May 6, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 85 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
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REMOTE VOTING; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 85
(Senate - May 06, 2020)
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[Pages S2280-S2281] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] REMOTE VOTING Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, a couple of months ago, I introduced legislation here on the floor of the Senate with my colleague Dick Durbin from Illinois. He is on the other side of the aisle. In a bipartisan way, we said: Let's let Congress vote remotely. Let's use safe and secure means to do that. The technology is out there to do that. It has to be safe, but let's let Congress weigh in and vote remotely when we can't meet. These last 6 weeks are an example of that, but it is not just about this pandemic. I have actually been talking about this for 25 years because I believe it is important for Congress to be able to meet when there is any reason we can't come together or shouldn't come together. After 9/11, a lot of people were more focused on this because a terrorist act--particularly a bioterrorist act--could have the same effect, of course. There have been periods of time where Congress has not been able to meet here, and there have been other periods of time like during the Cold War, when there was actually a bunker set up in the hills of West Virginia somewhere for us to convene for fear that there could be a nuclear attack. So Congress has thought about this before, but Congress has never been able to put in place the ability for us to vote remotely, for us to have debate remotely, and for us to have hearings remotely. I think that is too bad because we are the voice of the people. We represent individual congressional districts on the other side of the Capitol. We represent individual States here. The Constitution set it up so that we are out here listening to people we represent, and we come here to represent that voice. The executive branch has its own role, and it is a very important one, but it shouldn't take over the legislative branch role because they are different, and the Founders intended it that way, to have this separation of powers By the way, other countries have done this. The United Kingdom has begun to conduct its proceedings remotely. The EU has started to vote remotely--the European Union. There are several other countries that have come up with one way or another to work remotely--to telework, in essence. By the way, about 14 States have also figured this out so that they can convene meetings and so on, and some of them even vote remotely. So I think it is time to do it. Last week, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, had the first remote hearing in the history of the Congress, and it worked really well. We had three witnesses. We had several Members of the Senate participate. The witnesses were all around the country, so we didn't have to call them here to Washington. We didn't have to gather as a group and therefore risk one of us infecting another or exposing us to the coronavirus. The witnesses were testifying from their homes, from a living room in one case. One of the witnesses actually testified from the cab of a pickup truck because she was at her sister's place [[Page S2281]] and didn't want to do it in the house. So she got in the pickup truck with her laptop, and it worked great. It worked great. We were able to ask questions and get answers. It worked just like a regular hearing. I was appreciative that the Rules Committee allowed us to do that. By the way, the technology is, in a sense, off-the-shelf technology because it is their technology. They have it. We didn't have to recreate the wheel. It worked last week. We used it. I think it can be a template for other hearings. By the way, I am pleased to say that today, I participated in two more remote hearings. Even though we are here in session, we are having remote hearings because it is not wise for us to all gather together with the staff and with the Capitol Police and others. It is safer for us to do this remotely. By the way, both of these hearings went well. One was in the Finance Committee, and the other was in the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. By the way, our hearing last week was online. You can check it out at psi.gov. The two hearings today were both online, live-streamed today. This does not mean that you cut out the public. In fact, I would say it is just the opposite. During these last 6 weeks, we could have had hearings every week and kept the public informed as to what we were thinking and gotten more input from the public in an official way and in a way that was so transparent that everybody could have been engaged in it, if they wanted to, just like C-SPAN, except it is online. This is something we can now do, and I hope we will continue to do it. I hope we will be sure that, as we do this, we also take serious this idea of not just having hearings and not just having the ability to interact as Republicans and Democrats but actually have the ability to vote remotely when we shouldn't be here. Again, it needs to be safe, and I think we can do that. I am convinced that if we put our minds to it, the technology is not the problem; the problem is tradition. I am not against tradition. A lot of them make sense. But do you know what? Tradition around here has changed a lot over the years. There didn't used to be a filibuster, as an example, which is how we live right now, to get 60 votes for everything. That is OK. I am not saying it is a bad tradition to have changed, but the point is that we change tradition here a lot, and it is time for us to look at this. It is time for us essentially to catch up. Most of the people I represent are doing this. To one extent or another, they are teleworking. Most people in America today are realizing that you can actually get a lot done online, remotely. Today, I talked to some healthcare professionals who were telling me about one of the rare silver linings in this dark cloud that has descended upon our country. It is the fact that telemedicine has been proved over the past couple of months to be pretty darn effective. In many cases, it has been used because people are concerned or afraid about coming to a hospital or going to their doctor, but they can get the advice through telemedicine. I talked to some educators today. In fact, I also talked to the Ohio Farm Bureau today. I talked to a mom who is at home with her kids during the day now because her kids are home from school because schools have been closed. We talked about how much she has been able to learn about telelearning and how there is an opportunity here to do more outside of the classroom. It is not that we shouldn't get back to classrooms--I think we should. I think that is an opportunity for kids to interact, which is important. But we are beginning to acknowledge that we can also do more after school in terms of telelearning. So this is just another example of it. This is a change that I think must be made to prepare us for the realities of this 21st century, where these contingencies come up. It is a pandemic today. It may be something else tomorrow. By the way, the way our legislation works for voting is that it is temporary. So I don't think this should be the norm. I think it should be only in emergencies and only when the majority leader and the Democratic leader--so in a bipartisan way--decide it is the appropriate thing to do, and then, under our legislation, every 30 days, Congress would have to vote--presumably remotely--to reaffirm it. Otherwise, it ends. So it would be temporary, it would be in emergencies only, and it would be up to Republicans and Democrats alike at the leadership level to decide it is time to try remote voting and to be sure that we, as the Members of the people's House across the way and the Members of the world's greatest deliberative body here in the Senate, as we are called, have the chance to represent the millions of people we are charged with representing by being their voice here on the Senate floor. I hope we can, along with the times, change here and begin to be more effective in representing those constituents. ____________________
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