[VIDEO] Sen. Coons: GOP following failed ACA repeal playbook for tax reform

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined Andrea Mitchell Reports to discuss tax reform and opportunities for bipartisanship in the Senate. 

“But if we look back at the health care process and outcome, that’s got some important warnings here. We should be listening to Senator John McCain who says the only way to do very hard, very complex things here in the Senate is in an open process, not by having five or six people craft a complex plan in secret and then roll it out and try and pass it with only one party’s vote. If the health care process had been open and robust and bipartisan for the last seven months, I think we would be making progress. And given that the tax plan that’s being rolled out today was crafted largely in secret and with no Democratic input, that’s not very encouraging.”

Full video and audio are available here.

Excerpts from the interview: 

Senator Coons on whether there’s room for bipartisanship on tax reform: Absolutely. This is an example of an area where, right from the election, there were many Democrats saying we would like to find a way to work across the aisle, to work with President Trump. There are a number of other areas like infrastructure where we had early hopes we might be able to work together. But if we look back at the health care process and outcome, that’s got some important warnings here. We should be listening to Senator John McCain who says the only way to do very hard, very complex things here in the Senate is in an open process, not by having five or six people craft a complex plan in secret and then roll it out and try and pass it with only one party’s vote. If the health care process had been open and robust and bipartisan for the last seven months, I think we would be making progress. And given that the tax plan that’s being rolled out today was crafted largely in secret and with no Democratic input, that’s not very encouraging. 

Senator Coons on Roy Moore:  Well, I have worked very hard to find some way to partner with Republicans and Democrats from a wide range of backgrounds and views. So I will give Roy Moore, if he’s elected, the benefit of the doubt. But all of those statements you just repeated are gravely concerning, even alarming. Hopefully he will come to the Senate with an attitude that changes and he will show that he’s interested in constructive legislation. But if he’s simply a bomb thrower, someone who comes here determined to shake things up and to make things difficult for Mitch McConnell, he will be able to do so and it will be an even harder road ahead for the Republican majority as they try to legislate and to govern. 

More on Roy Moore: Doug Jones is a great candidate. He’s a former U.S. Attorney, he’s a prosecutor, he’s someone who has stood up for justice in a state where that makes a real statement. It’s my hope that the contrast between Doug Jones as a candidate and Judge Moore will be clear, and I can’t think of anyone to be a better person to deliver Democrats’ message to the middle class folks, the voters of Alabama, than Vice President Joe Biden. The special election is on December 12. There is going to be a very small turnout. And look, I’m someone who got into a race for the U.S. Senate against Republican Congressman former Governor Mike Castle and I ended up facing Christine O’Donnell. In the primary, who knows what might happen and if Democrats might be successful in 2018 because of unexpected upsets in Republican primaries. 

Senator Coons on Senator Corker: Kristen, I was surprised and disappointed by Chairman Corker’s resignation announcement last night. He is a conservative Republican. We disagree on a number of important policy matters, but on the Foreign Relations Committee, he’s been a good chairman and a good legislative partner. We’ve introduced and moved forward — 

More on Senator Corker and whether his resignation will hurt bipartisanship in the Committee: Yes. Because Senator Corker has worked very hard to find ways to work together despite our disagreements on a number of areas. He and I, I believe we’ve moved five bills from introduction to becoming law in recent years. We’ve traveled together, we’ve worked together. Ben Cardin, the Ranking Democrat on the Committee, has a respectful, constructive relationship with Chairman Corker. It’s my hope that the next Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the next Congress, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican, will also work as hard as Bob Corker has to find a way to put our country’s interests first. But he is the sort of pragmatic legislator, someone who really wants to get things done, that I think our country wants more of. When I go home to Delaware, what I hear from people when I’m going to the grocery store or after church or coming home from the train station, they say they want Republicans and Democrats to work together, to compromise, and move forward to the betterment of America. The election of Roy Moore certainly suggests there are a lot of states where folks are pulling in the opposite direction. 

