mr. kaine: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. kaine: can i ask that it be suspended? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaine: mr. president, i have nine requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise today to offer a tribute to one of my best friends and my political hero, my father-in-law, linwood holton, who died last thursday at age 98. i wanted to come and talk with linwood and his influence on my life, and there is no more appropriate time to talk about him as we're about to cast a vote to proceed to the john lewis voting rights act. abner linwood h holton jr. was born in 1923 in big stone gap, virginia, a few miles from the virginia-kentucky border. he was the son of a dad who helped run a small railroad, the interstate railroad that would bring coal out of the cold fields to connect with the

durbin, mr. kaine from virginia, mr. schatz from hawaii, mr. coons from delaware, mr. booker from new jersey, ms. cortez from nevada, mr. brown from ohio. mr. padilla from california, mr, mr. ms. rosen from nevada, mr. warnock from georgia, mr. lujan from new mexico, our former chair of the campaign committee. my point is that this along with many republicans, but it was unanimous consent, so everybody was for it. the vote we take on this resolution is a simple one. the text of the resolution is clear. it states that this house, all of us stands in solidarity with cubans seeking to express themselves and redress of their leaders and afilms that the cuban people should enjoy the same access to information and access to internet as other free people around the world and urges the biden administration to promote basic needs in cuba. these are goals we can support overwhelmingly. i know that some members believe that the text of this resolution does not include items on policy that they would like to have. i certainly think that is the legitimate concern and there is no re

mr. chairman. >> senator kaine. >> thank you, mr. chairman. congratulations to both of the nominees.r. kaplan, your background of work in asia makes you uniquely suited for this position. and mr. mayor, it's good to see you here. japan/u.s. relationship requires that an ambassador go to japan and the japanese understand this is somebody who is very close to the president. they really want to see an ambassador who has a direct line to the president, and you do. and i believe that's the reason you have been chosen. i appreciate you sharing at length about mr. mcdonald, because what a tragedy. i was a mayor, and every day in the cities, beautiful things happen and tragic things happen. and that's the case in any city, and you can't be a mayor, especially of a city like chicago, without picking up some scar tissue on the way. but your description of what you learned along the way, the levels of distrust that some in communities feel toward people in power, toward politicians, toward police, i had to learn and then relearn those lessons often in my time as the mayor of a majority african-

mr. kaine: thank you, mr. president. i am glad to follow my colleague from the dakotas because i would certainly never attempt to interpret the electorate of another state. i can tell you about the virginia elections that happened a couple weeks back, the message, i think, from our voters pretty loud and clear was we want you to get stuff done. if we in the senate and in the house had passed the infrastructure bill and passed the build back better bill before the virginia elections, i think the outcome would have been different. and what we were hearing again and again from voters is we gave you a majority. please act on it, especially at this time when americans are so challenged by now nearly 20 months of pandemic and economic devastation. and so i stand on the floor as a proud virginian very focused on celebrating the accomplishment of yesterday. president biden's signature of the infrastructure bill. but also saying we have to pass the build back better bill in order to respond to what our constituents are asking of