Vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote . Seeing none, the ayes are 51, the nays are 41, and the nomination is confirmed. The clerk will call the roll. Quorum call mr. Schumer madam president , i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. The presiding officer the mr. Schumer madam president the presiding officer whitehous e. Mr. Schumer madam president , may we have order, please. The presiding officer the senate will be in order. The democratic leader. Mr. Schumer madam president , its now several weeks since the president asked our troops to leave a critical sector in Northern Iraq in northern syria, and subsequently lots of things happened, including at least 100 and probably more isis prisoners escaping, and uncertainty as to who is guarding the prisons where isis prisoners are kept, and a whole strategy as to how to continue the fight against isis. Isis is not vanquished. They are weakened because of the great madam president. The presiding officer order in the chamber. Please take your conversations outside. The democratic leader. Mr. Schumer isis is weakened but not vanquished. And we all know isis can come back. We all know that a small group, thousands of miles away can do untold damage in our homeland, and yet we still have no plan that weve heard from the administration on how were dealing with isis. How are we dealing with the prisoners who escaped . How are we dealing with the prisoners who are still incarcerated . And how are we dealing with isis overall . This is one of the greatest security threats america faces, and i would hope that we could pass this proposal which simply demands that the Administration Report to congress on what their plan is to deal with isis. Its that simple. Thats the immediate danger. I know my friend, the senator from florida, wants to talk about what happened in the past. We can argue that all day long. But the immediate danger is isis, the isis prisoners who have escaped, the isis prisoners who are incarcerated, the isis members who still are around. And we dont have a strategy. And its one of the greatest failings Foreign Policy not only of this administration but of any administration. A resolution passed the house a while ago. It has laid fallow here. And all we are asking here in this legislation is very simple, and that is to report on the strategy to secure the enduring defeat of the Islamic State. I hope we will not hear objection. I dont see how anyone could object when security of america is at risk, when isis is still a danger. Every one of us could come up with an amendment to make it better. We know we wont get it done if that happens. So i hope we can move this forward, and then we can debate other issues that are not directly dispositive here because we have an immediate crisis and we need a report. So i would ask, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar 281, s. 2755, a bill to require a report on the plan to secure the enduring defeat of the Islamic State of iraq and syria and that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. The presiding officer is there objection . A senator madam president. The presiding officer the senator from florida. Mr. Scott stembg the right to object reserving the right to object, i want to thank the democratic leader for his concerns about the defeat of isis. If there is one thing i hope we can all agree on is that turkey is not our ally or friend right now. Turkeys invasion of syria is benefiting is isis, iran and russia and hurting our great ally israel. The United States must stand up for our partners, the kurds who helped us fight isis. I am hopeful that the ceasefire will last to keep american soldiers and our partners the kurds safe. Nobody wants our men and women in uniform involved in unnecessary extended military conflicts. Bringing our troops home is a goal we all share. In order to achieve that goal, we need to have a fuller understanding of the crisis in syria and what got us there, with the hope our troops can finally come home. Also agree that the president should always be clear with congress on where all u. S. Troops are located and the purpose of their deployment. Normal my colleagues proposal would produce a report that tells only a small part of the story, in the name of transparency, and a fuller understanding of how we got here i propose a modification to my colleagues bill to require a report that includes information on president obamas plan for syria. We didnt get here overnight. The democratic leader knows that. It took us five years fo get here. So i think we all would like to see what this strategy or lack of strategy was from the last administration that put us in this position today. Lets get all the facts on the table so lawmakers here in congress and americans all across the country can have all the information we need to keep americans and our allies safe. Reserving the right to object, therefore, i ask the democratic leader modify his request to include my amendment which is at the desk. I further ask that the amendment be considered and agreed to, the bill as amended considered read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The presiding officer will the democratic leader so modify his request . Mr. Schumer madam president , this is a diversion. We can all debate history. Maybe bush was to blame, maybe obama was to blame. Who knows . Maybe harry truman was to blame when they set up cento. That is something we can debate at a later time. We have an immediate crisis. We need a report. And our republican colleagues keep finding ways so they can object so the president doesnt have to answer. That is wrong. It risks the security of america and is not what we should be doing. So i do object and now would urge us to pass the amendment without the modification which is still as valid as it was a few minutes ago. The presiding officer objection is heard on the modification. Is there objection to the original