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Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, with election day approaching in less than 5 months, Democrats are getting understandably concerned.

After all, a historic 3-year-plus border crisis and a historic 3- year-plus inflation crisis are not exactly an ideal record on which to run. And so Democrats have been doing what they can here in the Senate to brighten their election prospects with a series of show votes designed to put Republicans in a difficult position--or so the Democratic leader hopes.

I said ``show votes.'' And I say that because all of these votes were clearly designed to fail. The Democratic leader knew that Republicans were not going to support a border bill that had previously been rejected, a contraception bill that would jeopardize the religious freedom of healthcare providers, or an IVF bill that would allow for human cloning and genetic engineering of human embryos.

These were not serious attempts by the Democratic leader to legislate. These were future campaign talking points.

If the Democratic leader really wanted to legislate, he would be bringing up something like Senator Ernst's legislation to promote access to contraception, which has a number of Republican cosponsors-- or any one of the numerous commonsense border proposals Republicans have advanced, like Senator Blackburn's measure to allow State and local law enforcement to detain criminal illegal aliens for ICE to deport. But that is not the legislation the Democrat leader is bringing up, because, as I said, he is not interested in legislating; he is interested in boosting Democrats' electoral chances--he hopes--this fall.

I know the Democratic leader is trying his hardest to put Republicans in a difficult spot. But as I have said before, if he hopes to have us quaking in our boots over taking these votes, he should think again because Republicans are happy to have the chance to talk about the Democrat agenda, to talk about the disaster President Biden created at our southern border--a disaster he allowed to thrive unchecked for years, despite the serious danger to our national security; or to talk about how, under the guise of protecting access to contraception-- something that is not under threat, I might add--the Democratic leader brought up legislation that would not only funnel money to Democrats' allies at Planned Parenthood but would wipe out--wipe out--conscience protections for healthcare providers.

Democrats' bill specifically targets the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is bipartisan legislation passed in 1993, back when Democrats actually believed in defending our First Amendment freedoms.

And this is not Democrats' only attempt to target this legislation and to dictate how and when Americans can live according to their faith. Take, for example, Democrats' so-called Women's Health Protection Act--more accurately called the ``Abortion on Demand Act,'' which would prevent healthcare providers from claiming protection under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act if their faith prevents them from performing abortions.

Apparently the ``personal freedoms'' that the Democratic leader mentioned earlier this month don't include religious freedom--at least not when your faith conflicts with Democrats' policy positions.

Speaking of the Abortion on Demand Act, I find it very interesting that in a month the Democrat leader intended to be dedicated to ``reproductive freedoms,'' he chose not to bring up Democrats' signature abortion legislation. Is it possible that he thought that in a month in which he hoped to paint Republicans as extremists, it might not be a great idea to bring up Democrats' radical abortion legislation, lest Americans see just how extreme Democrats are on this issue? In fact, the Democrats' bill might be the most extreme abortion legislation ever considered by Congress.

The so-called Women's Health Protection Act would not only allow abortion through all 40 weeks of pregnancy, it would sweep away almost every commonsense restriction that has been upheld under Roe and would make abortion on demand at any time, for essentially any reason, the law of the land, not to mention wiping out the ban on taxpayer funding of abortion--something that has been agreed upon by both sides for nearly 50 years.

Needless to say, this is far out of step with the American people, a majority of whom believe abortion should generally be illegal during the second 3 months of pregnancy and 70 percent of whom believe abortion should generally be illegal during the final 3 months, not to mention the fact that it is also out of step with European abortion law, with 46 out of 50 European U.N. member countries restricting abortion on demand after 15 weeks. But that is certainly not stopping Democrats from pursuing one of the most radical abortion regimes in the world.

In the coming weeks, I expect we will see the Democrats' summer of show votes continue, but I suspect the American people will not be fooled by Democrats' politicking.

As for Republicans, we are happy to discuss the Democrat agenda anytime Democrats would like to bring it up.

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