Getting Our Work Done

Floor Speech

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Mr. TESTER. I say thank you to Senator McCaskill.

The Senator from Missouri is right. Folks in this country are sick and tired of Congress not doing its job.

I was just on the radio a few minutes ago and the radio announcer said: You know you guys have been out for several weeks. What do you anticipate you are going to get done over the next four weeks? I said: I wish we were in session during the next four weeks because the truth is there is a lot of stuff that needs to be done, but people are talking about getting out at the end of this week or the end of next week, and then that is it. That will be it until the lameduck, if we have one.

It seems as though this body runs based on the next election, not based on the policies that need to be passed to make this country do its job. We play political games after political games, worrying about the next election rather than worrying about the next generation.

The Senator from Missouri is right. This Republican-led Senate has not done its job.

Does a hard-working nurse wait until the next election day to insert the IV? No, she goes to work. You wouldn't hire that nurse if that happened.

Does the teacher walk into the classroom and say: You know, it is the middle of September, election day is November 8, so you guys don't have to come back to school until after the election? No. I served on a school board for a good number of years, and that teacher wouldn't have been working, wouldn't have been getting paid.

I will also tell my colleagues that I know firsthand a farmer would not wait for the polls to close to harvest his or her crop. If he or she did, they would be out of business.

We wonder why people are so upset with us. The American people have to do their job day in and day out, no matter what, and they expect the same from the people they elect to this body.

So what is the problem? The Republicans control the Senate. They control the House. Why can't we get anything done? I think it is because there is a total lack of leadership. We need to look no further than Zika and the current impasse and the political games that are being played with that. This is a horrible disease. I have talked with the researchers. They don't know all the impacts. We need to do the research to find that out. We do know that it impacts the unborn and it can be sexually transmitted. We don't know if there are long-term impacts to people who may get it now who don't see any symptoms but could see symptoms later.

We passed a bipartisan bill with 89 votes. We addressed this crisis head-on. But the Senate and the House leadership got together, they shut the doors, they smoked a few cigars, probably ate a few steaks, and said: We are going to make this into a political football. And that is exactly what they did. They inserted partisan politics into a solution. Right now we have no bill passed that deals with the Zika crisis, and it is a health crisis in this country.

But that is not the only one. When I go back to Montana, whose population is fully 10 percent veterans, they talk about the needs of veterans. We have a bill, under the leadership of Dick Blumenthal and Johnny Isakson, that takes care of our veterans. It helps fix the veterans' problems in this country. It helps fix leadership vacancies. It helps fix the shortage of doctors. It helps veterans get access to the VA. It passed out of committee unanimously. It is called the Veterans First Act. It passed out of committee last May, 125 days ago. The Senate will not take the bill up. It is a step in the right direction to take care of our veterans, yet we will not take it up because we have to go home.

My colleague from Missouri showed us the map. People would think Congress would do their job on behalf of veterans, but they would be wrong.

Then we have the Supreme Court. The Constitution--which people in this body cite a lot, and should--is very clear that the Senate has a duty to advise and consent to the President's Supreme Court nominees. I just heard the Republican leader the other day say that there will be no Supreme Court nominee taken up this year. That is great. Now the Supreme Court is just as dysfunctional as Congress. We see it with the decisions that come out on tally votes. Don't even give Judge Garland a meeting, much less a hearing.

I think the American people deserve better. They need an opportunity to see the nominee in action. My colleagues here in the Senate sit on their hands. It will be probably 15 months before the Supreme Court gets another nominee, and maybe not then either, because who knows what kind of antics are in store.

And there is more. We have not only Zika, the VA, and the Supreme Court but also the appropriations bills. Instead, we are going to pass a short-term resolution.

We have campaign finance. It is expected that more than $1.4 billion will be spent in this Presidential race. Congress has done nothing to ensure that ideas and voters, not money, decide elections. We need campaign finance reform. Everybody in this body knows it. But, instead, we continue to ignore the problem that faces this country with campaign finance.

Wildfire disaster funding: The way we fight wildfires is broken. If you live in the West, you know that. We are not going to deal with that.

We need to permanently fund and reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund. No, it is not going to happen.

We have the Restoring Rural Residencies Act that takes care of the doctor shortages we have in this country. No, it is not going to happen. We don't have time. We do have time; we just choose not to tackle any of these issues.

Year-round Pell grants: We have students who are coming out of college with a mountain of debt. We are not going to deal with that.

We have a bill to give regulatory relief to community banks and credit unions. We are not going to debate that on the floor. No, it is not going to happen.

We have the Secure Rural Schools initiative and Payment in Lieu of Taxes. Both need our attention. Earlier this year, Senator Crapo and I called on leadership to find a path forward so these counties can have some certainty. Neither is going to happen.

Over the past few years we have seen our national security compromised with faulty background checks. We have a solution. We produced legislation that will help prevent inside attacks. It is not going to happen. Do you notice a pattern? Well, the whole country is waiting. We are waiting for Congress to do their job.

I just turned 60 years old on August 21. In my lifetime, we have never worked less days in the Senate than we have this year. It is unbelievable. We are leaving everyday Americans hung out to dry. We are leaving without doing our job. We are leaving because of the next election, and this is criminal.

There are solutions. This is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the world. The only problem is that we are not in session to deliberate.

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