The PACT Act finally meets ‘our sacred obligation’ to Delaware veterans

By Sens. Chris Coons and Tom Carper, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Vince Kane

“Our sacred obligation.”

That’s how our friend and commander-in-chief, President Joe Biden, describes the debt we owe those who have served the United States in theaters of war worldwide. As Delaware’s congressional delegation, responsible for serving nearly 80,000 veterans in our state, and as Director of Wilmington’s VA Medical Center, focused on meeting the health care needs of veterans, we all share the president’s view of that obligation.

That’s why, over the past few weeks, the congressional delegation voted to pass the Honoring our PACT Act — a bill aimed at providing benefits for Veterans who had known or suspected toxic exposures, including those who worked near burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill represents the single most significant expansion of care from the Veterans Administration since the passage of the GI Bill during World War II. We were delighted to see Biden sign it into law earlier this month.

Let’s be clear — it took far too long for Congress to act to get these Veterans the resources they need. Vietnam veterans, like Sen. Carper, have been fighting for decades to establish a presumption of harm for exposure to chemicals like Agent Orange. But now that the bill has been signed into law — our work is still not over. By comparison, the PACT Act will expand VA benefits eligibility to more the 3.5 million Veterans, by some estimates. That means implementing the bill and ensuring that the VA has the resources they need to provide our Veterans with care must be a top priority for Congress and the Biden Administration.

We’re doing our part by ensuring Delaware Veterans know the benefits they are entitled to with the passage of the PACT Act. The VA is considering 23 new presumptive conditions for benefits, meaning any Veteran who may be eligible for benefits should apply for them as soon as possible. If you need help accessing care or knowing if you’re eligible, please contact our offices.

The new law expands health care eligibility to several groups of Veterans who may not have been eligible before and requires the VA to promptly phase in hospital care, medical services, and nursing home care for any illness to three new categories of Veterans.  Those categories include any Veterans who participated in a toxic exposure risk activity while serving or were deployed during specific time frames or in particular combat theaters. The law also requires VA  to provide a toxic exposure screening to every Veteran enrolled in VA health care. You can visit the VA’s website here to learn more about eligibility for new VA benefits.

We know that the Wilmington VAMC and our community-based outpatient clinics in Kent and Sussex Counties will be working hard to spread the word about the new eligibility and benefit criteria — and we’ll be doing the same — but we need the help of our veterans community, too. So please, spread the word — and let your fellow veterans know that, with the passage of the PACT Act, they may now be eligible for VA benefits and VA health care.

Just because the PACT Act is passed and signed into law does not mean our work is done. We’ll continue to work to ensure that the bill is implemented with the scope and impact Congress intended. We’ll spread the word so that every Veteran eligible for benefits under the law receives them along with exceptional health care, as part of our broader efforts to serve all of those who have bravely served our nation. After all, doing so is our sacred obligation.

Targeted sanctions can help restore democracy in Sudan

WASHINGTON — In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) and The Sentry’s John Prendergast published an op-ed in Foreign Policy today discussing the future of Sudan as the Sudanese people continue to push for democracy in a nationwide movement. Senator Coons, Chairman of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, calls for the United States to invest in Sudanese organizations resisting military rule and impose modern, comprehensive sanctions against coup leaders like those contained in the Sudan Democracy Act that Senator Coons introduced last year to allow for Sudan’s democracy movement to grow.

Foreign Policy: Targeted Sanctions Can Help Restore Democracy in Sudan

By Senator Chris Coons and John Prendergast

The struggle is on for Sudan’s future, and the outcome of the current strife between the kleptocratic military and the resilient protest movement in the streets will have consequences far beyond the Horn of Africa for the United States, its allies, and its adversaries. Russia held talks in Moscow with senior Sudanese military officials as Russian troops were invading Ukraine, and is suspected of involvement in the military coup in Khartoum in October. Egypt and Persian Gulf countries are reluctant to risk short-term stability to support a democratic transition in their neighborhood. China wants a business partner.

Though Europe supports a democratic transition, it does not want hundreds of thousands of new migrants heading north; Sudanese regime leaders have suggested this will happen if the international community does not support the military-led government.

The Sudanese people, however, are not backing down in the defense of their political gains. Even in the face of persistent killings, sexual violence, and arrests by the regime, a massive, nationwide pro-democracy movement has for months maintained nonviolent street protests. The determination these thousands of people have shown as they risk their lives against heavily armed security forces should serve as a reminder the world over of how precious democracy truly is.

