have helped shape the history of this country through treaties, through constitutional amendments, through debates, on everything. what does it do to be a member of the 100 in this body if we cannot reflect the conscience of the nation? now, madam president, as senator alexander is not yet here, i am going to suggest an absence of a

quorum but i'm going to ask unanimous consent that i be the person next recognized to call off that quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. so ordered. mr. leahy: i request the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: so ordered. quorum call: mr. leahy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i ask that the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: madam president, as i noted before, i was withholding

unanimous consent request until the very distinguished senior senator was here. so i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 140, h.r. 2740, that the leag hi substitute amendment that would provide funding for covid-19 testing and tracing is at the desk be considered and agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. alexander: madam president, reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i'm glad to see

my distinguished friend from vermont of many years, and what i would like to say to him is that we altogether appropriated a record amount of $3 trillion, another $3 trillion in credit, most of which, much of which has not even been spent yet, some of which hasn't been distributed to states yet. we are in the midst of reviewing the spending of that money. i know our own committee has had five hearings this month on covid and its consequences. i think the wiser course with the taxpayers' money is to wait until the $3 trillion we've appropriated has been distributed to states, has been

-- is carefully reviewed, and in the meantime we'll work very closely with our friends on the other side to determine what else needs to be done during the month of july. so i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. leahy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i would ask consent that my full statement be included in the record together with the additions i made here on the floor. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: madam president, i yield the floor.

mr. sanders: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: madam president, in

this unprecedented moment in american history, i think that there is a crying out all across this country, for us to rethink who we are as a nation and what our national priorities are. whether it is fighting against systemic racism and police brutality, whether it is the need to combat climate change and transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, whether it is the absurdity of being the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right, whether it is the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality where three people today own more wealth than the bottom half of our nation, all across this

country, people are crying out for change, real change. and when we talk about the need for real change, it is beyond comprehension the degree to which congress continues to ignore our bloated $740 billion defense budget. we talk about everything, democrats and republicans disagree on almost everything, but when it comes to this huge budget which has gone up by over $100 billion since trump has been president, there is unfortunately a broad consensus, and that is wrong. year after year, democrats and republicans come together with

minimal debate to support an exploding pentagon budget which is now higher than the next 11 nations combined. and represents some 53% of our discretionary spending. we are spending more on the military than the next 11 nations combined. that's russia, china, u.k., france, you name it. more than all of them combined, and we're spending on the military budget over half of our discretionary spending. incredibly -- and i know we don't talk about this too much -- after adjusting for inflation, we are now spending more on the military than we did during the height of the cold war when we were in opposition to the soviet union, a major

superpower, or during the wars in vietnam and korea. after adjusting for inflation, we're spending more today than we did during the time of the vietnam war. this extraordinary level of military spending comes at a time when the department of defense is the only agency of our federal government that has not been able to pass an independent audit. it comes at a time when defense contractors are making enormous profits, while paying their c.e.o.'s exorbitant compensation packages, and when the so-called war on terror will end up costing us some $6 trillion. this is an agency that has not passed an independent audit, and

i believe that this is a moment in history, where it would be a very good idea for the american people and my colleagues here in the senate to remember the very profound statement made by republican president dwight d. eisenhower back in 1953, and i think all of us remember that eisenhower was a four-star general who led the allied forces to victory in europe, knew a little bit about the military. and what eisenhower said, and i quote -- every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

this world in arms is not spending money alone. it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children, end of quote. and when eisenhower said 67 years ago was true -- and what eisenhower said 67 years ago was true then, it is true now. if the horrific pandemic we are now experiencing has taught us anything, it is that national security means a lot more than building bombs, missiles, jet fighters, tanks, submarines, nuclear warheads, and other weapons of mass destruction. national security also means doing everything that we can to make sure that every man, woman, and child in this country lives

with dignity and security. and that includes many people in many communities around this country who have been abandoned by our government decade after decade. without a moment's hesitation, we have spent billions and billions on the military while we come to work and step over people who are sleeping out on the streets. move away from communities where children are getting totally inadequate educations, and where teachers are underpaid. i believe, madam president, that the time is long overdue to begin the transformation of our national priorities, and i cannot think of a better way to do that than by cutting military

spending. and i have in this -- for this bill filed three separate amendments, and i'd like to discuss them briefly. the first amendment would reduce the military budget by 10% and use the $74 billion in savings to invest in distressed communities around the country that have been ravaged by extreme poverty, mass incarceration, deindustrialization, and decades of neglect. we are proposing to transfer money from the military into distressed communities all over this country where people are suffering, where people are hurting, where people are unemployed, where people don't have any health care, where infrastructure is crumbling, where people need help. and, madam president, this amendment is being cosponsored

by the senators from massachusetts, senator markey and senator warren. and importantly -- and i hope my colleagues hear this -- this amendment has the support of more than 60 organizations throughout this country, representing millions of workers, environmentalists, and religious leaders. including public citizen, union of concerned scientists, physicians for social responsibility, greenpeace, and the united methodist church. madam president, at a time when more americans have died from the coronavirus than were killed in world war i, when over 30 million people have lost their jobs in recent months, when tens of millions of americans are in danger of being evicted from their homes, when

education in america from child care to graduate school is in desperate need of reform, when over a half a million americans are homeless, when close to 100 million people are either uninsured or underinsured, now is the time to invest in our people, in jobs, in education, in housing, and health care, not in more nuclear weapons, not in more tanks, not in more guns. under this amendment, distressed cities and towns in every state in this country would be able to use these funds to create jobs by building affordable housing, building new schools, child care facilities, community health

centers, public hospitals, libraries, sustainable energy projects, and clean drinking water facilities. these communities will also receive federal funding to hire more public schoolteachers, provide nutritious meals to children and parents, and offer free tuition at public colleges, universities, or trade schools. madam president, this is a pivotal moment in american history. it is time to respond to those crises that we are facing by transforming our national priorities. do we really want to spend more, billions more on endless wars in the middle east, or do we want to provide decent jobs to millions of americans who are

now unemployed. do we want to spend more money on nuclear weapons or do we want to invest in a child care system which is dysfunctional, in an education system where community after community lacks the funds to provide decent quality education for their kids? do we want to invest in affordable housing where half a million americans are homeless and 18 million families in america are spending half of their incomes on housing? those are the choices that we face, and i think the american people are clear that the time is now to invest in our people, not more weapons systems. madam president, when we analyze

the defense department budget, it is very interesting to note that congress has appropriated so much money for the defense department that the pentagon literally does not know what to do with it. according to the g.a.o., between 2013 and 2018, the pentagon returned more than $80 billion in funding back to the treasury. people sleep out on the streets, children go hungry, schools are crumbling, people have no health insurance, but we have given the department of defense so much money that they actually are returning some of it back to the government. in my view, the time is long overdue for us to take a hard look not only at the size of the pentagon budget but at the

enormous amount of waste, cost overruns, fraud, and at the financial mismanagement that has plagued the department of defense for decades. madam president, let us be clear about half of the pentagon's budget -- and people, i think, don't know this -- but about half of the pentagon's budget goes directly into the hands of private contractors, not the troops. over the past two decades, virtually every major defense contractor in the united states has paid millions and millions of dollars in fines and settlements for misconduct and fraud, all while making huge profits on those government contracts. and this at a time when we are not very vigorous in terms of

our oversight. but despite that, since 1995, boeing, lockheed martin, and united technologies have paid over $3 billion in fines or related settlements for fraud or misconduct. $3 billion. that's what they have been caught doing. that's what they have been found guilty of or agreed to a settlement. god knows what else is going on that we still don't know about. yet, those same three companies received around $1 trillion in defense contracts over the past two decades aloan. further, madam president, i find it interesting that the very same defense contractors that have been found guilty or reached settlements for fraud are also paying their c.e.o.'s excessive compensation packages.

last year, the c.e.o. of lockheed martin and northrop grumman both made around $20 million in total compensation while around 90% of the company's revenue came from defense contracts. in other words, these companies -- and i'm talking about lockheed martin and northrup grumund. over 90% of the revenue comes from the taxpayers. and, yet, the c.e.o.'s of those companies made over 100 times more than the secretary of defense. it's not too surprising, therefore, that we have a revolving door where our military people end up on the

boards of directors of these major defense companies. madam president, as the g.a.o. has told us, there are massive cost overruns in the acquisition defense budget that we have got to address. according to g.a.o., the pentagon's one day acquisition portfolio currently suffers from more than $628 billion in costs overruns with much of the cost growth taking place after production. in other words, they quote a price and then they come back after they get the contract and say, oh, we made a slight mistake, you're going to have to pay twice as much or 50% more or whatever it may be for the

system you were awarded. many d.o.d. programs fall short of costs, schedule, reports expectations, meaning d.o.d. pays more than anticipated, can buy less than expected, and in some cases, delivers less capability to the war fighter. end of quote. madam president, a major reason why there is so much waste, fraud, and abuse at the pentagon is the department of defense is the only federal agency that hasn't been able to pass an independent audit, and that is why i have filed an amendment with senators grassley, wyden, and lee that would require the defense department to pass a clean audit no later than fiscal year 2025. when you have an agency that spends some $700 billion, i don't think it is too much to ask that we have an independent

audit of the department of defense. madam president, interestingly enough, many of us will recall what then-secretary of defense donald rumsfeld, not one of my favorite public officials, but what he told the american people on the day before 9/11 about the serious financial mismanagement at the d.o.d. and here is what donald rumsfeld say. now, needless to say, the following day that was 9/11, that was the terrorist attack against the united states. so what rumsfeld said the day before that never got a whole lot of attention. but this is what a conservative republican secretary of defense said, and i quote. our financial systems are decades-old, according to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.

we cannot share information from floor to floor in this building -- that's the pentagon -- because it's stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible. end quote. and, yet, nearly 20 years after donald rumsfeld's statement, the defense department has still not passed a clean audit despite the fact that the pentagon controls assets in excess of $2.2 trillion, or roughly 70% of what the entire federal government owns. madam president, the commission on wartime contracting in iraq and afghanistan concluded in 2011, that $$20 billion spent in iraq and afghanistan has been lost to fraud and waste.