Senator Coons on Facebook: Yes. I think we need to hear from Mark Zuckerberg. We need to better understand both what Facebook knows about how to micro-target ads and what they know about Russian activity. We need to be preparing for the 2018 and 2020 elections and make sure we understand the really disruptive power of social media to move messages directly to the inboxes of Americans, to their social media feeds. We’ve got real restrictions on the ability of foreign powers to influence our elections in traditional media. The Russian government can’t come and buy ads on Fox or MSNBC to try to push an election. But through Facebook, they may have accomplished exactly that goal. We need to better understand what’s happened to the 2016 election and prepare ourselves for 2018 and 2020, because Vladimir Putin and his regime continue to interfere in elections across Europe, and he continues to have interests and objectives that are quite different from ours. We need to make sure we’re securing our future elections. 

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Senators Carper, Coons applaud addition of new AmeriCorps VISTA program to help visually, hearing impaired Delawareans

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons (both D-Del.) applauded the addition of six new AmeriCorps VISTA members to Delaware to serve at the Delaware Health and Social Services, Division for the Visually Impaired.

The new AmeriCorps VISTA members will be working with multiple community-based organizations to strengthen volunteer programs serving blind, visually impaired, deaf, and/or hard of hearing individuals in Delaware. These programs are focused in the areas of special education, workforce development, and transportation assistance. The goal of the project is to create a sustainable volunteer infrastructure throughout the state so the target population can be better served for years to come.

AmeriCorps VISTA members serve full-time for one year at non-profit organizations, faith-based institutions, or local government agencies, multiplying their impact and building their capacity to carry out essential projects.

”I have long believed that there is no greater joy in life than serving others, and that is the AmeriCorps mission,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Carper. “I welcome these young men and women who will help our state’s visually and hearing impaired population better navigate community services and improve their lives. I hope they will be impacted by their mission just as much as the Delawareans they help.”

“This is outstanding news for Delaware and for Delawareans who are visually and hearing impaired, and also a wonderful opportunity for VISTA participants to serve these communities,” said Senator Coons. “I’ve seen firsthand AmeriCorps VISTA’s positive impacts in Delaware and across the country, and I’m thrilled we’re going to be able to bolster our roster of people working in Delaware through national service.”

These positions will be funded through the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) at $127,000.

AmeriCorps VISTA members will recruit and retain volunteers that will help blind, visually impaired, deaf and hearing impaired individuals in the following ways: guide them through DE Department of Labor processes; help them navigate through continuing education programs; provide mobility services, including assistance with public transportation and help them break down communication barriers. Members will be placed in New Castle and Sussex Counties, and will also be responsible for forming strategic partnerships, advertising, outreach, and developing statistical data sheets and narrative case reports.

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Senators Carper, Coons announce $250,000 in grants for Delaware drug-free community organizations

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons (both D-Del.) announced grants through the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Drug Free Community Support Program to provide local community coalitions resources to prevent youth substance use, including prescription drugs, marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol.

The $89 million in Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Drug Free Community (DFC) Support Program grants went to 719 local drug prevention coalitions and is the largest number of single-year grantees since the program’s founding. In Delaware, there were two grantees. Duffy’s Hope (new grant) will receive $125,000 to fund the Lighthouse Project Prevention Coalition and Open Door (continuation grant) will receive $125,000 to fund the Southern New Castle County Communities Coalition. 

“As a long-time mentor in the Wilmington community who has spent a large part of his career focusing on strengthening families, I understand that not only is providing positive role models for youth in our community the right thing to do, but it is also an investment that will pay dividends in the future,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Carper. “These long-standing Delaware organizations have provided a safe and positive outlet for our youth and their families for years and, with this federal funding, they can continue this shared mission.”

“I am extremely proud of these Delaware organizations who have been awarded these grants,” said Sen. Coons, Ranking Member of the Senate Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee and who successfully fought to increase the funding for DFC grants. “For Duffy’s Hope and Open Door, who have been very active in supporting their communities, and their work in educating young people about substance abuse in their communities, this funding comes at a critical time to support their community coalitions to educate Delaware’s young people about the dangers of drugs.”