request . Mr. Scott madam president. The presiding officer the senator from florida. Mr. Scott reserving the right to object, i am disappointed in yet another political stunt from the democratic leader. Its clear that this is nothing but a political attack on the president. President trumps goal is to bring american troops home and keep our partners, the kurds, safe and our ally israel secure. The democratic leader is requesting information from President Trump but refuses to join me in asking for information about the sequence of events and the strategy under president obama that led us to this point. Its sad but is not surprising, another charade in a long list of political games. Americans deserve a safe israel and a safe syria. So i stand today to object. The presiding officer objection is heard. Mr. Schumer madam president. The presiding officer the democratic leader. Mr. Schumer madam president , if they are worried about an attack, its not on this president or a previous president. That is the political stunt here, i would say to my friend in florida. He knows what hes doing. Hes trying to stop this from happening. The attack were worried about is an attack by isis on the United States, a whether youre democrat, republican, liberal or conservative, the country needs a plan. All the diversion, all of the games will not prevent the American People from seeing that we need that, and its our job as senators to push the administration to do it. And so i would hope that we could pass this amendment without the proposal, diversionary, partisan made by the senator from florida. I ask that we move the amendment. The presiding officer objection was heard. Mr. Schumer im sorry we havent been able to move the amendment. Its so wrong for the safety of this country. The presiding officer the clerk will report the next nomination. The clerk nomination, the judiciary, Jennifer Philpott of pennsylvania to be circuit judge for pens. The presiding officer the question is on the nomination. Is there a sufficient second . There appears to be. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote . Seeing none, the ayes are 88. The nays are 3, and the nomination is confirmed. The clerk will report the next nomination. The clerk William Joseph nardini of connecticut to be United States circuit judge. A senator madam president. The presiding officer the senator from pennsylvania. Mr. Toomey madam president , i rise this afternoon to offer a path forward on the secure act, a way i think we could do legislating around here and pass a constructive bill. A little brief history i think is in order and helpful for context. About three years ago the Senate Finance committee passed a reasonably similar legislation out of committee unanimously. Unanimously. It was never considered on the senate floor. The house took up some of these ideas and passed their own legislation. My own view is most of this substance of this legislation is very constructive. Most of what it does is makes it easier for middleclass families to save for their retirement. Thats constructive. However, the bill that came over from the house is different than the bill that came out of the Senate Finance committee and was never considered on the senate floor. It had dropped the house bill dropped a number of provisions that had bipartisan support. They added some provisions that had never been vetted by anybody on the senate side, or at least not in a procedural way. And theres a proper way to resolve these kinds of differences, and that is to put this bill on the senate floor, to open it up for amendments and allow the senate to work its will. The senate will almost certainly pass some version probably very similar to the house bill, and then we iron out whatever little differences there are. This is the way we legislate. And thats what im suggesting that we do today. To do otherwise would be to treat this body as a rubber stamp for the house and thats not the purpose of having two legislative bodies. I should also note our democratic colleagues have frequently criticized the Republican Leadership and republican majority for not legislating. Sometimes they have a point. The minority leader has said that the senate is a legislative graveyard. Hes criticized leader mcconnell for not putting bills on the floor. At one point he said, and i quote this is minority leader schumer saying we want to debate these other issues. Were not saying our republican friends are going to think exactly as we do, but lets have a debate and vote. End quote. I couldnt agree more. I think we should have a debate. I think we should have a series of votes. I wish we could bang this out in a day at the end of which we would pass the secure act preferably after considering amendments from both sides. So thats what im proposing. In fact, weve been proposing this for weeks. We have shared with our democratic colleagues several amendments that republican senators would like to often. One is mine. I have other colleagues that would like to offer them. We have been asking our democratic colleagues for their list of amendments, what things would they like to do, what amendments would they like to consider. We have restricted our amendments to those which affect the tax code. Weve suggested that they do likewise. And amazingly to me we havent heard a single suggestion yet from our democratic colleagues. Its amazing because ive heard plenty of criticism about our tax code from our democratic friends, including criticisms about the limitation we put on state and local tax deductions. I know theres democratic colleagues who would like to extend the electric vehicle credit. There are some have proposed new taxes on wealth. Chairman wyden has a proposal to put a tax on unrealized markettomarket gains on assets. Its a long list of ideas that weve heard from the other side. This is the opportunity to have some votes, to find out whether and to what extent there is support for these