Richard J. Durbin · TranslatePolitics.com

Senate

Cloture Motion (Executive Calendar)

2026-07-22

“I want to say that the Senator from Georgia is not here, but it does not matter. We have enough votes to pass this motion.”

Senate

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 1689 (Executive Calendar)

2026-07-22

“I want our government to let Haitians stay in America until 2029. Trump wants to send them back to Haiti. That is mean and wrong. I don't like Trump. Haitians work in hospitals and businesses in my state. I want them to stay. Trump wants to make things worse. I want my bill to pass so Haitians can stay. The other side is bad and mean.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, I rise in support of H.R. 1689, a bill to designate Haiti for Temporary Protected Status through March 20, 2029. I thank my colleagues Senator Markey and Senator Blunt Rochester for their leadership on this important humanitarian issue. This bill passed the House on a strong bipartisan vote, and the Senate should pass it as well. Supporting this legislation is the right thing to do; nationals of Haiti cannot safely return to their home country. The Department of State has issued a level 4 travel advisory, telling Americans that it is unsafe to travel to Haiti due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, civil unrest, and limited healthcare. The Federal Aviation Administration prohibits U.S. carriers from flying to Haiti because of the danger to planes of being shot at by the gangs. But this bill is not just a humanitarian action. Haitian TPS holders have become integral parts of their communities. In fact, our former Senate colleague Mike Dewine--now the Republican Governor of Ohio--called the Trump administration's decision to terminate Haiti's TPS ``a mistake'' and a ``job killer'' that is ``not in the best interest of the United States nor Ohio.'' He noted that Haitian TPS holders are opening small businesses, working, and raising families in Ohio communities. Illinois is no different; hundreds of Haitian families in Illinois will be impacted by the terminations of TPS. In fact, there are 350,000 Haitian TPS holders nationwide, with 50,000 U.S. citizen children who will be harmed by the administration's decision to terminate Haiti's TPS. They work in critical industries, providing essential care to our elderly and harvesting the food that we rely on each day. Business organizations and labor unions have warned that the decision to end work authorization for many TPS holders could have sweeping consequences for both workers and the U.S. economy. DHS Secretary Mullin has tried to deflect, saying, ``Either try to fill out the paperwork and be here underneath a permanent status, or we'll help you get back to your country.'' But he leaves out the important part: The Trump-Mullin Department of Homeland Security has indefinitely banned processing for any immigration application from a Haitian national. So there is no way for Haitians TPS holders to apply for permanent status. The administration's goal is clear: to force Haitian TPS holders to go back to a country where they are at risk of violence, kidnapping, or death. That should tell you everything you need to know. But the President showed his hand long ago; I was at the meeting in 2018 where he used the term ``s-hole'' nations to describe Haiti and African countries. I will never forget it--it was an embarrassment to the White House, to the Oval Office, and to the Presidency. At the time, President Trump denied making this statement, but now, he proudly proclaims his bigotry toward the Haitian people. I happen to disagree with the President. Haitian TPS holders make our country better every day. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this live unanimous consent request to extend TPS for Haiti.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Senate

Cloture Motion (Executive Calendar)

2026-07-22

“I want to say a Senator is absent. I want to say his name. I will announce the vote count.”

Senate

Vote on Flowers Nomination (Executive Calendar)

2026-07-22

“I'm announcing one Senator isn't here for this vote. The vote happened. One person was picked for a government job. The other side can't change this vote. The government will be told right away we made this pick.”

Senate

Working Families Tax Cut Act (Executive Session)

2026-07-22

“I'm against fraud too. Everyone is. But I want you to talk about family budgets. Groceries cost more. Gas costs more. Utilities cost more. Families have it hard. The last bill took away health insurance from millions. Premiums went up. Republicans gave tax cuts to the rich. Working people got very little. Families are worried. The election is about affordability. That's the issue. I want to be on the side of affordability.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, I would like to react to the statement of my friend and colleague from Wyoming. I am against fraud. That is it. On the record: I am against fraud. I am a Democrat, and I don't know where he reached this different conclusion, but I want to make it very clear. Having said that, I am also a realist. I know that the families I represent in Illinois and across the Nation are facing budgets, family budgets, which are impossible to live with. They are not only struggling paycheck to paycheck, they are also watching the price of groceries go up. They know the price of gasoline goes up and down, and now it is on the upward trend because of the President's war in Iran. Utility bills in my State are up 15 percent this year over last year because of President Trump's energy policy, which is opposed to sustainable, renewable sources of energy, which are the most affordable. The list goes on and on. The Big Beautiful Bill, which Republicans brag about, was a bill that ended up with millions of Americans losing their health insurance because the cost of premiums had gone up too high. So I think it is just great that we have tipped income exempt from taxes and that other breaks are given to working people. I would support those any day. But the bill that created those also gave the biggest tax cuts in the history of the United States to the wealthiest people in the United States--nothing, very little, for families in comparison. That is the difference. I think we ought to be honest with the American people. The No. 1 issue in this campaign is the affordability that families worry about every single week. There is an issue I am going to address here more particularly, which gets to the heart of this as well.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Senate

Statement on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

2026-07-21

“I want the text of my bill printed in the official record. I hope nobody objects.”

