The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Tribute to Roy Blunt (Executive Session)” mentioning Roy Blunt was published in the Senate section on pages S1439-S1440 on March 10.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
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The publication is reproduced in full below:
Tribute to Roy Blunt
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, before I begin, I want to take a moment to express my sadness about Senator Blunt's announcement that he will not seek reelection in 2022.
He has been a leader within our conference ever since he came over to the Senate, and he will be sorely missed. I will especially miss having him as a Member of the whip team here in the Senate.
I came to the House of Representatives with Senator Blunt back in the election of 1996. We began our service in January of 1997, and he quickly rose up through the ranks in the House and became the Republican whip in the House of Representatives. He has always been involved in leadership wherever he has been, and his list of achievements is long.
All Americans have benefited over the past year from his tremendous efforts to accelerate coronavirus testing and vaccine development. And less than 2 months ago, in his role as chairman of Rules Committee, he oversaw a very successful inauguration at a particularly challenging time.
The one good thing is that Roy is not leaving us immediately. He will be here for 2 more years, and I look forward to continuing to work with him and to seeing everything that he will accomplish
American Rescue Plan Act of 2021
Mr. President, it has been quoted that ``[t]he Senate works best when we work together. . . . The challenges we face are great. The divisions in the country are real. We have no choice but to try to work together every day to reward the faith the American people have placed in us.''
Those are not my words. Those are the words of the Democratic leader on Inauguration Day. But I agree with him. The Senate does indeed work best when we work together. And, for proof, look no further than last week's debacle--a good example of what happens when, instead of working together, one party tries to strong-arm its legislation through the Senate.
Last Friday was perhaps most notable for its 11-plus-hour vote on an amendment. Democrats held a 15-minute vote open for almost 12 hours--
making it the longest vote in modern Senate history--because it had become clear that they were in danger of losing the support of one of their Members.
It turns out that when you force a massive, liberal piece of legislation through the Senate without committee review and without any attempt at soliciting input from the Senate as a whole, you start to lose support even from Members of your own party. It was an embarrassing moment for the Democrat leadership and a sad moment for the rest of the Senate.
In that same speech on Inauguration Day, the Democratic leader pledged:
[The] Senate will legislate. . . . And to my Republican colleagues, when and where we can, the Democratic majority will strive to make this important work bipartisan.
There was no evidence of that here. Democrats didn't try to make this bill bipartisan. In fact, they actively tried to make sure Republicans didn't have a voice in this legislation.
Remember that almost 12-hour amendment vote? Democrats held that vote open for nearly 12 hours solely because they were afraid that a Republican amendment might pass. Republicans were more than willing to work with Democrats on COVID relief, as we did last year on five separate COVID bills, but Democrats didn't want Republicans interfering with their legislation.
I want to talk about those previous COVID bills for just a minute. Prior to Democrats taking control of the Senate, COVID relief was a bipartisan process. Under Republican control, the Senate passed five COVID relief bills with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. Because both Democrats and Republicans had a voice in the legislation, there was no need to keep any of those votes open to engage in partisan arm-
twisting. ``The Senate works best when it works together.''
The bipartisan process on those other COVID bills didn't just guarantee a bipartisan vote in the Senate; it also guaranteed that those other COVID bills were actually about COVID. Because both parties had to work together to get a result, neither party was able to hijack the bill for partisan purposes.
Contrast that with the bill the Senate passed on Saturday. While Democrats have tried to sell their legislation as a COVID relief bill, the truth is it isn't one. Just 1 percent--1 percent--of this bill actually goes to our top COVID priority--vaccinations--and less than 10 percent of this bill is directly related to combating the virus.
There has been a lot of talk about how this bill is a liberal wish list, which it is, but that is almost being too generous. A liberal wish list at least suggests some grand policy schemes. This bill is mostly just a collection of payoffs to Democrat interest groups in Democrat States.
For the extreme abortion wing of the Democratic Party, this bill omits longstanding Federal restriction on using taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion. It makes labor unions eligible for loans designed to rescue Main Street small businesses. It bails out failing union pensions--a bailout even the New York Times describes as having
``nothing to do with the pandemic'' and as an ``almost unheard-of'' use of taxpayer dollars. That is from the New York Times.
It provides nearly $129 billion for K-12 schools--despite the fact that these schools have spent just $5 billion of the $68 billion already given to them--while keeping teachers unions happy by making sure funding isn't tied to any requirement to actually get back to in-
person instruction.
Then, of course, there is the money for the States. The bill appropriates a staggering $350 billion for States, despite the fact that a majority of States already have the resources they need to weather the rest of the pandemic.
On top of that, the distribution formula for that $350 billion is heavily weighted in favor of blue States, like California, which stands to see $27 billion under this legislation, despite the fact that California's revenues are up by $15 billion. Now, imagine the outcry if Republicans were directing funding to States that voted Republican in the last election.
And lest anyone thinks any of this was unintentional, Democrats doubled down on the partisanship when it came to amendments. They rejected an amendment that would have protected Americans from having their tax dollars used to pay for abortions, even though multiple Democrats broke ranks with their party to support this amendment.
They rejected an amendment to tie funding for schools to schools that actually are reopening. They rejected an amendment to ensure seamless support to nonpublic schools serving low-income students. They rejected an amendment to stop labor unions from taking loan money intended for small businesses. They rejected an amendment to provide greater transparency on nursing home COVID deaths, presumably in an attempt to protect the Democratic Governor of New York, who is under fire for seemingly deliberate attempts to obscure reporting of these deaths.
In a nod to the far-left environmental wing of the party, they rejected an amendment to reverse the President's cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which will cost thousands--thousands of American jobs.
I could go on for a while on amendments because there are a lot more.
Democrats passed an amendment that provides an incentive for some Americans to stay on unemployment by making more than $10,000 of their unemployment benefits nontaxable. Think about that. More than $10,000 of their unemployment benefits is untaxable without regard to income.
Working Americans still have to pay their taxes, even if they are making less money than they would on unemployment. If you are a hard-
working taxpayer in this country and you are not getting a tax break when the people who are on unemployment are getting a $10,000 tax break, nontaxable income that is costing the Federal Government somewhere on the order of $30 billion, you can imagine the average taxpayer in this country might find that to be highly objectionable when they find out about it. A substantial amount of unemployment benefits will be tax-free. That doesn't seem too fair, not to mention that the last thing we should be doing right now is discouraging people from going back to work.
In that speech I referenced earlier that the Democratic leader gave on Inauguration Day, he said:
As the majority changes in the Senate, the Senate will do business differently.
``The Senate will do business differently.'' Well, now we have a glimpse of what that looks like. And, apparently, it looks like ruthless partisanship in an attempt to completely silence the minority and the Americans they represent. It is deeply disappointing that Democrats have turned a bipartisan process into a totally partisan exercise.
As I mentioned, pandemic relief ought to be bipartisan, and it was last year, five times. Five times here in the U.S. Senate, we passed pandemic relief, coronavirus relief legislation, with overwhelming bipartisan majorities under regular order, where 60 votes are required, instead of under the procedure that was used by the Democrats last week to shut Republicans out of that process.
We could have passed a bill last week again with overwhelming bipartisan support, but that would have required Democrats to be willing to genuinely collaborate with Republicans. And, unfortunately, it is becoming clear that collaboration is not part of the new way of doing business in the Democratic-led Senate.
I hope my Democratic colleagues will change course in the days ahead and work with Republicans to unite our country. As the Democratic leader suggested on Inauguration Day, they owe the American people nothing less.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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