Senate Agenda And Negotiations With Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I listened to the impassioned speech by my colleague from Texas on the issue of human trafficking. There is no dispute here. This legislation is bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans are prepared to support the bill that has been offered on human trafficking by Republican Senator Cornyn and Democratic Senator Klobuchar. There are amendments pending I think which improve the bill--one by Senator Leahy about runaway children. In fact, we are so prepared to do this that we have put together a comprehensive substitute amendment to what has just been described which could be quickly passed on the floor. I do not believe there would be more than a handful of Senators voting no. I certainly would support the passage of the Leahy version.

What is the difference? Senator Cornyn has injected into this important issue a side issue, but not an inconsequential one, on the Hyde amendment.

Henry Hyde was a Congressman from Illinois who served in the House of Representatives with me for a period of time. He authored the Hyde amendment that said no Federal funds shall be used to pay for abortion procedures except in very limited circumstances--rape, incest, and the life of the mother. That has been put in appropriations bills every year since--without question, without challenge.

What Senator Cornyn is trying to do is to make this permanent law, and make it part of a human trafficking bill. I do not doubt this is an important issue. I know it is because I have served in the House and the Senate. But I do question whether we should make every bill that comes along a vehicle or carrier for debating abortion or other really controversial issues.

This question of passing a human trafficking bill to protect the scores--thousands--of victims of human trafficking is one which would pass in a heartbeat in the Senate if the Senator from Texas would remove this controversial section. Senator Leahy has offered that substitute. I hope we will have an opportunity to vote on it, and vote on it soon.

As to whether this is a reflection of a dysfunctional Congress, well, most of the people back in Illinois and Chicago whom I run into--particularly this weekend--have raised that issue from time to time, and I can see where the argument could be made. We now have a Congress controlled by Republicans--the House and the Senate--and the White House, obviously, with a Democratic President. It is a tough political terrain under the best of circumstances, and we certainly have not been facing the best of circumstances for a long time. There are just a lot of differences between the House and the Senate and the President and the White House, and many of those are manifest.

What was the first bill the Republican majority in the Senate called--No. 1, Senate bill 1? The Keystone Pipeline--a bill to authorize the construction of a pipeline owned by a Canadian company in the United States. That was the highest priority for the Senate Republicans. The President said at the outset: Do not try to preempt my authority as President. I will veto it.

But they insisted. We went through several weeks--2 or 3 weeks--of amendments, and we cooperated on the Democratic side. I think there might have been 30 or more amendments offered during that period of time. In the end, the bill passed with six or eight Democratic votes, was sent to the President, and was vetoed.

So the first 3 weeks were spent on this politically controversial issue, for which, at the end of the day, the President's veto was sustained, and it was wiped off the slate.

Then we went into a rather bizarre chapter here where the House Republicans insisted that before--before--they would fund the Department of Homeland Security--you know, the folks at the airport, the people who are guarding our borders--before they would fund the Department of Homeland Security to guard us against terrorism, we had to vote on five separate riders relative to the President's immigration Executive orders.

They held up this appropriation--giving partial funding to it week after week after week--until we finally said: Enough is enough. Fund this agency that keeps us safe. Stop playing political games with this issue. It went back and forth and back and forth. Another 3 weeks were wasted on this issue before finally--finally--on a bipartisan basis we passed this measure funding the Department of Homeland Security and said to the House of Representatives: Please, stop putting extraneous issues on important matters like funding our government.

I thought perhaps we turned the corner and moved in a more positive way, but we are mired now over this one, small provision in this bill which Senator Cornyn could remove in a heartbeat.

Then last week came a blockbuster issue. I did not realize a week ago today that still a week later I would be going on Chicago television being questioned about a letter signed by 47 Republican Senators which was sent to the Ayatollah of Iran, a letter sent by 47 Republican Senators to the Ayatollah of Iran telling him and his government not to negotiate with the President of the United States in an effort to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The author of this letter, Senator Cotton of Arkansas, and those who signed it, went to great lengths describing how they would, in fact, have the last word on anything negotiated by this President and that they planned on being around for a long, long time, urging the Ayatollah to not enter into negotiations with the President of the United States of America.

There is no historic precedent for what just occurred--none. We have never had 47 Senators of any party send a letter to a head of state and say: Stop negotiating with the United States of America. And they did it. The press reaction across the United States has been overwhelmingly negative to this action that was taken by these 47 Senators. I could go through the long list here of what newspapers across America have said about that letter.

The Detroit Free Press said: ``A blot on the 114th U.S. Senate.''

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: ``The senators who signed the letter should be ashamed.''

The Salt Lake Tribune: ``Cringe-worthy buffoonery on the global stage'' is how they described that letter.

The Courier-Journal in Louisville, KY, asked the question: ``Has Congress gone crazy?'' when they reflected on this letter. The Courier-Journal went on to call those who signed it: ``Senate Saboteurs.'' Those are their words, not mine.

The Salt Lake Tribune said: ``..... the foolish, dangerous and arguably felonious attempt by the Obama Derangement Caucus of the Senate. .....''

The Kansas City Star said: ``Was Iran letter traitorous or just treacherous for GOP [Senators]. .....''

The Los Angeles Times called it ``insulting.'' They said: ``The Republican senators' meddling in that responsibility is outrageous.''

It goes on and on. I won't read them all. It doesn't get any better. It gets worse. And to think that 47 Republican Senators would try to preempt any President of the United States.

Today in Geneva, Switzerland, former Senator and current Secretary of State John Kerry sits down at a negotiating table across from Iran. On our side of the table are major allies trying to stop the development of a nuclear weapon in Iran. They will struggle. Maybe they will never reach an agreement. But what the 47 Senators said in a letter to the Ayatollah of Iran will not help.

What is the alternative? If these negotiations fail, the alternative is Iran develops a nuclear weapon and endangers not only Israel but the Middle East and far beyond, and triggers an arms race in the Middle East for nuclear weapons. That is an outrageous, unacceptable outcome. Or, military action. Military action by Israel, perhaps, as Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested 2 weeks ago; military action by the United States. Is it worth our time to be negotiating to try to find a peaceful resolution, to try to find a way for Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons with verifiable inspections? We won't take them at their word. There have to be inspections. Or is it better, as these 47 Republican Senators insisted, to walk away from the table? I think it is far better to continue these negotiations. I don't know if they will end up with a good agreement, but don't we owe it to our President, our Secretary of State, our government, our country, to at least see these negotiations through and then to read the agreement before 47 Senators send a letter condemning it and rejecting it? It was a sad day. But now let's turn the corner.

The first thing we should do this week--the absolute first thing we should do--is approve the President's nominee to be Attorney General. Loretta Lynch appeared before our Judiciary Committee. Senator Hatch was there, and I think he may even concede what I am about to say: No one laid a glove on this magnificent lady--a prosecutor with a spotless record; an African American with a life story about witnessing the civil rights movement as it unfolded in this country in the 1960s; an extraordinarily good person--good family, good background, impeccable credentials. There wasn't a single thing said about her that would stop anyone voting for her.

Now her nomination has been sitting for 128 days since it was announced. They are trying to set a record on the Republican side: No nominee for Attorney General has languished that long in the last 30 years. If they have a complaint about this lady, let them say so. Their complaint: She was chosen by President Barack Obama. That is not good enough.

This week, let us rise above the politics which have dominated the Senate since this session began. Let us do something constructive--approve this Attorney General, take this offensive section out of this bill, and move it for passage. We can get it done in a matter of hours.

I yield the floor.

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