Mike Lee

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165 held · 145 searchable for Mike Lee. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 3 of 3.

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1. “For a very long time, this Chamber operated without so much as a cloture rule--even after the cloture rule was adopted in 1917 for the first time. Still, breaking a filibuster usually didn't involve a cloture vote. Most of the time, it just meant the Senate would come in and say: OK. We are debating this bill until it passes. If you want to filibuster it, you are going to have to speak. If you stop speaking and nobody else shows up to speak against it, then we will call the question, and we will do so in a simple majority vote. It is only in the modern Senate that we have gotten our entire bearings wrong on what the filibuster is. Its whole purpose is to facilitate and prolong robust, meaningful debate--the modern filibuster, in which we look at it as a simple vote-counting exercise.”

   Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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2. “It might take us a few days, it might take us a few weeks, but it would pass because the same animating desire, the smell of jet fumes, would eventually work its will, work its magic, and put our Members into a state of intoxication or sanity, regardless of how you might perceive it, where they would eventually negotiate this thing to the point that they could accept it because they know that with every passing day, when they filibuster this, this bill gets more popular and they get less popular. If you add to that the fact that they shouldn't be able to go home until we are finished with this--none of us should. If we were truly doing our job here, then the 60-vote cloture standard wouldn't be perceived as the insuperable obstacle that it has been described wrongly as being here today.”

   Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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3. “The only people who find this controversial in any significant numbers are right here, Democrats in the U.S. Senate. So here is the question before the Senate: If hostile foreign governments are targeting our election systems, and they are; if China possesses hundreds of millions of American voter files, and it does; if the overwhelming majority of Americans support voter ID, and they do, then what exactly are we waiting for? What is it that is so critical, that is so essential, that is so timely, that is so time-sensitive that we are not debating this right now? Why don't we pull this bill up right now and debate it and announce that we are going to debate it until it passes? If we were to do that, it would pass.”

   Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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4. “This is one of those moments. And, again, the American people overwhelmingly agreed because it is just common sense. Mr. President, 83 percent, according to one poll, support voter ID. That is among all registered voters. Among just Republicans, that number jumps as high as 95 percent. I don't know who those remaining 5 percent were among Republicans who said they don't think you ought to have to have that. My guess is that a significant percentage of them meant to answer the question the other way. And another significant percentage of those 5 percent are probably actually Democrats who just wrongly identified as Republicans for one reason or another. But this is still a minimum of 71 percent of Democrat voters who believe this is a good idea.”

   Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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5. “This is nothing that millions of Americans don't already do every single day to board an airplane, to cash a check, enter a Federal building, pick up a prescription, go to the doctor, pick up tickets at will call, or do any of a whole host of other things. Many of us were at airports across America today. I boarded a plane this morning in Salt Lake City. When I boarded that plane, there were hundred--thousands, in fact--of people wanting to get on an airplane. Every one of them had to prove who they were. They had to prove their identity. Not one of them, while doing so, was saying: Gosh, I am being disenfranchised--while doing it. They understand that this is part of what we have to do, that there are times in life when you have got--where who you are matters and whether you are who you claim to be really matters.”

   Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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6. “It requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in Federal elections. And then we get to step 2 of it. Step 2 of the SAVE America Act is just about the voter ID. After you verified citizenship with a new voter registration, after you have had the coordination process occurring between Federal officials--the Department of Homeland Security who run the SAVE database and the States--then you get to the step 2 of the SAVE America Act where you just require people, the day they vote, to show up and provide a valid photo ID in order to prove that they are who they say they are. This is nothing radical. This is nothing extraordinary.”

   Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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7. “Citizenship has to mean something, and citizenship means, first and foremost, that you have got the right to participate in this body politic in our system of government in the United States, and you can't have that stripped away from you. Well, there are many ways that it could be stripped away from you. One of the most common, pedestrian, and overlooked ways in which you can have that stripped is by having your vote offset, by having it nullified, neutralized. In other words, if you vote and if at the same time somebody down the street from you is voting, who is not supposed to vote, that person has diluted your vote. That person has cheapened what it means to you to be a citizen. And they may have completely offset, neutralized, and nullified your vote. That is not acceptable.”

   Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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8. “It makes it possible to enforce the law. It requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in Federal elections. The reason this bears mention is because States do have the power--I don't know why any State would want to do this. States do have it within their discretion to allow noncitizens to vote. There are a small handful of local jurisdictions that have done that. I cannot for the life of me fathom why that would be a good idea any more than any corporation would see fit to have nonshareholders vote in shareholder elections, nondirectors vote on a matter considered for a vote in a board of directors. You don't do that.”

   Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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9. “Even knowing that this is a problem--especially knowing that it is a problem--what does that say about those States and about those election officials who refused to share information with those elements within our government that are there to do one job, which is just to make sure that we don't have illegal voting occurring? What does that say about them? What does that say about the need for the SAVE America Act? Now, given what we have learned from President Trump and from the Department of Homeland Security--just in the last few days--we must pass the SAVE America Act. If you were on the fence on it before, that is one thing. I don't know how anybody could even be on the fence about it after learning that information shared by President Trump and by the Department of Homeland Security late last week.”

   Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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10. “According to FBI records, canvassers admitted to signing other people's names to register to vote, to submitting registrations for people who didn't exist, to receiving gift cards based on how many applications for voter registration they produced. Now the FBI believed crimes had occurred; yet the investigation sat. It sat and it sat and then it sat some more. And the American people deserve an answer. According to the Department of Homeland Security, approximately 278,000 noncitizens were identified on the voter rolls in just those 4 States that I mentioned--in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada--4 States, not 50. We don't even know how many others there are in other States because a whole bunch of States--mostly blue ones-- utterly refused to share their records.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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11. “All you have to have is one truly botched election, and it could be very difficult to unscramble that egg, to put that genie back in the bottle. Sorry to throw too many metaphors in there at once, but the point is that you can't undo what happens when somebody uses their own technological sophistication to take advantage of vulnerabilities-- known vulnerabilities--in our election security system. So a responsible government does not wait until after that happens. Some of these same documents that have been released by the White House also described a photo registration investigation in Michigan.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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12. “Consistent with our oath to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution--which every one of us has taken the same oath in this Chamber--we can't simply ignore it. Now the White House has released intelligence describing how the Maduro regime in Venezuela allegedly developed methods to manipulate electronic vote totals in ways that are designed to carry out the job, while simultaneously evading detection, even after an audit. The point is that hostile governments are actively developing ways to do precisely that. Responsible governments prepare for threats before they become catastrophes. They don't just wait until after they happen and say: Oh, shoot, sorry--especially when it is something as important as maintaining the integrity--real and perceived--of our voting systems.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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13. “If China stole the banking information of 220 million Americans, Congress would cancel its recess. It would do nothing until it had solved the problem. But, somehow, we are expected to just shrug our shoulders and do nothing when they target the American voter, when they target that which is most uniquely, sacredly given to American citizens. The exclusive right to vote, as an American citizen, is the quintessential ingredient. It is the telltale sign. It is the ``without which, not,'' the ``sine qua non'' of the American citizenship experience. And we are supposed to just ignore it because they targeted the American voter? No, sir, not on my watch. We are not going to just ignore that. We cannot.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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14. “These assessments specifically identified voter registration databases, electronic pollbooks, and election websites as the most vulnerable targets. According to the White House, Communist China acquired approximately 220 million American voter registration files, including names, addresses, phone numbers, political affiliations. This, of course, is enough information for them to be able to build detailed profiles of nearly every American voter and--while building profiles--figuring out what might sway those who are swayable, who they might be able to sway and how they might be able to do it. The intelligence reportedly says Beijing created an entire unit dedicated to exploiting that data. Now, look, if China hacked the personnel files of the Pentagon, this Chamber would be in an uproar. We would hear of little else.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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15. “If you worried about foreign interference in elections, you were accused of undermining democracy itself--ignoring, of course, the fact that we are not a democracy; we are a constitutional republic. Yes, the difference matters. I won't elaborate as to why now, but it does. Many of the same government Agencies that have spent years insisting that there is nothing to worry about, they quietly produced intelligence at the exact same time they were denying that there was any problem. They were quietly producing intelligence saying exactly the opposite. According to newly declassified assessments released by the White House, our own intelligence community has concluded that Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and even nonstate actors possessed the capability to compromise American election infrastructure.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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16. “If you expressed concern about election security, at least between the years of--I don't know--2020 through 2026, you were told that you had no credibility, and you were dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. The reason I frame the date range as I did is that if you were saying this back in 2016 or 2017, you weren't dismissed by the mainstream news media, by the radical left news establishment in this country. You weren't dismissed as that. Why? Well, because that is what Democrats were arguing and the mainstream news media is, of course, the communication apparatus of the Democratic National Committee. So the dates matter. If you questioned the vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems, you were told that there were none and that you were an evil person for suggesting that a voting machine could ever be abused.