Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Relating to Contributions and Expenditures Intended to Affect Elections

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I can't tell you how disappointed I am that the majority leader has continued to persist in blocking votes on more than 300 different pieces of bipartisan legislation that have passed the House of Representatives and that he refuses to bring up in the Senate. Rather than work together on a bipartisan basis to try to get the economy moving and get Americans back to work, we have these focus group, poll-tested show votes. The distinguished Senator from Michigan just admitted that equal pay for equal work is already the law of the land and then said we need to vote on it again. Well, it should be renamed "The Trial Lawyer Relief Act'' because that is what it is. It is going to benefit the trial lawyers by encouraging litigation and will do nothing to make sure there is equal pay for equal work. We all agree that is and should be the law of the land, but encouraging legislation such as lawsuits against small businesses would do nothing to create jobs and grow the economy.

There is a reason why the congressional approval rating is at 14 percent. The distinguished senior Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain--in a display of what I guess could be called gallows humor--said we are down to paid staff and blood relatives. Those are the only ones who still approve of what Congress is doing, and it is easy to understand why.

We just came back off of a recess where we had a chance to go back home and talk to our constituents. More importantly than talk to them, we had a chance to listen to them and hear what is on their minds. What are their concerns? What are their hopes? What are their dreams? What are they worried about? I guarantee that none of my constituents suggested we need to repeal the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That is the particular legislation that is on the floor today. That is the priority of the Democratic majority leader. It is a show vote to try to deny people an equal opportunity to participate in the political process--to shut them out if you disagree with them and silence them. Tell them to sit down, be quiet, we are in charge and in control.

I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that it seems as though it is all politics all the time. Every perceived or real problem that our Democratic friends seem to identify--what is their solution? It is more government. The most feared words in the English language where I come from are "I'm from the Federal Government and I'm here to help.''

We had an experiment over the last 5 1/2 years since President Obama was elected and the electorate gave the Democratic Party control of both the House and Senate. We have had a scientific experiment in the size and role of government and the results are in, and they are pretty pathetic. Unemployment is still unacceptably high. The labor participation rate, which is the percentage of people actually participating in the workforce, is at a 30-year low. People have given up looking for work, which is a great human tragedy.

Then there is the President's approval rating. He is doing better than Congress, I will give him that, but it is down around 40 percent. Here is the troubling thing--and this is not a partisan comment. As an American, I worry when the Commander in Chief has the sort of poll numbers we are talking about. There was a poll reported by the Washington Post and ABC News on September 9. The poll showed that Americans say, by 52 percent to 42 percent, that President Obama has been more of a failure than a success as President of the United States. That is terrible. But it demonstrates his refusal to engage with Congress on a bipartisan basis to do the country's work. It also reflects the mistakes he has made when it comes to leadership around the world.

President Obama wanted his second term to be about nation building here at home rather than conflicts and crises abroad. But, as we all know by now, the world is not cooperating. Even worse, the President is not leading. Instead, he has embraced a dangerously reactive foreign policy marked by empty rhetoric and wishful thinking, and the results are now plain to see.

When we look at the Middle East, we see a massive terrorist enclave spanning western Iraq and eastern Syria. The border between Syria and Iraq is gone. It is the site of a new caliphate. They are the Islamic radicals who were deemed so bad that Al Qaeda didn't want to have anything to do with them--ISIS. They have created what they believe is an Islamic state or caliphate, where

Shari'a law will rule and women will have virtually no rights and people will have no liberty or freedom. We have seen American journalists being decapitated on video. We see a brutal Syrian civil war in which about 200,000 civilians have been killed--200,000 human beings are dead as a result of a Syrian civil war--and millions more Syrians have been displaced internally within this country or else living in refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

We see a failed state in Libya. We see a terrorist-sponsoring Iranian theocracy that continues to pursue a nuclear weapon, and we see a violent Iranian axis stretching from Tehran to Damascus to Beirut and Gaza.

Meanwhile, let's not forget about Eastern Europe. We see an aggressive, autocratic gangster state conducting a cross-border invasion of democratic neighbors and taking sovereign territory by force in a manner not seen on the European continent since World War II.

A few weeks ago the President announced that Western sanctions against Russia were working as intended. Yet, in late August a large number of Russian troops began launching major incursions into Eastern and Southern Ukraine in the hopes of seizing even more territory. They already have Crimea; that is yesterday's news. Now they are making further gains in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. One Ukrainian official called it a full-scale invasion. It doesn't sound to me as though the sanctions that were issued by the United States are working as intended as the President has said.