The full op-ed can be read here.

###

How Biden’s faith-based office has advanced his vow to heal the soul of the nation

WASHINGTON — In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) published an op-ed in Religion News Service commemorating the one-year anniversary of President Biden’s re-establishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships by discussing how President Biden’s faith has not only shaped that office, but the entirety of his presidency over the last year-plus. The White House Office of Faith Based and Community Partnerships was first launched by President George W. Bush in 2001 and continued through the Obama administration. It was re-established by President Biden on February 14, 2021.

Religion News Service: How Biden’s faith-based office has advanced his vow to heal the soul of the nation

By Senator Chris Coons

“Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.”

Those words of St. Francis to his followers come to mind this week as we mark the one-year anniversary Monday (Feb. 14) of President Joe Biden’s reestablishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a little over a year since he put his hand on the Bible and took the oath of office as our 46^th president.

Looking back over that year, it’s evident that President Biden believes deeply in the words of St. Francis.

Our president’s faith is private and personal; with rare exceptions, such as this month’s National Prayer Breakfast, he doesn’t discuss it at length in public. Rather, he demonstrates his faith through works and deeds. Over the past year, President Biden has used his service to our nation to show us his faith — a faith of empathy and compassion, a faith rooted in both the Social Gospel movement and the words of the Gospels themselves.

The full op-ed can be read here.

###

A $1 billion boost to the NCI will help us beat cancer

WILMINGTON, Del. — Today, U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), both members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, published an op-ed in Scientific American calling for a robust, sustained investment in cancer research through the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a research arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The lawmakers call on Congress to appropriate an additional $1 billion to NCI, where funding for cancer research has lagged behind other NIH programs and resulted in lower research output.

Scientific American: A $1 billion boost to the NCI will help us beat cancer

By Senators Chris Coons and Jerry Moran

… unfortunately, not all entities within the NIH have benefited equally from the recent budget increases, and the cancer research conducted via NCI funding is lagging behind. We believe a $1-billion boost this year and consistent increases going forward will allow the U.S. to remain the global scientific and economic leader in the development of cancer diagnostics and treatments that Americans will benefit from in the years ahead.

Because of the current funding lag, the NCI can only fund about one in eight meritorious research applications, leaving many potential cures for various cancers on the cutting-room floor and young cancer scientists unable to get the financial backing they need to pursue innovative ideas. This in turn means that fewer promising scientists will enter the field of cancer research and that others will leave, leading to a brain drain in the field…

The full op-ed can be read here.

###

Peace is still possible in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is sprinting toward calamity. Last week, as the rebel forces of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and their allies advanced toward the capital of Addis Ababa, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed traveled to the frontline and vowed to lead Ethiopian troops into battle himself. “We won’t give in until we bury the enemy,” he said. Not to be outdone, a spokesperson for the TPLF called Abiy’s leadership a “chokehold on our people” and pledged to continue the rebels’ “inexorable advance.”

If Abiy and his opponents continue on their current path, they risk triggering not only massive bloodshed and economic collapse but the fracture of the Ethiopian state as we know it. Ethiopia is at risk of becoming this generation’s Yugoslavia: a great nation and a regional leader that violently shatters along ethnic lines. Echoes of the bloody Yugoslav wars are already evident in the polarization, hate speech, and violence that have gripped Ethiopia over the last year. The memory of those previous conflicts haunts me when I think of what may be next for Africa’s second most populous nation.

The full op-ed can be read here.

###

A bipartisan infrastructure bill proves our democracy can still work

The World Is Watching. We Need to Hold Trump Accountable.

WASHINGTON — Jan. 6 was a dark day for American democracy. For only the second time in our republic’s history, our United States Capitol was ransacked, except this time it wasn’t by British troops. It was by a riotous mob of thugs, incited by our president, trying to stop the certification of the results of the presidential election.

As I sheltered with my Senate colleagues, my initial thoughts were of the safety of my staff, how to reach my family and how my colleagues were faring. Once we were able to get a television set up and see the dreadful images of the sacking of the Capitol, I was struck by what the rest of the world was seeing as well.

In the days since, I’ve read and received messages of solidarity and concern, as well as condemnation of the rioters, from officials in the governments of our closest allies, including Britain, France, Australia, Canada, Japan and many others. While I felt grateful for our strong alliances, I’ve also read messages from our adversaries who regularly undermine democratic norms at home and abroad.

