Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I wish to take a moment to thank an important member of our staff. Her name is Dena Morris, and she is with me on the floor today. Dena has worked for me for 12 years. The last 8 years she served as my legislative director, and she is going to be leaving soon for a new professional opportunity.

When she first told me the news, my first reaction was: ``Say it ain't so,'' but Dena had an offer she could not refuse. Next week, Dena Morris will join the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the Agency's Washington Director. Her new position, I have to admit, is a perfect fit. It will allow her to combine her exceptional management skills, her deep understanding of public policy, and her strong commitment to public service in ways that will benefit America's families and businesses.

I already know Dena is going to do well because she has done so much for me, for the people of Illinois, and for our Nation.

There is one thing that really tells you a lot about Dena's commitment to public service and the public good. Dena Morris came to me 12 years ago. She left a K Street law firm and came to the Senate to work as a staffer. She took a substantial pay cut to do it. She started in my office as a legislative assistant handling education issues. Her portfolio quickly expanded to include public health and then all of the health care issues. By 2007, it was clear to me she was the right person to direct all the legislative activity in my office. Even with all the promotions and the new titles, Dena still earns less today than what she earned at that law firm she left 12 years ago.

So when I hear my fellow Senators come to the floor and talk down our staffs and talk about denying them basic things such as health care coverage, I think about Dena and the hundreds just like her who make the Senate work. They do it not for the money, not for the benefits but because they want to leave a mark. Dena has done that. You see, instead of making mountains of money, Dena chose to help and to help the Senate make history. For that I am ever grateful.

It will take too long to recite all the things she has worked on, but I can list a few: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act--it was the economic stimulus that was initiated by the Obama administration to bring America out of the great recession after the 2008 economic crisis--her work on the Affordable Care Act, which has brought affordable, reliable health care to 16 million Americans, including 800,000 people in my State of Illinois, and reduces the national deficit. Dena was my legislative director when Congress passed the first Wall Street reform act in 7 years. She helped steer legislation to cut the cost of student loans, to help save the American automobile industry, and to give the FDA, at long last, the authority to regulate tobacco.

Her contributions extend beyond the historic laws that she has helped to pass. Probably her greatest contribution, from a very selfish point of view, is that Dena Morris assembled my team. She took the time to bring together an extraordinary group of bright, committed public servants, just like herself, who reflected my values, her values, and her work ethic.

Lots of people think about Sunday morning as a time to kick back and relax. My staff, and Dena knows this personally, lives in fear of Sunday morning because that is when I have the time to leisurely go through the newspapers, to watch television, and to get on my cell phone and e-mail my staff about all the new ideas I have for the coming week. It is a drill Dena knows well and which she handles with skill and does so effectively. I think it is her daily yoga practice that helps her maintain her even keel.

I want to thank her husband Peter Rogoff, who has joined us. He is a former longtime Hill staffer, and I want to give special thanks to their kids, Niles, now in high school, and Lulu.

It was about a year after Dena joined my staff that she brought Niles and Lulu to the office for a take-your-children-to-work day. They were about 6 and 4 years old at the time. So I met with all these kids from my staff members, and I said: Do you have any questions? Niles raised his hand, and he looked at me and he said: How come my mom has to work so late?

It was a funny moment, an embarrassing moment in a way, but I think Niles and Lulu know now what the answer is. It is because their mom cares so much about what she does and cares so much about the people she can help.

That is a bit of a story of Dena Morris' career. When she worked for that K Street law firm, she specialized in advancing legal and civil rights for people with disabilities and their families. She started that work just 3 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act became law. She was on the leading edge of one of America's great civil rights struggles.

Two other things worth mentioning: Dena's first job in Washington, before the law firm, was working as an intern for her home State Senator, Dick Lugar of Indiana. It was an unpaid internship, as most of them are. So to pay the rent Dena had to work five nights a week on Capitol Hill at another unique Washington institution--the Hawk and Dove--which happens to be a local popular Capitol Hill watering hole.

Finally, Dena is one of six children. Her dad is a Baptist minister. In her whole family of origin--parents and siblings--Dena Morris is the only Democrat. She is a brave woman, and she tells me they do not really talk a lot about politics at family gatherings. Her parents may not share her politics, but I know they share our pride in the work she has done for America.