Our existing sanctions are inadequate. They are not working as intended. Vladimir Putin is not deterred by economic sanctions. In fact, according to one Italian newspaper, Putin recently told the President of the European Commission that if Russia wanted to, it could take Kiev in 2 weeks. I am sure Mr. Putin is OK if it takes a little bit longer, just as long as he gets the territory he needs to try to restore the Russian empire to his former visions of glory.

White House officials famously describe the President's foreign policy as "don't do stupid stuff.'' That is one for the history textbooks. That is the sort of policy our students need to study in high school: Don't do stupid stuff. Come on.

Time and time again in country after country on issue after issue, this administration has, by its inaction and its ambivalence, undermined America's partners, adversaries are emboldened, and it has weakened American credibility.

Let's start with the Middle East. In Libya, President Obama launched a war against Moammar Qadhafi in Libya and then he did virtually nothing to help stabilize the country after Qadhafi's fall. That neglect ultimately led to the tragic death of four Americans in Benghazi in September 2012. It also led to the emergence of terrorist havens. What do they look for other than a power vacuum that they can fill where they can seek sanctuary and launch attacks in the region or against other adversaries? This has led to Libya's collapse as a functioning state. It is a failed state.

It has also enabled jihadist groups in Mali and Africa until they were driven out by the French.

Then there is Syria. Remember when the President said Bashir Assad needs to step down? He then did virtually nothing to help see that happen. He did nothing to arm the moderate rebel forces opposing Assad in the Syrian civil war. The irony is that U.S. officials had a plan to support those rebels, and they recommended it to the President in the summer of 2012 a plan proposed by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-CIA Director David Petraeus, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Dempsey. They recommended a plan to deal with Assad and to facilitate the regime change President Obama called for. What did the President do? He rejected it, even though his stated policy in Syria since August 2011 has been regime change.

It has become commonplace to say that the United States has no good options in Syria. But President Obama's chronic passivity has helped the jihadists. I know that is not his intention, but it has helped the result. It has helped embolden the Iranians, and it has made the Syrian war even more dangerous for the United States and the United States' interests.

Then there is Iraq. President Obama failed to secure a new status of forces or bilateral security agreement that would have protected American forces that served on a transitional basis in Iraq after the conclusion of the Iraq war. We kept troops in Japan and Germany after World War II, and indeed the Americans were the only glue capable of holding the country of Iraq together and avoiding the sort of sectarian civil war we have seen ensue. But his complete withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2011 was a huge gift to Iraq's Shiite militias, their Iranian patrons, and the Sunni terrorists of Al Qaeda who would later form the so-called Islamic State or ISIS or ISIL, as they are now called. I have to tell my colleagues, as I reflect on the American casualties in Ramadi, in Fallujah--our marines, our brave American soldiers, men and women, their loss of life or injuries incurred in liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein and to see all of that forfeited by the President's unwillingness to secure a bilateral security agreement and leave a transitional, small footprint force there to help the Iraqis transition to self government and democracy--it breaks my heart. I don't know how we explain that to someone who lost a loved one in Ramadi or Fallujah or anywhere else in the Iraq war.

According to the Wall Street Journal, at least 8 million Syrians and Iraqis live under full or partial Islamic State control. Eight million Syrians and Iraqis are living under the rule of medieval barbarians who not only decapitated two American captives but have accumulated a frightening amount of territory and wealth. They control a lot of the natural resources, the oil wells, in Iraq now because we have allowed them to capture it, and now that is the source of revenue for them to continue their terror. They have accumulated a frightening amount of territory and wealth by robbing, raping, extorting, and murdering innocent civilians.

By allowing the Islamic State to take over such a large part of Iraq and Syrian territory, President Obama has neglected one of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. We remember the 9/11 Commission. It was a bipartisan commission set up after the tragedy of 9/11 to ask: How do we keep this from ever happening again?

One of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission is that the U.S. Government identify and prioritize actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries; in other words, safe havens. Instead, the President has stood by and watched like a spectator while the Islamic State, over the course of many months, carved out its own safe haven, right in the heart of the Middle East.

I am grateful to the President that he now has made a pledge to destroy ISIS. I believe this is not a threat that can be managed; I think it needs to be eliminated. So I congratulate the President for having evolved to this point where he understands the nature of the threat to American interests and to the American people, and I hope he is serious about doing that. But as one person recently noted, the Obama administration has persuaded just about every leadership cadre in the Middle East that the United States can be safely ignored when its principals make threats or promises. Remember the red line in Syria with chemical weapons. Well, the red line was crossed, and there were virtually no consequences associated with it. What is the lesson we learn? I guess I can get away with it and I am going to keep on coming--such as Vladimir Putin in Crimea and Ukraine.

