Senate the Senate Met at 9:30 A.M
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E PL UR UM IB N U U S Congressional Record United States th of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 114 CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION Vol. 161 WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015 No. 106 Senate The Senate met at 9:30 a.m. and was U.S. SENATE, So this additional flexibility has called to order by the Honorable MITCH PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE, been good for Kentucky but only to a MCCONNELL, a Senator from the Com- Washington, DC, July 9, 2015. point, because the White House began To the Senate: monwealth of Kentucky. Under the provisions of rule I, paragraph 3, to tack on more and more require- f of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby ments as a condition of continued re- appoint the Honorable MITCH MCCONNELL, a lief from the original law’s mandates, PRAYER Senator from the Commonwealth of Ken- leaving many States in an untenable The Chaplain, Dr. Barry C. Black, of- tucky, to perform the duties of the Chair. situation. This is how the White House fered the following prayer: ORRIN G. HATCH, was able to impose Common Core in Let us pray. President pro tempore. many places that didn’t necessarily Eternal Spirit, keep us from being a Mr. MCCONNELL thereupon assumed want it. In a sense, the flexibility one nation that forgets You. Remind us the Chair as Acting President pro tem- hand gave, the other has continually that righteousness exalts any nation, pore. taken away. but that sin deprives, degrades, and de- f It is clear that temporary relief, strapped with other Federal mandates, stroys, providing reproach to any peo- RECOGNITION OF THE MAJORITY is not a workable choice for States. ple. LEADER Arise, O God. Lift Your hands and This is why we need congressional ac- The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. lead our lawmakers to accomplish tion to replace the broken husks that ALEXANDER). The majority leader is Your purposes. Use them to break the remain of No Child Left Behind with recognized. stranglehold of wickedness, providing reforms that build on the good ideas in deliverance for captives and freedom f the original law while doing away with for the oppressed. In You, O God, we EVERY CHILD ACHIEVES ACT the bad ones. find refuge. May we not be brought to That is what the bipartisan Every Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, No Child Achieves Act before us would, in shame, for You can make even our en- Child Left Behind laid the groundwork emies be at peace with us. Continue to fact, achieve. It would grow the kind of for important reforms to our education flexibility we have seen work so well in guide us, strong Deliverer, for we are system. But with its authorization ex- States such as Kentucky, and it would pilgrims in this land. We are weak, but piring in 2007, and with the previous stop Federal bureaucrats from impos- You are mighty. Guide us with Your Senate majority failing to replace it ing the kind of top-down, one-size-fits- powerful hands. with a serious proposal, many of the all requirements that we all know Lord, we praise You for the courage original requirements stayed in place threaten that progress. of the South Carolina Legislature. anyway and gradually became unwork- We pray in Your sovereign Name. Kentucky has already seen success able. with the limited and conditional flexi- Amen. This resulted in a lot of States get- bility granted to it so far. So just ting tangled up in endless bureaucracy, f imagine what States such as Kentucky reducing their ability to focus on could achieve when fully empowered to PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE boosting achievement and school per- do what is right for their students. The Presiding Officer led the Pledge formance. That was certainly true in This is how Kentucky education com- of Allegiance, as follows: the Commonwealth I represent. Ken- tucky was actually the first State to missioner Terry Holliday put it in a I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the letter he sent in support of this bill: United States of America, and to the Repub- petition for some freedom from the lic for which it stands, one nation under God, law’s requirements, and with that addi- I can attest based on our experience that indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. tional flexibility came better results. the waiver process is onerous and allows too many opportunities for federal intrusion into f Kentucky improved its graduation state responsibility for education. The long- rate, climbing into the top 10 among term health of public education in the APPOINTMENT OF ACTING all States. Kentucky increased the PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE United States requires reauthorization and number of students who met statewide an end to the use of the waiver as a patch on The PRESIDING OFFICER. The standards. Kentucky raised the per- an otherwise impractical system of require- clerk will please read a communication centage of students entering postsec- ments. to the Senate from the President pro ondary education programs, increasing He is, of course, just right, and we tempore (Mr. HATCH). that number from about half to more have never been closer to achieving the The legislative clerk read the fol- than 68 percent in just a few years’ kind of outcome our kids deserve. lowing letter: time. Many thought Washington could never ∑ This ‘‘bullet’’ symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by a Member of the Senate on the floor. S4901 . VerDate Sep 11 2014 06:57 Jul 10, 2015 Jkt 049060 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 0624 Sfmt 0634 E:\CR\FM\A09JY6.000 S09JYPT1 SSpencer on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with SENATE S4902 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE July 9, 2015 solve this issue, but the bill before us tion—completely jerry-rigged. It is ob- REPUBLICAN FILIBUSTERS was supported unanimously by Repub- vious to see why things should change Mr. REID. Mr. President, first, I wish licans and Democrats in committee. if Burma is to pursue a path of a more to take just a moment to praise the Members of both parties are having a representative government. good work being done by the chairman chance now to offer and vote on amend- Allowing appropriate constitutional and the ranking member of the HELP ments to the bill too. We had several fixes to pass through the Parliament Committee. The senior Senator from amendment votes yesterday. I expect would have said some very positive Tennessee and the senior Senator from more today. If our colleagues from ei- things about the Burmese Govern- Washington have done a remarkably ther side of the aisle have more ideas ment’s commitment to political re- good job to bring this reauthorization to offer, I would ask them to work with form. But when the measures were put to the floor. Senator ALEXANDER and Senator MUR- to a vote on June 25, the government’s Elementary and secondary education RAY to get them moving. allies exercised the very undemocratic is so important, and we are not living This is what a Senate that is back to power the Constitution grants them to up to the standards that we should work looks like. With continued bipar- stymie the reform. have. It is important to remember that tisan cooperation, this is a Senate that This stands in stark contrast to the all of this could have been done a long can prove the pundits wrong again by support for reform among elected Bur- time ago. passing another important measure to mese lawmakers, which is likely higher On the floor I mentioned yesterday help our country and our kids. than 80 percent. So among the people that Senator Harkin—who I said was a Remember, the House of Representa- elected by the people, 80 percent favor legendary Senator who served here for tives already passed its own No Child the reform, and the 25 percent inserted six terms, plus a number of terms in Left Behind replacement just last into the process by the military guar- the House of Representatives—for quite night, as it has done repeatedly in anteed that no reform occurred. So some time was chairman of the HELP years past. Now is the time for the even if the actual conduct of the elec- Committee, and when he wasn’t chair- Senate to finally get its act together tion proves to be free and fair, it risks man, he served under the guidance and after 7 years of missed deadlines on being something other than, certainly, leadership of Senator Kennedy. this issue. A new Senate majority be- the will of the people. Yesterday I said that the Republican lieves that the time for action and bi- When the most popular figure in the leader came to the floor and was boast- partisan reform should be now, and country is precluded from being a can- ing: Oh, we are getting this bill done. It with continued cooperation from our didate for the highest office in the is so great that things are working so friends across the aisle, it will be. land, and when approximately 80 per- well in the Senate. f cent of the people’s chosen representa- I mentioned at that time—yester- day—that Senator Harkin tried to BURMA tives are stymied by lawmakers who are not democratically elected, it bring the bill to the floor. He sent me Mr. MCCONNELL. Mr. President, on raises fundamental questions about the an email last night, and he said that he an entirely different matter, a few balloting that is coming up this fall on two separate occasions—2011 and weeks ago I came to the floor to dis- and about the Burmese Government’s 2013—got a bill out of the committee.