I have no doubt she will continue to use her talent and her energies to move our Nation forward.

Dena, thank you for your service.

SYRIAN HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Mr. President, I listened to my friend, the Senator from Arizona, Senator McCain, and this is the second time I have heard him on the floor talking about the tragedy, the humanitarian crisis associated with Syria. I couldn't agree more.

I also take note of that heartbreaking photograph of that 3-year-old boy who drowned as his family tried to escape Syria, ultimately bound for Canada. In the crossing of a body of water, their boat capsized, and the mother and two children were lost, and the lifeless body of that infant washed up on the shore.

When I think back, and people ask, what do you remember about the Vietnam War, I remember a lot of things, but the image I remember is a photograph of a little girl stripped naked, burned with napalm, running down the road screaming. I can't get that out of my mind. Vietnam--I think of that photo.

When I think of Syria, and what is going on with this humanitarian crisis, I think of the photo of that little boy. It is heartbreaking. I get emotional thinking about little kids who I love in my family facing that kind of tragedy.

There are two things I would like to say. I think it is fundamentally unfair to blame the Syrian crisis on this President. This is a crisis which reflects the Arab Spring, it reflects changes in the Middle East that have been going on for 30 years plus, and no country has really come up with a good solution to stop the bloodshed and killing in Syria.

I am sorry my colleague from Arizona is not here, but I would acknowledge and remind him there was a time when the President came to us and said: I want to do something. President Obama said: I want to do something about chemical weapons in Syria. The Senator from Arizona--and I might add the Senator from South Carolina--joined us in the Foreign Relations Committee in moving this issue forward to give the President the authority to do something to stop the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and it died before it came to the floor because there was no support--no support on the floor from the Republican majority in the House or the Senate.

So to say this President has not taken action, he has. And you cannot overlook the fact the United States of America, through the generosity of its taxpayers and the leadership of this President, leads the world in humanitarian relief in Syria. We believe we have invested almost $4 billion--more than any other nation on Earth--for these poor people who are suffering there.

Can we do more? Should we have done more? Of course, in hindsight, things look so much clearer. I pushed for--and this administration is working on something the Senator from Arizona has also endorsed--a humanitarian safe zone. There ought to be a piece of Syria where people can go for medical care and know they are not going to be killed by these barrel bombs and attacks. I know the administration is working on that with Turkey. It has gone very slowly. I wish the pace would pick up.

A friend of mine, Dr. Sahloul in Chicago, a Syrian American, has made a dozen trips to Syria, to Lebanon, to Jordan giving free medical treatment to the Syrian refugees, and he tells the story in graphic terms--and many times brings back heartbreaking photographs--of what these barrel bombs are doing. I hope we can find some diplomatic or military solution in Syria.

In the meantime, here is the question we must ask ourselves: What will we do about these millions of refugees? We will give money, of course, to our allies that are creating camps for them. I visited one of those camps in Turkey, and I have to say I was really a great admirer of the leadership of that country in accepting at this one camp 10,000 people--one camp. And there are many more, hundreds of thousands all over the Middle East, fleeing out of that region. So now what will we do about the refugees?

The Senator from Arizona reminded us last week these are refugees, not migrants. They are the people who are victims of war who are fleeing with their families.

On Friday I was in Chicago and met with four of these Syrian families who are now refugees in the United States. They told heartbreaking stories of losing members of their families and fleeing from one city to another in Syria without any success, then finally leaving, going to refugee camps and trying to come to the United States. Even after they applied for refugee status, it took this one family over 14 months to make it here to this country.

We have a rich history in the United States of being there for refugees. We can point with some pride to the fact that when Cuba was going through its upheaval back in the 1950s and 1960s we accepted Cuban refugees who have become a major part of America today. In fact, the three Hispanic Members of the United States Senate are all Cuban Americans. At least two of them were the product of that exodus--the product of a refugee status that brought their families to the United States. They are making great contributions for the States they represent.

We did the same thing in the Soviet Union. When the Jewish population there was facing persecution, we stood up and said: We will accept them as refugees. Thousands and thousands of Soviet Jews came to the United States and have become an important part of America today.