Senate

Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 808 (Executive Calendar)

2026-07-21

“You say we should not judge the judge. That is not for us to do. You say the House should decide. You say maybe later the Senate could decide. You say it would be bad to say she is bad now. You say it could make people have bad thoughts about her. That is why you do not want to talk about her actions now. You want to stop us from talking about this.”

“I object to this resolution. The Senate has never done this before. The House should impeach judges first. Then the Senate can decide. We should not condemn a judge before we are the jury.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, you heard her lay out the case of wrongdoing by a judge. I am going to ask for the Senate to take action to condemn that conduct. Seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? Turns out, it would be the first time in the history of the Senate that we do something like this. We asked the Congressional Research Service: Is there any Senate precedent for what the Senator from Tennessee is doing? They responded: There is no Senate precedent for either introducing or passing a Senate resolution condemning a judge's illegal misconduct. What? Out of thousands of judges in the United States at the Federal level, surely in history, someone has done something wrong that should be condemned, but it has never been done. Well, it gets down to some basic elements of constitutional law. You start with this, the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the United States says in article I, section 2, the House of Representatives shall have the ``sole power of impeachment''-- removal from office. The sole power of impeachment is in the House of Representatives, not the Senate. So why is that stopping us from this condemnation? Well, let me explain. Under the Constitution, Congress does not respond to judicial misconduct in the form of a Senate resolution. It never has. It is the responsibility of the House of Representatives, specifically the House Judiciary Committee, to investigate the allegations of misconduct and consider the next steps, including impeachment. But here is the critical element: Who is the jury? Where is the trial? It is right here. After someone has been impeached in the House of Representatives, for example a President, the case comes to the Senate for trial. I have sat through at least three of those, maybe more. So we are juries; the U.S. Senate is a jury. What this Constitution, again, tells us when it comes to the role of the Senate: The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. No question about that. If the House impeaches, it is our job to decide whether we agree or not. It takes an extraordinary vote to impeach. And, also, let me be clear, this is critical: That is a pretty high standard, isn't it? You have to swear that what you are doing is constitutional or to the best of your ability. So it is an awesome responsibility. We sit like juries in criminal courts and civil courts across the United States, and we make bottom-line decisions as to whether the House impeachment shall be sustained. So the action starts in the House. If they vote to impeach, it comes to the Senate. The Senate sits as a jury and decides whether or not the impeachment goes through. That is why this resolution needs to be defeated. Senators serve as jurors in impeachment matters. Passing this resolution--passing this resolution, calling on the Senate to condemn this judge before there has been any effort at impeachment in the House of Representatives--is going to do what they call ``taint the jury.'' He would have already taken a position on the case as to who is right and who is wrong. You can't do that. Voir dire in the courtroom is the judge asking the basic question of potential jurors: Do you have any prejudice against this case that stops you from finding the truth? And people say: I don't. I have an open mind, and I will listen to the evidence and the law. Well, what the Senator from Tennessee wants us to do is to taint the jury, to get us on record before the House has any impeachment activity, before we sit as a jury as to how we are going to rule. That is why it has never been tried before on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I also note the resolution contains multiple material inconsistencies on what the Eleventh Circuit found during its investigation of Judge Ross' misconduct. This underscores that the Senate has not engaged, prior to the election of this resolution, in its own investigation or factfinding. The only factfinding we have is from one Senator in Tennessee. According to the Congressional Research Service, there is no precedent for the Senate adopting a resolution condemning alleged judicial misconduct. The Senate has never done this before. We should not establish a new precedent here, especially when it could taint the jury pool if the Senate later considers articles of impeachment, if that ever happens. It could also open the door to Senate resolutions about other instances of judicial misconduct. We must have the highest standards for Federal judges, and the alleged conduct in this case is inappropriate, unacceptable, perhaps even indefensible. But the Constitution is clear. It is a matter for the House to consider at this point rather than the Senate. For these reasons, I object. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Barrasso). The objection is heard. The Senator from Tennessee.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Senate

Nomination of Kara Marie Westercamp (Executive Calendar)