separately in 2015, the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction reported that the pentagon could not account for $45 billion for funding in reconstruction projects. more recently an audit conducted by ernst and young found that it could not account for some $800 million in construction projects. madam president, it is time to hold the defense department to the same level of accountability as the rest of the government. that is not a radical idea, and support for this concept is bipartisan, and that's why i am delighted that this amendment is supported by senators grassley and lee as well as senator wyden and we hope it will be supported by a strong majority of the

members of the body. madam president, i believe in a strong military but we cannot continue to give more money to the pentagon than it needs. when millions of children in our country are food insecure. there are kids all over this country, in every state in this country, who are hungry. and when we have 140 million people who cannot afford the basic necessities of life without going into debt. further, madam president, let us be very clear when we're talking about the need to protect the american people, we are talking about the need to defeat our most immediate adversary right now, an adversary that has taken in recent months over 120,000

american lives, and that, of course, is the coronavirus. so when we talk about defense, when we talk about protecting the american people, we must get our priorities right and do everything that we can to protect the american people from the coronavirus. i don't think nuclear weapons are going to do it, i don't think tanks are going to do it. i don't think f-35's are going to do it. but we need to do everything we can to protect the lives and the health of the american people in terms of the coronavirus. and what virtually every scientist who has studied this issue will tell us -- and they just told me that this morning as a member of the help committee -- is that the most effective way to prevent the transmission of this deadly virus and to stop unnecessary

deaths from covid-19 is for everybody in this country to wear a mask. not rocket science. not very complicated, but if you wear a mask when you are in contact with other people, the likelihood that you will spread the virus or get the virus is significantly reduced. that's why i have filed an amendment which requires the trump administration to use the defense production act to manufacture the hundreds and hundreds of millions of high-quality masks that this country needs and to deliver them to every household in america. madam president, this is not a radical idea. it's an idea that is being

implemented all across the world in countries like south korea, france, turkey, austria, and many other countries, and that is they are distributing high-quality face masks to all of their people for free or at virtually no cost. and that is what i believe we have got to do. there was a study that just came out from the university of washington very recently which suggested that if 95% of the american people wore face masks when they interacted with others, we could save some 30,000 lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. so i think this is a commonsense amendment. it is beyond my comprehension how in the wealthiest nation in the world with the strongest

economy we have not been able to produce the personal protective equipment, the mask, gowns, gloves that our doctors, nurses and medical personnel need. so we've got to do that. but we also have to produce the masks that the american people need. as everyone knows, over the past three months, the coronavirus has infected more than 2.5 million americans and caused nearly 130,000 deaths. more americans have died from the coronavirus than were killed fighting in the wars korea, vietnam, afghanistan and iraq combined. and sadly, madam president, there is new evidence that this pandemic is far from over and may kill many tens of thousands more. in the past few days, new covid-19 cases in the united states have increased

dramatically, jumping to their highest level in two months and returning to where they were at the peak of the outbreak. madam president, if we take bold action now, we could prevent tens of thousands of americans from dying. and that is exactly what we have got to do. unfortunately the trump administration continues to endanger millions of americans by ignoring the most basic recommendations of medical professionals and recklessly downplaying the most effective tool we have to contain the pandemic, and that is simply wearing a mask. so this amendment is nothing more than listening to science and saving lives. and, again, this morning i participated in a hearing with dr. fauci and many others from the trump administration, and they were very clear, masks

work. social distancing works, and we should listen to the scientists. madam president we are -- madam president, we are, as i mentioned earlier, at a pivotal moment in american history somebody we, as elected officials, have got to respond in a transformational way. we've got to stand up for people. we've got to rethink the way we've done things in the past, and the amendments that i have offered begin the process of changing american priorities and i hope that all three of those amendments will pass. and, with that, madam president, i yield the floor.

i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. kennedy: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: madam president, thank you. i ask that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i think it's a terrible thing that the government pays checks to dead people. i think we should all be able to agree to this. the problem is that social security is not sharing that information with treasury. i have a bill to do that that i'm going to ask unanimous consent be joined with senator carper's bill and senator kennedy's bill and so at this point i would like to ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 4104, introduced earlier today. i ask further, that the bill be considered read a third timed and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. carper: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. the senator from delaware.

mr. carper: seven years ago, the government accountability office included in their recommendations for something called the high risk list ways for us to stop wasting money by stop sending checks to dead people. they said there was a way to fix this, a way to stop this. they proposed a way to stop it. i worked with the late tom coburn to craft legislation to introduce that idea to g.a.o. it's clear that the government accountability office not once, not twice, not three times, i think four times and the legislation is now the death -- since the death of tom coburn, it has been cosponsored by other senators including john kennedy of louisiana. improper payments are a huge deal for our federal government. the government accountability office tells us last year

improper payments, overpayments, mistaken payments, and so forth, is $$150 billion, that's billion with a b and they think we should do something about it and they've been thinking we should do something about it for a long time. the person who is the leader of the government accountability office is a man named gene badaro, and he's been the director for a decade or more and i talked to him the other night and it was right after they reported that treasury sent out $1.4 billion checks to people who were deceased and sent out checks with the word diseased printed on -- deceased for obvious dead people and one of the people who got a check was the controller general's mother who died in 2018. and i happen to be on the phone last thursday with the -- talking to somebody on my cellphone and got interrupted by a phone by a bottom from

delaware that i knew and she said i heard on msnb that treasury sent out $1.4 billion to dead people. why don't you do something about it? we've been talking about, thinking about doing something about it for a long time -- a long time. and we're still talking about doing something about it. and i think the time has come to do something about it. and that's sort of where we are at this point in time. and i -- i understand that it's being discussed off the floor for a little bit. maybe one of our colleagues has an objection to this bill, the consideration of this bill and unanimous consent. it ain't like -- it's been out there for people to raise objections and raise concerns, they've had seven years to do that. and for seven years g.a.o. said please fix this part of the

mispayment program. it doesn't fix $150 billion, but it is a good start. i don't know anybody in their right mind who would say we should deny to send checks to folks who are deceased. it didn't make sense in 2013 when it was presented to g.a.o., it doesn't make sense today. i'd be happy to yield. mr. kennedy: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, madam president. i want to associate myself with the eloquent remarks of senator carper. i don't need to remind the president that we have $25 trillion worth of taxpayer debt. not our debt, taxpayer debt. and it's more than $25 trillion. if we add in the mandatory

spending, the medicare, the medicaid, social security, it's over $100 trillion. the entire net worth of the american people, most prosperous country in all of human history, is just barely over $100 trillion. and, as senator carper said, my constituents all the time say, why don't you do something about it? they say, why don't you just set priorities? now, we've had a lot of wasteful spending, all of us, in the united states congress going back years. i don't need to -- to -- to remind you of some of the wasteful spending, but this is why people are so cynical. in the past this congress, not this particular congress, has spent 3 $70,000 to study

whether -- $370,000 to study whether mothers love dogs as much as their kids. in the past the united states congress has spent $700,000 to restore a buddhist temple in vietnam. in the past, this -- not this congress, but a past congress has spent $400,000 that they gave to a major university, i kid you not, madam president, to study the oddity of the duck penis. but we just set a record. we just sent $1.4 billion to 1.1 million people in america when we owe $25 trillion who are diseased and we know they are deceased. and senator carper's bill that he's been working on for seven

years and my bill that i've been working with him on for the last three and a half years will stop this. it's not a heavy lift. you know the problem -- and i'm not criticizing the treasury department. they did a great job of sending out about $270 billion to 161 million people through the cares act, and i thank them for that. but the problem is they sent $1.4 billion to 1.1 million dead people. why did that happen? here's why. we have what is called the death master file. if you die in america, your state, other others in your state, send to the social security administration the fact that you're dead. and the social security administration makes a list.

it's called the mass -- the death master file. it's not a perfect list, but it's fairly accurate. it can be better. but the problem is the social security administration has taken the position for years that they can only share the -- the death master file with a few other agencies. they said, we don't have the authority to share it with other agencies, only a couple of agencies. and guess which one agency they couldn't share the death file with, the department of treasury. and that's why we wasted $1.4 billion. and it's a very simple fix, as senator carper's worked on for seven years. here's what our bill will do. it's really quite simple.

first of all, it tells the social security administration to share the death records with everybody in the federal government who writes checks. so we don't send dead people money. duh! it will allow federal agencies access to each other's databases. imagine that, they would talk to each other. it would direct agencies to use this information to curb improper payments, and it would direct the social security administration to do a better job. now, how simple is that? how simple is that? we are spending right now $800 million a year -- that's on top of the $1.4 billion that we just wasted, took and threw it in the dirt, threw it in the dirt. like clockwork every year we

send $800 million every year to dead people, and it's been all in the papers, and it's a very easy fix. and that's what senator carper and i's bill does. i with a tonight yield the floor at this point, madam president, to my coauthor for a motion. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: at this point, we have a pending motion. the presiding officer: there is a unanimous consent request pending. there is a reservation and the right to object. mr. paul: if there's no

objections, i guess it passes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. paul: thank you. mr. kennedy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from from louisiana. mr. kennedy: i would now like to yield to senator carper, who i think i have the floor, madam president. i would like to -- the presiding officer: the senator has been recognized. mr. kennedy: i would like to yield the floor to senator carper, who i believe will have a motion with respect to his and i's bill, which i call the stop paying dead people act. if not, --

if not, madam president, -- or, mr. president. excuse me. i believe i still have the floor? i would like to yield, if he wishes the time, to senator carper to make a motion. if he's not prepared to make a motion, i am. the presiding officer: is there objection to the yielding? the senator is recognized. mr. carper: mr. president, senator wyden is is on the floor. senator wyden has some concerns about our legislation. would you just take a couple of minutes and explain what those are, please. and again, my friend -- i think my friend knows that this is something we worked on with g.a.o. for seven years.

same product came out of committee repeatedly and we're still waiting to get it done. let me yield to my colleague from oregon. the presiding officer: senator is recognized. mr. wyden: mr. president, parliamentary inquiry. is this bill now passed on u.c.? the presiding officer: which bill are you referring? mr. wyden: the -- 4104. the bill that my colleagues are discussing. the presiding officer: 4104 is passed. mr. wyden: well, i will just tell my colleagues, and i made it clear i was on my way here, i think that this is a flood approach to a very serious problem. and the reason i feel this way, as the ranking democrat on the finance committee, is this gives social security more responsibilities without any additional resources, and it

comes at a time when i think there are going to be real challenges for social security as it tries to pay benefits. so around here, you always have a chance to take another crack at it. i was on my way over here to offer to work with my colleagues, the senator from louisiana, the senator from delaware, but apparently it was so important that i couldn't come over here and make that offer, and i think the senate will regret this. i yield the floor. mr. kennedy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from from louisiana. mr. kennedy: i want to respond to that, because the senator from oregon knows how much i admire him. but my understanding, after talking with his chief of staff, was that the -- and as i said,

senator carper has been working on this for seven years. i have been working on it for three and a half years. we hotlined this bill, i think, last thursday. we had no objections -- well, actually, i take that back. we had a couple of objections and we worked them all out. then we got down here today at 3:25 to start and then we found out that senator wyden had of an objection. so, mr. president, we contacted -- tried to reach senator wyden. we couldn't. we reached his chief of staff. he said senator wyden wasn't available. he didn't know when he would be available. we tried to do it tomorrow, but we weren't sure. and that's why we proceeded. senator carper and i did. now, i'm more than willing to sit down and work with senator wyden. he knows that. we're working on a number of other bills together. but i want to reiterate the urgency of this. the american people, mr. president, are laughing at

us. they're laughing at us. we sent out 1.1 million checks. and you know what the checks said? john doe, deceased. it said john doe, deceased. and the time has come to do something about it. now, something just passed. i'm going to ask a ruling from the chair to find out what passed. the presiding officer: s. 4104. mr. kennedy: was that senator paul's bill? the presiding officer: yes. mr. kennedy: combined with senator carper's bill and my bill? the presiding officer: let me just read this. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to immediate consideration of s. 4104 introduced earlier today. i further ask that the bill being considered read a third time and passed and that the

motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. is there objection? so, that was the entirety of the request. the title is to amend improper payments, elimination, recovery, improvements act of 2012, including making changes to the do not pay initiative for improved detection, and recovery of improper payments to deceased individuals and for other individuals. mr. kennedy: so, mr. president, if i might ask, does that mean that both bills together have passed? the presiding officer: i am not sure what's in the bills, but i would assume that that is the case. we did not have the paperwork beforehand, so this is -- mr. kennedy: excuse me, mr. president. i didn't mean to interrupt you.

