Congressional Record, Senate — March 9, 2021, S1412
Summary
This is S1412 of the Congressional Record, Senate, March 9, 2021, with interleaved columns. The page begins with the end of a list of signatures on a cloture motion, and Mr. Schumer asks unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived. Mr. McConnell criticizes House Democrats' election bill and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, saying amendments to the bill were rejected, and says he will support Judge Merrick Garland to be Attorney General. Mr. Durbin, under the heading American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, says it will bring millions of dollars to Illinois to buy vaccines, with the views attributed to the speakers.
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“Congressional Record, Senate — March 9, 2021, S1412.”
Original at www.govinfo.gov. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/crec-crec-2021-03-09-crec-2021-03-09-pt1-pgs1412-538bbf3741/
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S1412 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE March 9, 2021
Duckworth, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff This is House Democrats’ bid to put So Republicans will continue to dis-
Merkley, Christopher A. Coons, Rich- Federal bureaucrats in charge of local tinguish between qualified, main-
ard Blumenthal, Patrick J. Leahy, election rules; to undermine voter ID stream people and nominees who are
Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith, Brian way outside the mainstream.
requirements with massive loopholes
Schatz, Robert Menendez, Richard J.
that undermine them; to require every I have already announced I will sup-
Durbin, Martin Heinrich, Maria Cant-
well. State to permit ballot harvesting, port Judge Merrick Garland, whose
which lets paid political operatives nomination to be Attorney General we
Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous con-
produce stacks of ballots with other will vote to advance later today, but
sent that the mandatory quorum call
people’s names on them; to overturn or we will continue to fight hard against
with respect to this motion be waived.
change hundreds of State election laws; people who are the wrong choices for
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there
and to turn our highest election au- key positions. We are going to shine a
objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered. thority, the equally balanced FEC, into bright spotlight on anyone who seems
Mr. SCHUMER. I yield the floor. a partisan majority body to crack more focused on far-left ideology than
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Re- down on speech and ideas they don’t serving all of the American people.
publican leader. like. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The as-
AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT OF 2021 It is quite the recipe for rebuilding sistant majority leader.
Mr. MCCONNELL. Madam President, public faith in our democracy on all AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT OF 2021
when Senators were last in this Cham- sides—a purely partisan effort to seize Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I
ber, our Democratic colleagues were unprecedented power for Washington, had a press conference this Sunday
shooting down amendment after DC, on a razor-thin majority. It is a back home in Illinois to talk about
amendment to ensure their largely hugely harmful idea at the worst pos- what the American Rescue Plan means
non-COVID-related spending plan re- sible time. to our State. It is dramatic. Dramatic.
mained very liberal and purely par- NOMINATIONS Millions of dollars will be coming to
tisan. Madam President, on a different mat- our State to buy vaccines. I can tell
Republicans proposed amendments to ter, this week, the Senate is set to con- you, all across Illinois, people are ask-
cap extra government help for wealthi- sider more of President Biden’s nomi- ing: When is it my turn? When do I get
er Americans, to ensure that direct nations. I have consistently said that my chance? And we want to make sure
checks would only go to citizens and the President should have latitude to they get that chance sooner rather
legal residents and not to people in staff their administration with people than later.
prison, and to rein in runaway State of their choosing so long as they nomi- Think about what President Biden
and local bailouts and refocus the bill nate qualified and mainstream individ- inherited just a few weeks ago. Surely
on urgent COVID-related actual needs. uals. That is why I and many other Re- they had found some vaccines—excel-
lent vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna—
But Democrats banded together to de- publicans have supported many of the
approved by then, but he came to the
feat every one of these commonsense President’s mainstream nominees.
Secretaries Austin and Vilsack were White House to find that there was no
changes. As the Democratic leader hap-
each confirmed with more than 90 plan to administer those vaccines
pily explained to reporters later on
votes; Secretaries Raimondo, Yellen, across the Nation.
Saturday, his whole conference put Vaccine is important, but it is of lit-
lockstep party unity ahead of sub- and Buttigieg with more than 80. Sen-
tle value if it is not in the arms of
stance and ahead of bipartisan com- ator Blinken got 78 votes, including
Americans. So he set out to establish a
promise. mine. Secretaries Cardona and
standard that we would be distributing
So the nearly $2 trillion partisan Granholm each got more than 60 votes.
this vaccine across the United States
spending spree that President Biden’s Even with the time spent on impeach-
as quickly as possible and the mecha-
Chief of Staff brags is ‘‘the most pro- ment, half of the nominees I just men-
nism, the infrastructure to make cer-
gressive domestic legislation in a gen- tioned were confirmed faster than tain that it was administered by pro-
eration’’ is on its way over to the President Trump’s nominees to the fessionals who know what they are
House. Already, we hear reporting that same spots, and most of them received doing. That is quite an undertaking. It
this giveaway will simply wipe out the a more bipartisan margin now than 4 is the largest vaccination in the his-
budget deficit of New York State and years ago. So this administration is re- tory of our Nation. But President
eliminate a big part of the deficit in ceiving perfectly fair treatment from Biden said he needed help to do it—not
San Francisco, courtesy of the tax- the Senate. Frankly, the President and just money for the vaccine but money
payers in Kentucky and Middle Amer- his team must be thrilled that Senate for testing, money for the genomic se-
ica. Already, we hear the administra- Republicans are proving to be more fair quencing necessary to detect variants
tion saying they want some of these and more principled on personnel mat- that might be emerging in the United
sweeping new welfare policies to be- ters than the Democratic minority’s States. That was a major element of
come permanent, like a no-strings-at- behavior 4 years ago. the bill that passed this Senate last
tached benefit that disregards all the But the fact remains that millions Saturday.
pro-work lessons of bipartisan welfare and millions of Americans elected 50 He also put money in there that had
reform. Meanwhile, it only manages to Republican Senators—an even split—to already been promised to the American
spend about 1 percent on vaccinations stand against policies and personnel people. Remember when President
and less than 9 percent on the entire who lean too far to the left. That is Trump said $2,000 for every American?
health fight. why many of us voted against con- We agreed on a bipartisan basis. The
Democrats inherited a turning tide. firming Secretary Mayorkas, who first downpayment was last December,
The vaccine trends and economic stood idly by while a major crisis ex- $600, and the remainder, $1,400, was in-
trends were in place before the bill was ploded on the border in just his first cluded in the bill that passed on Satur-
ever voted on, before this President several weeks. Rather than confront day.
was sworn in, but they are determined the problem, he absurdly claims that a I have yet to hear a Republican Sen-
to push to the front of the parade with record number of unaccompanied chil- ator come to this floor and criticize
an effort to push America to the left. dren in custody, overflowing shelters, that sum of money. All of them—I
Meanwhile, House Democrats are and catch-and-release policies during a should say most of them have publicly
wasting no time pursuing even more pandemic do not actually constitute a supported it, and others say little or
purely partisan legislation. Last ‘‘crisis’’ at all. nothing about it, but no one is saying
Wednesday, the House passed H.R. 1, Xavier Becerra, the partisan Cali- that it shouldn’t be given as a result of
dlhill on DSK120RN23PROD with SENATE
their effort to rewrite the ground rules fornia attorney general with no signifi- the promise made. We kept that prom-
of American elections and seize power cant healthcare experience, whom the ise. That was part of what we were
from States and localities. Just like President has nominated to run Health doing.
the spending plan, in both Chambers, and Human Services during COVID–19, We also had a responsibility to mil-
once again the only thing bipartisan could not even get one Republican vote lions of Americans who are still col-
about the bill was the opposition. to get out of committee. lecting unemployment. As of March 14,
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