Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019--Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, let me explain a little bit about what we witnessed on the Senate floor. Actually, it may be a little bit confusing, but it is an important issue.
With regard to the Coast Guard, my colleagues from Louisiana and Mississippi have been working on this issue for a while. It is not going to solve the whole partial government shutdown, but we have been working with a number of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Right now, this bill for which my friend from Louisiana asked to have unanimous consent has 23 cosponsors, and there might be more. Actually, almost one-quarter of the whole Senate--more Democratic cosponsors than Republican cosponsors--is cosponsoring this bill to pay the Coast Guard.
Again, we are working on the broader issue of getting our government back to the work of paying Federal workers, but as my colleagues mentioned, the Coast Guard is in a rather unique situation because it is the only military service right now that is not getting paid. Those in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are all getting paid. Right now, as we speak, the Coast Guard's men and women are out in my great State of Alaska and are risking their lives for Americans, as they always do. They are also out in other places like the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf. They are literally running patrols in the gulf, side by side, with marines and sailors. The marines and sailors are getting paid. The members of the Coast Guard are not getting paid.
By the way, if the members of the Coast Guard say: ``Do you know what? I don't want to deploy to the Middle East right now. I am not getting paid'' or ``I don't want to get on that ship to save an Alaskan crabber whose life is at risk,'' they get court-martialed. So the Coast Guard is in a very unique situation right now.
Here is the process we just witnessed. A number of us--again, it was very bipartisan--went to the President and said: Mr. President, we know it takes the Senate and the House and the White House to pass a bill. People are working on the broader issue. We are all working on the broader issue and on the compromises we need. Hopefully, we can get there this afternoon. In the meantime, let's try to get something to pass as we have almost one-quarter of the Senate in agreement--more Democrats than Republicans--on this bill that Senator Kennedy just mentioned. Would you support this?
A number of us have had ongoing conversations with the President of the United States. I have raised this a number of times with him and his administration over the last 2 weeks. In a meeting I had with him on Wednesday, he said: I am 100 percent behind that bill.
This is really important because, as to some of what the minority leader has said we should be bringing up, the White House has said: We are not going to support. OK. It is difficult to pass a bill when you are not going to get the President to sign it. Yet the President will sign this bill, and almost 25 percent of the Senate has said it is already a cosponsor of it.
So what just happened for everybody watching, particularly the Coast Guard members?
When I learned that the President was supportive last Thursday, we brought this bill to the Senate floor, and we hotlined it, which means we were trying to move it through the Senate very quickly. Every Republican cleared that hotline. Essentially, it means we all voted yes. When we took it to our colleagues on the other side--look, I know my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, care a lot about the Coast Guard--it was stalled.
We kept asking: Come on. Don't you want to support this? You have a bunch of cosponsors. Right now, the men and women of the Coast Guard are very unique in terms of the military's not getting paid, but there was just a delay.
Senator Kennedy said: I am going to ask for a live unanimous consent. Let's just bring it up and pass it. The White House would sign it. We could fix this issue today. I bet most of the House would certainly vote for it.
So he brought it up for unanimous consent, and the minority leader objected.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to talk a lot about hostage-taking with regard to Federal employees. I think they need to think a bit harder about what just happened with the men and women of the Coast Guard. You heard it from the minority leader. He said he is not going to do anything about the Coast Guard right now even though the President said he would sign it. We could fix this tonight.
Here is the point. We are all working on the broader issue, and we are going to vote on some things. If they fail this afternoon, there are numbers of us who are working on compromises to fix this whole problem. In the meantime, why shouldn't we all be working on the important issue--it might not be with regard to the whole government-- of taking care of the men and women of the Coast Guard? People are literally risking their lives right now for Americans, not just in Alaska or in Texas but all over the world, and they are the only members of the military who are not getting paid. We could fix it tonight--the President will sign it--as we are working on the broader issue.
I don't understand why that is not an acceptable path forward. In talking to the men and women of the Coast Guard--certainly, in my State--they don't understand either. Yes, we have to come to a compromise on this broader issue that ends the partial government shutdown--that gets all of our Federal workers back and that secures our border. We are all working on that. In the meantime, had the minority leader of the U.S. Senate not objected, everybody here--I guarantee you it would have included my Democratic colleagues--would have voted for this bill to pay the Coast Guard. It just doesn't make sense.
I certainly hope my colleagues and my good friend from New York will reconsider their blocking of this bill, because we could fix at least one element of this. We need to fix it all, but in my view this is a very unique element. The men and women who raised their hands to support and defend the Constitution and possibly die for this country are not getting paid. Yet those in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are. Let's fix it tonight. We can fix it tonight. Unfortunately, we just had an objection to doing that. I think it is a mistake, and I am hopeful my colleagues will reconsider.
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I want to make one other point after the eloquent comments of my good friend from Texas.
We have already done something similar here. We are all breaking for lunch right now. My Democratic colleagues are going to go do their strategy sessions, and we are going to do the same. I implore my Democratic colleagues to go back to their leader and say: Hey, come on. Let's rethink this. Here is why. We have already done something similar.
I was on the floor when two of my Democratic colleagues from Virginia asked for unanimous consent on a bill. Remember, the whole government was partially shut down. There was a partial government shutdown. They asked for unanimous consent on a bill to make sure that when the partial government shutdown was over, everybody would receive backpay. We are actually doing work on smaller but very important issues. I was on the floor when they did that. I certainly voted yes.
By the way, that went to the President. He said he was going to sign it, and he signed it. That became a law just about 2 weeks ago, as we have been debating and trying to find a compromise.
So the notion that we are not doing any work and that we are not passing any laws that are impacting Federal workers until the whole thing is over is actually not true. We have already done it.
This would be analogous to what we did 2 weeks ago, and that was led by the Democrats. The thing about this Coast Guard bill right now is that it is very, very bipartisan.
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes.
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Mr. SULLIVAN. No, it just made it so there was parity between the brave men and women of the Coast Guard and the brave men and women of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines--all of whom are risking their lives for our country and our citizens.
Right now, the men and women of the Coast Guard are the only ones who are not getting paid.
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Mr. SULLIVAN. I think as soon as possible we could get it passed.
I talked to the President on Wednesday. He said he was 100 percent behind this bill, the way he was behind that other bill to provide backpay to everybody else who has been affected by the partial government shutdown.
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Mr. SULLIVAN. That is correct.
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