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During my questioning of Senator Jeff Sessions in Senate Judiciary yesterday, I brought up what President-elect Donald Trump said about Somali-Minnesotans during his visit to Minnesota, and I told Sen. Sessions that a teacher in St. Paul reached out to me after the election because her Somali-American students were anxious about the future. I also shared how we combat hateful rhetoric in Minnesota.
Any candidate for U.S. attorney general must be prepared and qualified to do the job—that means you need to have a commitment to equal justice and a deep understanding of the law. A little earlier today in the Senate Judiciary Committee, I questioned Senator Jeff Sessions (Donald Trump’s nominee for the nation’s top law enforcement job) about the accuracy of his claims about his civil rights record. Give it a watch, and check my page later today for follow ups.
I’ve been talking to a lot of people in Minnesota who have health insurance thanks to the Affordable Care Act, or whose lives were changed by the protections in the ACA that benefit every American. And, frankly, they are scared about the prospect of repeal. These are hardworking people for whom this is life or death, and if their health insurance is taken away, they don’t know what they’re going to do. So last night, on their behalf, I took to the Senate floor to make one request for my Republican colleagues who want to repeal the ACA: show us your replacement plan.
I'm proud that my fellow Senate Democrats know that the American people deserve quality health care. While Republicans are gunning to gut the Affordable Care Act—without anything to replace it with—we're defending Medicare, Medicaid, and working to move our country forward.
The president must always put the interests of the American people ahead of his own, and that certainly shouldn't change with Donald J. Trump. President-elect Trump has failed to take the necessary steps to disclose and eliminate his many potential conflicts of interest, and that could jeopardize our national interests from the moment he takes the Oath of Office. That's unacceptable, and it's why my colleagues—including U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren—and I have introduced a bill to require the president-elect to uphold the long tradition of past presidents and fully divest his vast financial holdings.
http://www.warren.senate.gov/…/2017-01-09_Presidential_Conf…
Republicans are trying to rush cabinet nominees through the Senate who have not completed the ethics review process. As senators, it's our constitutional duty to thoroughly examine every nominee to the president's cabinet, but we can't do that if we don't have all of the necessary background information. That's why it's long been the practice, no matter what party is in power, for nominees to undergo an ethics review so Americans know the nominees avoid conflicts of interest. But this morning, Sen. McConnell said that Democrats now expressing the same concerns he himself expressed eight years ago should get past it and "grow up."
Just one question for the Senate Majority Leader: do you still support the ethics standard that you laid out for Cabinet nominees in 2009?
I was recently invited by the online magazine OZY to be a guest curator of their Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) and share what I think are some of the most important stories of the day. In today's edition of the PDB, I've highlighted some stories on the need to improve health care and reduce costs for families in Minnesota and across our nation, to combat climate change, and to make sure our president-elect puts what's best for Americans before his own self-interests.
I also included a story about Ilhan Omar, the first Somali-American legislator in the United States who's a prime example of the kinds of people I have the privilege of representing in Minnesota.
I hope you'll take a look: http://www.ozy.com/presidential-daily-brief/pdb-74940…
Investing in our infrastructure in Minnesota—and across our nation—is key to creating American jobs, economic development, and future prosperity. Last year, my office held meetings in rural communities across the state to hear firsthand the challenges some Minnesotans face in securing the infrastructure needed to support businesses, community members, and their local economies. And today, I met with Minnesota transportation leaders to explore how we can best expand infrastructure investments under the incoming administration and the new Congress. I'm thankful to those who met with me today, and I look forward to working with both Democrats and Republicans to address the infrastructure needs of communities throughout Minnesota, and across America.
When President Obama took office, our nation was in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. But he brought us back from the brink, and our nation has now experienced 75 consecutive months of job growth. There's still a whole lot to fix when it comes to income inequality—and we need to strengthen the middle class and help those aspiring to be in the middle class—but the important progress we’ve made on the economy over the past eight years is something that shouldn’t go unrecognized. I hope you'll join me in thanking our president for everything he’s done to create jobs and keep our economy growing since taking office.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/u-s-added-156000-jobs-in…/…
No American should have to decide between paying their bills, buying groceries, or taking their medications. But that’s exactly what’s happening to many seniors across the country. During my “Prescription Drug Cost Listening Tour” last year, Minnesota seniors told me some heartbreaking stories about how they've been forced to make difficult decisions—either deplete their savings or forgo medications that jeopardize their well-being. Not only are these high out-of-pocket costs... affecting patients, they are driving up health insurance premiums and overall spending. In fact, according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, skyrocketing drug prices are actually putting the future of the entire Medicare Part D program at risk. And a big part of the problem is that Medicare is barred from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices, which is a policy I’ve fought to change for a long time. That’s why I’ve written commonsense, cost-saving legislation to let Medicare negotiate better deals for our seniors. It’s not just the smart thing to do—it’s the right thing to do.
