On the recordOctober 1, 2020
I am compelled to talk about this process that I just heard about. There is no process, folks. Let's just be candid. This Senate is not the deliberative process body that the Senator from Wisconsin talked about. We don't have that. This bill has been pending for 9 months. But we don't have that. This is not the Senate in which I worked in 1979, where there was a deliberative attempt. There were debates on the floor, and there were debates in committee. This is not a process. Whether it is on the floor of this Senate or whether it is in the media or wherever else, when someone says that this should go through the normal process, those processes were killed a long time ago. I have been in this body for almost 3 years, and we have had only a relatively handful of amendments on any bill that has come here. We have had virtually no markups and debates in committees. Those don't exist. This bill has been pending for 9 months, which is more than adequate time for the Homeland Security Committee to have taken a look at it, more than enough time for the Committee on the Judiciary to have taken a look at it, and more than enough time to have had a hearing on it. Apparently, our colleagues in the House felt it was OK, but this body has gotten to be so dysfunctional that, to send a statement, we will not allow a unanimously passed bill that has been pending in the Senate of the United States for 9 months to be passed.…
