Hire More Heroes Act of 2015
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, so that those who are following this debate understand where we are, this morning the Democratic leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, for the second time offered to the Republican side the following: that we will bring this critically important, historic measure before the U.S. Senate for an up-or-down vote--a clean up-or-down vote--at a margin of 60 votes.
Sixty votes is the margin that is used for every major and, I might add, controversial measure before the Senate. So what we are asking is not out of line. In fact, the Republican side had supported the notion of a 60-vote margin until they didn't have 60 votes. Now they are calling for some other approach.
So here is what we face. This afternoon at about 3:45 p.m., we will have a rollcall vote. It will be on the procedural question of whether we end debate on one aspect of this issue. It is known as a cloture vote. We will see how it turns out. But we have made a good-faith offer twice to the Republicans to finish this important debate and to bring this to a 60-vote close.
Every single Member of the Senate on both sides of the aisle has announced publicly in advance where they stand on the issue. No one is trying to avoid this tough vote, and it is a challenging vote. Everyone has faced it squarely and honestly, and that is where we should go. Senator McConnell, on the Republican side, objected to this. We will face a procedural vote at 3:45 p.m.
What is troubling is that we are in disarray now in the Congress. This statute that brings us to the floor of the U.S. Senate, the resolution of disapproval on the Iran agreement, passed the Senate with a vote of 98 to 1--a strong bipartisan agreement that this is how we would approach it. This is what Senator McConnell is working off of, the basic statute that brings us together. But look what is happening across the Rotunda. Yesterday the House of Representatives disassembled. When they were supposed to move forward procedurally to the same vote we are facing, they fell apart. There was a Republican caucus, and it was in disarray. Now they are proposing not the underlying statute which we are considering but three brandnew, different approaches to this. This is no way to run a Congress. It is no way to address a serious foreign policy issue, one of the more serious issues of our time.
My colleagues are here to speak. I am going to yield the floor to them. I have spoken from time to time, but I will say this: Understand what we are trying to achieve here. We are not putting a seal of approval on Iran and their conduct and their activity. That will never happen. Instead, what we are saying is we have one goal in mind, shared by many nations around the world: to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. That is the goal. I believe this agreement comes as close to achieving that as we can hope for at this moment.
I wish it were stronger and better, but in the course of negotiation, we don't always get everything we want. But think of what happened here. We met in Switzerland at the table with five other nations--China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. The European Union, I might add, joined the United States in this effort to negotiate this agreement and walked away. All nations involved in the negotiations said this is a good agreement and should move forward. In addition to that, we have had support from the Security Council of the United Nations. Over 100 countries have endorsed this.
Yet it has been categorically rejected by the Republicans in both the House and the Senate. The first evidence of their rejection was March 9 of this year while the negotiations were underway. Forty-seven Republican Senators sent a letter to the Supreme Leader in Iran, the Ayatollah, saying to him basically: Don't waste your time negotiating with the United States of America. That has never happened in the history of the United States--never. I asked the historians to check it. Never have we had Members of Congress sending a letter in the midst of negotiations telling the other side: Don't pay attention to our President; don't pay any attention to our Nation. It never happened before. So 47 of them made it clear even before the agreement was reached that they were rejecting it. That doesn't show good faith. That doesn't show an effort to try to be objective and honest about this.
Here we stand today with the first procedural vote this afternoon. There are two things we want to achieve with this vote and with this agreement: No. 1, stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. We do that by shutting down their production facilities, by closing down their centrifuges, and by sending in scores of international inspectors, who will be roaming through Iran during the entire pendency of this agreement, looking for violations that could trigger the sanctions being returned. No. 2, our goal is to bring peace and stability as best we can when it comes to the nuclear issue in the Middle East, particularly in support of our friend and ally, the nation of Israel. I think the President's good-faith effort here reaches that goal.
I support this, and I will be voting on the procedural side this afternoon to support the President's Iran agreement.
I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, a lot has been said about the impact of this agreement. I would like to speak for a moment about the impact of no agreement. What if the Republicans and those who oppose this agreement have their way and this agreement goes away? Iran is still a nuclear threshold state. If you have your way and stop this agreement, the result will be literally leaving in Iran the capacity to build 10 nuclear weapons today. And the timing on that: 2 to 3 months before they have the fissile material for a nuclear weapon--if you have your way and kill this agreement.
That is some holiday surprise, that if we walk away from this agreement, this effort for inspection, Iran could develop a nuclear weapon. That is the reality. If you have your way, there will be no inspectors. Iran will be closed off to the world. How can that possibly make the Middle East safer for Israel or for any other country in the world? How can it make it safer if we as a coalition who have worked so hard to build this agreement fail in the effort?
What I have listened for during the last 3 days of debate is any suggestion from the other side of the aisle about what is the alternative to this agreement. Now, some have been bold enough to say it is military, and we shouldn't wince at the prospect of a military solution. One Senator on the other side of the aisle said 4 days is all we need to take them out; we will take care of Iran. I have heard that before, I say to my friends. I heard it before the invasion of Iraq where we were going to be greeted as liberators, and it would be a matter of weeks before our troops would be coming home. It didn't turn out that way.
What we are trying to do and what the President is trying to do is to start a diplomatic process to avoid the military option, to avoid a war. That is why I am supporting it. I think it is the right thing to do. I am sorry that the vote we are about to cast here is a procedural vote. Twice, Senator Reid has asked Senator McConnell to give us a straight, up-or-down, clean vote on this question of disapproval by a 60-vote margin, and twice Senator McConnell has objected and insisted instead on this procedural vote. We know where everyone stands. Everyone in this chamber has publicly declared where they stand on this matter. That should be the rollcall that we take next. Unfortunately, we are faced with a procedural rollcall.
I will close by saying one word about the Members on this side of the aisle. For 6 weeks I have contacted them--and in fact harassed them--asking them what they were going to do on this important question. For any people who are critical of this Senate, believing it is too superficial and too partisan, I will tell you that on this side of the aisle they took their time, they read the agreements, they were briefed by the intelligence agencies and Department of Defense, and they made up their mind and announced their position publicly. It is a proud moment for this institution because I think that is what we all believe to be our responsibility.
As we close this debate, I ask those who support the agreement to vote no on the cloture motion.
I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source