my understanding is that senator paul's bill and senator carper's bill and my bill was merged together so we had two bills. is my understanding correct, mr. president? the presiding officer: to be honest, the chair cannot answer that. mr. kennedy: i believe the record will reflect that that is correct, that senator paul -- i'm not asking you to comment on the accuracy of what i'm about to say, mr. president. but i believe the record will reflect that senator paul's bill was merged with the carper-kennedy bill and that those bills have passed. as one bill. now, having said that, if senator wyden or anybody else would like to sit down with senator carper and i and make some improvements to the bill, i'm more than happy to do this. and to do that. i don't speak for my good friend

and mentor, senator carper, but i know he would share my feelings. and i would extend that courtesy to senator wyden and to any other senator that would like to make some changes. but let me reiterate again, this is a serious problem. we hotlinedbill on thursday. we've worked out many -- we hotlined this bill on thursday. we worked out many difficult issues and we found out there was never senator that couldn't be available. he said five minutes ago. that's why we proceeded. but i'm willing to unproceed to work with ron or anybody else who wants to improve this bill. but improving this bill doesn't mean -- i've only been here three or four years, but i've learned, i've learned the hard way that sometimes negotiations can last years. and you know what sniff a. said it before -- and you know what?

i've said it before. doing nothing is hard. you never know when you're finished. and we need to do something on this. a.m. embarrassed to go home. i feel like putting on a bag in the airplane when i get out so my constituents won't see me, that we sent out $1.4 billion of taxpayer money to 1.1 million dead people and all we had to do was pass a simple bill that says people at social security, share your death file with the rest of your colleagues. what's controversial about that in -- what's controversial about that? mr. carper: if the social security is going to be sharing in information, not just with the i.r.s. and a handful of agencies, there's going to be some cost involved in that sharing. that's a legitimate concern. speaking for m.i.a. myself and my guess is speaking for my friend from louisiana, if there are tomorrow additional costs

incurred by the social security administration, i'm sure it's going to be a lot less than $1.4 billion that we just wasted in sending out these $1,200 checks over the last several months. and i would pledge and invite my friend from louisiana to join in assuring senator wyden, we will work with him and his staff and the folks at social security administration to make sure that the social security administration is made whole, if the legislation that we just apparently adopted here, if it actually is adopted and signed into law, we'll make social security whole. that's a very fair thing to ask of us, and we should do that. mr. kennedy: would the senator yieldled in. mr. carper: i would be happy to. mr. kennedy: senator, do i understand you correctly that one of senator wyden's problems or issues is the cost? mr. carper: cost to -- cost that might be incurred by the social security administration because they would be asked to share this information more

widely among federal agencies than they do today. mr. kennedy: well, would the senator yield for -- mr. carper: sure. mr. kennedy: then i would suggest, mr. president, senator carper through the president that we sit down with senator wyden and try to address these very legitimate concerns. for the moment, i happen to be chairman of the fsgg subcommittee in appropriations, and it may be that we can addresses those concerns later and i will be more than happy to. but i am equally happy to report to the american people that the united states senate finally did something to stop paying dead people hard-earned taxpayer money. and i want to give most of the credit to senator carper, because he's a patient man. he's been working on this for seven years. he's a more patient man than i am. so i yield back to the good senator. mr. carper: i thank my colleague for his words and for

his efforts and tenacity. with that, mr. president, we yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i come to the floor today to discuss the threats facing our upcoming elections. threats from the coronavirus and threats posed by foreign adversaries and to once again urge my republican colleagues to immediately take up legislation to address these threats. as ranking member of the rules committee, i am proud to be speaking on the floor today with my democratic colleagues, including senators blumenthal, warner, durbin and wyden who will speak during the next hour on the need to protect our elections and make voting safe and easy throughout this pandemic and beyond. and that is safe and easy for democrats, for republicans, for independents, for members of any

party or anyone who wants to vote. this is not a partisan issue. voting, our very democracy, is not a partisan issue. everyone who wants to vote should be able to vote for whoever they want to vote for. today there are primaries happening in colorado and utah, to of the five states that vote almost entirely by mail as well as oklahoma. as cases of coronavirus in this country rise, it's vital that all voters be able to cast their ballots from home. to cast their ballots by mail, a system which colorado and utah know to be safe and secure. we have heard senator romney speak out strongly in defense of vote by mail and how it works in utah. we have heard elected firms -- officials in colorado, both democrats and republicans, these two states that have primaries

today, say that their system works, that their democracies work. this week we're also working to pass the national defense authorization act. colleagues, let me be clear. if we are defending our elections, then we must protect our democracy. and if our elections are not safe, then our democracy is not secure. election security is national security. we shouldn't spend more on military bands. i love military bands but we shouldn't spend more on military bands than we do on securing our elections on a federal level, especially now when we have foreign adversaries which the intelligence officials in the trump administration have long said we're emboldened by the last election as in russia and we'll try to do this again. we should not be spending more on military bands than securing our elections on a federal level

when in fact we have a situation where a pandemic has made it unsafe for people to vote, especially seniors, especially people with preexisting conditions, especially our veterans. the government accountability office conducted a study and found that between 2012 and 2016 the u.s. military spend $1.5 billion on military bands. since our elections were attacked by russia in 2016, congress has given states $805 million to modernize our election systems and protect them from future attacks. that's about 6% of the cost of a new aircraft carrier. that's always given the states after the biggest attack on our elections in modern history. every single state now we know they tried to get in. they tried to hack in illinois. they got as close as the voter information. what must we do? well now we face the immediate threat of covid-19 as well as the threat we've known has been

out there for years. i fought hard with senator coons and others to help secure $400 million, and i appreciate the work of my colleague senator blunt, the chairman of the rules committee, in helping us to secure that funding as well as senator shelby and senator lea leahy. we know that is not everything we need. election officials are using the money from the $805 million in elegislation security funding that i already mentioned which is supposed to do things like replace old election equipment, produce a paper record. but now we know that election officials in states that are already strapped for cash and states that are facing enormous debt are having to buy which they should, mass cleaning supplies, trying to figure out how to keep polling locations open and paid postage and envelopes. last week i was glad to appear here with my friend senator

blunt and he has said that he is open to working with us on funding as well as making some corrections from the last bit of money that was sent out. he's also going to be holding a hearing in our committee on elections which i truly appreciate during this time of pandemic. as i said, elections are a matter of national security and during a global pandemic, they are a matter of public health and safety. contrary to what the president has been saying, i would rather put ballots in an envelope than put voters in the hospital. but yet our president keeps questioning the security of vote by mail, yet we have republican senators like senator romney who have securely said in their state it works quite well. and our job now is to realize that nationally about 25% of

people have been voting by mail in the last few federal elections, and that we want to greatly increase that number. we know that not everyone will vote by mail. we know part of the solution is having poll workers who are not as susceptible to the virus, who are in safe conditions, we know that part of the solution is keeping the polls open as long as possible, early in states like my state which keeps the polls open weeks before an election because then voters don't congregate as much. but we also know that part of the solution, a big part of the solution is making voting by mail available to everyone. we have seen what happens when people can't vote safely. no one will forget the images of those voters in line in milwaukee in garbage bags and homemade masks. just waiting to exercise their right to vote. no one will forget the numbers that dozens and dozens of them

contacted the coronavirus and that in fact poll workers got sick from that day. no one will forget the image recently in georgia of people waiting and waiting, of a woman who had marched with dr. king in her 80's getting there at 6:00 in the morning waiting and then actually staying because she wanted to make sure that her friends would be able to vote. we've seen the president's tweets about voting by mail. these tweets are directly a hit on our democracy. they degrade the integrity of our voting system and people shouldn't fall for it. we know that these states that have been holding elections that are mostly by mail, utah, oregon, colorado, hawaii, and washington, we know that those states have done a good job. some of those states are blue states. some are purple states.

some are red states. again just like the virus, doesn't know if it's hitting someone who's a democrat or a republican, vote by mail. it works regardless of what someone's political affiliation is. so it has really concerned me what the president has been saying. as "new york times" editorial board has noted, states that use vote by mail have encountered essentially zero fraud. oregon, the pioneer in this area, has sent out more than 100 million mail-in ballots since 2000 and has documented only about a dozen cases of proven fraud. rounded to the seventh decimal point, that's .00000001% of all votes cast. and to top it off, while those voters were standing in line in those garbage bags and homemade masks in wisconsin in the rain, the president was voting in the

luxury of 1600 pennsylvania avenue with his own mail-in ballot that he obtained from palm beach, florida. that's what he did. everyone should have that same right. so what do we do? in the midst of this pandemic, we need to make sure no voter has to choose between their health and exercising their right to vote. that's why i'm urging my colleagues to support our legislation with senator ron wyden which is now cosponsored by 36 other senators. the natural disaster and emergency ballot act to help state election officials meet this pandemic head-on. what does it do? well, it has the funding, and i'm so pleased that my colleague senator blunt has said he's willing to work with us and work with me on that funding as we work to negotiate covid-related provisions, i hope in the next few weeks. our legislation does more. it starts with guaranteeing every american the option to vote by mail.

16 states require voters to provide an excuse if they want to cast a ballot by mail. i will note that during the pandemic, 13 of these states are allowing all voters to cast a ballot by mail without needing to provide an excuse. they've done it because governors have waived things, because legislatures have done their jobs, but that still remains with three states, three states that still have those provisions in place. why during the midst of a national pandemic that isn't just hitting one state, it's not about vermont or it's not about wisconsin or it is not just about hawaii. it's about every single state. would we not at least have a floor, a requirement that people be able to vote without an excuse. why would some states still require a notary. yes, that's in place. it was in place in six states, had the provision that you either have to have a notary or

two witnesses in order to get a mail-in ballot. yes, some of these states have waived that. that is a good thing. but why wouldn't we just simply since they all have not waived it put in place some simple requirements that everyone knows will guarantee them their right to be able to obtain a ballot. the bottom line is that it should be easy to vote and not hard to vote. we're not alone in this fight. our legislation has been endorsed by more than a dozen organizations, including the group funded by -- founded by former first lady michelle obama. when we all vote, the leadership conference on civil and loom right, the lawyers committee on civil rights, voter latino, the national urban league and common cause. i think the key here, though, as we head into -- and i know that my friend is going to object to the legislation as is -- but think the key as we move ahead the next few weeks is to everyone step back, talk to your secretaries of state, talk to

your governors. you're going to find that both democratic and republican governors are saying look, we're already strapped for cash. we had no idea this pandemic was coming our way. we didn't plan ahead in our buckets last year. we need some help in our state to be able to mail in all the ballots so people will be able to vote. at the very least i hope that is what comes out of this. and last i'll tell you the american people are ahead of this body right now. three polls released in the last couple of months show an overwhelming majority of voters, over 80%, favor measures to make voting safe and easy in november by expanding mail-in and early in-person voting. one of these polls conducted in six battleground states showed that 74% of voters wanted their senators to support legislation to implement voting reform, including a majority of republican voters in those states. that is across party lines. that is why i hope my colleagues

will join us and we can get this done. mr. president, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the rules committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 4033, the natural disaster and emergency ballot act of 2020 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. i further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. blunt: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: mr. president, reserving the right to object. i could make this really simple by just saying look at everything i said last week about this same bill. but i know that senator klobuchar is here in good faith trying to be sure that we call attention to this issue. she and i are working together

on the joint committee for the presidential inauguration that we formed just today, the six people that were appointed to that committee, a bipartisan committee. i was pleased to have her nomination to be the chairman of that event again. and we find ways to work together. i think on this bill, there's really nothing simple about this bill. it's not a bill that just allows the other three states somehow to meet the strtd r standard that all -- standard that all but three states moved toward, not exactly as this bill would have them but as my friend just pointed out, 13 of the 16 states have changed their provisions, some just for this election. and some will look at it and they'll decide whether they did it exactly right or they need to further modify it. others will make that maybe a permanent part of their -- of their process.