Last summer, Sens. Carper and Coons’ office held a community roundtable with ONDCP to discuss ways the ONDCP could be more helpful to Delaware. One of those ways was educating community groups about ONDCP DFC grants.

The DFC Program, created by the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997, is the Nation’s leading effort to mobilize communities to prevent youth drug use. Grounded in the philosophy that local problems need local solutions, the DFC Program is designed to support communities as they mobilize individuals and organizations to reduce youth substance use. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is responsible for the day-to-day management of the DFC Program.

For Fiscal Year 2017, the new DFC grant awards represent a total Federal investment of $12.6 million in grants. DFC continuation grants represent a total Federal investment of $76.7 million. The DFC Support Program is a matching Federal grant where each community provides a minimum of one-to-one match in local funding for each Federal dollar awarded, thereby doubling the government’s investment while leveraging local support.

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ICYMI: Sen. Coons, Sec. Albright op-ed in TIME: “Donald Trump Must Realize Diplomacy Protects America”

WASHINGTON – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright published a joint op-ed in TIME on the importance of funding for diplomacy and development as vital tools of national security.

TIME: Donald Trump Must Realize Diplomacy Protects America

By Chris Coons and Madeleine Albright

Now that Congress has reconvened to continue work on urgent foreign policy challenges — from the North Korean nuclear threat to our continued role in Afghanistan to the challenge of a rising China — we hope Republicans and Democrats will support funding for diplomacy and development as vital tools of national security.

More than 70 years ago, in the wake of the horrors of World War II, President Harry Truman addressed a United Nations Conference in San Francisco. He challenged Americans and our international partners “to rise above personal interests, and adhere to those lofty principles, which benefit all mankind.”

After witnessing the destruction of two world wars, the rise of fascism and the horrors of genocide, Truman and the country sought a new world order rooted in international institutions and fashioned by rules shared across nations. He considered this necessary to promote global stability, foster shared prosperity and uphold individual dignity — and to avoid another major conflict that would ultimately “crush all civilization.”

The State Department and our development programs are not partisan initiatives but rather a united, national effort to ensure peace abroad and project American beliefs to the world. All Americans benefit from this greater stability and prosperity.

Americans again are facing challenging times, but we must avoid the temptation to turn away from the world. If we’re to succeed in a challenging global environment at inspiring others through the power of our example, we have to provide robust funding for the State Department and USAID. Without the tools of diplomacy and development, we run the risk of ceding the moral high ground that generations of Americans have fought so hard to secure.   

Read the full op-ed here.

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[VIDEO] Sen. Coons on Fox: “Everybody should be listening closely to the advocates for America’s patients, for America’s doctors, for America’s hospitals when they raise real concerns about this bill.”

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined Fox News yesterday to discuss Senate Republicans’ latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“I was encouraged over the last month by bipartisan progress being made by Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican from Tennessee, and Senator Patty Murray, Democrat from Washington, who had a dozen hearings together to hear from governors, from insurance commissioners, from health care leaders across the country. I felt like we were making steady progress towards a bipartisan compromise to address some of the challenges and problems with the Affordable Care Act. Instead, there’s been an abrupt halt to that effort by the Republican leader of that effort, and now we’re going to have a vote coming week on this bill.” 

Full audio and video available here.

Excerpts from the interview:

Senator Coons on health care: Well, I listened earlier today to the leaders of Delaware’s health care community, the head of our largest hospital, a representative from the American Cancer Society, folks who are charged with delivering health care and folks who advocate for those who receive health care. They were unanimously opposed to this proposal. That’s also true at the national level. America’s doctors, through The American Medical Association, America’s hospitals through the American Hospital Association, the AARP which advocates for America’s seniors, are all opposed to this bill because they see it ending Medicaid as we know it, putting a cap on how much the federal government will spend on any individual with Medicaid going forward, and they see it as creating chaos in the individual markets. I was encouraged over the last month by bipartisan progress being made by Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican from Tennessee, and Senator Patty Murray, Democrat from Washington, who had a dozen hearings together to hear from governors, from insurance commissioners, from health care leaders across the country. I felt like we were making steady progress towards a bipartisan compromise to address some of the challenges and problems with the Affordable Care Act. Instead, there’s been an abrupt halt to that effort by the Republican leader of that effort, and now we’re going to have a vote coming week on this bill. I’ve got a lot of concerns about how it will affect Delaware and how it will affect the country. I plan to vote against it. 