2026-07-21

“I want you to vote against Kara Westercamp. She posted mean conspiracy theories on social media. She attacked Senators. She said bad things about people I like. I want to blame her for January 6th. I want to say she is not a good judge. I don't want her to be on the court.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, those seeking to recoup losses from President Trump's disastrous tariff policies will appear before what is called the Court of International Trade. As is the case with many of President Trump's judicial nominees in his second term, his choice to fill a vacancy on this Court Kara Westercamp was tapped because of her obvious loyalty to the President who nominated her instead of her loyalty to the law. Her offensive, inflammatory, juvenile social media posts demonstrate she lacks the independence and the maturity and the temperament to be a judge. Ms. Westercamp tried to delete her old tweets so we wouldn't see them on the committee. She failed. Our staff was able to recover them. In these tweets, Ms. Westercamp spread conspiracy theories about the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and attacked Republicans and Democrats alike for being insufficiently loyal to President Trump. She elevated claims that the January 6 attack was ``orchestrated by Members of the Senate, and members of the [Capitol] police.'' Let me repeat that. In her tweets, she claimed that the January 6 attack on the Capitol, which we all saw the news of, was ``orchestrated by Members of the Senate, and members of the [Capitol] police. So much for the judgment of this would-be judge. I was in this Chamber during the counting of electoral votes for the 2020 election. Vice President Pence was sitting where the Presiding Officer sits today. Members of Congress watched as Secret Service evacuated the Vice President. Within minutes, we were told to leave as well because a violent mob of armed insurrectionists intended to prevent the certification of the 2020 Presidential election results, which Donald Trump had lost by 7 million popular votes. But Ms. Westercamp dismissed this event entirely. She retweeted a post that read--and I quote: Mr. President, did you see the video? Did you see the mob? Did you see the damage they did to this U.S. Capitol Building? Yes, we left for our lives. The Vice President was spirited out of here by the Secret Service to protect his life. Ms. Westercamp has also repeatedly attacked Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for supposedly ``betraying President Trump.'' She even called Senator McConnell ``a modern-day Benedict Arnold,'' and she repeatedly called him ``Cocaine Mitch''--an inflammatory nickname used by MAGA critics of Senator McConnell, the Republican Senator and former leader from Kentucky. I am not going to be able to repeat some of the things that she wrote in her tweets. They are just too much. But of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, she wrote: She crudely called him a name that I can't repeat in the Record for not toeing the MAGA line. There is much, much more that she had to say about Senator Graham. Ms. Westercamp accused Senator Collins of Maine of prioritizing her ``own personal political power'' over loyalty to President Trump and called for her removal, as well as the removal of Senators Murkowski and Cassidy following their vote on the second impeachment effort against the President. Ms. Westercamp even posted a sexually explicit image and joke about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi--a post that Ms. Westercamp herself later described as ``not safe for work.'' Notably, it appears some of her inflammatory, overtly political posts were made while Ms. Westercamp was on duty, actually, as an attorney at the Department of Justice; she was tweeting away. That would violate Federal law. Last week, Leader Thune filed cloture so that we could move more quickly to Ms. Westercamp's nomination. After you have heard about her background, what do you think as a Senator? Despite her disrespectful and inflammatory comments, she is a priority for the other side. It is a disgrace that Senate Republicans are moving forward on this nomination while Senator McConnell is still in the hospital and so soon after Senator Graham's passing. Judges are chosen for judgment, for character, for maturity, for competence, for independence, and most especially, for their temperament. Ms. Westercamp does not meet that standard. I urge my colleagues to oppose her nomination.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Senate

Cloture Motion (Executive Calendar)

2026-07-20

“I announce that some Senators are absent. The votes are 43 yes and 40 no. The motion passes.”

Senate

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Executive Session)