i'm of the view that this is one of the things that states and local governments really do well. we'll have a hearing next month that senator klobuchar and i worked together to talk about what that hearing will look like, where i hope we have at least one local election official, some state election officials, some people who are concerned about the civil rights aspects of voting. but that hearing will also get into the challenges that states face and particularly, mr. president, the challenges that states and communities face if they try to change too much too quickly. i think both senator klobuchar and i were pleased to see georgia, for instance, change their voting system to where they'd have a voting system -- they were the one of handful of states that still had a voting system left that didn't have a -- an audit trail, didn't have a paper audit trail.

well, they changed the system, but they changed it and -- i don't know that they had many options. they'd gotten behind on this issue, in my view. they changed it on primary election day. probably too big an election to try an entirely new system you're not used to, just like some of the changes in this bi bill. while i might not be for them, i could certainly argue even if i was for them. this is not something you want to try to change at this moment. legislators have met. states have acted. 13 of the 16 have changed their laws to accommodate the moment we're in. the three that haven't will have to be apessable for their decision -- answerable for their decision mott to do that. but not only are we going to have a hearing to talk about this, senator klobuchar and i have talked about you understand ifing on these issues -- about funding on these issues for some time. as she pointed out, the -- we've put over $800 million, made it

available to the states. i'll also point out that a lot of that money is still not spent. but, i'm prepared not only to look at more money for the states to use as they see fit for elections this year, but also to even consider whatever kind of matching requirement we have to see if that matching requirement is reasonable. so we can continue to work toward an election that produces a result that people have confidence in and done in a way that everybody that wants to vote gets to vote. i continue to feel strongly -- and let me once again quote president obama, that the diversity of our system is really one of the strengths of the system. for months, democrats had legislation very similar to this to federalize the election system because we needed more ballot security.

now the new reason is we have a pandemic. but the goal appears to be always the same -- to federalize the election process. that would have meant that in nashville when they had a tornado hours before the polls were to open on super-tuesday, the local official wouldn't have had nearly the flexibility they had to immediately change polling locations, put out the notice they thought was appropriate, extend voting hours. nobody in washington, d.c., had to give permission for commonsense decisions that apparently everybody in tennessee thought were the best things to do. so with great appreciation for my friend's dedication to this issue, with certainly a willingness to be sure that money is not an obstacle in states being able to have successful elections this year in areas where we can help -- now, -- and we're going to look

at what we can do to help financially within the matrix of the elections that a state and local communities in that state have determined should be their election structure. in most cases it is an election structure that has served them well in the past, that people fully understand, but still the need to accommodate the health needs of people who normally were election workers or people who have a great record of being voters, are -- or people who are voting for the first time will be part of what we need to discuss. and we can do that without a federal takeover of the election system. and with that, mr. president, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i'd like to thank chairman blunt for his leadership on the rules committee and on the

inauguration. we have a good group and are working together well on that. i look forward to our hearing. we obviously don't agree about this legislation. but i truly appreciate the olive branch and his willingness to talk about funding. and i look forward to doing that with my many colleagues in the next few weeks. now i'd like to turn this over to one of our great leaders, my colleague from illinois, senator durbin. mr. durbin: thank you, senator klobuchar. no one should have to risk their life to cast their vote. that's why it's so important to have safe opportunities to allow americans to participate in our democracy and to fulfill their right in november. thankfully, in illinois my governor recently signed legislation expanding safe voting opportunities for all illinois voters. under the new law, about five million voters with active

registrations will automatically receive an application for vote-by-mail for the 2020 election. voting by mail, voting safely at home, is a necessary option in the midst of a global pandemic that's already killed more than 126,000 americans, a total of more than half a million around the world. despite the deceptive and sometimes deceitful narrative being pushed by some, voting by mail is a secure option. as the brilliant senator explained in a recent analysis, since the year 2000, more than 250 million votes have been cast through mail-out ballots in all 50 states according to the vote after had the after home institute despite this dramatic increase in mail voting over time, fraud rates remain

infinite tess malley small. however, some voters prefer to vote in person. that's why it's important that states offer that option. under the new law in our state, illinoisans can vote in person if they wish. they can vote early as well. to protect voters and poll workers, the law requires all election authorities to comply with guidance from the illinois department of health on early voting. election authorities in illinois also may establish cur shallside vote -- curbside voting options and election day will be designated a state holiday. why is it so hard for those who are legally entitled to vote in america? what does it say about a democracy when the key to that democracy, a vote by those legally entitled, is such a burden and hardship? these upgrades i've talked about

are expensive. that's why the federal government needs to help. the cares act took the first step. i want to thank senator klobuchar in including the provisions that provided $400 million to help states prepare for the 20 election cycle. illinois received about $14 million. but another $3.6 billion is needed in the next package to help all states increase the ability to vote by mail, expand early voting and online registration and increase the safety of voting in person. mr. president, the president of the united states votes by mail, what does that tell us? a questionable political procedure? i don't think so. the house-passed heroes act a few weeks ago included money, and i'm committed to working with my colleagues to include those critical funds are included in any covid-19 relief

package that we may consider. i'm also proud to sponsor senator klobuchar's emergency ballot act which would also provide necessary funding and safeguards to protect voters. i was disappointed to see my republican friends block this important legislation on the floor this afternoon. in the middle of this global health crisis, americans need to know what the federal government is doing. and they need to know that we're doing everything we can to enshould you are that voters will be able to -- ensure that voters will be able to have their voices heard at the ballot box in november. if you start with the premise that both political parties don't want anyone who is unentitled or cannot legally cast a vote to do so, you have to ask a basic question -- why does one major political party look for ways to delay, limit, and put hardships on voters and the other believes that an expanded electorate reflects america and should be encouraged? federal funding and guidance is clearly needed.

look at the chaos that we've seen in the last few weeks. is this america when in georgia voters waited more than six hours to cast a ballot due to long lines and voting machine failures? is this america in the state of wisconsin when thousands of voters didn't receive their requested absentee ballots leaving voters to decide whether casting a ballot and protecting their health? 71 people were exposed and infected by covid-19 after voting in person or working at the polls in is with which is during the primary -- in wisconsin during the primary election. in kentucky, we saw images of voters banging on the windows when the doors were locked after traffic had prevented a significant number from being able to get in line in time. these situations are appalling, unacceptable and downright embarrassing in a democracy. it is time for us to come together and protect the

fundamental right to vote, as well as the health and safety of all eligible americans who seek to exercise it. mr. president, i yield the floor. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? i thank my colleague from illinois. next we'll hear from senator warner, who is the ranking member of the intelligence committee and the leader in taking on election interference from russia and other foreign adversaries. thank you. mr. warner: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: mr. president, thank you. i want to thank, first of all, as i see he leaves the floor, the senator from illinois and his very strong statement. i am going to echo a lot of the same themes. thank you for your continued leadership. i know we're going to hear from senator coons shortly and senator blumenthal. but a lot of this effort goes to senator klobuchar with her leadership on the committee and these issues around election security. we go back to the first bipartisan effort immediately

after 2016. it's unfortunate that we're now heading into the election 126 days i believe left and this body has still not voted on a single stand-alone election bill, even though we have seen the russian interference in 2016, even though we know that russia and other countries are back, and i think history will judge those who've prevented those votes from happening, if we see the kind of intentional disruption this fall that we saw in 2016. but today i'm here to join senator klobuchar and i see senator blumenthal as well, to make sure everybody has the right to vote in november and are able to do it in a safe and secure way. as senator durbin said, from wisconsin to kentucky, we're seeing a dangerous trend where too many voters are having to choose between their safety and right to vote.

and my fear is if we head into november without a plan, without a strategy for protecting the right to vote and ensuring equal right to the bottom box, we could see levels of voting protection not seen since the jim crow era. we all know we've got enormous challenges with covid-19. and we've got to make sure that our polling places don't become vectors for spreading the virus. but the way we do that is not by restricting access to the ballot box, not in the united states of america. that is not how the world's greatest democracy should meet this challenge. mr. president, if we're going to preserve the integrity of our elections and the trust of the american people, it's essential that states and the federal government adapt -- adapt -- to the challenges of this pandemic and actually expand access to the ballot box. in short, we need to make it easier and safer for americans to exercise the right to vote. the good news is, we don't have

to reinvent the wheel. a number of states, red states, blue states, purple states, have adopted a range of convenient voting procedures that work quite well. some of these procedures include ample recallly voting opportunities, no excuse absentee ballots, all which reduce the risk but also make sure we continue to be able to increase access. in my home state of virginia, due to recent legislative changes, we have curbside voting for seniors and people with disabilities. and we have expanded no-excuse absentee ballots. unfortunately, despite all these effective and secure tools at our disposal, we've also seen states implement restrictions in the name of safety that have disenfranchised far too many americans. in wisconsin's april fry mayor, for example, milwaukee rue duced its pomming places from to just

five. we seen recent moves in georgia and kentucky. we know it disenfrance choices the poor, elderly, workers just getting off their shift and disproportionally black and latino voters who face the brunt of these restrictions. the truth is, this is not right, mr. president. i think we all know that. we have a moral obligation to make sure that our tools to counter covid-19 are not used to intimidate and suppress voters. just last week senator klobuchar and i sent letters raising the warning that bad actors could use protective equipment as a pretense to turn away voters or increase the difficulty of reaching the ballot box on election day. ideally, our election officials could come together around a national strategy of preparing every polling place and precinct for administering our elections during the pandemic.