Speaking of threats and promises, President Obama has repeatedly threatened Russia with serious consequences over its invasion of Ukraine, and he has repeatedly promised to help the Ukrainian people uphold their sovereignty. Yet he continues to stubbornly refuse to provide the very arms to the Ukrainian patriots needed in order to deter and deflect and defeat Russian aggression. What are we giving them? Our good wishes? Sending them some food and medical supplies? That is fine as far as it goes. But without the actual weapons and the training they need in order to defeat Russian aggression and to raise the cost for Vladimir Putin, he is not going to stop. Yet the President's threats haven't been reinforced with the kind of action necessary to change Moscow's calculations, and his promises to the government of Kiev now look rather empty.

The tragedy is it seems as though there is one world crisis after another, and we have long since forgotten about Libya, Syria, and the red lines and the chemical weapons there. They seem like a vague and distant memory because now we are focused on ISIS. But they are all part of the same problem.

There is a very real danger in Ukraine that last week's cease-fire will only solidify Russia's recent territorial gains and legitimize its ongoing invasion and further embolden Vladimir Putin to seize even more Ukrainian territory or the territory of another Eastern European country when the time seems right. Amidst all of this upheaval, all of this violence, all of these challenges, all of these threats to U.S. interests and allies, the President seems disturbingly aloof. Here is what he said about the ongoing global turmoil at a recent fundraising event on August 29. This was reported in the press. He said:

The world has always been messy. In part, we are just noticing it now because of social media and our capacity to see in intimate detail the hardships that people are going through.

But make no mistake about it. The Middle East has not always been consumed by the type of violence and chaos we are seeing today, and European countries have not always been facing cross-border invasions such as that posed by Russia today.

The world needs strong American leadership. Ronald Reagan was right. We have a safer, more peaceful world when America is strong and does not create the safe havens for terrorists or by our timidity or our rhetoric that is not followed up on by actions that create the impression that people can get away with it. It just encourages the thugs, the dictators, and the terrorists.

The President's refusal to accept any real responsibility for the consequences of his foreign policy is troubling enough, but what is even more troubling is he doesn't seem to fully grasp the magnitude of the threats and challenges that America is now dealing with. If he thinks this is all about social media and people being aware of things that were happening before but they weren't aware of before, I hope he will think again. Indeed, his overall record is looking more and more like a case study in the perils of weaknesses, naivete, and indecision. I can only hope that recent events will force him to change course.

That could start by his coming to Congress with a strategy to eliminate ISIS, to eliminate this threat. I believe there would be bipartisan support for a strategy the President would present that has a reasonable chance of success. But just to have open-ended air strikes and maybe just a strategy comprising hopes and dreams but not one with the likelihood of working is not good enough. But if he came to us and worked with Congress, I think it would serve multiple purposes.

First, it would comply with the Constitution and the laws of the United States. That is important.

Second, by engaging in bipartisan support in Congress, he would build support necessarily for this policy among the American people. I don't believe Americans should ever go to war without the support of the American people. We see what happens when that support fades and crumbles, and it is not good.

The third reason he ought to come to Congress is I read in some of the news clips today he is going to come and ask us for $5 billion to fight ISIS. Well, the President--who is famous for saying, I am going to go it alone; I have a pen and a phone--can't go it alone when it comes to appropriating money. He needs Congress to appropriate that money. And Congress should not appropriate money without a strategy that has a reasonable likelihood of working or without an explanation of how this strategy is going to protect America and Americans' interests.

So in his remarks on U.S. policy toward the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria tomorrow night when he makes this nationwide address, I urge the President to go beyond the rhetoric and offer a clear explanation of our military objectives and our strategic objectives. I urge him to explain how and why the Islamic State poses a dangerous threat to U.S. national security interests, which I believe it does and I believe he thinks it does. So I hope he will explain it to the American people so they can understand it. I urge him to explain how U.S. allies and partners can help support America's mission, because we can't and should not do it alone. Indeed, we do need that coalition, particularly of people in the region who have the most direct interest and stake in the outcome. We need them to come to the table and help too.

Finally, I urge him to explain what his strategy is and how U.S. operations in Iraq and Syria fit within the broader role on radical Islamic terrorism. If the President gave such a speech--and I hope he does--I hope it is followed with true negotiations and deliberations and consultation with Congress. I know Minority Leader Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid and the Republican leader of the Senate, Senator McConnell, and Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy are visiting with the President perhaps as I speak. Maybe that is just the beginning of the kind of consultation that should take place. But I hope it is followed on by true collaboration and consultation with all Members of Congress so that we as Americans can come together and do what is in our national interests. But we can't do it without leadership, and we don't do it without a strategy to accomplish that goal.

I think in the process the President could inject some much needed clarity and direction into a foreign policy that has become hopelessly muddled and aimless.

I yield the floor.

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