Senate Accomplishments
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, as many Iowans know, I made a practice of holding townhall meetings in each of the 99 counties of my State every year. It has become known in the media as a ``Full Grassley.'' That is not something I named it. That is something someone else named it. It is kind of a flattering name, but in some ways it does not make sense because the townhalls are not about Senator Grassley. They are about hearing from Iowans whom I am proud to serve. They are about hearing about the real problems my constituents have, and, of course, from our end, trying to find practical solutions to those problems. That is what I work on every day. I suppose all of my colleagues would say that is what they work on every day.
On many occasions at my townhall meetings in recent years, Iowans have asked me why the Senate never gets anything done. Both parties probably shoulder some of the blame for this attitude out there at the grassroots, but the reality is that the most obvious, the most glaring, the most unmistakable reason for the Senate's recent paralysis is the way Democratic Leader Reid ran it before he was toppled as majority leader.
When the Democratic leader was in control of the Senate, he was the one who decided not to empower his committee chairs to craft and advance bipartisan legislation. He decided not to give all Members, Republican and Democratic alike, a real opportunity to participate in the process. He decided not to empower the Senate to address real problems that real people face every day.
Instead, he chose dysfunction and gridlock over practicality and problem solving. By November 2014, the American people had finally had enough. After the American people spoke, the Democratic leader no longer controlled the Senate. Since the Senate has been under Republican leadership, things have started to work again. You see it in the latest example of this bill passing almost unanimously. So this is an example of Senators partnering across the aisle. Legislation is moving. The result is real progress on real issues facing our country.
I am proud the Judiciary Committee has played its part. As chairman, my goal has been to open the process and seek as much consensus as possible. The results reflect that. We have reported 21 bills out of committee, all with bipartisan support. I would like to walk through some of these results because there is a lot of credit to go around on both sides of the aisle.
Last February the committee passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. We passed it unanimously, 19 to 0. The bill enhances penalties for human trafficking and equips law enforcement with new tools to target predators who traffic in innocent young people. The bill passed the Senate 99 to 0 and was passed into law.
Yes, there were some bumps along the way. When the Democratic leader realized that genuine bipartisanship had broken out and that we might actually accomplish something, a controversy had to be manufactured about the Hyde amendment on that particular trafficking bill, but eventually the Democratic leader took yes for an answer and the bill got done.
This victory was a credit to the leadership of one Democrat and one Republican--Senator Cornyn and Senator Klobuchar. Their bill provided real solutions for real victims of trafficking. A few months later, in October, the committee passed the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. Sentencing reform is a difficult and complex issue. Many Senators have strongly held views. Despite that, the bill emerged from our committee with a strong 15-to-5 bipartisanship vote. My bill would recalibrate prison sentences for certain drug offenders, target violent criminals, and grant judges greater discretion at sentencing for low- level, nonviolent drug crimes. I am grateful for the Senators who have partnered with me on this legislation, especially Senators Durbin, Cornyn, Whitehouse, and Lee. I am hopeful that if we keep working together, landmark sentencing reform can be another major accomplishment of this Senate. Time is growing short, but I cannot think of a more productive use of the Senate's time than to make our criminal laws more just. This is another example of a real problem we can solve together.
Also, in July of last year, the committee passed my Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Reauthorization Act, again, without opposition. The bill will ensure that at-risk youth are fairly and effectively served by juvenile justice grant programs. These important programs provide the chance for kids to get back on the right track so they will not enter the criminal justice system as adults. Every one of these young people are worth helping to reach their greatest potential. Senator Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and I are working hard to move this bill through the full Senate. I thank him for working with me on it.
There are many other bipartisan accomplishments of this Senate that the Judiciary Committee cannot take credit for. I will not try to go through all of them, of course, but one example that comes to mind was the outstanding work of Senator Burr, a Republican, Senator Feinstein, a Democrat, on the cyber security bill. That legislation passed the Senate on a solid 74-to-21 vote. A conference version of it was later signed into law by the President. With reports of breaches of our personal data on an almost daily basis, it is self-evident that this bill helped to address a real problem that has affected millions of Americans.
That brings me to the Senate's passage of the bill that was just voted on, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act--CARA, for short. It passed today with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. This legislation reflects the Senate at its finest, working in a bipartisan way to address an awful epidemic that is gripping our country.
I thank the authors of CARA for their leadership in crafting the legislation and working with me to move it through the Judiciary Committee and out of that committee unanimously. In particular, I thank Senators Portman, Ayotte, Whitehouse, and Klobuchar; you see, two Democrats and two Republicans. Real lives will be saved because of the leadership of this bipartisan group. That is not something we can say every day around the Senate. I know the efforts of those Senators and others to address this epidemic stretch back a few years.