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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17. “Among other things, they have been told that, you know, noncitizens don't vote in U.S. elections because they can't. We know that is not true. We have got documented instances where some have voted. We have now got documented instances where 278,000 people, who are not citizens, registered to vote in just these four States: California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada--to say nothing of the tens or hundreds of thousands of others in other States who may be similarly situated. But for years, Americans have been told to stop asking questions about all kinds of things. Trust the system, we were told. Trust the experts. Trust the machines. Trust the machine itself.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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18. “This might well be the dumbest one that I have ever heard-- not just against this bill but against any bill--that because X is already illegal, we don't need any law making sure that the law making action X illegal is, in fact, enforceable. That is the dumbest argument ever. It is like saying: We don't need traffic police to enforce the law because it is already illegal to go too fast or to run a stop sign. If you leave in place no mechanism, no means by which those laws can be enforced, then those laws quickly become dead letter. I will get more into that in a moment as to the enforceability point. But the fact that we have got an existing law that makes it illegal is a reason to pass the SAVE America Act; it is not a reason not to pass the SAVE America Act. Look, for a long time, Americans have been told a number of lies.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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19. “They all fall for similarly self-evident reasons because at the end of the day, this law really does make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. All right. So we have covered that step 1--step 1 of the citizenship verification part. Future voter registrations, when you show up to register newly to vote, you would have to provide proof of citizenship using the same documentation that you use every time you ever start a new job. And if you don't have that, you can do it just through a personal attestation, which you swear on a simple affidavit, outlining the facts and circumstances that make you a citizen, shifting the burden to the State.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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20. “You turn to that text accompanying line 20, starting on page 12 of the SAVE America Act as passed by the House of Representatives and it makes clear, even if you can't find any of that documentation, you can by a personal attestation write down the basic facts supporting or giving rise to your citizenship, and the burden then shifts to the State registering you to vote to confirm or refute your assertion as to citizenship: I was born on such and such a date in this American city to parents A and B. They are both citizens, so I was a citizen also. Or if you are a naturalized citizen, not a natural-born citizen, you would state the terms and conditions, the date or date range when you were naturalized, and the basis that you used to become a U.S.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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21. “This is an entirely contrived concern. And moreover, in this and every other area where this kind of argument comes up, the people making the argument ignore the text accompanying lines--beginning on page 12 of the House-passed SAVE America Act, line 20 and the text that follows from it, makes clear that even if you can't find any of your own documentation, whether it is because you never had it to begin with or your dog ate it or your crazy Aunt Madge raided the stash of family documents and burned it--I don't know. For whatever reason, if you don't have, never had, can't find your proof of citizenship, the SAVE America Act has you covered.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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22. “Those who argue against it argue, among other things, well, this will disenfranchise women because--at least married women who have changed their name after getting married, taking on their husband's last name, this would disenfranchise them because they won't be able to vote. By that logic, that would suggest that married women who have changed their name after getting married, which, I think, the last time I checked is most women in America, would also be unable to work. They would be unable to get a job. They would be unable lawfully to start a new job as a new employee for a new employer ever if their parents didn't have the clairvoyance to be able to guess, at the time of their birth, what their husband's--their future husband's last name would be 20 or 30 years in advance. Of course, this is absurd. This doesn't exist.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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23. “The law would allow you to do this using the same exact documentation that every single American has to supply every single time he or she starts a new job as a new employee with a new employer. You fill out an I-9 form, as every man, woman, and child in America has to do every time they start a new job as a new employee. You have got to fill that out, and you have got to provide proof of citizenship, and you do that either by showing a U.S. passport evidencing citizenship or, alternatively, an original copy of your birth certificate, coupled with a couple of other documents, including I think a Social Security card and/or a government-issued photo ID.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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24. “And they back this up by arguing, quite absurdly, that women and minorities will be unable to vote--oh, and also rural Americans and also young Americans and also older Americans because, at any given moment, these same people who are opposing the SAVE America Act--the 47 people in this Chamber, more or less--those are the same people who may stand to benefit if we don't pass it because the status quo benefits them. And they should not be able to benefit from this by not passing something. The effect is that if this were to pass, this wouldn't disenfranchise anyone. Why? Well, because the kind of proof that we require--proof of citizenship and proof of identity--it is based on the same sort of document that every American has to provide routinely in the most mundane, routine encounters. Let's break them up into two pieces.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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25. “It may be a reason, but it is not a good reason. It is not a valid reason. It is not a legal, moral, ethical, or constitutional reason. It is just a reason, but that is about where the reason stops because every other of their arguments cannot withstand scrutiny. For example, a number of them will say things like the following: If we pass the SAVE America Act into law, there will be anarchy, there will be lawlessness, dogs and cats living together in the streets, Book of Revelations stuff, apocalyptic nightmares unfolding everywhere.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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26. “The SAVE America Act is popular literally everywhere in the United States of America, except in this Chamber and except among Democrats in this Chamber. Everywhere else it is a no-brainer. Everywhere else it is popular. It is only here that they don't want to pass it. Why? Why don't they want to pass it? Well, one could argue that if you benefit from the status quo, you don't want any change to that status quo, especially if you benefit from it in a way that is likely to go away if you change the status quo. These are all fancy ways, Mr. President--nice ways--of saying: Perhaps some of those who are opposed to it might be afraid of what happens if they are not allowed to rely on noncitizen votes, even though Federal law flatly prohibits noncitizen voting in U.S. elections. That is not a good reason to oppose this.