2026-07-20

“I want to blame President Trump and Stephen Miller for ICE raids and shootings. I don't like how ICE agents are hired and trained. I want the FBI to investigate ICE. Republicans won't agree with my changes to ICE. It's all Trump's fault.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, roughly a year ago, President Trump made good on his ``MASS DEPORTATION NOW!'' promise--it was a campaign pledge--when he unleashed ICE into cities across the country to carry out his brutal immigration crackdown. In its wake, including in the city of Chicago, the so-called ``worst of the worst''--remember? The President said he was going after those who were rapists, murderers, terrorists, criminally insane, and predators. The ``worst of the worst''--that is who we are going after. He said it over and over and over again. Turns out that the ``worst of the worst'' didn't fit in that category at all. Who were they? Some were U.S. citizens, legal residents, and people with no prior criminal history whatsoever--none. The administration brutally carried out this political theater by deploying military-grade weapons and using overwhelming displays of force that left communities and our country on edge. I saw it firsthand in the city of Chicago: Operation Midway Blitz. In our Hispanic neighborhoods, people were afraid to come out to go to church, afraid to send their kids to school. Were these criminals who were harboring their children from going to school? Hardly. They are people who work in common jobs every single day, who stood next to you in the line in the grocery store, and who were with you in the pew at church on Sunday. ``Worst of the worst'' didn't hold up at all. At its peak, tensions boiled over with the killing of two American citizens at that time. We saw it in real time and on videotape: Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. After the public outcry, these ICE raids were quietly scaled back by the Trump administration and Stephen Miller. But now Stephen Miller, the President's domestic adviser, and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Mullin are quietly resuming these efforts, with immigration arrests surging this month to the highest levels in this administration. I assume they felt that America just wouldn't notice that they were back in business, but we have. In the last 2 weeks, two fatal shootings by ICE agents in Texas and Maine have thrust this government's tactics back into the spotlight. Earlier this month, ICE shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop in Houston. Mr. Araujo had lived in the country for more than 30 years and was not the intended target of the operation. He is survived by his children, who are U.S. citizens. Instead of investigating, the ICE agents detained the witnesses that were around the scene. The Harris County district attorney has said these witnesses are critical to the investigation, but they have been detained by the ICE agents. Last week, Joan Sebastian Guerrero was also shot and killed while in his vehicle in Maine. He is survived by his wife and their 3-year-old daughter, who will now grow up without a father. The ICE agent who fatally shot Mr. Guerrero was hired by the Trump administration despite the fact that he has a long history of domestic violence, abuse, and mental health issues. Yes, a man with a long history of mental health issues, abuse, and domestic violence was hired as an ICE agent and given a gun and a mask. It is not clear whether ICE simply failed to vet him or identified these issues and ignored them. DHS quickly rushed to claim that both shootings were justified, without any body-worn camera footage or any serious investigation. You know, it is interesting. This Agency, which is actively trying to arrest, detain, and deport thousands of people, meeting quotas set by Stephen Miller each day, the agents involved in this are not like your hometown police. They are not like your State police either. We know that their background checks are obviously very weak, and the training is limited. We also know that when they are on the job, on the clock, they are wearing masks. When is the last time your local police wore a mask in your hometown? How about your State troopers when they pull you over on the highway? Are they wearing masks? Of course not. But this is insisted on because these ICE agents are so notorious. These fatalities that I have talked about could have been avoided. These people could be alive today. After the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, we tried time and again to get our Republican colleagues to sit down and agree just on some basics. Without a search warrant or an arrest warrant, a person posing to be a policeman should not be crashing down the door of your home. That is pretty basic, isn't it? If there is a warrant or extraordinary circumstances, that is one thing, but the ICE agents crashed down the door of people they suspect might be in the United States undocumented. Many times, they are just plain wrong. Sometimes, those homeowners turn out to be U.S. citizens. Yet when we sit down and say ``That should be basic in America, shouldn't it? If somebody is going to invade my home, with my wife and my kids or grandkids in there, for goodness' sake, they ought to have at least the color of law behind them, the support of the court behind them''--not ICE agents--every instance we have tried to make these changes--simple, commonsense law enforcement changes--the Republicans said no. Instead, the administration has lurched in the opposite direction, enabling these abuses to continue. On the heels of these back-to-back killings which I have described, ICE temporarily paused traffic stops, but President Trump quickly took to social media to personally reverse that decision. The President said: Despite the recent reports of killings-- Being pulled over and shot in your car has to be part of the strategy of ICE, according to the President. Traffic stops have been among the deadliest tactics during this President's mass raids, but apparently, he doesn't care. According to the New York Times just yesterday, the FBI has informed its agents around the country that the FBI would no longer investigate alleged assaults by immigration agents. Why is that important? I will tell you. This change will sharply limit law enforcement scrutiny of ICE agents. For years, the Department of Justice's involvement in officer- involved shootings has provided an independent set of eyes and often uncovered crucial facts, including misconduct by Federal officers-- misconduct that has been evident in recent cases. The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General has at least agreed to investigate the use of excessive force by ICE agents, but it is unacceptable that the government's top law enforcement Agency, the FBI, has reportedly chosen to ignore its mission to enforce the law and instead does the White House's bidding. At a time when the American people are demanding more transparency and answers, the administration gives us less. We mourn the loss of these beloved community members, and Senate Democrats will continue to call for an end to these fatal raids.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Senate

Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title 5, United States Code, of the Rule Submitted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services of the Department of Health and Human...

2026-07-16

“I want to say who is absent. One Senator is not here. He did not vote. I want the record to show the result. The motion was rejected.”