a-unfortunately, there are those, including the president, who have tried to politicize this iran -- this issue. we've seen the president spreading utter misinformation about mail-in voting. the president seems to have forethen that he's voted by mail in not simply the last election but in the last three elections. what he fudly fails to understand is that the right to vote belongs to the voters, not to the politicians. it's our job to make sure americans can exercise their rights in a way that is safe and secure. mr. president, that's why congress must rise to the occasion and ensure americans can vote safely and securely. the time is now to start serious preparations on contingencies to protect our elections from both the pandemic and those who take advantage of it. i'm sponsor of the bill that senator klobuchar has tried to u.c. tonight and i'm

disappointed it was blocked if passing but i look forward to continuing to work with her and all of my other colleagues to make sure we get this job done. mr. president, i yield the floor. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator -- ms. klobuchar: two other colleagues are here in support of this bill. senator blumenthal from the state of connecticut who is a leader when it comes to civil rights and a member of the judiciary committee and senator coons who leads one -- one of the leaders of the subcommittee that helped to finance the last expenditure for elections during the pandemic and is working with us through his role in the appropriations committee to help the states to get the money that they need. thank you. mr. blumenthal: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you. i'm so honored and proud to join my colleague from minnesota who has been a champion on this issue in all kinds of constitutional weather. she has been a leader for all seasons on this issue, tireless

and steadfast in her advocacy. and my colleagues who are here today with us, strong allies and partners, and i am really proud and honored to join them today. the name of this act is the natural disaster emergency ballot act. and we are in a disaster for our democracy if we do not act, if we fail to take the initiative within days, literally, to protect the ballot. you know, sometimes i think about voters in other countries who literally brave death to vote. and in one or more countries their hands are marked so that they can be identified as having voted but also they could be

identified by opponents of those rights and potentially punished for voting. here in this country there are no such obstacles in the way of physical harm until now. and now we face the threat of an epidemic which can deter people from coming to the polls, but it has simply added to an ongoing threat from suppression that has existed for years and years and years in some parts of the country. we need to do everything now to protect voters. it's a shared responsibility. federal and state. in the federal government, we know that this right is in peril. look at what's happened in

wisconsin and in georgia, the lines, the closed ballot places, the other kinds of confusion and deterrence that has been created. in kentucky's recent primary, fewer than 200 polling places were open instead of the 3,700 usually there in a typical election year. that's unacceptable. but that state is hardly alone and we will see that pattern repeated unless we act soon. in the last decade, 25 states, literally 25 states have enacted new voting restrictions, including strict photo i.d. requirements, cutting back on the availability of early voting, and registration restriction. these constraints should be of paramount concern. the supreme court has gutted the voting rights act allowing

states with long histories of voting discrimination to make it harder for voters of color to cast ballots. and coronavirus has added an additional layer of voter suppression which will further result if mass disenfranchisement. a secure and resilient electoral process is critical to our national interests. it should be a matter of pride to all of us and we should all be ashamed and embarrassed that a free, fair, safe, secure, and accessible process may be made impossible either by health threats or suppression threats. state, should -- states should allow no excuse at mail-in absentee voting, expand voting periods, and improve the safety of in-person voting. and the money that is necessary to assure free, fair, accessible

balloting, that $3.6 billion ought to be a matter of bipartisan acceptance. connecticut is known as the constitution state, but connecticut has work to do and its state legislature will in fact do that work hopefully this month, in july by expanding mail-in balloting. those kinds of changes in state law may be necessary across the country. but here we can make it possible on our watch to assure that obstacles to fair and full voting are removed. we simply can't continue to be unprepared. the fight for voting rights remains more critical than ever before. it's a matter of integrity and credibility for our democracy as we look around the world, we should be leading by example,

not by suppression and obstacle. we need solutions now to protect american health. but the health of our democracy depends on this measure. and i am proud to join my colleagues. i urge that we have bipartisan support for it and that it be expanded. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor to my colleague from delaware who has been also a great advocate in this cause. mr. coons: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. coons: mr. president, i want to thank my colleagues from connecticut, virginia, and in particular my colleague from minnesota who's done such a great job not just today but as the ranking member of the rules committee in fighting for expanding the right to vote in the context of this pandemic. my colleague from minnesota has stood to ask for unanimous consent for the enactment of the

natural disaster and emergency ballot act which is a broad and bold framework to ensure access to the ballot -- every state in the united states in the midst of this ongoing pandemic. we are just four months from the election, 125 days to be exact. and as day after day the number of infections has risen, it's clear that this pandemic is far from over. 125,000 americans have died, 2.5 million have been infected. it is completely reasonable for millions of americans who are senior citizens, who have preexisting conditions, who have particular vulnerabilities to be concerned about the risks they might take if they go to a polling place to vote. today, today is primary day in colorado, in oklahoma, in utah, and we've seen in primary days just past in kentucky, in georgia, in wisconsin, example after example where the state

officials involved did not have the resources to hold elections where everyone could safely participate in a pandemic and hadn't worked out the plans. in georgia, a state long known for voter suppression efforts over decades past, voters waited in line for hours and hours. i was inspired by their passion, their persistence to exercise their right to vote and concerned, disheartened, even angered by the fact that no preparations were made sufficient to meet the moment. in wisconsin dozens, more than 50 voters and poll workers tested positive for covid-19 after exercising their right to vote. one of the most fundamental rights in our democracy. and across the country, we've heard from election officials who have struggled with the infrastructure that is i'll quipped to -- ill-equipped to handle this pandemic. as my colleagues have already said, we should come together to

advance this legislation, legislation i introduced with the senator from minnesota, the senator from oregon which is a series of commonsense solutions to this obvious challenge. it would expand early in-person voting. no excuse, absentee vote by mail. reimburse states for additional costs involved in administering election during a pamentd. it would ensure american voters aren't faced with that untenable choice, risk their health to vote in person, or stay home and not vote at all. today is june 30. it is also the last day of the delaware general assembly and like several other states, delaware has passed legislation to provide for no fault absentee voting in this pandemic. but they lack the resources to fully deliver on this solution. that's why in the appropriations subcommittee where i'm the most senior democrat, i have fought alongside my democratic colleagues to advocate for money in this next covid relief package. $3.6 billion which is what

experts across the country say states need for printing ballots, for postage, for new high-speed scanners, for secured drop boxes, for personal protective equipment, and so much more. i appreciate that the senator from missouri with who -- who came to the floor to object did say he would support additional funding and i look forward to working with my colleague from minnesota to help ensure that is actually secured. but we have to do more than just provide financial resources. we have to provide this bill. we have to provide the legal framework. we have to provide a clear and confident path forward to voting. let me close by reminding everyone in this chamber that voting by mail, voting absentee under exigent circumstances is nothing new. our troops back to the civil war voted by mail so that they could continue to participate in free and fair election, even as they were fighting for the very existence of this republic.

every election, hundreds of thousands of american troops, diplomats, and development professionals safely and securely cast their votes from around the world, election after election. there's no reason we can't do that now. so let me close by thanking my wonderful colleague from the state of minnesota who has been such a passionate and effective and engaged advocate on this issue. i call on my republican colleagues, let's step up. let's get this done. let's ensure that the american people can safely exercise their right to vote this november. thank you, mr. president. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: thank you to the senator from delaware for all the work he's done and his focus on what is going to be right in front of us. and that is additional help to states both with their needs, their medical needs, and other economic needs, but also their democracy needs coming out of this pandemic. when hawaii was hit, pearl

harbor, we did not expect hawaii to defend themselves. when this pandemic hits, it doesn't just hit one state. it hits our entire country. and that is why we argue for federal government involvement. with us last but not least is the other lead on this bill and that is senator ron wyden who has been a long time advocate based in the forward-thinking state from which he comes, the state of oregon on vote by mail. mr. wyden: thank you, senator klobuchar. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: thank you. thank you, senator klobuchar, senator coons, an absolute valuable member in this alliance to be sure we're going to be able to get the resources for this. my mother would say if she looked around, she said dear, you're running with the right crowd. it's a pleasure to be able to team up with both of you. and i want to put this in some

kind of context to begin because my colleagues have all done such a good job. i also got a chance to listen to the senator from virginia, senator warner. he and i serve on the intelligence committee. can't get into classified information but certainly we're very much aware of some of the challenges to protecting the integrity of the votes of our citizens from a national security standpoint. and i just want to start with a kind of basic commonsense proposition. when you do something like making sure in 2020 citizens don't have to have a notary to vote, what you're doing is just common sense. and that's what expanded in-person voting is all about. that's what you do when you support voters with disabilities. that's what you do when you make

it easier for communities where there's people of modest income, communities of color to vote. and it's been a pleasure to be able to work with senator klobuchar in particular who passionately committed to adding those kinds of priorities. and i would only say that when you add these kind of commonsense steps to enhance the ability of americans to vote safely, only donald trump and majority leader mcconnell could call it a liberal conspiracy because this is just basic common sense in government 101. and i'm particularly concerned because all of us know what is coming. in other words, we have been out here talking about these

priorities now for months. we saw it in wisconsin, we saw it in georgia. we now know what's coming. and if anything, we get additional news every day about what the challenge is. i don't know whether anybody has touched on it this afternoon, senator klobuchar, but just today, tony fauci, dr. fauci said he would not be surprised to soon see 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day. now, mr. president and colleagues, the president of the senate is a physician. he knows this well. he comes from a state which has faced a lot of challenges. who are the people that are most vulnerable? it's seniors. it's people who are over the age of 60. and what i would say to my colleagues is when i introduced the first bill to vote by

mail -- and this was a full 20 years ago, to give everybody in america the chance to vote the oregon way. they wouldn't have to vote the oregon way, but they would all have a chance to get that vote by mail, a ballot. we knew that this would be a big breakthrough in terms of our special system of government, military has always looked to innovative ways to make sure that our courageous men and women in uniform would have a chance to be counted in every election. we knew 20 years ago that vote by mail would be an important innovation because we had been doing it for years and years in oregon. and all the arguments, senator klobuchar, that have been thrown out recently, the arguments

about fraud, our late secretary of state, dennis richardson, who was very conservative, before he passed, he passed shortly after donald trump took office, he wrote the president, he wrote donald trump and he said this fraud issue is nonexistent in oregon. in every election, there are virtually no instances, but a lot of people who believe they got a chance to be counted, they got a chance to do it in a way that was convenient for them. there is a lot of challenges certainly today with the coronavirus and what we do with vote by mail, as my colleagues have been talking about, is we make it easier to empower voters to vote the way they would like to be able to vote -- safely and

at home. now, right now, voters are worried about infection. 66% recently said they were concerned about going to polling places, and for good reason. well, we just had our primary in oregon, senator klobuchar, and nobody had to worry about infection in the state of oregon. we voted safely in the middle of a pandemic. no long lines. no interactions with older people and multiple poll workers, really often putting several people at risk, dr. cassidy, with the coronavirus, not just one person. and, yeah, if you have the possibility of touching a machine used by hundreds of people, there is certainly reason to be worried. and since 60% of poll workers

nationwide are over the age of 60, many of them are staying home to avoid getting sick. now, my colleagues on the other side of the chamber i think know at least some of what i have said this afternoon. and i believe they know what is coming this fall, because we have already seen a kind of snapshot of it over the last couple of months in terms of the challenge of voting during the era of the coronavirus. and senator klobuchar in 2016, we saw what happened when a foreign power tried to interfere with our election. so the concerns of 2016 are now magnified in 2020.

