Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2015 -- Motion to Proceed -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as my colleagues know, for weeks now Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked the Senate from even considering a $40 billion funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that would extend through the end of the fiscal year, the end of September. They have done it not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. Four times they have filibustered this Department of Homeland Security funding bill that would pay the salaries of the men and women who protect our ports, our airports, and our border.

Meanwhile, our friends across the aisle are telling the American people: No, it is not us blocking this funding, it is the Republicans. Well, I beg to differ. The House of Representatives has actually passed a Homeland Security appropriations bill--the bill we tried to get on four different times and the Democrats don't seem satisfied with the ability to offer amendments to change it or modify it in any way that they can command 60 votes to do. Their attitude is: We are not even going to consider it unless we get everything we want right upfront.

I guess I can kind of understand why they are of that frame of mind because over the last few years, the Senate has become completely dysfunctional. Under the previous majority leader, there wasn't any opportunity to offer amendments and get votes on those amendments on legislation. It was a ``my way or the highway'' proposition.

In other words, what I am saying is the Senate was broken, and after years of running the Senate as an incumbent protection program and voting on only poll-tested messages and blocking amendments, last November the American people said, enough is enough; no more dysfunction. Let's have a Senate and a Congress that represents our interests, not the interests of protecting incumbents against taking tough votes.

I believe our colleagues who have blocked consideration of this funding amendment should be, frankly, ashamed of themselves. It doesn't seem as though they have gotten the message.

The senior Senator from New York, Senator Schumer, who is a member of the leadership and my friend, told the Huffington Post recently that ``it is really fun to be in the minority.'' By that, I guess he means it is fun to block Homeland Security appropriations bills not once, not twice, not three times, but four separate times. But filibustering this critical funding for the men and women who protect us every day is not my idea of fun, nor is it, I suspect, for the thousands of men and women who work in the Department of Homeland Security, from the Coast Guard to the Border Patrol to all of the people who work day in and day out to try and help keep us safe in the homeland.

When given the opportunity four times over the last few weeks to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security while rolling back the President's unconstitutional Executive action, four times Senate Democrats have taken the low road and continued to obstruct.

Over the last several weeks, we pointed out the tough talk that came from some Senate Democrats last fall when the President issued his Executive action on immigration back when the President made his intent clear to follow through with a series of unilateral actions that he had previously said, on 22 different occasions, he didn't have the authority to do. Twenty-two times the President said publicly he didn't have the authority to do it, and last November, after being encouraged to wait until after the election so it didn't have a negative blowback on people running for the Senate, he went ahead and did it anyway.

As I noted before, some of our colleagues on the other side expressed their concerns at the time. Some said it made them feel uncomfortable, and some said: I wish he wouldn't do it. Well, no kidding.

When the President usurps the authority given under the Constitution to the legislative branch of government and seeks to arrogate to himself the power to unilaterally change the law, they should feel uncomfortable. One by one these same folks who were so concerned and so uncomfortable with what the President did last November have come down to the floor and voted in lockstep. They voted, in effect, to reaffirm the President's actions.

In justifying these votes, we heard the common refrain, we don't necessarily agree with the President's Executive actions, but an appropriations bill is not the proper vehicle to address them. That is what they said time and time again. So now we have a pretty simple and straightforward message to our Democratic friends who were so concerned and so uncomfortable and who wished the President had not gone around Congress on immigration. We are here to say: Here is your chance.

This week the Senate will take up a bill that will address the President's Executive actions that were announced last November. Senator McConnell, the majority leader, made it clear last night that this targeted bill is not tied to the Department of Homeland Security funding.

Under the regular rules of the Senate, the process he set in order last night will come to fruition on Friday, and that will be the time for all of our colleagues on this side of the aisle and the ones on the other side of the aisle who expressed disapproval of the President's Executive action to vote for a bill that expresses that disapproval--the so-called Collins bill.

My strong preference would be to pass the House bill--that has been filibustered four separate times by our Democratic friends--because it fully funds the Department while reining in the President's overreach. But since the Democrats have refused on four different occasions to even allow the bill to come to the floor with the excuse that it is tied to the Department of Homeland Security funding, we are going to give them an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is. In other words, we are going to see if they can take yes for an answer.

If all of the occasions where my colleagues said they were uncomfortable with the President's actions are not enough--if the 22 times the President himself said he didn't have the authority to issue this Executive action--well, we now know that during the recess last week a Federal judge in Texas has given us one more reason.

A week ago U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, TX, ruled in a lawsuit brought by 26 different States, including Texas, that what the President did was illegal. He issued a temporary injunction blocking implementation of the President's Executive action.

If that were the end of it, any amount of money that was appropriated by the Congress to fund the Department of Homeland Security could not legally be used to fund the President's Executive action because there is an injunction in place issued by a Federal court that says you can't do it, and, indeed, the administration has acknowledged that. They stood down, but now they have come back to the judge and asked for a stay of the judge's temporary injunction. They said if they don't get that, they will go to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and ask the appellate court to stay the judge's temporary injunction.

Judge Hanen's ruling enforces what I and many others have been saying for a long time, that the President acted outside of the law when he went around Congress to unilaterally change our Nation's immigration laws.

But the judge's ruling gets to a broader issue, and there is one part of it that I found particularly important. In writing his opinion explaining his ruling, Judge Hanen looked at the Obama administration's case and imagined how you could take their argument and apply it across the board.

It is easy to overlook and overreach what the President has said if you perhaps agree with what he actually accomplished, which is, in effect, to give legal status to roughly 5 million people. If you think that is a good idea, you are likely to turn a blind eye to the way the President did it. But if the courts establish the precedent that this President--or any future President, Republican or Democrat--can pick and choose which laws to enforce, what could end up happening? Well, it doesn't take a lot of imagination. Judge Hanen writes: ``then a lack of resources''--which is the argument that was made by the administration--``would be an acceptable reason to cease enforcing environmental laws, or the Voting Rights Act, or even the various laws that protect civil rights and equal opportunity.''

That is what Judge Hanen said in his opinion in repudiating the argument made by the administration that the President had this authority and talked about what kind of dangerous precedent it would set if it were accepted by the court as legal.

I am sure I am not the only one who would hate to see our country head down that sort of lawless path where the laws don't make any difference, it is just the preference of whoever is President which determines the direction the country should take. That is a dangerous path. It is completely inconsistent with who we are as a country that believes in the rule of law.

So now that the President's actions have been settled in the court of public opinion, where they are deeply unpopular, and ruled upon by a court of law, my friends from the other side of the aisle need to take note because they have a very clear choice. They can continue to give excuses for why they are filibustering this $40 billion Homeland Security appropriations bill or, as I said, they can put their money where their mouth is and vote to stop the President's 2014 Executive action separate and apart from any issue of funding of the Department of Homeland Security.

At the end of the day, the Senate will make sure the people who protect our borders and our ports and our skies get paid because that is the responsible thing to do. Senate Democrats, who were so concerned and so uncomfortable with what the President did last fall, are out of excuses, and they are going to have a chance to vote on the Collins amendment on Friday or at some other time mutually agreed upon by the majority and the minority.

I yield the floor.

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