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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27. “We have got a system of laws under the NVRA that makes it really easy to go into a DMV and fill out some forms, check a box and sign your name and say I want to register to vote. That is how we got 278,000 registered voters who are noncitizens just in those four States alone: California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada, to say nothing of the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of others in other States who may have done the same thing. It is phenomenally easy to cheat. It is stunningly easy to register to vote as a noncitizen, in some cases, without really realizing what you are doing, much less that you are committing a very serious felony offense by doing that.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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28. “And in a move that, I believe, is incompatible with the text and original understanding of the statutory language, the Supreme Court-- about 20 years after the NVRA was passed, the Supreme Court of the United States interpreted the NVRA, mistakenly but nonetheless conclusively, as prohibiting the States from doing anything to verify the citizenship of someone registering to vote at a DMV using an NVRA- supplied form. Now, the Supreme Court was wrong. Justice Alito explained in his dissent in that case--Inter Tribal Counsel v. Arizona why that was wrong. Nonetheless, it remains the conclusive interpretation of the NVRA, and it is why the SAVE America Act is necessary because what we have got now, Mr. President, we have got an estimated 30 million-plus noncitizens residing in the United States.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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29. “You have got to establish your residency, what your address is. And so it made a certain amount of sense to provide this option for American voters to go and register at a DMV. The problem is that that is all you have to do, is check a box saying: I would like to register to vote. And then at the end of it, you sign your name in a conclusory statement to the effect that I am entitled to vote; I am a U.S. citizen, and I am not prohibited, for one reason or another, from voting, and so I am allowed to do it. But that is all the verification that is allowed.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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30. “But if there were, then the entire predicate of existing law, making the SAVE America Act necessary in the first place, would also be invalid. Every time I hear this argument made, I wish, like anything, that those same people making this argument would acknowledge that if the SAVE America Act is somehow unconstitutional, so, too, is the National Voter Registration Act. The National Voter Registration Act enacted by Congress in 1993 created a system whereby people can vote at a DMV in their home State. Now, when somebody goes into a DMV to register to vote in that State, all they have to do is check a box saying: Yes, I am applying for a driver's license, but I would like, simultaneously, to register to vote with this application. After all, you have got some of the same features there. You have got to prove your identity.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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31. “Among those who make an argument against this, sometimes, you will hear the argument--one that I find especially galling and especially disingenuous--that, ``oh, this somehow tramples on the authority of the States,'' which some mistakenly refer to as States' rights. I don't call them States' rights. States don't have rights. They have authority. A right is a privilege against the exercise of authority. It is the inverse polar opposite of a right; therefore, I don't call it States' rights. It is State authority. This, Mr. President, emphatically does not trample on State authority. How do we know that? Well, because the Constitution delineates the relative responsibilities of the States and the Federal Government.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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32. “As of just Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that there are 278,000--that is over a quarter of a million--noncitizens registered to vote in U.S. elections in just four States alone. This doesn't count all of them. This is 278,000 noncitizen votes, just in the States of California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada Now, that is a problem. When you add to that the other States that have refused to cooperate, that have made it very difficult for us to ascertain how many noncitizen votes they might have registered in their States--they are not cooperating. That is one of many problems that we face here. Fortunately, this is a problem that Congress can solve. It is a problem that it can solve and, therefore, must solve.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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33. “Never, at the time, could we have predicted how much attention this would get, and never, at the time, could we have predicted the absurdity of the arguments that would be raised against this because, if you are careful--if you listen carefully--what you will find is that there is not a legitimate argument against the Senate passing the SAVE America Act--no, not even one. The arguments that you will hear against it, over and over and over again, are based entirely on contrivance, on pretext, on false statements and false assumptions. Look, at the end of the day, the SAVE America Act is about reestablishing, restoring trust in U.S. elections. That trust needs to be restored, especially in light of the facts that we have discovered just over the last few days.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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34. “Some people, when denying that there is any need for us to act here, will throw up things and say: Well, that is fine for the bank or for theater tickets or for the pharmacy. But this is an important constitutional right. It is a fundamental right. My response to that is: Yes, exactly--and that is exactly why we need it. The fact that it involves a protected, fundamental constitutional right is a reason why we need to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. That is exactly what the SAVE America Act does. It is exactly what it would do. When I set out, about 3 years ago, to write this bill, along with my partner in the House, Congressman Chip Roy from Texas, that was our mantra: Let's make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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35. “The same could be said of a whole bunch of other human transactions, ordinary human interactions involving day-to-day transactions that any of us could be expected to engage in multiple times every single week. One day, maybe it is theater or opera tickets. Maybe the next day, it is withdrawing money from a bank. You show up, and money is gone from your account because your bank stopped requiring people to show ID. They can come along and claim to be someone they are not and take someone's money that is not theirs. The mere fact that we have a lot of people that are allowed to vote doesn't diminish the seriousness of not requiring people to prove that they are, in fact, who they claim to be when they show up to exercise that important right.”