i put forward the resilient elections act, and i like to think we have been trying to get the facts out to senators on both sides of the aisle for years now, and it was a pleasure to team up with senator klobuchar on the natural disaster and emergency ballot act, with senator coons as he was our point person in securing the funds that are a prerequisite to doing this job right. in other words, you have to have funds and you have to have the reforms. and we don't really think that this is a revolutionary proposition that what you ought to do is everything possible to make sure that americans --

every eligible american can vote safely in a pandemic. and nobody i know in this chamber is having -- is offering the proposition that the federal government should just run elections. what we are trying to do is give states and local governments clear guidance about the best way to keep elections running during the pandemic and the resources in order to use that guidance. as senator klobuchar and i have talked about, two sides to the same coin. not running the election, but giving good facts and clear guidance about how to prevent the pandemic and the dollars then to make it possible to carry it out. and if a million members of the military, five u.s. states and tens of millions of americans across the country can vote by

mail every election, then every voter ought to be able to vote by mail. if -- it is now online, but i hope my colleagues can look at the wonderful discussion "60 minutes" had about vote by mail in oregon just a couple of days ago with our secretary of state, deb clarna. she, too, is a republican, mr. president. so there are real bipartisan roots on this. i'm the first united states senator ever to be elected by mail. i'm a democrat. the second united states senator to be elected by mail are -- by mail, our former colleague, gordon smith, was a republican. so you see democrats, you see republicans. you watch "60 minutes," you hear from our secretary of state who is a long-time republican. you heard what i had to say about the late dennis richardson who i would venture to say is

just about as conservative -- or was just about as conservative as any member of the republican caucus here. so we're going to keep doing everything we can to get the facts out, make sure that people understand that these arguments, for example, about fraud. we have got to say, mr. president, so that people really see how strongly we feel about it. two years ago, a poll worker tampered with two ballots. we put that person in jail for 90 days. we fined him $13,000. and they were barred from ever working an election again. so that's the way to show you're serious about trying to get these issues of making sure that

you're sending a strong message about the integrity of every person's vote, addressing this safety question, avoiding the proliferation of insecure, overpriced electronic election equipment, something that the voting machine lobby has been peddling for years and years. those again are not partisan kind of positions. they are just plain common sense. now, i realize that donald trump, mitch mcconnell are going to keep doing everything they can to block vote by mail legislation, but i believe that when we really get into negotiating the nuts and bolts of the coronavirus package here in the senate, when we come back, i believe, particularly because senators are going to be

home, they're going to hear from voters, and voters are going to say don't put our health at risk. give us the ability to vote in a safe way. that's what we have tried to do. and i will just say to my colleagues there really is no plan b. the choice is either vote by mail or through the expanded options that we're offering in our bill or huge numbers of americans won't be able to vote at all. we are better than this, and it's time for our senators to look again, as i said. no plan b here, colleagues. the choice is to take advantage of our options for citizens to be able to vote safely, or huge

numbers of americans won't be able to vote at all. i think to close for our side, the lead sponsor, the senior democrat on the rules committee may have something else to say. but as a senator who has worked on this, as i say, for two full decades, i knew that we were going to face challenges along the way. and back when we started, it was kind of a debate among political scientists. now it is fundamentally a question of keeping our citizens safe as they exercise a franchise, and i think it is very fitting that senator klobuchar close for our side. ms. klobuchar: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: i want to thank senator wyden for his long-time leadership on this issue. i want to thank all my colleagues. i want to actually thank mr. blunt, who did object to our

bill, but is willing to work with us on the funding. and as i said, to sum up, we would rather put ballots in the envelope than voters in the hospital. it is that simple. mr. president, i appreciate the kindness of my colleague from the great state of nebraska. i'm going to briefly address one matter, and that is to express my support for the nomination of major general john jenson of minnesota to become the director of the army national guard. major general jenson has served in the army national guard for more than three decades. he currently serves as the adjutant general of the minnesota national guard. he oversees more than 13,000 soldiers, airmen and women in minnesota. his record of service and extensive experience in

minnesota and across the world makes him an excellent choice to lead the men and women of the army national guard across the country. we are grateful for major general jenson's leadership and service and proud to see a fellow minnesotan nominated to become the director of the army national guard, and i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting his confirmation. major general jenson has led the minnesota national guard in unprecedented times, including in the state's response to the coronavirus pandemic. in recent months, our guard members, as they have in so many states, have provided planning and logistic support and transportation assistance while also helping to conduct coronavirus tests. under major general jenson's leadership, the minnesota national guard has been critical in our response to natural disasters, including flooding in our state which caused significant challenges for so many farmers in minnesota during last year's harvest.

and in addition to his work in our state, the major general has been a national leader in working with the national guard in other states to expand partnerships with the federal government. he began his military career in 1982 as an enlisted combat medic and in august 1989 was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the united states army. he continued his training in georgia and his career eventually took him to assignments in georgia, kansas, and iowa. but then major assignments in italy, bosnia, iraq, and in kuwait. his outstanding service is demonstrated by the list of decorations and awards that he earned over his career, including the legion of merit, bronze star and army come medication metal he has held numerous leadership positions

within the guard including as commander of the 34th infantry division, director of joint staff and assistant adjutant general of the guard. now i have the honor of seeing him confirmed to lead the brave citizens of the army national guard nationwide. i have no doubt that our army will benefit from his decades of experience and commitment to guardsmen and families, including supporting families through multiple deployment as well as in my state. i think that we know that dual role of the national guard, it has been tested so much in decades, their work fighting on the front line and their work here hat home through many natural disasters as well as the current pandemic. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from -- a senator: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to speak in support of the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2021. mrs. fischer: i want to start off by thanking the chairman and ranking member of the senate armed services committee. i am grateful for their hard work, their leadership in craftling this bill and -- crafting this bill and conducting a productive markup. we came together during these difficult times and we passed a strong bipartisan bill, one that supports our service members and provides for the defense of this nation. i said it many times before, our war fighters are our greatest asset. the brave men and women who

serve deserve our utmost respect, support, and gratitude. this year's bill authorizes a 3% pay raise for all members of the uniformed service. it reauthorizes over 30 types of bonuses and special pays and increases incentive pay for health care professionals of the bill also prioritizes support for military families through child care and spouse employment opportunities. we need to ensure our war fighters can stay focused on executing their mission and maintaining readiness. this is only possible fl they know their -- if they know their families, especially their spouses and children are taken care of. as countries like russia and china rapidly modernize, we face a growing need for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance

capabilities despite having a limited fleet of resources. over and over again i have heard from combatant commanders who reiterate the need for i.s.r. they also note the significant shortfall in supply versus the demand that the department of defense has called, quote, insatiable, unquote. this is something i know well as i have the honor to represent the air force's 55th win, the number one provider of large fixed wing i.s.r. in the nation. to continue to enhancing the capabilities of the 55th wing, this bill would authorize nearly $200 million in funding for the continued modernization and upgrading of the rc-135 aircraft. this will ensure that the platform remains a capable part

of the air force's i.r.s. system for decades to come. the rc-135 is a core component of the air force's i.r.s.'s system and will be for the foreseeable future. but as we enter newly contested environments, we need to think creatively about integrating platforms like the rc-135 into new i.r.s. networks. i i included new legislation that would include -- based on combatant commander demand with details about the planned integration of the i.r.c. program with networks like the a.b.m.s. this provision would task the department of defense with exploring the conversation of retiring kc-135 aircraft into

the highly sought after rc-135 to grow the i.s.r. capability. we also face a broader issue with the size and the age of our nation's air force, which is why i included language encouraging growth to meet the air force we need target of 386 operational squadrons. offad air force base in nebraska houses the air force fleet of b-4 aircraft which serves as the national airborne operation center and plays a key role in our nuclear command, control, and communications architecture. the naoc provides a highly survival platform from which to direct u.s. forces, execute emergency war orders and coordinate action by civil

authorities. the e-4-b fleet which entered service in 1974 is aging rapidly and sustainment efforts have grown increasingly difficult and costly. the path forward for recapitalizing this vital capability remains unclear, and so i included language in this bill that would encourage the swift recapitalization of this important capability. nebraska is also the proud home of the world class university of nebraska medical center, which is among the nation's leading specialized medical care and biocontainment units. this made unmc to be the logical choice to be the first location to receive covid-19 patients for quarantining and testing, the first clinical trial to combat

coronavirus was conducted there as well. covid-19 has placed an exceptional strain on the nation's health care infrastructure and we need to address our limited capacity to respond to major events. for that reason i championed language in the ndaa that would authorize $5 million to implement a pilot program on civilian and military partnerships to enhance the interoperability and medical search capacity of the national disaster medical system. this program would improve future federal responses to pandemics and to other threats while giving institutions with an established expertise in these areas, like unmc, an opportunity to participate. additionally, the senate ndaa bill makes targeted investments

to begin addressing the disruptions caused by the covid-19 pandemic, including $46 million for coronavirus vaccine research and production and the bill encourages faster adoption of telehealth services. we are all aware of the increasing effort by china and russia to expend their influence, which is under -- has underscored the need to work with our partners and allies around the world. engagement, development, training, and education with partner military forces is crucial to successfully strengthen alliances and attract new partners. and it is important that we cement new ties in places where we have a lighter presence. the state department program, the department of defense program that encourages

cooperation between national guard units and partner military is an excellent example of this. to encourage its continued development, i included language in this year's ndaa whiling their m.p.p. their success with cultivating relationships with partnerships. they have a shared partnership with the czech republic and a newly penned partnership with rwanda. this allows national guard units to conduct exercises and education with developing nations cultivating partnerships that are vital to our success around the world. mr. president, i also serve as chair of the strategic forces subcommittee, which oversees the department's nuclear forces and the u.s. strategic command or

stratcom which is located in my state of nebraska. it also has jurisdiction over national security space and missile defense programs as well as the department of energy's defense activities. across the subcommittee's jurisdiction, we reduced funding for underperforming programs in order to better support the priorities of our war fighters. for example, my subcommittee authorized an additional $76.8 million to begin development of a land-based missile defense capability for guam. not only sl this a top priority -- not only is this a top priority for pay com, but it is the single largest new activity undertaken as part of the pacific initiative. the subcommittee also authorized

an increase of $120 million in order to accelerate the development of this space-based hypersonic and ballistic tracking space center at the missile defense agency. despite repeated testimony from d.o.d. witnesses about the significance of this program, year after year, budget requests fail to fully fund it. while i'm proud of the subcommittee's work to keep this program moving forward, i hope that next year the department will take the initiative and fully fund this essential program. to meet additional missile defense priorities, this bill also provides $128 million to increase procurement of sm-32a

missiles and an additional $162 million to continue the development of the homeland defense radar, a key unfunded priority of the indo paycom commander. the bill also authorizes an increase of $319.6 million to procure -- as threats continue to increase, the need for thaad's unique defense capabilities continues to grow. most importantly, this year's bill authorizes full funding for the continued modernization of our nuclear deterrent. this includes critical programs such as the ground-based strategic deterrent which will replace our aging ballistic missle force and the next generation nuclear cruise missile, the long-range standoff

weapon. it also invests heavily in the modernization of the national nuclear security administration's nuclear complex, a third of which dates to the manhattan project and the early cold war era. i'd like to take a moment to remind my colleagues of why maintaining our modernization schedule is so very important. why still effective, our nuclear deterrent is aging. every leg of our nuclear triad has extended far beyond its originally planned service life and we reached a point where further life extensions, they are simply not possible. these systems must be replaced. to this end, the previous administration began development of a number of programs to

recapitalize our nuclear deterrent, including a new icbm, a new submarine and a new bomber. but these replacements are expected to be delivered just as the current systems are aging out. and as many stratcom commanders have testified, there is no margin of error in this schedule. take, for example, the ohio class submarines. through life extensions, the submarines will be in service for 42 years, longer than any other submarine in our navy's history. as the current stratcom commander, admiral charles richard, who is a submariner by trade, eloquently explained during his confirmation hearing, it is simply not possible to keep them in service any longer.