Senate

Cloture Motion (Executive Session)

2026-07-16

“I want to say that one person is not here. We voted yes or no. Yes won by one vote. We passed the thing we wanted.”

Senate

Nomination of Jeffrey T. Kuntz (Executive Session)

2026-07-15

“I don't like this judge. I think he helped Trump. I don't want him to be a judge anymore. I want my colleagues to say no.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Jeffrey T. Kuntz to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. While Judge Kuntz was under consideration to fill a judicial vacancy, he was also presiding over Alexander v. Trump, in which he authored the majority opinion upholding a lower court's ruling that Trump's defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board could continue. Judge Kuntz declined to directly answer my question about whether he made the defendants in Alexander aware, while the case was pending, that he was being considered by the plaintiff for a lifetime appointment to the bench. Instead, Judge Kuntz argued that he was not under consideration for this nomination, claiming that he did not interview with the White House until 2 weeks after the case had been decided. A closer look at the timeline suggests a different story. Judge Kuntz first discussed a possible judicial nomination with Senator Scott's office in November 2024, 2 months before he was assigned to this case. Judge Kuntz issued the majority opinion in Alexander on February 12, 2025, ruling in favor of President Trump. Eight days later, he was contacted by the White House regarding a potential nomination. In fact, Judge Kuntz discussed this case when he interviewed with the White House on February 28, just about 2 weeks after he issued his opinion. It's hard to believe that it is simply a coincidence that just 8 days after Judge Kuntz issued a ruling favorable to President Trump, he was contacted by the White House about a nomination and interviewed about it shortly thereafter. Yet again, we have another nominee who has been rewarded for his loyalty to the President with a lifetime appointment to the Federal bench. I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Senate

Cloture Motion (Executive Session)

2026-07-15

“I want to say that a Senator from Arizona is not here. Some Senators voted yes. Some Senators voted no. The motion passed.”