The list goes on: Somalians, Bosnians, the Hmong population out of Vietnam. So we have a rich history of responding to these humanitarian crises. We need to do it again. What the administration has proposed is modest--10,000--too modest, as far as I am concerned. I believe we should be prepared to accept 100,000--100,000 Syrian refugees.

Yes, each and every one of them needs to be carefully checked and vetted so we know we are not inviting someone in who is a danger to the United States. The people I have met in Chicago--the refugees there--are just desperate people trying to find a roof over their head, trying to find some little work to do to keep what remains of their family together. Each and every one of them said something interesting. All four of them said they couldn't believe how welcoming America was, how friendly people in America were to the refugees and their families. Mr. President, that is who we are. That is what America is about. We shouldn't be afraid when people who are desperate for some refuge find our shores and ask: May we come and join you?

I have already had friends in Illinois calling my wife and asking: What can we do? Can we adopt a Syrian family of refugees to help them get started in the United States? I think that story can be replicated over and over again, thousands and thousands of times.

So I would say to my friend from Arizona, yes, it is outrageous, the death, the violence, the circumstances in Syria which has forced so many millions of people to move and many of them to lose their lives in the process. And it is heartbreaking to read the stories as they desperately try to find some safe place to live with their families and are rejected by countries, some in Europe, that want no part of them. I want America to do its part so that when the future generations look back and ask our generation: What did you do when you faced the greatest humanitarian crisis of your time at this moment in history, I want them to be able to point with pride to the fact that we carried on the great American tradition of opening up this country to refugees who are looking for a safe place to live with their families.

Mr. President, we are in the midst of debating again--again--the Iran agreement, an agreement that was brokered by the President with five other nations--an agreement to accomplish two things: The agreement was to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and, secondly, it was to create a safe enough environment that the United States does not have to commit military forces or go to war again in the Middle East.

I voted for it, and 41 other Democrats joined me. We had this vote last week. It was historic and widely reported. At the end of the vote, Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, stood up and said: We are going to do it again. We are going to do it again next week--today--Tuesday night.

I don't know why we are going through a replay of this. There is a suggestion he may do another vote in another few days. Members of the Senate have stood up to a person and announced where they stand on this issue. Nobody is trying to run away from this issue. It is a challenging issue and a historic vote, and we are all on the record. We are there.

I don't know why we have these repeat roll calls. I don't know why we are going through this again, but that is Senator McConnell's choice. One would think he might want to spend some time on the floor of the Senate dealing with some other issues, but he sticks with this one.

What happened over in the House of Representatives is hard to describe. We came together because of a statute passed by the House and the Senate calling for a vote of disapproval of the Iran treaty. Now, it has been rejected--that vote of disapproval--here in the Senate. The House never took it up. The House, instead, had three separate votes, never going to the issue of disapproval. They had three separate votes on separate issues. The one they passed that might be sent our way is hard to believe.

You see, what the House of Representatives said is that we will not lift any sanctions on Iran until we have a new President in January 2017. Think about that for a second. Here is what we know. We know that Iran has fissile material capable of building ten nuclear weapons. We know that. We also know that Iran has the capacity within 2 or 3 months--2 or 3 months--to create this nuclear weapon. We know that from our intelligence, and we know it from the pronouncements of Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel.

With the knowledge of that capability in Iran--to build a nuclear weapon, which would be a disaster in the Middle East--the House Republicans have said they want to put off any effort to stop the Iranians until we have a new President 17 months from now, which is more than enough time, I might add, for the Iranians, should they choose, to build a nuclear weapon. How does that make Israel any safer? How does that make the world any safer?

Here is what we know. With this Iran agreement, within weeks the Iranians will start dismantling their centrifuges. They will start the process guaranteed by this treaty that will result in closing down a nuclear reactor that produces plutonium which can be used for weapons.

They will start inviting inspectors into their country.

There has been a lot said by the Senator from Arizona and others about the track record of Iran. I agree with many things he said. They are not to be trusted. That is why verification is part of this agreement. If there were no inspectors, it would be a foolish venture, but with these inspectors, we are on the ground inspecting Iran on a daily basis, through the IAEA, international inspectors sponsored by the United Nations. Are these inspectors good? I can say that many years ago when we voted on the invasion of Iraq, when the Bush-Cheney administration told us there were weapons of mass destruction, these inspectors told us there were none--after we had invaded, after the war had started. It turns out the inspectors were right and the Bush-Cheney administration was wrong. They have a good track record, and I am glad they are going to be on the scene to verify this agreement.

