Richard J. Durbin

“I want the Senate to vote against Daniel Traynor's nomination. He is not a fair judge. He always rules in favor of Donald Trump, and he brings his own political bias into the courtroom.”

“Mr President, prior to his confirmation to the district court, Judge Daniel Traynor showed his true colors as a MAGA partisan. After he was confirmed, he had a chance to show that he could be a neutral arbiter on the bench. Yet after more than 6 years as a jurist, Judge Traynor has confirmed what Democrats warned about, that he would be a rubberstamp for President Trump. As just one example, Judge Traynor has ruled in favor of the Trump administration in all 28 cases on his docket involving challenges from immigrants who have been detained by ICE under the administration’s illegal mandatory detention policy. That includes seven habeas corpus petitions Judge Traynor volunteered to preside over in the District of Minnesota following Operation Metro Surge. Judge Traynor is an outlier. Of the more than 17,800 cases in which Federal district judges have ruled on ICE’s mandatory detention policy, at least 15,500 were rulings against the Trump administration, including the vast majority of rulings by Trump-appointed judges. Judge Traynor’s partisanship was also made apparent when he served as a contributing author and signatory of a May 2024 letter from Federal judges to the Columbia University president. The signatories vowed not to hire anyone who attended Columbia University beginning that year. But Judge Traynor denied a recusal motion in a case brought by Columbia Law School’s Initiative for a Just Society, implausibly claiming he wasn’t biased against Columbia. While he was comfortable taking a position on this controversial political question, Judge Traynor refused to answer questions at his hearing on who won the 2020 election, calling that well-settled fact a matter of ``political controversy.’’ It is very clear that Judge Traynor seeks to remain in the good graces of President Trump, at the cost of his integrity and independence. I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination.”

“Senator Warnock is absent today.”

“I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent. The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 51, nays 46, as follows: The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Justice). On this vote, the yeas are 51, the nays are 46. The motion is agreed to. The motion was agreed to.”

“I want the Senate to pass this bill to let people from Haiti stay and work in the United States. Haiti is too dangerous for them to return right now. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians work here, raise families, and help our economy, but the government is trying to force them out.”

“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.”

“Senator Coons is absent. The vote passed with 60 yes votes and 35 no votes.”

“I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), is necessarily absent. The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 60, nays 35, as follows: The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Armstrong). On this vote, the yeas are 60, the nays are 35. The motion is agreed to. The motion was agreed to.”

“Senator Coons is absent. The Senate has approved the nomination by a vote of 49 to 46.”

“I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) is necessarily absent. The result was announced--yeas 49, nays 46, as follows: The nomination was confirmed. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ricketts). Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the President will be immediately notified of the Senate’s action.”

“I am against fraud. American families are struggling because food, gas, and energy costs are going up. I support tax breaks for workers, but the Republican tax law gave its biggest cuts to the richest people while doing very little for working families.”

“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.”

“I want the text of this bill printed in the official record.”

“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: visas.html; international-travel/emergencies/forced-marriage.html; and”

• Little substance
  ?

  Speech in the House

  Signal 40 of 100

  Much of this statement went to praise, blame, greetings, routine procedure or general stories rather than reasons, requests or specific points.

  See full analysis →

“I blocked this resolution because it is not our job right now to judge this judge's actions. The House must decide first on any impeachment. If we judge him here now, it could ruin a fair trial in the Senate later.”

“Mr. President, we are not judging by this action of objecting the conduct of this judge. That is not for us to judge. Under the Constitution, it is clear. That will be a decision by the House of Representatives and maybe ultimately by the Senate. There is a reason why this has never been done on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and the Senator from Tennessee ignores that reality. It has never been done because it would taint the jury pool if there was ever an impeachment action against this judge. That is why I objected. I yield the floor.”

“I do not want the Senate to confirm Kara Westercamp as a federal judge. Her past social media posts spread false stories about the January 6 attack and attacked members of Congress who did not support Donald Trump. She does not have the independence or maturity to be a judge.”

“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.”

“I am reporting that seven senators are absent for this vote.”

“I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla), the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Rosen), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen), and the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith), are necessarily absent. The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 43, nays 40, as follows: The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ricketts). On this vote, the yeas are 43, the nays are 40, and the motion is agreed to. The motion was agreed to.”

• Little substance
  ?

  Speech in the House

  Signal 36 of 100

  Much of this statement went to praise, blame, greetings, routine procedure or general stories rather than reasons, requests or specific points.

  See full analysis →

“President Trump's immigration raids are hurting innocent people. ICE agents have killed people during recent traffic stops, and some agents were hired despite having criminal records. ICE should need a warrant to break into homes, and the FBI must investigate when these agents use force. We need to stop these dangerous raids.”

“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.”

“Senator Murphy cannot be here to vote today.”

“I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) is necessarily absent. The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 50, as follows: The motion was rejected. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Armstrong). The majority leader.”

“Senator Murphy is absent. The motion passes by a vote of 49 to 48.”

“I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) is neccessarily absent. The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 49, nays 48, as follows: The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Budd). On this vote, the yeas are 49, the nays are 48, and the motion is agreed to. The motion was agreed to.”

“I want the Senate to vote against Jeffrey Kuntz for judge. While he was being considered for this job, he ruled in favor of Donald Trump in a court case. The White House contacted him about the job just eight days after that ruling. I believe he is being rewarded for helping the president.”

“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.”

“The motion passed by a vote of 51 to 46.”

“I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) is necessarily absent. The yeas and the nays resulted--yeas 51, nays 46, as follows: The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ricketts). On this vote, the yeas are 51, the nays are 46. The motion is agreed to. The Senator from Michigan.”

“I am introducing a bipartisan bill to save Social Security. By 2032, the program will not have enough money to pay full benefits, which could cut monthly checks by about 450 dollars. My bill sets up a process for Congress to debate, offer different plans, and vote on a solution that keeps Social Security funded for at least 50 years.”

“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:”

“Social Security will run short of money in six years if we do nothing. I am introducing a bill with both Democrats and Republicans to fix that. It sets up a process for Congress to debate and vote on plans to keep Social Security funded for the next 50 years.”

“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:”

“I am honoring our colleague Lindsey. We are going to miss him in the Senate.”

“Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota for those kind words about our mutual friend. We are both going to miss him. I have given a tribute to him today in the committee and partially on the floor, but it is still hard to imagine the Senate without Lindsey. (The remarks of Mr. DURBIN pertaining to the introduction of S. 4979 are printed in today’s Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.’’)”

“Two senators were absent, and this motion failed.”

“I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) and the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) are necessarily absent. The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 50, nays 46, as follows: The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 46. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected. The motion was rejected.”