mr. van hollen: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. president. i want to thank the minority leader, the democratic leader, mr. schumer, for his remarks. you know, there are not many of us around here in the senate today. it's pretty quiet. you can walk through the halls. virtually nobody around. that's what it was like last thursday afternoon. that's what it was like here in the senate on friday. and again on saturday and again on sunday. and here we are again on monday, and this senate is virtually a ghost town. a few people here, but for the most part, everybody was sent home by the majority leader. by senator mcconnell. he told senators, go home until further notice. go home. we're going to put the senate on standby. no need to be here doing the people's business. well, mr. president, the coronavirus is not on standby. the coronavirus is very much alive and well and spreading throughout the country, more severely in some parts than others, but spreading throughout the country, and with it has come the sprea

mr. van hollen: mr. president, here we are, another thursday afternoon in the united states senate. it's pretty quiet around here. it's amazing how quickly this place gets quiet when the senate majority leader, the republican leader, senator mcconnell tells people we don't have any more work to do today. and by the way, we don't have any more work to do tomorrow, friday. and by the way, don't worry about saturday or sunday. monday, you know, i'll be here, says the majority leader but the senate doesn't need to be in doing its work and maybe not tuesday or wednesday either. i want to thank the senator from michigan, senator stabenow, for being down here standing up for working men and women and families and small businesses because for them it's not business as usual. it's not business as usual for all the folks who are out of work, 30 million americans are on unemployment insurance. but here in the united states senate, senate majority leader, business as usual. take a day off. take the weekend off. and be on standby next week. maybe we'll start doing something real. well, i can tel

mr. van hollen: thank you, madam president. i want to thank my colleague from new hampshire, senator hassan, for the important points she made about what's happening in new hampshire and in listening to her, i think each of us could say that that holds true for our state, certainly what she said holds true in my state of maryland. in maryland we are just weeks away from the opening day of school. in other parts of the country, schools have already reopened. i think all of us can remember back to when we were going back to school during our k-12 years. we had a mix of excitement and anxiety. and those of us who are parents with children share the excitement and ant -- and anxiety of our children as they went off to school. this year we are facing a sense of emotions and realities that none of us have ever experienced before. and i think all of us agree that we would like all students to be able to return to actual classrooms as soon as safely possible. i hope we would all also agree that we want to make sure that in returning, w

mr. hoyer and my colleagues in the house, senator chris van hollen and his colleagues in the senate. we are called to return to the house on saturday to pass legislation that funds the post office and codifies the reversal of actions that this postmaster general took in june. we cannot count on the whims and the capricious conduct of that president and postmaster general to secure our elections. not only must congress come back and pass the meaningful legislation, but today, i stand here and i call for the resignation of postmaster general dejoy, who was putting our democracy and the health of our citizens at higher risk. with that, i invite don beyer, my colleague, to the podium. rep. beyer: good afternoon. it is hard not to repeat the many wonderful things my colleagues have said about how our district office, our offices downtown are overwhelmed with constituent complaints about the mail. but i think even more importantly about how all human life, all human connectedness is driven by our relations with other people. and in america, where more people live alone than at any time in