Tribal Labor Sovereignty Bill
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, a brief comment on the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act, which failed to move forward in the Senate last night. Indian Affairs has very rarely found its way to the floor of the Senate, despite a number of very pressing issues in Indian Country, including homelessness, educational disparities, language loss, healthcare access, broadband access, and many more. For a number of years, Democrats and Republicans on the Indian Affairs Committee have pushed legislation that would alleviate these problems. On our side of the aisle, Senators Udall, Tester, Smith, Baldwin, Heinrich, Heitkamp, Cantwell, and Murray have worked very hard on bills that deal with these very, very significant issues in Indian Country, but none of these bills have reached the floor.
The leader has refused to put bills that would dramatically help Indian Country on the floor. When, finally, a Tribal bill was brought forward by the majority leader, it was closed to amendments and debate. Senator Udall, our ranking member, wished to have amendments. Senator Hoeven, the chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, told me he wanted amendments. But the way Leader McConnell brought it to the floor was with no amendments, no debate, and no discussion. Even worse, it was a bill to scrap labor rights at a time when we should be doing everything we can to strengthen labor protections. The only bill the leader would bring to the floor is one that was divisive and destined to fail--a political act, not an act to help Indian Country.
The AFL-CIO said that passage of the measure ``would have amounted to the most aggressive erosion of labor protection since the 1940s.''
After many years of waiting for Tribal issues to reach the floor, I think many of us were sorely disappointed that the majority leader opted for this incredibly divisive bill, done in such an incredibly divisive way.
I hope, now that the measure has failed to advance, that the majority leader will consent to putting other Tribal bills on the floor, so many of which have broad bipartisan support and could pass at least the Senate.
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