Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 5456

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, in just a few minutes, because it is very late or very early, if one might characterize the hour of the morning, I will be offering a unanimous consent request to pass Calendar No.
527, H.R. 5456, the Family First Prevention Services Act.

Just to give a short description of this bill, there has been an enormous amount of bipartisan effort and good will to enact this legislation that many policy experts consider the most significant improvement in child welfare policy in decades.

In the other body, the legislation passed unanimously, and there was superb work done by Chairman Brady, the Speaker, Congressman Ryan, Vern Buchanan. There was a whole host of colleagues on the Democratic side, Sandy Levin, Lloyd Doggett, and Leader Pelosi, a whole host of Members and enormous effort. You had the leadership, the Ways and Means Committee. They came together and passed the legislation unanimously.

The reason they did is, 500 organizations, groups representing children and pediatricians and the Catholic bishops, the Children's Defense Fund, all came together. They said the current policy today with respect to vulnerable children just defies common sense. In effect, you cannot get help to the families when it really is most critical.

When a family member or parent, for example, is dealing with drug abuse or mental health or a challenge where, if they were able to get a modest amount of assistance, the family could come together again and be healthy, the youngster would be able to stay in the home. Very often, in these kinds of instances, a grandparent or an uncle, if we made some modest changes in Federal policy, could step up as well-- something I feel very strongly about having written the kinship care law a number of years ago to reward grandparents, aunts, and uncles when they could meet the strict standards for qualifying to take care of a youngster in these circumstances.

Chairman Hatch, Chairman Grassley, and many of our senior Members have worked very hard with me and our colleague Senator Bennet from Colorado, who has devoted an enormous amount of attention to the needs of youngsters. I have been on the floor tonight really for the last 5 or 6 hours trying to resolve remaining concerns.

Now, we had a hotline months and months ago on this bill, and there really wasn't much reaction at the outset, and finally there were three Members who had concerns, and we moved to address them. Chairman Brady has been particularly gracious on the other side of the Capitol, saying if a State needed more time, if there were questions with respect to whether they could meet some of the criteria, he was open to giving them that kind of additional time.

I will tell my colleagues: I told my constituents this fall that probably nothing is more important to me than to come back here and pursue what I call principled bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is not about taking each other's bad ideas. Anybody can do that. That is a piece of cake. Principled bipartisanship is about taking good ideas from both sides of the aisle.

For example, I know that with the Presiding Officer, there was a question about the type of providers in his home State that might be eligible for this service. So we said we had heard from a number of conservatives that they wanted to make sure that one type of provider over another wasn't favored. So we said all of the providers can participate as long as they meet the quality standards. That was essentially a conservative concept.

We had a number on our side of the aisle who wanted to make sure there really were wrap-around services for these kinds of families. There is good foster care. Nobody has ever said that is not the case.

But we know that Federal policy shouldn't create an incentive to rip these families apart. It should create incentives to keep families together.

So I wanted to come tonight and make one more appeal to pass what is,
according to many of the most authoritative experts of child welfare, the most significant improvement in child welfare law in decades.

There are no objections on our side of the aisle. This is the second time I brought up this unanimous consent request, and no Senator has come to the floor on the other side of the aisle to raise an objection in terms of policy and substance. Frankly, I wish that somebody would, because I think we could accommodate them. Because of the graciousness of Chairman Brady, the Republican chair on the other side, I think we could accommodate them. But no Senator has come now, for the second time this week, to actually offer a substantive objection.

So if you want what I call principled bipartisanship, which is what Chairman Hatch, Chairman Grassley, Chairman Brady--so many colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been working for--we have to have colleagues who will come and actually voice their substantive objection. I am making it clear again tonight that if anyone on the other side of the aisle has a substantive objection, my guess is we could resolve it, because there has been a lot of goodwill on both sides. But if people won't come and make a substantive objection, then it is hard to know what might satisfy them and allow us to proceed with this very important child welfare reform.

So I want it understood that I am going to prosecute this case of improving the lives of these vulnerable youngsters and these families for as long as I have the honor to represent Oregon in the Senate. I think this is what public service is supposed to be all about. I will continue to work in a bipartisan way. I think that is how we tackle the big issues, the big challenges facing our country. Nobody really has enough votes to have it all their way. Certainly, if you want a policy that you can sustain, it has to be bipartisan. So we are going to stay at this until we get it done.

With that in mind, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 527, H.R. 5456, the Family First Prevention Services Act, that the Wyden substitute amendment be agreed to, and the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.

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