It is a shame the Democratic leader decided not to address this crisis at the early stage when he was deciding the agenda of the Senate, but he decided not to act, even in the face of mounting evidence that the country was facing a grave and gathering epidemic of heroin and opioid painkiller overdoses. Deaths from prescription opioid painkillers rose over 30 percent from 2007 to 2014. Heroin overdose deaths more than quadrupled during that time. Heroin seizures at the southwest border more than quadrupled as well. All the while, the Democratic leader never brought a bill to the floor to address the crisis.
So given the dysfunction that had overtaken the Senate not long ago, we should take a moment to appreciate the bipartisan process through which the Senate just passed this CARA bill. As the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I moved a Democratic bill through the committee. It passed without opposition. Then the Republican leader promptly scheduled the bill for floor consideration. I don't recall that ever happening under the former Democratic leadership. The Senate had rollcall votes on four amendments, although the Republican leader offered more such votes on Democratic amendments. All four of those amendments were offered by Democratic Senators, and the bill passed overwhelmingly, as amended. This process would have been unthinkable under the Democratic leader. This simply would not have happened. You know the statistics. There were 18 rollcall votes on amendments all during the year 2014. During 2015, we had 198 rollcall votes on amendments and only 4 more Republican amendments than Democratic amendments.
Yes, once again the Democratic leader tried to manufacture a controversy when this bill first came to the floor about a week ago Monday, this time over some alleged funding for this heroin-opioid epidemic. But when $400 million in newly appropriated money for it hasn't even been spent yet, well, that argument by the Democratic leader was a tough one to sell.
Over the last few days, the Democratic leader played some games with negotiations on a managers' package of amendments. The Republican side, the majority side, worked hard to clear amendments offered by many Democrats, including Senators Durbin, Gillibrand, Heinrich, Kaine, McCaskill, Blumenthal, Schatz, Heitkamp, and Cardin, but the Democratic leader objected to completely uncontroversial, commonsense amendments that would be in the package offered by two Republicans, Senator Johnson and Senator Kirk. Why? Simply because these Republican Senators are up for reelection this year, and under those circumstances, we couldn't reach an agreement. So all these Democratic amendments didn't go because the Democratic leader had objection to two Republican, relatively noncontroversial amendments, one of them absolutely noncontroversial.
How noncontroversial were these amendments? Let me give you one example. Senator Johnson wanted to add the Indian Health Service as a member of the task force the bill creates to develop best prescribing practices for opioids. I suspect many Americans, including even people living in the State of Nevada, would think Senator Johnson's idea is a good one. Addiction is a problem for so many in our country, and the Native American community is unfortunately no exception. But this is the kind of dysfunction, the kind of gridlock that the Democratic leader is known for. A good idea becomes a bad idea if it is simply offered by a Member of the Republican Party, and that especially is the case if you are a Republican up for reelection.
As CARA's name reflects, the bill addresses this epidemic comprehensively, supporting prevention, education, treatment, recovery, and law enforcement. CARA begins with prevention and education. The bill authorizes awareness and education campaigns so that the public understands the dangers of becoming addicted. It also creates a national task force to develop best prescribing practices, as I mentioned. The bill encourages the use of prescription drug monitoring programs, such as those in my State of Iowa, which help to detect and deter what is called doctor shopping behaviors by addicts. The bill authorizes an expansion of the Federal program that allows patients to safely dispose of old or unused medications so that these drugs don't fall into the hands of young people. In fact, along with a few other committee members, I helped start the original take-back program in 2010 through the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act.
CARA also focuses on treatment and recovery. The bill authorizes programs to provide first responders with training to use naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose and directly save lives. Critically, the bill provides that a set portion of naloxone funding go to rural areas, like much of Iowa, which are being affected most acutely. This is critical when someone overdoses and isn't near a hospital.
The bill also authorizes an expansion of Drug-Free Communities Act grants to those areas that are most dramatically affected by the opioid epidemic. And it also authorizes funds for programs that encourage the use of medication-assisted treatment, provide community-based support for those in recovery, and address the unique needs of pregnant and postpartum women who are addicted to opioids.
Finally, the bill also bolsters law enforcement efforts as well. The bill reauthorizes Federal funding for State task forces that specifically address heroin trafficking.
So in all these ways, CARA will help real people address the very real epidemic. The eastern part of my State has been hit the hardest. The human costs of what is happening across so many of these communities is incalculable. Every life that is lost or changed forever by this crisis is precious, especially for many young people who fall victim to addiction early in their lives. There is so much human potential at stake.
I can't wait until my next townhall meeting. I am going to be proud to explain how the Senate did something today that will help so many people in Iowa and around the Nation, Republicans and Democrats working together. Let's keep it going.
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