To Iran’s president, the attack showed how “fragile Western democracy is.” A senior Russian official declared that “the celebration of democracy is over.” The president of Zimbabwe tweeted that the events “showed that the U.S. has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy.” And Chinese propaganda outlets predictably seized on the news of the riot, with one hawkish, state-owned news website calling the events “an iconic humiliation.”

This attack from within our own borders weakened our democracy, put that weakness on display and caused many around the world to question whether the future of our democratic system is at risk.

It was a grave reckoning, but it should not come as a surprise. For the past four years, President Trump has pushed the boundaries of our democracy, testing and eroding the guardrails and institutions that have safeguarded our republic for more than 230 years. He has failed to condemn white supremacists; he has challenged our judiciary and described journalists as “enemies of the people.” And he began undermining confidence in the 2020 election months before voting day.

His actions overseas have been equally alarming. Mr. Trump heaped praise on North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, while insulting leaders of some of our closest allies; he defended the Saudi government after the brutal murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi; and he recently ignored a huge Russian hack of our government and the private sector.

With this record, we shouldn’t be surprised that Mr. Trump would rally his supporters to assault the Capitol in an act of insurrection against the very Constitution that he pledged an oath to protect.

But we should be concerned. Our allies may now question our reliability as a democratic partner, and we should expect our authoritarian adversaries to exploit this dark day in American democracy for their own geopolitical gain. After all, it is the strength of our democracy — our respect for the rule of law, our faith in the dignity of each individual and our recognition that we must always strive to be a more perfect union — that undergirds our influence internationally. 

When our president undermines the credibility of our elections, how can we insist upon free and fair elections in Belarus or Ivory Coast? When our president’s rhetoric demonizes journalists and allows his supporters to assault them, how can we stand up for freedom of the press in the Philippines or Turkey? Can our allies depend on the power of our military deterrence and will our adversaries be deterred when we do not secure our own institutions? If we don’t confront and address these dangerous shortcomings, we invite accusations of hypocrisy. It feeds into the playbooks of authoritarian leaders around the world who argue that their systems are superior to democratic ones and that the United States practices respect for human rights only when it is convenient.

It’s clear to me that the damage President Trump and his enablers have inflicted will outlive his presidency. But it’s also clear that for our democracy to survive and for the United States to maintain its position as a defender of our values and freedoms around the world, we need to show our allies and adversaries that our democracy has weathered this test.

Congress began this task as soon as the Capitol was cleared Wednesday night, by returning to our work and voting to certify the results of the election. But for us to send the strongest message to the rest of the world that the rule of law still reigns in the United States, we have to hold Wednesday’s rioters and instigators accountable — chief among them the president.

First, Donald Trump does not deserve to be president. He should resign today. My Republican colleagues who have served as allies and enablers of the president should persuade him to do so. If he won’t, Vice President Mike Pence should take responsibility, invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him — which only the vice president and the cabinet have the power to do. If they fail to do either, Congress must promptly move ahead with its own remedies, including impeachment or censure.

Second, Mr. Trump’s supporters in Congress — especially those who fanned the flames of Wednesday’s violence with false claims of voter fraud — need to start telling the truth. They need to declare that Mr. Biden won in a free and fair election, and they need to join us on Jan. 20 in reasserting our democracy with the peaceful transfer of power. To those Republican lawmakers who have been calling for healing and unity: There can be reconciliation only with repentance.

We have a challenging nine days ahead of us. Our president is unhinged and has demonstrably abandoned his post. We need to find the right balance of protecting our country and making it clear that in the United States, a leader cannot seek to subvert our democracy without repercussions. Once Mr. Biden is sworn in, Congress must move swiftly to begin the work of healing our nation, including by confirming his capable and seasoned nominees and passing a bipartisan relief package to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

Jan. 6 genuinely tested us. How we respond will determine whether we choose continued division or to heal, repair and strengthen our democracy. The world is watching.

 ###

I’m voting against Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court – here’s why

Over the past several weeks, I have been flooded with calls, text messages and emails from Delawareans asking a simple question: Why is the Senate rushing to confirm President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, but not doing anything to help millions of American families get through the COVID-19 pandemic?

It’s an understandable question, and I’ve been asking my Senate Republican colleagues the same thing. I will be voting against Judge Barrett’s confirmation, as I told her in questioning on Wednesday. I’m doing this both because we need to be focusing on COVID-19relief and because Judge Barrett has shown through her writings that she has an activist judicial philosophy that will put at risk crucial rights and protections we all hold dear.   