More on health care: That’s one of the most positive arguments for the bill is that it pushes back to the states the responsibility, the freedom, and cost for providing for health care. Medicaid is a program that’s absolutely vital for caring for low-income seniors who are in nursing homes or caring for children who are in children’s hospitals. In my view, my faith, my perspective on how we care for others for the least of these in our society, is that we should not reduce the number of Americans who have access to Medicaid but increase the number of Americans who have access to high-quality health care through Medicaid. This pushes those choices back to states and would increase the cost in my state by a billion dollars by 2027. I think we will genuinely struggle as a state to meet that cost. 

More on health care: There are two problems with this legislation, specifically on the point that Senator Cassidy was speaking about. First, there is no enforcement mechanism for the provision. If a state applies for a waiver, they are required to demonstrate how they expect they will meet this concern about pre-existing conditions. But there’s no enforcement mechanism. Our concern is that many states will apply, making a fair showing of how they will enforce it, but there’s no way the federal government can hold it to them. 

More on health care: What I’m saying is that sentence is in the bill, that’s correct. There is no definition of adequate and affordable. More importantly, there is no enforcement mechanism that says exactly how the federal government will hold the state to that description that they are supposed to provide. Health professionals from a wide range of backgrounds have criticized this bill as lacking an effective enforcement mechanism. There’s also a provision that suggests it’s possible for health insurers to rate beneficiaries differently based on their previous health experience. I have a concern that that suggests that the ban in the Affordable Care Act on discrimination based on pre-existing conditions will be easily overridden when states apply for waivers under this Cassidy-Graham plan. 

More on health care: Yes. I think this will be a very close vote this coming week, and I think frankly everybody should be listening closely to the advocates for America’s patients, for America’s doctors, for America’s hospitals when they raise real concerns about this bill. 

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ICYMI: Sen. Coons defends Senate ‘blue slip’ process for reviewing judicial nominees

WASHINGTON – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, defended the Senate ‘blue slip’ process to Business Insider.

“Judges are appointed with lifetime tenure, so it is critical that senators have the ability to secure judges for their home states that are qualified for their positions,” Senator Coons told Business Insider.  “This isn’t a partisan issue, either — this allows Republican senators to prevent Democratic presidents from confirming unqualified or inappropriate judges for their home states, and vice versa.  The blue slip process encourages bipartisanship, too, and it increases the chances of consensus candidates. Ending the blue slip process would diminish the ability of senators to provide input based on the local needs of their states, making it increasingly difficult for the Judiciary Committee to function in a bipartisan way.”

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Sens. Coons, Gillibrand, Graham announce investment in manufacturing training program passed as part of defense bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced the passage of a $20 million investment in a Department of Defense program to help universities in Delaware, New York, South Carolina and throughout the country strengthen their engineering programs to meet the demands of the modern manufacturing industry in the Senate-passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This program is modeled after the bipartisan Manufacturing Universities legislation championed by Senators Coons, Gillibrand, and Graham to support training at U.S. universities to help equip students with skills to compete in the 21^st century manufacturing workforce. 

“I am delighted that NDAA includes support for this critical DoD training program, modeled after our bipartisan Manufacturing Universities legislation, that will help students across the country acquire the skills they need for jobs in advanced manufacturing industries,” said Senator Coons. “As the demand for a highly-skilled workforce continues to grow, the job training programs at universities need to keep up to ensure that students are equipped to excel in this growing field. I am proud to work with Senators Gillibrand and Graham on this important partnership.” 