things. We on our side, were willing to vote. Every republican senator is in favor of this proposal that im going to suggest in a few moments whereby we would have a specific amendments on our side. And well allow the democrats to have an equal number on their side. I dont know what could be more reasonable than this approach. My amendment, just quickly, is an amendment to fix a technical drafting error in our tax reform. Its called the quip as an acronym qood for it, stands for qualified improvement property. Heres the problem. Due to a drafting area, businesses are now forced to recognize the cost of improvements over a long period of time rather than to expense them in the year in which the expense occurs. A drafting area. Everybody acknowledges it was a drafting error and was unintended. And 13 of my democratic colleagues are cosponsors of my legislation to fix this. Every republican senator supports fixing this error. Thats 66 senators right there. Im not asking for a guaranteed outcome. Just asking for a vote. Lets have a vote on it. And i have other colleagues that would also like to have votes on their amendments. And as i said, our proposal is that the democrats pick an equal number of items that are important to them. And lets have votes on those. Its it would look a lot like legislating. It would be good to get back to legislating. So in a moment im going to make the unanimous consent request that we do exactly that. Before i do that, i would like to yield the floor to my colleague from texas for his thoughts on this, senator cruz. Mr. Cruz i thank the senator from pennsylvania for his leadership on this issue. And let me say i think senator toomeys proposal is an eminently reasonable commonsense proposal that we take up the secure act and we take up the secure act with an equal number of amendments from republicans and democrats and we vote on the amendments on the senate floor. Now everyone expects in a few minutes were going to see the democrats stand up and object to that proposal. And say no, we dont want amendments. Were not willing to vote on amendments. And were going to see the democrats hold the secure act hostage because theyre unwilling to vote on amendments. To hold hostage bipartisan reform that would improve Retirement Savings but also to hold hostage tax relief for gold star families that should have passed a long time ago, that its cynical for the democrats to hold hostage but theyre getting ready to object and say the gold star families dont get their tax relief because theyre afraid to vote. The democrats are afraid to have a vote in this body and theyre willing to hold the gold star families hostage. Let me tell you one of the proposals theyre afraid to vote on is commonsense education reform that has bipartisan support. It concerns what are called 529 savings plans, 529 savings plans are immensely popular, tax advantage savings plans. The vast majority of those who use 529 saving plans are middleclass americans. And what 529 savings plans allow is for parents and grandparents to save for the educational expenses of their kids. In 2017 as part of the tax reform, i introduced an amendment to expand 529 savings plans not just to college but to k12 education. The senate took up that amendment and it became the only amendment that the senate adopted on the floor of the senate that added anything to the tax cut. And it passed this body about 1 00 in the morning by a 5050 vote with the Vice President breaking the tie and it became the most farreaching and significant Federal SchoolChoice Legislation that has ever been enacted benefiting up to 50 million schoolkids across this country. That legislation is already done. Thats actually not what this fight is about. That fight was about expanding 529s to k12 education. The American People won that fight and the democratic opposition lost that fight. This amendment is instead a much more modest amendment that takes 529 amendments and expands it to three groups of people. Number one, kids with disabilities. To allow parents and grandparents of kids with disabilities to use 529 to save for those kids with disabilities, to save for educational therapies, to save for the assistance, the additional assistance those kids with disabilities need. That is an eminently commonsense proposition. Number two, it allows home schooling families to participate in 529 savings plans. In 2019 the democrats cruel 2017 the democrats cruelly carved out 529s both kids with disabilities and home schooling families. There is no reason kids with disabilities should be discriminated against by democrats in this body. Theres no reason home schooling families should be discriminated against by democrats in this body. But the third group of people that it benefits are Public School students. Because what this amendment says is that parents and grandparents of that have kids in Public Schools can use 529s to pay for additional educational expenses. That means they can use 529s to pay for standardized Test Preparation, that means they can use 529 to pay for tutoring costs or whatever additional educational expenses they have above and beyond their Public Schooling. This would benefit potentially every child in Public School today. Now, madam president , we may see the democrats suggest that voting on this is somehow partisan or divisive. Well, the nice thing is we know as an absolute fact it is not. Why do we know that . Because my amendment expanding 529s for kids with disabilities, for home schoolers, and for Public School students, my amendment was taken up in the house and the house, ways, and Means Committee, and it was adopted, madam president , this is important it was adopted in th the house, ways, d Means Committee unanimously. That means every single republican on the ways and meese voted for it and everybody sl gal democrat on the ways and means voted for it. The democratic chairman of the house, way, and Means Committee voted for thi