The pandemic — the worst to hit our nation in over 100 years — has tragically claimed the lives of more than 215,000 Americans, and the death toll continues rising by the hundreds or more every day. More than 7.8 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19 and now have a new preexisting health condition.

On top of this, more than 25 million Americans are out of a job through no fault of their own. Businesses across the country are struggling to avoid shutting down permanently, and families are in dire straits — many unable to pay their bills, rent and mortgages.

The Senate should be working day and night to help these families and businesses — not proceeding with this confirmation process.

Rushing to confirm Judge Barrett’s nomination for a lifetime appointment on our nation’s highest court directly violates the precedent that my Republican colleagues set themselves in 2016: that we should not confirm a Supreme Court justice during an election year.

Today, millions of Americans have already voted in more than half our states and we’re less than three weeks from Election Day.

Given that my Republican colleagues appear determined to rush this process forward, the American people deserve to know the harmful real-world consequences Judge Barrett’s confirmation could have on their lives.

Just one week after the election, the Supreme Court will hear a case in which the Trump administration and Republican attorneys general across the country are trying to strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the law that expanded health coverage and gave preexisting condition protections to more than 100 million Americans.

Judge Barrett has publicly criticized the Supreme Court’s previous decisions upholding the law. That’s one of the main reasons why President Trump and my Republican colleagues are rushing to have her confirmed in time to hear the administration’s challenge to the ACA: so she can vote to overturn the law once and for all.

The consequences of such a Supreme Court ruling would be tragic. In the middle of a public health crisis, more than 23 million Americans could lose the coverage they obtain on the health insurance exchanges or through the Medicaid expansion. More than 100 million could lose preexisting condition protections. Most Americans with private health insurance coverage — including from their employers — could see prohibitions on annual and lifetime coverage caps evaporate.

But it’s not just the ACA that’s at stake. Judge Barrett has said that she shares the judicial philosophy of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked.

Justice Scalia had deeply regressive views of the law. He was the sole dissenter in the case that struck down the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy and helped pave the way for the fight against gender discrimination across the board. He dissented in cases that secured rights for same-sex couples, for workers, for Native Americans, for the incarcerated, and for consumers.

Justice Scalia even sought to overturn the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Miranda v. Arizona, which requires law enforcement to read people their rights upon arrest.

Not only does Judge Barrett share Justice Scalia’s originalist philosophy; her writings indicate that she would overturn longstanding precedents that conflict with it.

Throughout her career, Judge Barrett has endorsed a legal philosophy that argues that Supreme Court justices should simply overturn precedent with which they disagree. This means that many of the rights the American people think of as established and part of who we are as a country — like the right to privacy or the right to marry whomever they love — would be in danger of being taken away.

In fact, after reviewing her record and writings over the past few weeks, I believe Judge Barrett has a radical judicial approach, even more conservative than Justice Scalia.

To fully understand the extent of how a Justice Barrett could impact Americans’ lives, we need only to look at the more than 120 cases that were decided by a 5-4 vote with the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the majority and Justice Scalia in the dissent. If Judge Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by Justice Ginsburg’s death, the rulings in all these cases hang in the balance.

These 5-4 decisions aren’t obscure or trivial. They are landmark cases like NFIB v. Sebelius, which upheld the ACA; and Obergefell v. Hodges, which made marriage equality the law of the land.

The cases also include Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the University of Michigan’s efforts to ensure racial diversity in admissions; Miller v. Alabama, which prevents states from sentencing juveniles to mandatory life imprisonment; and Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

With the confirmation of a Justice Barrett, a Supreme Court with a 6-3 conservative majority would be like nothing we have seen in many decades. It would, I fear, usher in a new chapter of conservative judicial activism that would disrupt rights that we hold dear across so many aspects of our lives.

I worry that the consequences of the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court would be devastating for the American people and for our nation for many years to come.

A Bipartisan Foreign Policy Is Still Possible

U.S. foreign policy is stronger when it enjoys bipartisan support. For the United States to play a steady, stabilizing role in world affairs, its allies and adversaries must know that its government speaks with one voice and that its policies won’t shift dramatically with changing domestic political winds. The best way to ensure that clarity and consistency is to pursue policies that are guided by American values of freedom, openness, opportunity, and inclusivity—and that have the support of policymakers and ordinary Americans across the political spectrum.