See MoreThis morning, President Barack Obama came up to Capitol Hill to meet with Congressional Democrats. We talked about what we can try to do to preserve the Affordable Care Act, a law that has brought health care to 20 million Americans. Right now, Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans are trying to #MakeAmericaSickAgain by ripping up the ACA (before coming up with a meaningful replacement plan, mind you) and take us back to the days where if you got a serious illness or dis...ease, you either got kicked off your plan or couldn’t sign up for one.
As a member of the Senate Health Committee, I recognize how painful repeal could be for people all across Minnesota—particularly in rural communities, who often face unique challenges in accessing health care services. Fifty-seven million Americans live in rural areas, and if we dismantle the ACA, we face the risk that many of their local hospitals and health providers could be forced to close their doors. We can’t let that happen. So I’m going to be fighting hard in the days and weeks to come—not to repeal the ACA without a plan, but to make the case that we have to build on, amend, and improve the law in order to expand coverage and bring down costs for American families.
Today’s announcement by U.S. Steel that they’ll be reopening the Keetac mine in Keewatin is great news for hundreds of our Iron Range miners in Minnesota who have been out of work for too long thanks to an influx of illegally priced Chinese steel flooding our markets. The decision to restart the plant is yet another positive sign that the Iron Range economy is starting to recover, and I'm glad that hundreds of Minnesota families will start the new year with the knowledge that their jobs are coming back. I’ve been working hard to help our miners in Minnesota, and going forward, I'm going to continue to do my part to fight for all our workers on the Iron Range—that means preventing illegal foreign trade from China and fighting for policies that protect American workers.
Too many people in Minnesota—and across our nation—find themselves in prison or jail because we don't have a properly functioning mental health system. Earlier this year, the Star Tribune helped to put a human face on this problem when it published a series about the crisis. I've written an op-ed, also in the Strib, to continue the conversation and to share some good news: President Obama signed a bipartisan health care package into law earlier this month that contained legis...lation I authored called the Comprehensive Justice and Mental Health Act. This means that we will now bring more resources to law enforcement, the courts, and correctional facilities in order to help improve how our criminal justice system treats people with mental illness.
I hope you'll read my full op-ed here: http://m.startribune.com/juncture-of-mental-health-and-c…/…/
As consumers in Minnesota and across our country come to rely more heavily on services provided online or through apps connected to the gig economy, I want to make sure companies take steps to ensure that new technologies do not give cover to discrimination or bias. That’s why I reached out to popular ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft when I heard about a recent study documenting discrimination against minority customers. I asked both companies about how they each plan to ...better guard against the kind of discrimination detailed in the study, and I’ve received both of their responses. I appreciate the steps that both Uber and Lyft have taken to address my concerns regarding discrimination against consumers, including meeting with the authors of a recent study, communicating with their drivers about the companies’ nondiscrimination policies, and monitoring available metrics about ride cancellations. But I remain concerned that certain elements of an app’s platform design—like allowing drivers to see a rider’s name or photo before accepting a ride request—do not sufficiently guard against discriminatory conduct.
I have expressed these concerns to the companies, and I look forward to continuing to work with them to address these challenges. https://www.franken.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=3594
Medicare is under assault, and Republicans have not been shy about their plans to end the program as we know it.
But so is Medicaid. The Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress are quietly mounting a campaign to dismantle the program, which helps tens of millions of low- and middle-income Americans. Gene Sperling, who served Presidents Clinton and Obama as director of the National Economic Council, wrote an op-ed in which he issued a challenge to us all, one that I'...ll hope you'll join me in accepting: If we think Medicaid is worth saving, it's up to us to lead the charge.
A snippet of Sperling's piece (but I hope you'll read the whole thing):
"Democrats at all levels of government must aggressively communicate the degree to which these anodyne-sounding proposals would lead to an assault on health care for those in nursing homes and for working families straining to deal with a serious disability, as well as for the poorest Americans."
https://www.google.com/…/opinion/the-quiet-war-on-medicaid.…
I've been telling my colleague in the Senate Cory Booker about buckwheat groats for a while now. They're something my mom made for me when I was a kid growing up in St. Louis Park, and they can easily be made vegan (in case you didn't know, Sen. Booker is a vegan). I recently showed him how to make the dish, and I hope you'll take a look.
Getting into the holiday spirit with U.S. Senator Al Franken as he finally shows me how to make his favorite vegan dish...
