First 100 Days Of The Republican Senate
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am happy to stand here today knowing that the Senate has had a pretty good week of getting its work done--or I should say the people's work done--and overwhelmingly passing important legislation that will actually help, first of all, victims of human trafficking, but generally speaking, help make the lives of our constituents, the American people, just a little bit better. I am talking about the antitrafficking legislation in particular--something I am particularly excited about--the unanimous, 99-to-0 vote yesterday. We passed this piece of legislation after a hard-fought few weeks of debate. The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act was a bill we all agree was worth fighting for. Why? Is this important to the rich and powerful, the people who have a lot of influence here in Washington and around the country? No. We thought it was worth fighting for because it would help the people who, frankly, need a voice. They need somebody to speak up for them because they can't speak for themselves. This antitrafficking bill, the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, protects the most vulnerable people in our country.
I thank the majority leader for his tireless help and commitment to making sure we got this job done to fight this monstrous crime and punish those who seek to hold our children in what has been appropriately called nothing less than modern-day slavery.
As the majority leader said yesterday, today is a new day. Under his leadership, the Senate is now in a new era of bipartisanship and functioning. If there is one thing I heard last year as I was campaigning for reelection in Texas or traveling around the country--I am sure the Presiding Officer had the same experience--it is that people would tell me how frustrated they were with Washington and the fact that no one seemed to be working together to try to solve the problems that were making their lives more difficult. ``Dysfunction'' was the word most commonly used.
But now, after this first 100 days of a new Congress, I think we are demonstrating that we are capable of functioning and working together in the best interest of the American people. Does that mean we are sacrificing our principles? People are Republicans or Democrats for good reason: They have a different point of view. But what is inexcusable is for Republicans and Democrats to refuse to work together and get nothing done.
We have a colleague, a very conservative colleague who years ago told me, while working with a very liberal colleague--I asked him: How is it that somebody who really represents the book ends in terms of ideology--Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative--how is it that you actually are able to get things done?
He said to me: Well, it is easy. It is the 80-20 rule. We take the 80 percent we can agree on and we leave the 20 percent we can't agree on for another day and another fight.
As we are celebrating, in a sense, a new era of bipartisanship and functioning here in the Senate, it is clear we can't rest on our laurels. We still have a lot of work to do, and I would like to spend a couple minutes talking about that.
Our upcoming agenda will include some very important and weighty matters, including the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which will give Congress the ability and time to scrutinize any agreement reached between the Obama administration and the P5+1 nations, while also prohibiting the President from lifting sanctions on Iran during this period of review.
This commonsense bill was unanimously reported out last week by the Foreign Relations Committee. I think that is a little bit of a surprise to many given the fact that the President initially said that if Congress were to pass this sort of legislation giving the American people a voice in this nuclear agreement, he would veto it. Well, when this came roaring out of the Foreign Relations Committee with unanimous support and when it became clear that enough Democrats were going to join together with Republicans to pass this legislation and prevent a veto by having enough votes to override a veto, then the President very commonsensically said: Well, I think I will sign it. I will agree to go along with that.
So the President finally agreed with Republicans and Democrats in the Senate that congressional oversight was warranted and admitted last week that he would not stand in the way of this legislation.
We are here not to guard our own prerogatives or privileges as individual Senators. That means essentially nothing. What we are here for is to stand in the shoes of our constituents--the 26.9 million people whom I represent in Texas, the people of Arkansas whom the Presiding Officer represents--and it is absolutely critical that we, as the representatives of the American people, have the opportunity to review this Iran deal and to consider its implications, to debate it, and to make that entirely transparent to the American people because this is about not just the national security of the nation of Israel, this is about our national security as well as that of our other allies.
We will spend much of the next few days and perhaps through next week discussing this bill, so I won't belabor my thoughts on that at this time, but I did want to express a few concerns on the current state of the proposed framework with Iran.
On April 2, President Obama announced not a deal with Iran but a ``historic understanding with Iran.''
Well, people naturally asked: What does that understanding look like? What does it consist of? Where can I get a copy of it so I can read it?