Senate

Introductory Statement on S. 4979

2026-07-14

“I want to talk about Social Security. It is running out of money. We need to do something. I am introducing a bill. It will make Congress debate and vote on the future of Social Security. It does not say what the plan should be. It just makes Congress do their job. We should pass this bill. We are sent here to try. Social Security is important. Congress should do something. I want Senators to bring their best idea for Social Security. They can offer amendments. It will be a debate. We will vote. Maybe we can pass a bill. Maybe not. But we have to try. It is our job. We need to save Social Security.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, I would like to speak on a separate topic. In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt decided to try something. The idea was to create a pension plan for every American. Why? Because many people, despite working hard their whole lives, doing their best to save money, ended up almost penniless when they retired, when they were forced to quit working. Those were the days when Grandma and Grandpa moved into the spare bedroom in your house. If that didn't happen to you, ask your father or even grandfather--they will remember those times. So Franklin Roosevelt said: Let's create a pension system so that after you retire, there will be some money coming in. You pay into it all your working life. When you reach the age of retirement, you get a benefit from it. They called it Social Security. It was passed into law in 1935. It made its first payment 5 years later in 1940. I think it has become arguably the most important social program in America. Certainly, more Americans have participated in Social Security than almost every other program. And they should. They earned it. They worked for it. They were promised. The promise should be kept. How is Social Security doing? Well, that is why I am standing here before you today. Last month, the Social Security Board of Trustees released an alarming report about the status of Social Security's finances. That Board found that Social Security will be unable to make full payments to eligible Americans by 2032. That is not that far away--6 years. This is alarming, and it is a call to arms to Congress. I was elected to the House of Representatives in 1982. Scared to death that I was going to be a one-term Congressman, I was looking over my shoulder every 5 minutes to see what was going to knock me out of my perch there. Well, they came in and said: There is news for you, new Congressman. Social Security is about to go broke. The year was 1983, and we could see in the short term, Social Security unable to make its benefit payments. That would have been a disaster in 1983. We rose to the occasion. We had a Republican President, Ronald Reagan. We had a Democratic House of Representatives with Tip O'Neill. We set out to write a change in Social Security that would save it so it could keep making payments. Well, it took a long time, it took several months, but we got it done, and we passed it. Our goal was to buy 50 years of solvency for Social Security, make changes to the program so that it would last, keep paying its benefits as promised for 50 years. That was 1983. I voted for it. Democrats and Republicans all voted for it. To my knowledge, not a single Member of Congress lost reelection over that vote. People said: We had to do it. There was no question about it. It was a tough vote, but it was the right vote. It was 1983. Fifty years of solvency--where does it take you? To 2033. And what is the situation we were just told? This program that we value so much is going to last until the end of 2032. It worked. Fifty years of changes worked. Now the question is basically this: Can we respond with the same bipartisan effort to buy 50 years more of solvency in Social Security? I think we can. Social Security unable to make its payments in 2032 is an alarm bell. It is a call to action for Congress, both political parties--not just Democrats but Republicans as well. Social Security is the bedrock promise of secure retirement and has been for over 90 years in America. Americans pay into the system throughout their careers of hard work, and come the time, that same program was supposed to be there to give them peace of mind when they seek retirement. Well, we know we have 6 short years to achieve that. What is going to happen at the end of that 6-year period? The Board of advisers tells us Social Security will only be able to pay 78 percent of benefits. Translate that, Durbin. Put it in English. That means the average senior citizen faces monthly--monthly--benefit cuts of $450--$450 a month cut from Social Security. For some, that is quite an inconvenience. For others, that is quite a disaster. It would force many seniors to choose between purchasing groceries, paying their utility bills, or filling their prescriptions. Honest to goodness, it is that basic. Seventy million Americans, including seniors and people with disabilities, rely on Social Security to afford the basics in life: food, medication, housing, utilities, and so many other things. In my home State of Illinois, more than 2 million people receive Social Security. Twenty percent of Illinois seniors rely on Social Security for virtually all of their income. That is it, that Social Security check. If Congress sits on its hands and does nothing to respond to this crisis, millions of Americans will be expected to make ends meet with fewer and fewer dollars each month. The fact of the matter is that Congress has known about this issue of insolvency for quite some time, but year after year, Congress has avoided confronting the question, instead kicking the can down the road for a future Congress to show the courage to step up and save the program. That is unacceptable. We owe it to our seniors. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our reputation. We know that the longer we wait, the more drastic the policy changes become. We owe it to every American to save Social Security. Today, I am doing something that is rarely done in the Senate: introducing a bill sponsored by a bipartisan group of Senators--four Democrats, four Republicans. Our goal is to protect and strengthen Social Security. Our bill is called the PROMISE Act. It seeks to create a fair, bipartisan process to ensure Congress finally debates and votes on the future of Social Security. Under our proposal, the independent and bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board would collect public input and send a proposal to Congress that would keep the trust fund for Social Security solvent for 50 years at least. That would kick-start a process in both the House and the Senate to do something we rarely, rarely do around here. It is called legislating--writing a law, passing a law. Under our bill, Congress would have the opportunity to hold hearings, offer amendments, debate competing proposals, and ultimately vote on them. You say at this point: OK, Senator Durbin. What is this plan to save Social Security? That is the beauty of this proposal. We create an opportunity for alternative plans to be offered, and the one with the most votes--as long as it gets 60 votes in the Senate--the one with the most votes will prevail and will be the work product of the Senate on Social Security. Our legislation does not lower the 60-vote threshold of the Senate, nor does it predetermine any specific outcome. It may not work. We may not be able to put together any bill that gets 60 votes. But goodness gracious, we were sent here to try, weren't we? It simply guarantees that the American people, through their elected representatives, are finally going to have an open, transparent debate. I have gone to Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle and said: What we want to do is give you your day in court, give you your day in the Senate. You bring your best idea and the Parliamentarian looks at it and says there is proof here that this has at least 50 years of solvency for Social Security, you can offer this amendment, Senator. Give it your best. Members would be able to offer substitute proposals provided that it is at least 50 years of Social Security solvency. Let me say it another way. Every Member with a serious proposal for the most important social program in America would have the opportunity to bring their idea to the table, to the floor, and get a vote. That is so rare around here. It restores the Senate to debating, amending, and voting under regular order--compared to what we see today. Many of my colleagues have been working on proposals for a number of years. Many are broadly popular. I will note that the senior Senator from Ohio, a Republican, and the senior Senator from Massachusetts, a Democrat, recently shared their idea to shore up the program, a bipartisan plan. They may offer an amendment to do just that. Congress has no shortage of ideas; we simply have a lack of will on both the left and the right. Many stakeholders would rather wait for that perfect political moment. Well, that is a mistake. I worry that moment will never come, and Americans will suffer because of that calculation. The PROMISE Act finally creates a pathway for those ideas to receive the consideration they deserve. Americans sent us to Congress not to observe the problems but to solve the problems, and that is what I am trying to do with the PROMISE Act. There is no greater long-term challenge before Congress than preserving Social Security. No excuses--we can do it this year. So I urge my colleagues to support this bill, to set up the process, the procedure, to bring it to the floor and have alternative substitutes for Social Security's future offered for consideration, for debate, and for a vote. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and finally kick-start the process of tackling this important issue. We will be working to pass this measure before we depart for the August recess. Is it a long shot? Maybe it is. But I think, when we understand the gravity of the challenge and the important responsibility we shoulder when we accepted this position as Senators, we will understand that we have to rise to that challenge. The eight of us--four Democrats, four Republicans--are willing to step up and say: Let's move forward. Let's not be afraid to legislate. Let's do it for the good of Social Security and the millions and millions of Americans who count on it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Senate

Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

2026-07-14

“I want to do something about Social Security. It might go broke in 6 years. We need to save it. I introduced a bill with 4 Democrats and 4 Republicans. The bill will make us debate and vote on how to save Social Security. We should keep Social Security solvent for 50 more years. We need to do our job. No more excuses.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, I would like to speak on a separate topic. In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt decided to try something. The idea was to create a pension plan for every American. Why? Because many people, despite working hard their whole lives, doing their best to save money, ended up almost penniless when they retired, when they were forced to quit working. Those were the days when Grandma and Grandpa moved into the spare bedroom in your house. If that didn't happen to you, ask your father or even grandfather--they will remember those times. So Franklin Roosevelt said: Let's create a pension system so that after you retire, there will be some money coming in. You pay into it all your working life. When you reach the age of retirement, you get a benefit from it. They called it Social Security. It was passed into law in 1935. It made its first payment 5 years later in 1940. I think it has become arguably the most important social program in America. Certainly, more Americans have participated in Social Security than almost every other program. And they should. They earned it. They worked for it. They were promised. The promise should be kept. How is Social Security doing? Well, that is why I am standing here before you today. Last month, the Social Security Board of Trustees released an alarming report about the status of Social Security's finances. That Board found that Social Security will be unable to make full payments to eligible Americans by 2032. That is not that far away--6 years. This is alarming, and it is a call to arms to Congress. I was elected to the House of Representatives in 1982. Scared to death that I was going to be a one-term Congressman, I was looking over my shoulder every 5 minutes to see what was going to knock me out of my perch there. Well, they came in and said: There is news for you, new Congressman. Social Security is about to go broke. The year was 1983, and we could see in the short term, Social Security unable to make its benefit payments. That would have been a disaster in 1983. We rose to the occasion. We had a Republican President, Ronald Reagan. We had a Democratic House of Representatives with Tip O'Neill. We set out to write a change in Social Security that would save it so it could keep making payments. Well, it took a long time, it took several months, but we got it done, and we passed it. Our goal was to buy 50 years of solvency for Social Security, make changes to the program so that it would last, keep paying its benefits as promised for 50 years. That was 1983. I voted for it. Democrats and Republicans all voted for it. To my knowledge, not a single Member of Congress lost reelection over that vote. People said: We had to do it. There was no question about it. It was a tough vote, but it was the right vote. It was 1983. Fifty years of solvency--where does it take you? To 2033. And what is the situation we were just told? This program that we value so much is going to last until the end of 2032. It worked. Fifty years of changes worked. Now the question is basically this: Can we respond with the same bipartisan effort to buy 50 years more of solvency in Social Security? I think we can. Social Security unable to make its payments in 2032 is an alarm bell. It is a call to action for Congress, both political parties--not just Democrats but Republicans as well. Social Security is the bedrock promise of secure retirement and has been for over 90 years in America. Americans pay into the system throughout their careers of hard work, and come the time, that same program was supposed to be there to give them peace of mind when they seek retirement. Well, we know we have 6 short years to achieve that. What is going to happen at the end of that 6-year period? The Board of advisers tells us Social Security will only be able to pay 78 percent of benefits. Translate that, Durbin. Put it in English. That means the average senior citizen faces monthly--monthly--benefit cuts of $450--$450 a month cut from Social Security. For some, that is quite an inconvenience. For others, that is quite a disaster. It would force many seniors to choose between purchasing groceries, paying their utility bills, or filling their prescriptions. Honest to goodness, it is that basic. Seventy million Americans, including seniors and people with disabilities, rely on Social Security to afford the basics in life: food, medication, housing, utilities, and so many other things. In my home State of Illinois, more than 2 million people receive Social Security. Twenty percent of Illinois seniors rely on Social Security for virtually all of their income. That is it, that Social Security check. If Congress sits on its hands and does nothing to respond to this crisis, millions of Americans will be expected to make ends meet with fewer and fewer dollars each month. The fact of the matter is that Congress has known about this issue of insolvency for quite some time, but year after year, Congress has avoided confronting the question, instead kicking the can down the road for a future Congress to show the courage to step up and save the program. That is unacceptable. We owe it to our seniors. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our reputation. We know that the longer we wait, the more drastic the policy changes become. We owe it to every American to save Social Security. Today, I am doing something that is rarely done in the Senate: introducing a bill sponsored by a bipartisan group of Senators--four Democrats, four Republicans. Our goal is to protect and strengthen Social Security. Our bill is called the PROMISE Act. It seeks to create a fair, bipartisan process to ensure Congress finally debates and votes on the future of Social Security. Under our proposal, the independent and bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board would collect public input and send a proposal to Congress that would keep the trust fund for Social Security solvent for 50 years at least. That would kick-start a process in both the House and the Senate to do something we rarely, rarely do around here. It is called legislating--writing a law, passing a law. Under our bill, Congress would have the opportunity to hold hearings, offer amendments, debate competing proposals, and ultimately vote on them. You say at this point: OK, Senator Durbin. What is this plan to save Social Security? That is the beauty of this proposal. We create an opportunity for alternative plans to be offered, and the one with the most votes--as long as it gets 60 votes in the Senate--the one with the most votes will prevail and will be the work product of the Senate on Social Security. Our legislation does not lower the 60-vote threshold of the Senate, nor does it predetermine any specific outcome. It may not work. We may not be able to put together any bill that gets 60 votes. But goodness gracious, we were sent here to try, weren't we? It simply guarantees that the American people, through their elected representatives, are finally going to have an open, transparent debate. I have gone to Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle and said: What we want to do is give you your day in court, give you your day in the Senate. You bring your best idea and the Parliamentarian looks at it and says there is proof here that this has at least 50 years of solvency for Social Security, you can offer this amendment, Senator. Give it your best. Members would be able to offer substitute proposals provided that it is at least 50 years of Social Security solvency. Let me say it another way. Every Member with a serious proposal for the most important social program in America would have the opportunity to bring their idea to the table, to the floor, and get a vote. That is so rare around here. It restores the Senate to debating, amending, and voting under regular order--compared to what we see today. Many of my colleagues have been working on proposals for a number of years. Many are broadly popular. I will note that the senior Senator from Ohio, a Republican, and the senior Senator from Massachusetts, a Democrat, recently shared their idea to shore up the program, a bipartisan plan. They may offer an amendment to do just that. Congress has no shortage of ideas; we simply have a lack of will on both the left and the right. Many stakeholders would rather wait for that perfect political moment. Well, that is a mistake. I worry that moment will never come, and Americans will suffer because of that calculation. The PROMISE Act finally creates a pathway for those ideas to receive the consideration they deserve. Americans sent us to Congress not to observe the problems but to solve the problems, and that is what I am trying to do with the PROMISE Act. There is no greater long-term challenge before Congress than preserving Social Security. No excuses--we can do it this year. So I urge my colleagues to support this bill, to set up the process, the procedure, to bring it to the floor and have alternative substitutes for Social Security's future offered for consideration, for debate, and for a vote. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and finally kick-start the process of tackling this important issue. We will be working to pass this measure before we depart for the August recess. Is it a long shot? Maybe it is. But I think, when we understand the gravity of the challenge and the important responsibility we shoulder when we accepted this position as Senators, we will understand that we have to rise to that challenge. The eight of us--four Democrats, four Republicans--are willing to step up and say: Let's move forward. Let's not be afraid to legislate. Let's do it for the good of Social Security and the millions and millions of Americans who count on it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

