Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHATZ. 3104, the Federal Employee Parental Leave Technical Correction Act, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
Let's get clear about what is happening here. The first thing is we did something momentous as a group. We, on a bipartisan basis, decided to provide paid parental leave of 12 weeks for the Federal workforce-- 2.1 million Federal workers--so that individuals who are new parents don't have to make that impossible choice between receiving a paycheck and being a new dad or a new mom. Now, this is catching us up with the rest of the world. The rest of the industrialized world understands that this isn't just a humane thing to do for families. This is the right way to manage the workforce because you get higher productivity; you get better morale; and you get lower turnover. This is a smart thing to do.
There were 2.1 million people covered by this momentous change of Federal policy agreed upon over the last 48 hours on a bipartisan basis. There was a technical problem, and so the following Federal employees are not going to be covered unless we make this technical fix: employees of the DC courts, public defenders, Presidential appointees, FAA, and CSA employees, and article I judges. Everybody else is going to get 12 weeks of paid parental leave, except for these people. We can solve that today.
That is what my unanimous consent request is all about. What the Senator from Pennsylvania has decided to do is take a hostage and say, These are the only Federal employees who are not going to get this benefit because of a technical and drafting error because I didn't get something totally unrelated that has to do with a tax bill that was passed on purely partisan lines in a hurry, written primarily by lobbyists in the middle of the night.
Now, I do not mind entertaining a change to the Tax Code to deal with this question of how you expense the renovation of restaurants and retail operations, but I think Senator Wyden is exactly right. I guess the Senator from Pennsylvania thought this was a talking point on the Republican side. Heaven forbid if there should be a negotiation. Heaven forbid something that is as important to the Republicans that is as a result of their screw-up and would cost tens of billions of dollars would not be given away for free.
The argument being made is, hey, technical for technical. This is an actual technical fix. This is a bill we just enacted in the last 48 hours. I am not even sure if the President has signed it yet, but it is about to be enacted into law, and nobody is arguing that we should not cover some small portion of the Federal workforce.
Nobody is arguing that was the legislative intent. Nobody is arguing that is public policy. What the Senator from Pennsylvania is saying, If I don't get my thing, then these people don't get the help that they deserve. These people, by happenstance of a drafting error, don't get paid parental leave. Now, this has human consequences.
I am happy to work with the Senator from Pennsylvania on a quick fix. I think we will get there at some point next year, but this has to be part of a broader bipartisan deal, and he knows that.
This is going to cost tens of billions of dollars, and no one gives tens of billions of dollars for nothing. Everything of that magnitude has to be negotiated on a bipartisan, bicameral basis. That is not what he is trying to do. He is trying to say because we made a technical error that was monumentally wrong and, as a result of the flawed process, why don't we trade technical fixes. This is a relatively small technical fix, and he wants to trade it for a massive technical fix that is now 2 years old.
The only thing I would say is this may be small in the context of how we operate in the U.S. Senate. It is not small if you work for the FAA and you are a new dad. It is not small if you are an article I judge and you are a new mom. It is not small for these people who deserve paid parental leave like every other Federal employee will get soon.
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