Unanimous Consent Request
Floor Speech
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Ohio for his great leadership on this and so many other issues. I see my colleague from Oregon is on the floor as well.
I want to talk about an issue that Senator Portman just touched on, but it is really the key to what is going on here, and that it is good faith. Are negotiations happening in good faith? Or are they not?
Sometimes, it is hard to tell. Sometimes, there is posturing, but, last week at this time, Senator Portman, Senator McSally, and myself were on the floor with regard to discussing Senator McSally's very simple unanimous consent resolution which said as we negotiate-- hopefully, in good faith--the difference between what we have put forward--the HEALS Act--and the Speaker Pelosi bill from early May--a bit of a stale $4 trillion bill, one-third of which has nothing to do with the pandemic--but as we are trying to negotiate in good faith, let's move forward with an extension of unemployment so people who are hurting can continue to rely on it. That happens all the time in the Senate.
So what happened? The minority leader came down to the Senate floor and blocked it. He blocked it, and his response was: I am going to block this 1-week extension unless the Republicans take the entire $4- trillion Heroes Act. That is what he said. If you are watching or paying attention, that is the definition of not negotiating in good faith, and every Senator knows it. All 100 of us know it. That was not a good faith maneuver.
What I predicted was the minority leader of the U.S. Senate, despite that maneuver which is going to hurt millions of Americans, did it because he thinks the national media will give him a pass, that no one in the national media will say: Boy, oh boy, the minority leader just blocked a reasonable request for an extension to help people.
But he thinks, and I think with good reason, that the national media won't blame him for what he just did, so he did it with no explanation. That is not good faith. By definition, coming down saying, Take my $4 trillion package or you won't get a 1-week extension of unemployment, that is not good faith.
Let me mention one other point which Senator Portman mentioned. Now, on this tough issue of unemployment insurance--and Senator Portman has been a leader on this--I was talking to some of my Democratic colleagues about them today.
By the way, most of them don't believe that $600 until January is a good idea for the reasons Senator Portman mentioned.
Again, to have the minority leader of the U.S. Senate and Speaker Pelosi just say: 600 bucks, take it or leave it? Colleagues, you all know--we all know--that is not good faith. That is not good faith.
It is starting to feel like the minority leader and the Speaker are not negotiating in good faith right now. I hope they are--I know a lot of my Democratic colleagues are--but people have to remember, regardless of what party you are in, Americans are hurting. They need help. We have one foot in the recovery, one foot still in the pandemic. But what we need as we negotiate this package is good faith.
So I want to thank my colleague from Ohio again for his strong leadership on this and so many other issues. I am certainly going to be supportive of unanimous consent requests which we made at this time just last week to help people--not controversial, a week extension as we negotiate. It happens all the time here in the Senate.
I certainly hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not going to say, No, take my whatever, or we are not going to do it, because it doesn't look or feel like good faith. Do you know who is hurting by that? Do you know who is being hurt by that? The American people, who are suffering
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Senator Portman.
I have a lot of respect for my colleague from Oregon, who unfortunately just left the Senate floor, but there they go again. On the Senate floor, the Senator from Oregon just said ``Republicans cut off unemployment insurance for millions of families'' when, in reality, what we have just witnessed--if you are watching--on the Senate floor is that the Senator from Oregon objected to restoring unemployment benefits for millions of Americans. That is a fact. That is just what happened.
So he says one thing--and again, I think they get a little bit careless because they think the national media will just report what he says. That is what the Senator from Oregon just did. There is no denying that. And right before he did it, he said that Republicans cut off unemployment for millions of Americans. That is just not true-- not true.
He just objected to restoring unemployment benefits for a week--$600 for millions of Americans--just like the Democratic leader from New York did last week.
So think about that one. Short-term extensions are not enough--sounds good--so he objects so there are no extensions. Again, that is just what happened on the floor.
He didn't say one thing about this issue that Senator Portman and I have been discussing, which is good-faith negotiations. There is not one Senator in this body who believes that when the Democratic leader comes to the floor of the Senate and says ``take the $4 trillion Speaker Pelosi bill passed in early May or nothing,'' that that is good faith. It is almost, by definition, bad faith.
So I think our colleagues, who are trying to negotiate in good faith but are getting locked down by their leadership, are having a bit of a problem because they know this isn't good faith, and they know people are suffering. That is why we have got to work together to get to an agreement, but what we cannot do and what I fear the other side is starting to do is use people who are suffering as leverage in negotiations. That is not what we should be doing. We should be working in good faith to try to get to an agreement, and we should be making statements on the Senate floor that are actually factual.
What just happened here was that the Senator from Oregon objected to American citizens getting their unemployment benefits restored. That is a fact.
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to thank my good friend and colleague from Texas for laying out the choice before us and highlighting, again, this issue of good-faith negotiations, which hopefully we are starting to see, but last week we didn't see; and he talked about the so-called Heroes Act passed in May--so quite stale.
I will say one other element of that that was shocking and has been shocking to me is, there is a whole section on clawing back CARES Act money that went to Alaska Natives. The Heroes Act, the Pelosi $4 trillion bill, has a section that targets expressly about 20 percent of the population of my State--and my State only. By the way, they are amazing, patriotic people who have been through pandemics before and have suffered horrendously during these pandemics. The Heroes Act targets them and says any money that Native Alaskan organizations have received--by the way, organizations, regional and village corporations set up by Congress--any money they have received will be clawed back in the Heroes Act. Of course, I am never going to let that bill pass-- ever--on this floor. It is an outrage.
They need to get more serious about these negotiations, and the ``take it or leave it'' on the $4 trillion Pelosi bill that specifically targets some of the most patriotic Americans in the country, who happen to be my constituents--Alaska Natives--is never going to fly. Never
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