To our surprise, there wasn't a deal. Nothing was written. It was somehow a historic understanding that--even the parties who negotiated it disagreed about the details. So it should come as no surprise that the President and the P5+1 countries have not been able to secure an actual deal with Iran, which is our biggest threat and most dangerous adversary in the Middle East. After all, let's think about whom we are talking to and with--the nation of Iran. This is the No. 1 state sponsor of international terrorism, a country that has repeatedly lied to and deceived inspectors in the past as a matter of standard operating procedure. As Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel reminded us just last month, for more than 30 years Iran has been hostile to America and her allies. In fact, Iran first killed Americans back in the early 1980s and has subsequently killed Americans mainly through proxies since that time until the present time. This is the same regime that has continued to target the United States since 1979. It is the same regime that has been on the State Department's terrorism blacklist since 1984 following an Iran-backed terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of American servicemen, including many from my State. Given this track record, does anybody really wonder what Iran would do with a nuclear weapon?
As these important negotiations continue for the next months, there remain a lot of question marks about Iran's true intentions and about whether the deal--once it is done--the Obama administration is finalizing will essentially cement Iran's status as a nuclear threshold nation.
I remember Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking to a joint meeting of the Congress. He said the framework he has seen doesn't prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. What he said is that essentially the framework paves the way or paves the path to a nuclear weapon, which, of course, would represent a tremendous change in American policy.
Our policy has been--the administration's policy has been, as stated, no nukes for Iran, none. But at least according to the framework that has been leaked, there appears to be more of the nature of a pathway toward a nuclear weapon as opposed to a prohibition. I look forward to continuing the discussion in the coming days, but Iran is only one issue we will be turning to as the Senate continues to work on bipartisan legislation to get work done for the American people.
We will be working on the very important issue of trade. Trade is important to my State, and it is important to the United States. Anytime we can open new markets to the things we grow in our agricultural sector or the livestock we raise--the beef, pork, poultry sector--anytime we can create and open new markets to the things we manufacture and we make in the United States, it strikes me it is a good thing, because while we occupy only 5 percent of the world's territory, we constitute 20 percent of the purchasing power in the world. That means 95 percent of the population--80 percent of the purchasing power in the world--lies beyond our shores. It just makes sense to me that we would want to open our markets, our goods that we make and grow and raise to markets overseas; in this case, primarily to Asia. But once we take up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, once it is negotiated, then at some future point we will turn to Europe and the so-called TTIP negotiation.
Last night, I am glad to report that the Finance Committee reported out the trade promotion authority piece of this legislation. This is something that has been a little bit misunderstood and, frankly, it is a little confusing. People have asked, Why in the world would you want to give the President authority to negotiate this Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiation? The simple answer is this trade promotion authority is not just for President Obama and his administration--he is only going to be there for the next 20 months. This will last for 6 years and go into the next Presidential administration.
The fact is, you can't negotiate something as complex as a trade deal like the Trans-Pacific Partnership with 535 negotiators; in other words, all the Members of the Senate and all the Members of the House. But what this does provide is that once a deal is reached, it has to be laid before the Congress and it has to be laid before the American people so they can read it and understand it.
After about 6 months, then there will be a debate in the Senate, and we will have an up-or-down vote. If we do not think it serves the interests of the United States, of our citizens and of our country, we can vote it down. But conversely, if we think this does improve trade and the economic prospects, jobs and wages for the American people, then we can vote to approve it. This bill will open American goods and services to global markets, which is good for our economy, good for jobs, and good for better wages, something that has been under a lot of negative pressure over the last few years.
To sum up this week, we passed legislation that will help thousands of victims of modern-day slavery--typically, a girl between the ages of 12 and 14--who are routinely sex trafficked in our own backyards. This will provide real resources. It will not only help rescue them but begin to help them heal and to begin the path to restoration.
I think this should be a proud accomplishment for the Senate. But the bottom line is, we still have a lot of work to do, and I look forward to more accomplishments with my colleagues and for the new spirit of bipartisanship to continue as we tackle real problems for the American people.
I yield the floor.
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