Mr. President, I want to speak on another matter, and that is an event that should be a historic and momentous event that is scheduled to take place on the other side of the Capitol early next month. For the third time since he has been…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Maj. Warren Bruce, a Marine fellow in my office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the legislative session. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered…

Mr. President, to her high school classmates it was pretty clear what kind of person Kayla Mueller was going to turn out to be. As a teenager she took up the causes of the disenfranchised and the dispossessed, such as when she joined a…

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss our country's relationship with Cuba. I have long advocated modernizing our relationship with Cuba. The current embargo has been in place for 50 years, and it has greatly constrained opportunities for…

Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor to join my friend and colleague from Maine, Senator Collins, who has for so long been a leader on this issue. I thank her for that and thank her for her very strong remarks. This is a horrible…

I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). The clerk will call the roll. The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. President, this afternoon the Senate voted to approve Dr. Carter's nomination as the next Secretary of Defense. I supported his nomination and appreciated the candor he displayed during both his confirmation hearing and in our private…

I thank my friend from Michigan. Mr. Speaker, things are not always what they seem, and this is one of those cases. It is unfortunate because tax incentives for charitable giving are the kind of issues we should be handling in a bipartisan…

I heard some of our colleagues saying we are opposing this on the basis of process. Really? Cutting nutrition assistance programs for 3.8 million Americans is process? You know what else their budget did? It cut the category of spending…

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. So I just want to be clear. In our budget, we extended permanently this charitable deduction to fight hunger, the fighting hunger incentive. We did that. But you know what we did not do? We did not cut the…

Mr. President, yesterday the Budget Committee, of which I am the ranking member, held a very important hearing on the Social Security Disability Insurance Program, which is a life-and-death program for nearly 11 million Americans…

Mr. President and Members of the Senate, as chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, I have mentioned publicly that I am open to certain Federal sentencing, or prison, reforms, and I have tried to make it very clear that I am very…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Realities of Drug Sentencing in the Federal Criminal Justice System

Mr. President, today, I am introducing a measure that would help us make progress in the fight against domestic human trafficking, a terrible crime. This legislation, titled the Combating Human Trafficking Act of 2015, has three…

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman. As I have been sitting here, I have to admit, my thoughts have changed back and forth. My mind has changed. My speech has changed dramatically. It occurred to me: I think my friends on the other side of…

Mr. President, what is the status of the floor debate and how much time might I have? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democrats have 8 minutes remaining.

Congress's most basic function is to provide for the Nation's security. It is time to stop playing politics, to get to work, do our jobs, and pass a clean full-year bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. I thank the Presiding…