But the question now is, How many more times will Senator McConnell want us to vote on this same issue? As leader, he can decide to do it over and over. Is this part of a debate prep for some of the Republican Senators running for President? They come to the floor and make their speeches or hear speeches and get to cast a vote before the CNN debate this week? I hope that is not it. We have made ourselves clear where we stand on this issue, each and every one of us. We cast our votes. We will do it again today. Now it is time for the Senate to move on.

Looming just ahead of us in a matter of days is the potential of another government shutdown. The same tea party Republicans who shut down this government 2 years ago have vowed to do it again over a different issue. Somehow they believe that come October 1, if we start shutting down the agencies of our Federal Government, they will have made a political point. They are right. They will make a point that the majority in the House and the Senate--the Republican majority--cannot govern, cannot manage the budget of the United States to keep our government agencies open. I think they make that point 2 years ago; I don't know why they want to remind the American people of it again.

So instead of voting repeatedly on the same measure, on the Iran agreement--where we already have a record vote--I would commend to the Republican leader: Take up the issues of the day. Some are compelling. There is cyber security for the safety of the United States. There is a transportation bill in the House of Representatives. We passed it, and it is time for the House to do the same. Let's fund our government. Let's not face a government shutdown.

I yield the floor.

Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, as many of my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, have noted, today's vote on the President's deal with Iran is one of significant consequence. The American people deserve an up-or-down vote on the deal itself.

I spent the day sitting on the floor of the Senate, listening to my colleagues debate the technicalities of the President's Iranian nuclear deal. This has been a lawyerly dispute, with arguments all over the map. I, like the vast majority of the American people, believe that this is a terrible deal.

It has blown up the sanctions regime that brought Iran to the table. It floods Tehran's coffers with more than $100 billion that will almost certainly finance the killing of innocents around the world. The verification efforts place all of the burden on the United States and our allies, leaving Iran free to delay, disrupt, and deny inspections. The deal even allows Iran to advance its ballistic missile programs and to stockpile uranium. It is simply a bad deal and the American people know it.

I went to Embassy Row and stood before the old Iranian Embassy to the United States, a building which was abandoned on April 7, 1980. And what the American people understand--and what Washington, DC, does not seem to understand--is that the technicalities of this deal, though important, are not the central question.

The central question is this: Why was that embassy abandoned April 7, 1980?

It is because in 1979 there was an Islamic revolution in Tehran, and the mullahs that came to power are theocratic hardliners that believe they have a divine mandate. Their divine mandate is to export Islamic law and tyranny across the Middle East, across North Africa, and beyond. The tyrants who rule Iran today believe they have a divine mandate to annihilate Israel.

For 36 years we have had a bipartisan consensus in our country that the world's largest state sponsor of terror should never be allowed to become a nuclear-threshold state.

Sadly, the administration has abandoned that bipartisan consensus in the fanciful, imaginary dream that they are going to transform Iran's theocratic hardliners into moderates that will no longer oppress religious minorities, women, homosexuals, and others within their country. The administration believes that the Iranian regime will no longer try to spread destabilization and fund terrorism across their region and across the globe. And this presents dire, but foreseeable consequences.

The administration's deal with Iran will set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East--one of the world's most volatile regions. Billions of dollars in sanctions relief will be available to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and its terrorist proxies to spill innocent blood and destabilize Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. Either of these developments is serious enough on its own. Taken together, we have an unacceptably high probability for regional conflicts that could quickly spiral into nuclear events. We have to take this seriously; but, as the outcome of this vote is likely to demonstrate, we are not.

The American people are more serious than Washington DC. The American people aspire to a day when that old and crumbling embassy is reopened, but not by the ruling theocratic mullahs. Instead, we can only accept a nation that believes in human flourishing and in the dignity of their own people, a government that repudiates the goal of annihilating Israel and the spreading their Islamic revolution across the Middle East.

I am grateful that the American people are more serious than Washington DC, but, it is not too late. I urge you to vote against the President's deal with Iran.

It is not in our national security interest, and it is surely not in the interest of our friends in that most dangerous region on the face of the earth.

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