“I am very pleased that continued investment is being made in this critical job training program, and I was proud to fight on the Armed Services Committee for it to be included in the NDAA,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Many companies in our state have good-paying job openings that are ready to be filled, but there are still too many young workers and recent graduates who don’t have the specific skills they need to take on these opportunities. This DoD program, modeled after our Manufacturing Universities legislation, would go a long way toward closing that gap by giving universities more resources to train the next generation of manufacturing workers. I will always fight for New York’s workers, and I urge my colleagues in the House to join the Senate in supporting this investment.”

“This is an incredibly important issue for institutions of higher education and manufacturing industries in South Carolina and the rest of the country,” said Senator Graham. “I look forward to working on addition al, innovative ways to ensure our manufacturing sector thrives and maintains its international competitiveness in the years to come.”

Universities and other participating organizations would be selected through a competitive grant-based process and required to better align their education programming with the needs of modern U.S. manufacturers, focusing engineering programs on development of industry-relevant advanced manufacturing skills, building new partnerships with manufacturing firms, growing hands-on training opportunities for students, and fostering manufacturing entrepreneurship.

The legislation was endorsed by the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the Precision Metalforming Association, the National Tooling & Machining Association, the University of Delaware, Delaware State University, Clemson University, University of South Carolina, University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Drexel University, the University of Missouri System, the University of Illinois, the University of California, Davis, the University of California, Irvine, Boston University, the University of Rochester, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the State University of New York (SUNY) System, Kent State University, the University of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the University of Connecticut, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Clarkson University, The Ohio State University, Dow, DuPont, and Siemens. 

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[VIDEO] Sen. Coons: “What we shouldn’t be doing here is playing Russian roulette with the American health care system.”

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined Meet The Press Daily yesterday to discuss Senate Republicans’ latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act and President Trump’s address to the United Nations. 

“Graham-Cassidy will end Medicaid as we know it, eliminate all the consumer protections in the ACA by giving states the opportunity to repeal them. It will lead to a less healthy America. That’s what I think we ought to be focusing on. I think pointing at the Sanders bill is another attempt at distracting us from the very high stakes right before us in a vote that will be taken next week.”

Full video and transcript available here.

Excerpts from interview:

Senator Coons on health care: What I wish we were focusing on is the strong bipartisan work that’s been going on here between Republican Senator Alexander and Democratic Senator Murray. They are the chair and ranking member of the Health Committee. After the failure by the Republican majority in August to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they began working diligently together as we should have been for the last seven months bringing in governors of both Republican and Democratic states, bringing in insurance commissioners from around the country, bringing in leaders in health care and working on a balanced bipartisan package. Your question about Senator Sanders’ bill is a reminder that there are several Democratic senators who have introduced aspirational or hopeful bills that would further expand access to health care. What is most trouble being this latest Trumpcare effort, this Graham-Cassidy bill is that it is an effort that will lead to a reduction in how many Americans have access to health care. When the CBO finally gets to review it I think they will estimate something like 10 million Americans will initially be thrown off of health care by this latest attempt of appealing the ACA. I think appealing to Sanders is a red herring, a distraction to what really going on here, a bipartisan evident and a partisan effort. 

Senator Coons on a single payer system: We are in a Republican Congress, Republicans control the Senate and the House and the White House. Yes, I don’t think in this Congress there is any chance that a Single Payer Act. 

More on a single payer system: What we ought to be focusing on is what is going to expand health care for Americans and what’s going to restrict. Graham-Cassidy will end Medicaid as we know it, eliminate all the consumer protections in the ACA by giving states the opportunity to repeal them. It will lead to a less healthy America. That’s what I think we ought to be focusing on. I think pointing at the Sanders bill is another attempt at distracting us from the very high stakes right before us in a vote that will be taken next week. 

Senator Coons on whether Senator Sanders should have waited: I do think it’s important for us to focus on the very strong bipartisan efforts being made by Patty Murray and Lamar Alexander, and many others. As you well know, Senator Sanders has been talking about universal health care access I think virtually his whole career in the Senate. The timing of his bill introduction, yes, I wish it had been put off by a couple of weeks. But I also didn’t anticipate, and he probably didn’t either, that Graham-Cassidy would pick up this much steam and that Republicans would try one more time to pass Trumpcare and repeal the Affordable Care Act. 