    Senate20 July 2026Source ↗

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36. “Whether they agreed with her on a particular issue or not, she was there offering encouragement and a way forward. That is the kind of leader we all benefit from knowing and the kind of friend that I feel very blessed to have made. May Mia Love rest in peace, and may the great things that she worked for in this life inspire the people of Utah--and all Americans, for that matter--to better serve each other, our families, and our country. I yield the floor.”

    Senate24 March 2025Source ↗

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37. “Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.”

    Senate24 March 2025Source ↗

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38. “Congress shouldn't allow regulatory-driven spending to continue to worsen our country's fiscal and economic health. I encourage my colleagues to support my amendment and demonstrate to the American people that they are serious about reducing excessive regulatory burdens. What we are trying to do is to push ``pause'' on these to bring about the reduction in these mandatory outlays. I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.”

    Senate20 February 2025Source ↗

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39. “Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 922 and ask that it be reported by number.”

    Senate20 February 2025Source ↗

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40. “With Chris Wright leading the way at DOE, we can unleash American energy and ensure prosperity for generations to come. It is time for us to confirm Chris Wright as Secretary of Energy.”

    Senate3 February 2025Source ↗

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41. “Madam President, you don't need to be an economist to know that something went terribly wrong over the last 4 years. Just ask any family paying their utility bills and buying appliances or filling up their cars with gas at the pump. Prices skyrocketed, and wages haven't kept pace--not even close. When Americans opened their energy bills, they didn't see climate plans; they saw costs piling up and questions they couldn't answer: Why is this so expensive? Why is Washington making it so much worse?”

    Senate3 February 2025Source ↗

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42. “Mr. President, I have six requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.”

    Senate29 January 2025Source ↗

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43. “Mr. President, Americans are paying more and getting less for just about everything--more for energy, more for housing, more for the most basic necessities--and, frankly, they are tired of it. Across the country, businesses are struggling with higher costs. Families are burdened by rising prices, and entire industries are stalling under the weight of heavyhanded regulations handed down from unelected bureaucrats in Washington, DC. The Department of the Interior could and should be part of the solution.”

    Senate29 January 2025Source ↗

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44. “Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.”

    Senate28 January 2025Source ↗

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45. “Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.”

    Senate28 January 2025Source ↗

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