CLOTURE MOTION

CLOTURE MOTION

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 18 (Tuesday, January 28, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 18 (Tuesday, January 28, 2025)] [Senate] [Pages S410-S421] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] CLOTURE MOTION The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state. The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows: Cloture Motion We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 3, H.R. 23, a bill to impose sanctions with respect to the International Criminal Court engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies. John Thune, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Pete Ricketts, Shelley Moore Capito, Deb Fischer, Markwayne Mullin, Rick Scott of Florida, Tim Sheehy, Cindy Hyde- Smith, John Boozman, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Rounds, James Lankford, Ted Budd, John R. Curtis, Tommy Tuberville. The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the motion to proceed to H.R. 23, a bill to impose sanctions with respect to the International Criminal Court engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies, shall be brought to a close? The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant executive clerk called the roll. Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Ossoff) is necessarily absent. The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 54, nays 45, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 22 Ex.] YEAS--54 Banks Barrasso Blackburn Boozman Britt Budd Capito Cassidy Collins Cornyn Cotton Cramer Crapo Cruz Curtis Daines Ernst Fetterman Fischer Graham Grassley Hagerty Hawley Hoeven Husted Hyde-Smith Johnson Justice Kennedy Lankford Lee Lummis Marshall McConnell McCormick Moody Moran Moreno Mullin Murkowski Paul Ricketts Risch Rounds Schmitt Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Sheehy Sullivan Thune Tillis Tuberville Wicker Young NAYS--45 Alsobrooks Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Rochester Booker Cantwell Coons Cortez Masto Duckworth Durbin Gallego Gillibrand Hassan Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Kaine Kelly Kim King Klobuchar Lujan Markey Merkley Murphy Murray Padilla Peters Reed Rosen Sanders Schatz Schiff Schumer Shaheen Slotkin Smith Van Hollen Warner Warnock Warren Welch Whitehouse Wyden NOT VOTING--1 Ossoff The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 54, and the nays are 45. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. The motion was rejected. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). The Senator from Alabama. WALL Act Mrs. BRITT. Mr. President, January 2025 has been a turning point for the United States of America. President Donald Trump's inauguration marked the beginning of, as he put it, a new ``golden age'' for America. And our new President unveiled a list of Executive orders undoing 4 years of decline, in his very first week in office. He has already reversed a number of the failed Biden-Harris policies that weakened both security at our border and enforcement of our immigration laws in our Nation's interior. He has taken action to end catastrophic catch-and-release policies. He reinstated ``Remain in Mexico,'' and he stopped the abuse of immigration parole. Not only did President Trump turn our country's border and immigration policies around 180 degrees on his very first day, but, finally, at long last, Congress is working again. The House and the Senate sent the strongest immigration enforcement legislation to the President's desk since 1996. After nearly a year of working to get the Laken Riley Act through, it is finally mere hours from becoming actual law. We are finally on our way to ensuring that criminal illegal aliens are off our streets before they can commit the most heinous crimes imaginable. Providing our States the ability to compel the Federal Government to do its job is something it also includes--and the enforcement of the laws that are actually on the books. Far too often, we hear from grieving parents whose children's lives were cut far too short by illegal border crossers, who were poisoned by fentanyl brought across our southern border, or who suffered abuse at the hands of people who shouldn't have been in our country to begin with. The American people have heard enough of those stories, and, on November 5, they told us they wouldn't take it any longer. The results of the November election were a signal from the people we represent to the lawmakers meant to act on their behalf. They were a verdict from the American people that Washington had, for far too long, become guilty of overlooking the problems that actually mattered to the people we are here working for. With the Laken Riley Act, we have started to deliver on that verdict, but we are not done yet. The Laken Riley Act addresses the important problems of criminal illegal aliens already inside our country, but interior immigration enforcement is only one aspect of the problem we face. There is another priority we must focus on: preventing criminals from entering our country to begin with. That is why I have reintroduced the WALL Act. It is long past time to finish construction of a wall on our southern border, and this bill would put us on the path to doing just that. It would appropriate funding necessary to finish the wall, and it would allow President Trump to do so without raising taxes on U.S. citizens or increasing our national debt by a single cent. In fact, we would fund the wall by fixing yet another issue with our immigration system: We would eliminate taxpayer-funded entitlements and tax benefits to illegal aliens. Not only would taxpayers stop having to foot the bill for illegal aliens, but we would also close the loopholes that illegal aliens are taking advantage of. Meanwhile, the benefits intended for citizens and legal residents would truly only go to citizens and legal residents. [[Page S411]] Solving another problem, the WALL Act would impose monetary fines on illegal aliens and immigrants who overstay their visas. We would finish building the wall, and we would save money while we are at it. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated in 2018 that enacting the provisions in the WALL Act would save us $33 billion over 10 years. The bill would save us both dollars and lives. And what could be more important than the task of keeping our country safe and restoring financial responsibility? Just like the Laken Riley Act, the WALL Act is common sense, and, most importantly, it delivers to the American people what they have demonstrated they want, need, and deserve. It is the first move toward making sure that our immigration enforcement and border security Agencies have the funding they need to carry out the will of the people. We must fund construction of the border wall, but we can't just stop there. As the chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, I am committed to ensuring that the Trump administration has the detention space they need to get criminal illegal aliens off of our streets and providing funding for CBP and ICE enforcement and removal operations so these Agencies have the personnel, resources, and technology necessary to fulfill their missions. And that, Mr. President, is a long time coming too. As long as civilization has existed, both leaders and citizens have understood that the most important role that the government has is to provide security for the people who live under its jurisdiction. From the White House to both Chambers of Congress, the Republican Party is committed to getting our country back on track, to responding to the demands of the American people that they made to us this last November: securing our border, removing criminal illegal aliens from our streets, and providing a safe, orderly nation for the American people. There is no greater responsibility we have, no higher calling we can seek than making America safe again. We have heard the American people's voices, and we understand the call. Now, let's heed that call and pass the WALL Act. Let's continue to turn our promises made into promises kept. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii. Trump Administration Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, the government shutdown that Donald Trump just ordered is illegal and unconstitutional. He is not a King, and we do not live in a monarchy. It is Congress's authority to decide on Federal funding. The power of the purse is the foundational funding of the article I branch. Everybody talks like that. Everybody says those things. But now we are all put to the test--Democrats and Republicans. Are we going to forfeit all of our power? We are the elected branch. We make the laws. And the President of the United States just ordered a funding freeze for stuff he doesn't feel like funding. That is literally not how it works. And, today, the White House Press Secretary was asked about specific popular essential programs. You know what she said? She said: Have those people talk to Russ Vought and make an appeal to him. Now, there are a couple of problems with that. First of all, Russ Vought doesn't get to decide, in an appropriations law, which parts of the law to follow and which parts not to follow. Second of all--let's be really clear about this--Russ Vought is not a government employee right now. He is a nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget. And so we are supposed to have--I don't know--Medicaid recipients, VA home loan recipients, nursing homes, education organizations, healthcare organizations, transportation contractors, 

Referenced legislation: HR23, SRES42