however, as a result of previous decisions to delay the development of the ohio's replacement, these submarines will be retiring before the next generation, the columbia class, is ready for service. let me say that again. the submarines that form one-third of our nuclear triad will begin retiring before their replacements are ready. stratcom believes they can mitigate the risks associated with that schedule, but this reflects the high level of risk that has already been accepted in our planning. it also explains exactly why officials in both the trump and the obama administrations have repeatedly emphasizeed that

there is no margin for additional delay. as admiral richard testified earlier this year, quote, i cannot overemphasize the need to modernize our nuclear forces and recapitalize the supporting infrastructure to ensure we can maintain this deterrent in the future, end quote. this is why fully funding these programs and maintaining our current modernization schedule is so important. we must continue preparing to meet and defeat the adversaries of tomorrow. in closing, i want to again stress that the senate ndaa bill gives our men and women in uniform the resources they need, and more than this, it provides

for their and their families' futures through much-needed pay raises, employment opportunities, and other programs. this bill is good for the nuclear and strategic forces that protect our country. this bill is good for our nation. this bill is the product of bipartisan consensus. nearly all of my republican and democratic colleagues on the armed services committee voted for it. let's provide for the defense of our nation and the men and women of our armed forces by voting for the bill. i ask my colleagues to join me in supporting its swift passage. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

mr. lee: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: madam president, i come to the floor today wanting to discuss a case called june medical services versus russo. this was a decision announced by the supreme court of the united states yesterday. this is a decision that hasn't gotten as much attention as many cases that come before the supreme court. it is, nonetheless, a significant decision. it is a decision that i believe

is deeply flawed and betrays many of the legal and constitutional principles that the supreme court of the united states purports to apply and is supposed to be bound by as it decides cases and controversies properly brought before its jurisdiction. the june medical services case involved the constitutionality enacted by the louisiana legislature. the legislation in question required any doctor performing abortions within louisiana to hold active admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the location of the abortion clinic in question. the act then defined what it meant to have acting admitting privileges, and it did so in terms of -- a reference to the

ability to admit a patient and to provide diagnostic and surgical services to such patient. it's understandable why the state of louisiana or any state might want to consider adopting such legislation. i want to be very clear at the outset, this case did not involve any legislation prohibiting abortion. in fact, there's nothing about act 620 that made abortions illegal in louisiana. nor is there anything about act 620 that would have made it practically implausible or really difficult for people to obtain an abortion. that's not what it did. it simply said, acknowledging the fact that an abortion is a type of surgical medical procedure, and taking into account the fact that it is a medical procedure sometimes fraught with medical peril and it can sometimes result in people getting hurt and people

having to go to the hospital. it might be helpful in those circumstances to have the person who performed the procedure have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic. the constitutionality of the law was challenged in a lawsuit brought by five abortion clinics and four abortion providers in louisiana. now, they challenged the law in federal district court, and they did so before the act even took effect, arguing that it was unconstitutional because it imposed an undue burden on their patient's right to obtain abortions. and the abortion clinics and the medical providers at issue, the doctors and the clinics who challenged it were quite significantly not arguing that these were their own constitutional rights that were being impaired.

they were instead arguing that they had standing, they had the ability to stand in the shoes of those who are among their patients, those whom they serve. so i'd like to talk about three critical features of this decision and why i think the decision was wrong in all three respects. first, let's talk about this standing issue that i alluded to just a moment ago. the concept of standing is rooted in article 3 of the constitution. article 3 is the part of the constitution that establishes the judicial branch, sets up the supreme court and such inferior courts as congress might choose to create. significantly, neither article 3 nor any other provision of the constitution gives the courts the authority to make law, to

decide policy, or even, for that matter, to announce what the law is or says or should say at any moment unless, of course, there is a case or controversy before the court. what that means is a court cannot issue an advisory opinion. in our federal court system, the courts have the power to decide actual conflicts, disputes, cases or controversies between one or more parties who happen to disagree as to the meaning of a particular provision of federal statutory or constitutional law. without that type of case or controversy, the court lacks jurisdiction. so even though this isn't a concept that nonlawyers employ in day-to-day conversation, it is something that lawyers in america and judges, particularly

federal judges and lawyers who practice before federal courts, are familiar with. the concept of standing acknowledges that with very few exceptions not relevant in this context, a party may not sue on behalf of or in order to address an injury sustained by a third party. in order to have standing in federal court, you have to have an injury, in fact, that's concrete and particularized, that is sustained by the plaintiff fairly traceable to the conduct of the defendant, and that the conduct at issue is capable of being remedied by a judicial order within the court's jurisdiction. without those elements being present, you can't have standing. without standing, you can't have

a case or controversy, and the court has no jurisdiction. it's well established, madam president, that within the federal court system, this standing inquiry is what we call a part of the court's doctrine, meaning it's a threshold inquiry that determines a jurisdiction. as a result, it can be raised at any moment by any party. it can and -- it can be and sometimes will be addressed by the court acting sua sponte, meaning regardless of whether any of the parties raise it. it cannot be waived. and as a result, at any stage of the litigation, whether the trial court, the appellate court or at the supreme court of the united states, it can be raised by any party or any member of the judiciary sitting in that case. it's significant that in this 5- 4 ruling in an oddly figured

plurality opinional four justices -- justices ginsburg, breyer, kagan and sotomayor, united in a single morality opinion, united by chief justice roberts in a concurring opinion, they cobbled together the conclusion that it was just fine for the court to act in these circumstances. notwithstanding the fact that the doctors and the abortion clinics in this case were not even arguing that their own constitutional rights were being impaired. this is significant. this is stunning, in fact. they are asserting the constitutional rights and the alleged injuries of third parties. now, in other circumstances, one might imagine a scenario in which you might have someone coming before the court claiming to be the executor of somebody's estate or perhaps the legal

guardian of a juvenile or a person who has been deemed incapacitated. in those circumstances, that person has standing, but the standing belongs to the person suffering the injury. it's just allowed to be asserted by the third person standing in that person's place. that's not what we had here. neither in the complaint nor in any of the moving papers did any of the plaintiffs -- that is, the clinics and the abortion providers in question -- argue that their own constitutional rights were being impaired. they instead asserted impairment of the rights of third parties not before the court of would-be patients who they might have. the lack of standing in this case is apparent, and the lack of standing was glossed over by this cobbled-together combination of the four-member plurality and chief justice roberts.

the plurality glossed over it, and in part suggested that the standing issue might not have mattered because perhaps it wasn't an argument that was properly raised before the district court. but, madam president, any first-year law student in any american law school, let alone a federal judge or a supreme court justice, knows that standing isn't waivable. it's a threshold jurisdictional question. and as such, it cannot be waived. it is never waived. it is always a live, relevant, legitimate question, one that can be raised sua sponte by the court itself. justice alito in his dissent acknowledged this point and explained it well with the following words -- neither waiver nor stare decisis can justify this holding which clashes with our general rule on

third-party standing. and the idea that a regulated party can invoke the right of a third party for the purpose of attacking legislation enacted to protect the third party is stunning. given the apparent conflict of interest, that concept would be rejected out of hand in a case not involving abortion, close quote. the conflict of interest to which justice alito is referring, refers to the fact that you've got here on the one hand a state regulating a particular actor, here abortion providers, clinics and physicians who perform abortions. that entity, like any other entity that is otherwise going to be regulated, has an interest in being not regulated. it makes it easier, perhaps cheaper, perhaps more lucrative, for that entity, for those providers to be in that business if they are less regulated.

it makes it easier for them to do what they do and perhaps more profitable if they don't have to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the location of the abortion clinic. that is very different than the potential interest of their patients. their patients have exactly opposite interest. their patients have the interest in making sure that the abortion provider provides for a safe, healthy environment in which adequate care can be provided to the patient such that, as complications arise, the doctor can take the patient to a hospital and with those admitting privileges can go about setting an order the course of treatment needs to be pursued. and so justice alito went on to

explain, quote, under our precedent the critical -- pardon me. justice alito's point was simply that in this circumstance you've got a completely different set of interests, some that are being advanced by abortion providers and some that the state holds and some that the patient holds. they are separate, they are distinct and here really they are at odds with each other. justice alito went ton to -- went on to explain, this is a conflict of interest between an abortion provider and its special interest. abortion provider -- such as act

20. women seeking abortions on the other hand have an interest in the preservation of regulations that protect their health. the conflict of interest in such a situation is glaring. close quote. so in this circumstance, the plaintiffs did not have standing. they didn't even assert the rights. they didn't even a -- assert the prerogative of asserting the rights themselves. they didn't claim that they themselves had injuries that were constitutionally cog niezable in court. they instead said they were asserting them on behalf of an injury that would be suffered and had not arisen on the part of their patients, and that's a problem. so the supreme court, as far as i can tell, based on the time that i've spent reviewing the

decision, the supreme court abandoned its ordinary standards and applied a different standard here so as to make it easier for this group of plaintiffs to raise a constitutional challenge. madam president, i see the majority leader has entered the senate and with -- i ask unanimous consent for permission to be able to continue my remarks after the majority leader has conducted his business as if without interruption. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i thank my friend from utah. i'll be brief. i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 718. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the

nomination. the clerk: nomination, executive office of the president, russell vought, of virginia, to be director of the office of management and budget. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, do hereby bring to a close debate on the nomination of russell vought, of virginia, to be director of the office of management and budget -- and budget signed by 17 senators. mr. mcconnell: i ask that the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. those opposed, nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. the senator from utah.

mr. lee: and so that was the first error that i think deserves to be mentioned in this context, the error apparent in effect that the supreme court ignored the fact that the plaintiffs before the court lacked standing. they just glossed over this issue. why? well, because it's involves abortion and i guess abortion is different. the explanation provided by the plurality and by the chief justice, understanding that in order to form a majority, you have to cobble a majority opinion with a plurality opinion. their analysis on the standing issue in this case simply doesn't wash. it doesn't add up. in fact, i believe it defies what every first-year law student is taught in american law schools.

it doesn't work. secondly, this draws attention to another problem with the court's jurisprudence in this area. when abortion is treated differently than other things, it leads to a fair amount of tail chasing by the court because the court has stepped in, starting with roe v. wade and continuing with -- with casey and the other cases since then on this topic. the court has stepped in essentially as a super legislative body, and it's attempted to set out a rule saying that you can't undermine what the court has declared to be a ride to access abortion. let's set aside for a moment that question of what we'd be looking at if we were dealing

with a law prohibiting abortion. this isn't that. again, this was a law, act 620, adopted by the louisiana state legislature that simply required that doctors an clinton clinics -- clinics performing abortions be admitted hospital privileges within 30 myself it's not an abortion ban, it's just that public and safety health regulations, of the sort you would see with respect to surgical centers or other out patient treatment clinics throughout that state. and so nonetheless, you've got the -- you've got roe v. wade and its progeny in which the supreme court has stepped in basically as a super legislative body saying you can't impose too heavy of a burden on a woman's access to or ability to obtain

an abortion. the problem with that is, there's nothing in the constitution that says that. there's nothing in the constitution that makes this a federal issue. there's nothing in the constitution that takes what is essentially a constitution issue the legality of a medical procedure and makes it it not only -- a question of not only federal constitutional law but of federal constitutional law that can be written and addressed and allowed to evolved within the her medically -- her metrically sealed chamber of the united states senate. it is also what produces a whole lot of the political i vitrial surrounding the judiciary. they exercised well instead of judgment. what do i mean by that? in federalist number 78,

alexander hamilton referred to the difference between what law may do and what judges do. in the legislative branch, they exercise what hamilton referred to as will, meaning they decided what the law should be. they adopt policy. they say we think the law should say x, and they have the ability to do that. under our system of government, article 1 gives the lawmaking power, the power to engage in exercises of will to the legislative branch. judgment, by contrast, is what's we woulded by the -- wielded by the judicial branch. judgment asks not what should be but what is and most notably what has been. it looks, as it were, in the rear-view mirror looking at what the law said as of a particular moment in time. so it's the job of the jurist

not to say what the law should be but instead to say what the law is and only when the question of what the law is comes properly before the court's jurisdiction in cases or controversies between local litigants properly before the court's jurisdiction. and so hamilton explained in federalist 78 that there is a difference between will be judgment. and that you don't ever want the judicial branch exercising will. why? because, among other things, it's not their job. judges are appointed in our federal system for life so long as they are on good behavior. they are not subject to elections ever. you don't elected to get on the court. you don't get elected to stay on the court. you're on there for life. why? well because your job's a relatively limited one.