More on the Graham-Cassidy bill: I think it’s unlike the Senate where we represent entire states. In states like New York you are got a lot of Republicans in upstate New York who probably wouldn’t support this bill but we don’t know. What we shouldn’t be doing here is playing Russian roulette with the American health care system. Already the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association have come out saying they oppose this further destabilizing of America’s health care system. The Graham-Cassidy bill would indicate chaos in the individual markets right as insurance companies are supposed to be making decisions next week about whether they will continue to provide health insurance. Think about how much this would destabilize both health insurance and health care across the country. 

Senator Coons on President Trump’s address to the UN: Well, there were some strong parts of the speech and there were some very concerning parts of the speech. He is right to stand up in the world forum like the U.N. and call Iran on its violations of human rights and its ballistic missile program and to say that North Korea should be resisted by the world community when it threatens South Korea, Japan, and the United States. So I will applaud President Trump for his continued forceful leadership as we try to assemble a world coalition against North Korea. But there were also aspects of his speech that were unhelpful at best calling Kim Jong-un by a nickname, rocket man, which is really more suited for Twitter or frankly for a school yard spat than for the U.N. and threatening to walk away from the Iran deal, which is exceptionally unhelpful if his real goal is to pull together our allies and potential partners from around the world in applying more pressure on North Korea. 

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Sens. Coons, Schatz, Bennet introduce legislation to repeal debt ceiling

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) introduced legislation to repeal the national debt ceiling, an arbitrary limit set by Congress on the amount of funding that the United States Treasury may borrow.

“The time has come for Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling. Debt limit showdowns have become far too routine, and it’s now considered almost normal to threaten default. That must change,” said Senator Coons. “We need to address our national debt in a sensible, bipartisan way, but continuing to use the threat of catastrophic default as the primary tool for deficit reduction is not leadership, it’s playing politics with the reputation of the U.S. government and household wealth of Americans.”

“Paying our debts should be an automatic act, not a politicized weapon used for leverage,” said Senator Schatz. “It’s clear that the debt ceiling is not about fiscal responsibility, but about unnecessary brinksmanship. Congress has the chance to debate federal spending, and it’s well before the bill comes due. It’s time to stop these attempts to govern through threats and defuse the bomb by eliminating the debt ceiling altogether.” 

“Eliminating the debt limit would be a constructive step toward refocusing the priorities of Congress away from partisan squabbles and onto real challenges that people sent us here to address—like the fiscal health of our government,” said Senator Bennet. “This is an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to work together to prevent manufactured crises and lift the threat of default off our economy for good.”

In practice, the debt limit has no impact on government spending, which is authorized and approved through the federal budget and appropriations process. Instead, the ceiling restricts the U.S. Treasury from paying for expenditures already authorized by Congress. This disconnected process consistently requires Congress to raise the ceiling before it is reached, a politicized procedure that often leads to threats of defaulting on the government’s obligation to pay its bills, leading to potential financial disruptions that would significantly impact all Americans.

The United States is one of only two democratic countries with a statutory debt ceiling, and the only one that could single-handedly cause a global recession. Since 1960, Congress has acted more than 75 separate times to raise, temporarily extend, or revise the definition of the debt limit. In 2011, the crisis surrounding raising the debt ceiling led credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the U.S. government’s credit rating for the first time ever.

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Sen. Coons’ statement on Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Special Counsel Integrity Act

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the following statement in response to the announcement that the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Special Counsel Integrity Act on Tuesday, September 26:

“I am pleased to hear that the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced a hearing on the bipartisan Special Counsel Integrity Act, which I introduced with Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) in early August, and similar legislation from Senators Graham and Booker. Our bill ensures that, if the President tries to protect himself by firing the Special Counsel, or if someone tries to fire the Special Counsel without good cause, a Court, not the President, will have the final say. This bill is about ensuring that the Special Counsel cannot be removed improperly, a protection that is critical not just for the current investigation but for investigations conducted by special counsels in the future. I am proud to partner with Senator Tillis on this bipartisan bill and I am glad that it’s moving forward.”

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