After four years under U.S. President Donald Trump, returning to clarity, consistency, and bipartisanship will not be easy. Trump’s “America first” political narrative has proved to be compelling and politically powerful. It taps into a long-standing strain of isolationism in U.S. politics, and it resonates with many Americans who question the benefits of globalization and of endless military engagement overseas. Trump’s supporters are not going away, and they cannot be easily dismissed as extremists. If U.S. policymakers seek to restore a bipartisan consensus favoring American global leadership, they must persuade ordinary Americans that international engagement and alliances are worth the cost.

Advocates of U.S. international leadership must recognize that domestic and foreign policy are inextricably linked and that a successful and durably bipartisan foreign policy depends on the American people’s appreciation of that link. The United States does not have to choose between being the world’s policeman and total retrenchment: it can engage the world more selectively, in principled and pragmatic ways that better serve the interests of working Americans.

To read the full essay, click here. 

###

Don’t fill Supreme Court seat left vacant by Ginsburg until 2021 – protect our institutions

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a towering figure in America’s long march toward greater justice. The impact of her lifelong fight for gender equality will be felt for generations, and I continue to pray for her loved ones and mourn her loss.

Justice Ginsburg’s passing has come at a particularly difficult moment for our nation. More than 200,000 Americans have lost their lives to COVID-19, and more than seven million have been infected. Small businesses across the country are fighting to keep their doors open, and individuals from coast to coast are struggling to pay rent and keep food on the table for their families. Americans in every state are in desperate need of relief, and in Congress it’s a critical part of our job to help our constituents navigate this crisis. 

We’ve had months to negotiate a relief bill, but the Senate has failed to act. Instead of debating how to provide assistance to those who are suffering the consequences of this pandemic, the Senate appears set to focus on filling Justice Ginsburg’s seat in what may be a deeply damaging and partisan fight.

Just before she died, Justice Ginsburg made clear that her most fervent wish was that her successor be chosen after the next presidential inauguration, when President Trump will be sworn in for a second term or former Vice President Biden will be sworn in as our next President. This wish wasn’t personal or partisan – it was principled – and every American, Republican and Democrat, should consider why Justice Ginsburg made this her dying wish: to protect the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and the rule of law in this country for all of us.

Justice Ginsburg knew well that her death – and the resulting vacancy on the Supreme Court – was coming at an incredibly complex, perilous time. With less than six weeks to go before Election Day, and with voting already underway in a majority of states, our country is already in the midst of a heated partisan election battle – exactly the kind of fight that the Court is supposed to avoid and rise above. 

She knew well that if the President and the Senate were to force through a nominee to fill her seat in what will undoubtedly be a divisive process, we could do lasting damage to the Supreme Court, an institution our Framers designed to protect our constitutional order and the rule of law.

Chief Justice John Roberts famously said of himself and his colleagues on the court earlier this year: “We don’t work as Democrats or as Republicans.” Forcing a nominee onto the court through a partisan process this close to the election would directly challenge that principle.

The Senate plays a critical role in this process, and if we continue the alarming erosion of protections against politicization of the court, we all ultimately suffer. In 2016, my Republican colleagues blocked the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court – eight months before Election Day – specifically because it was in an election year. Leading Senate Republicans, most notably, Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, explicitly pledged to apply the same rule in the last year of President Trump’s term as a matter of principle, but now, their principles have reversed themselves. Aside from the hypocrisy, moving forward on a nominee will do immense harm to the legitimacy of the process for confirming Supreme Court justices. For me, this is not about blocking a nominee simply because I disagree with the President who nominated her – this is about protecting the process of how Supreme Court justices are nominated, considered, and confirmed.

If President Trump is re-elected, President Trump should nominate someone to the Supreme Court and the Senate should advise and vote on the nomination, which are our duties under the Constitution. That’s how the system is supposed to work, and nominees should be considered and confirmed based on their qualifications and temperament, not their potential to help one political party or another. 

We’re heading down a dangerous path for our country. The polarization of our Congress is making it much harder to address the real challenges we face, like the pandemic and the economic crisis that combined continue to ravage our communities. We have a chance now to change our course by focusing on the crises in front of us and addressing this vacancy after the partisan swirl of an election season.

Ultimately, the Republican majority is responsible for what we do in the next 36 days. They will decide whether they’re going to violate their own precedent. They will decide whether the Senate will focus on rushing through President Trump’s nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, instead of working together on another relief package for the American people. And, they will decide how we honor Justice Ginsburg’s legacy in Congress.

To quote what some of what my Republican colleagues have said over this past week: fair is fair. If we are to preserve our institutions and any hope of bipartisanship, the path forward is clear. 

###