Child Protection Improvements Act of 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Madam President, the remarks just concluded by my friend and colleague from Tennessee help make it clear why many of us do not look forward to his departure at the end of the upcoming Congress to the better vales of retirement. We are so grateful for the balance and the measured leadership of the Senator from Tennessee. He reminds us of the best of our history and what it is that the Senate has stood for and the role that we play in our constitutional order. I will simply briefly thank him for his remarks.

I thank the Presiding Officer for her hard work to make sure this letter was presented to the leaders of both caucuses with 61 signatures. We frankly could have gotten more, but in the press of the work of that day, April 7, 2017, we thought it important to get on the record, in signature, individual Senators saying that we are committed to not change the rules of the Senate on the Senate filibuster rules regarding legislation. I am committed to never voting to change the legislative filibuster.

I will simply conclude by saying to my friend, my colleague from Tennessee, that I think there is important work for us to do here to strengthen our role. A number of the retiring Members gave floor speeches in recent days where they talked about the ways in which this body--we do not listen to each other enough, we do not debate each other enough, and we do not work across the aisle enough. If we are to play the role the Founders intended, we must do more of that, not less.

The agreement just reached here that will allow us to negotiate in good faith towards a resolution of the impending shutdown--the fiscal standoff between the White House, the House, and the Senate--is exactly the kind of example I would like to point to where Members listen to each other and work out the kind of resolution that allows us to skip dozens of intervening test votes and move right to the resolution.

This body has a critical role to play. As my friend and colleague from Tennessee pointed out, rule of law is at the very foundation of our constitutional Republic. We are at a moment in our history where many question the stability of our commitment to the rule of law. Nobody will play a more important role in reassuring our markets, our communities, our society, and the world that democracy--the deliberative, respectful resolution of disputes, not through violence but through debate and through votes by the elected representatives of our people--is the best system for the governance of societies on Earth. No better proof of that can be given than by this body conducting itself in the sort of disciplined, reasonable, appropriate way that the rules of the Senate allow for. Thus, I will not vote and I will suggest that the signature of the Presiding Officer also reinforces that she and many others here, on a bipartisan basis, will not vote to take the rash step of changing the rules of the Senate to turn us into the House and to remove the last bulwark, as my friend and colleague said, that ensures that we have the right to talk our heads off whenever we might so choose.

I yield to my friend and colleague, the Senator from Alabama.

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