it looks only in the rear-view mirror. your job is not to set policy but to interpret in very narrow circumstances. and this circumstance in roe v. wade and its progeny, the supreme court stepped in and exercised will. as a result, they've taken decisions away from lawmakers, state and federal lawmakers alike, for decades. this has had the predictable result of making a lot of people unhappy at every point along the political continuum, every single point. why? well, because they exercised will instead of judgment. they exercised legislative jurisdiction rather than judicial discretion. justice thomas in his dissenting opinion, the june medical services versus russo, said, referring to roe v. wade and its

progeny, quote, those decisions created the right to abortion out of whole cloth without a shred of support from the constitution's text. our abortion precedence are grievously wrong and should be overruled. close quote. justice thomas wrote in a separate passage explaining, quote, roe is wrong for many reasons, but the most fundamental is that its core holding that the constitution protects a woman's right to abort her unborn child finds no support in the text of the 14th amendment, close quote. and so, madam president, we see that the court was wrong in pretending that the plaintiffs in that case, not patients, not women who wanted to seek abortions but couldn't, but doctors and clinics who have an interest potentially adverse to

their own patients who didn't want to be regulated were allowed to assert standing as if it with were -- it were their constitutionally r injury at take which it was not and the court continued to apply the statutory, effectively legislative framework of roe which in itself finds no support, not in the constitution, not in federal statute, in the 400 years of anglo american judicial precedent, not in common law. they just made it up and they said it's important we therefore deem it to be part of the constitution. these are the first two errors. there is a third error i want to call out from the supreme court's unfortunate and very wrong ruling in june medical services versus russo. the third category of error that's built into this decision

relates to the standard by which a court deems something unconstitutional. so s separate and apart from the standing issue, separate and apart that roe was a doctrine, the court didn't approach this constitutional question the way it is supposed to address all other constitutional questions. under a well-worn line of cases, including a case called the united states v. sol layer know, the supreme court with only very rare exceptions, not relevant, not present here, does not declare a statute facially unconstitutional unless that statute is alleged and proven to have been unconstitutional in all of its potential applications. let's break that down into more common language. you can't just walk with into court and say that a particular

law is categorically unconstitutional. you have to wait until that law is unconstitutionally applied to you. that's called an as-applied challenge. as-applied challenges are the norm. they are the rule. they are the default. and in almost all cases, that's how you get something deemed unconstitutional is through an as-applied challenge. that is, the court doesn't just strike it down in its entirety. but in striking down the law in its entirety that the court did hear, that the court was asked to do, that the court did in fact rather, under circumstances under which the law had not been implement t had not even enforced, not once. it didn't wait to see if it could be, would be, or might be. they just walked in and said the whole thing is unconstitutional. get rid of it y is that a problem? well, it does matter. it matters because our system of

rules and laws, it's based on the constitutional text. and, yes,precedent factors into it. but precedent can't be the inexorable command. in any event, precedent here went the other way with respect to the standard by which you deem something unconstitutional in odds of its applications. as justice gorsuch explained in his separate dissent, the standard for facial challenges has been flipped on its head. rather than requiring that a law be unconstitutional in all of its applications, today's decision requires that louisiana's law be constitutional in all of its applications in order to stand. close quote. in other words, as justice gorsuch explained, they applied

a completely different set of rules here. why? well, simply because this involves abortion, and abortion is different. somehow abortion, notwithstanding the fact that it makes no appearance in the constitution, somehow abortion is treated differently. and now abortion is treated differently in this separate line of cases, even in this separate line of precedents, dealing with facial challenges versus as-applied challenges. if the court is going to stick with stare decisis in that frank awful decision yesterday for which the court should be ashamed, stare decisis is the principle that basically says, we as h. as a court, once we've decided something one way are going to continue to follow that precedent most of the time unless we really, really don't want to. that's in essence what stare decisis means. they invoked stare decisis over and over and over again in that case and said that that's just

how it had to be because, well, stare decisis requires that. well, they didn't follow stare decisis. they didn't follow their own precedent when it comes to their standing doctrine. they didn't follow other that enprecedent, they didn't adhere when this comes to united states v. solarno. they utterly ignored the fact that this is a case in which the statute invalidated by the supreme court of the united states yesterday is capable being applied in a fully constitutional manner. finally, mr. president, they made a assertions about the factual record in the case and about a the effect of louisiana's act 620 that are simply wrong. they ink validated this law by saying -- they invalidated this law by saying, look, the louisiana legislature claims that this act 620 was put in place in order to protect women's health.

we don't really think that's the case. well, we don't think that they've met that standard here. first of all, in doing that, they ignored precedent applicable in literally every other scenario in which they defer substantially to the determinations of a legislative body in deciding whether the law they are pacing will in fact have -- passing will have the effect that they want, particularly in public safety. they ignored the fact that they had abundant testimony before the louisiana legislature supporting the basis for what they were doing. and justice gorsuch -- in justice gorsuch's dissension he referred to multiple pieces of legislation before the legal immigrant tour. he pointed out that one woman testified that while she was in hasn't abortion clinic after having a procedure and she was hemorrhagings, her provider told

her, you are a on your own. get out. eventually the woman went to the hospital where an emergency room physician removed fetal body parts, that the abortion provider had recklessly left in her body. another patient who complained of severe pain following her abortion was told simply to go home and lie down. in another case, a clinic physician allowed a patient to bleed for three hours, even though a clinic employee testified that the physician would not let her call 911 because of a possible media involvement. in the end, that employee at that clinic called 911 anyway and emergency room personnel, upon the arrival of that patient, discovered that the patient had a perforated uterus and, as a result, needed an hysterectomy.

a pimp physician speaking to the louisiana state legislature in connection with act 620 explained that she routinely treats abortion complications in the emergency room when the physician who performed the abortion lacks admitting privileges. in the experience of that physician, quote, the situation puts a woman's health at an unnecessary, unacceptable risk that results from a delay of care and a lack of continuity of care. it was on this basis that the louisiana state legislature concluded that a meeting -- having admitting privileges would help to contain these risks and help protect women because a physician -- the same physician who performed that procedure, if he or she has admitting privileges in a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic in question, would be the physician in the very best position to treat that patient.

so, yeah, look ... could reasonable minds reach different conclusions as to the exact set of regulations applicable to an abortion clinic or any other type of health care clinic? you bet. there are a lot of ways to get at the same issue. there are a lot of ways that you can protect human health and safety. it is not the job of the supreme court of the united states to decide exactly how those laws are written in louisiana, and make make no mistake, that is what the supreme court did here. they might as well have removed their robes and pretended simply to be lawmakers. what they're doing is that the blatant, and it's very wrong. there is, moreover, a connection between this logical disconnect that i referred to and the fact that the standing analysis that i alluded to earlier shows something else the supreme court did wrong. this shows that the very same concerns that the louisiana

legislature had on behalf of the patients, the would-be victims of medical malpractice at many of these abortion clinics, are concerns that were not present before the court. they were not represented among the plaintiffs in that case. and that is yet another reason why the supreme court of the united states acted lawlessly, in a shameful manner in the june medical services case. thank you, mr. president. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i have 10 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have been approved by both the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: schedule lay noted. mr. cornyn: mr. president, this weekend the american people will celebrate 244 years since our nation's independence. over these last two and a half centuries our country has faced and defeated many enemies that have sought to undermine the very foundation of our way of life.

they've sought to take away our freedom, undermine our values, and destroy our way of life. they also in the process sought to instill fear, hate, and perpetrated violence. but each time our country has prevailed. it is really a miracle. if you look back on our nation's history that we made it through a civil war, two world wars, and we find ourselves still the beacon of liberty that attracts so many people from around the world. -- who want to live here and become an american and pursue their dreams here. but all of that starts with our security. as we celebrate our independence and generations of men and women who fought to protect it, we are now engaged in fulfilling our most important responsibility,

and that is to provide for the common defense, and we do that by advancing the national defense authorization act. this bill is an annual exercise, and it's part of the congress' commitment to give our men and women in uniform the support they need to defeat those threats and to prepare for ones that will inevitably come tomorrow. and we've done this for the last 59 years. believe it or not, we've been consist tent and done this for the past 59 years. i can't think of any other area where congress has been so consistent. and in doing so we've managed to overcome our differences and pass this legislation, as we should. this is how we determine how our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are paid, how our alliances are to be strengthened, and how our military facilities are to be

modernized and maintain add. and as the threat continues to evolve, it's how we ensure that we are the best there is. in 2018 the national defense strategy was crafted to recognize the reality of the global threats we were facing then and we still face today and outline a comprehensive strategy to maintain what ronald reagan kind as peace through strength. -- coined as peace through strength. the past two defense bills have supported the implementation of that national defense strategy and this legislation will continue to build on the progress we've made. and given the state of our world, preserving our military readiness hassers in been more important. both china and russia have become much more aggressive in their attempts to disrupt the global order. north korea continues to provide voke the united states and our allies with its nuclear

aspirations. iran's hostile and unpredictable actions to into threaten -- continue to threaten democracies around the world. our adversaries are investing in their capabilities in an effort to surpass ours, and in some areas, sadly, they are succeeding. simply put, america no longer enjoys the competitive edge we once had on all competitors and adversaries. but ecan't athrough to be maintained. we need to change it. that's where the ndaa comes in. this legislation makes tremendous strides in maintaining that technological advantage, in modernizing our weapons, building resilience and regaining a credible military deterrent. that's really what keeps us safe. our deterrent. because we need any foe to realize that if they engage the

united states in military conflict, they will be defeated. the moment they believe that they could take us on and gain some advantage, they will do it. that's the nature of the world we live in. so the deterrent value of what we are doing here this week could not be more important. all told, the defense authorization bill will support $740 billion for our national defense. that's the single biggest ticket item in our federal spending. and it will mark a significant step forward in our efforts to modernize and strengthen our military. but this bill is about more than maintaining our powerful national defense. it's empowering the men and women behind it. america's 2.1 million service members have made a commitment that most of us have not made. that's to volunteer to serve in

the defense of our nation. and in so doing, joining the ranks of america's heroes who have defended our country throughout history. they make sacrifices each and every day, not because it's good for them but because it's good for all of us. and we owe it to them to support them in any way we possibly can, both on duty and off. this legislation provides for a modest 3% pay raise and additional support for our families. since we have an all-volunteer military, it's frequently said it's the individual service member who volunteers, but it's the family that determines whether we will retain them in military service. and so this bill provides for military spouse employment opportunities and child care.