View on ourcommons.ca ↗

Senate

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027--Motion to Proceed

2026-07-14

“I want to agree with the other Senator. Our friend who died was important in the Senate.”

Senate

Cloture Motion

2026-07-14

“Three Senators were not here. We voted. One side got 50 votes. The other side got 46 votes. The motion needed three-fifths of us to agree. It did not pass.”

Senate

Nomination of Matthew A. Schwartz (Executive Session)

2026-07-14

“I don't like this nominee. He worked for Trump. He helped Tesla too. I will vote no on him.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Matthew A. Schwartz to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Mr. Schwartz joins the growing line of Trump personal lawyers who have been nominated to the bench during Trump's second term. Even as we consider his nomination, Mr. Schwartz is actively representing the President in two cases on appeal: Trump's 34-count conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush money case and the $464 million judgment against him, his family members, and businesses for inflating business assets. During his hearing, Senator Booker asked Mr. Schwartz about the President's reported outstanding $400,000 debt to Sullivan & Cromwell, an obvious conflict of interest. Mr. Schwartz downplayed that sum as ``an extraordinarily small amount.'' Mr. Schwartz also represented Tesla in its successful appeal of a judgment from the Delaware Court of Chancery voiding Elon Musk's $50 billion compensation package. While Musk raked in the billions Mr. Schwartz helped secure, he took a chainsaw to nearly every aspect of our government. For these reasons, I will be opposing Mr. Schwartz's nomination.

View on ourcommons.ca ↗