[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 143 (Monday, September 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5349-S5350]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Business Before the Senate

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, let me first welcome my colleagues back 
from the August State work period. As usual, it was an opportunity to 
travel in our States and meet with constituents and to hear from them 
about the issues that matter most in their lives.
  These are some of the things I heard: Middle-class families are 
struggling with costs that keep going up while wages barely budge. 
Recent college graduates are saddled with crippling college debt and 
are worried about their future and their ability to buy a home and do 
the things they want for their children. Families and seniors are 
worried about rising healthcare costs, particularly prescription drugs. 
And voters asked if we are doing enough to keep our elections safe from 
foreign interference.
  I spent time talking with educators in Upstate New York about teacher 
shortages, with farmers about the future of agriculture production, 
with homeowners about improving flood insurance policies, and with 
middle-class families about keeping more of their earnings in their 
pockets after the Republicans repealed the State and local tax 
deduction. I heard from New Yorkers in every corner of my State, and 
the overwhelming consensus was that Washington has work to do and has 
to do more to shore up the middle class and those struggling to get 
there.
  Typically, with Congress out of session, the President can spend the 
month of August highlighting issues and building support for laws, 
initiatives, and programs to help working Americans--but not this 
President, not President Trump. As we all could have predicted, he 
spent the month of August sowing discord and division at home, 
comforting our adversaries and alienating our allies abroad, and 
spreading recrimination and self-aggrandizement on Twitter.
  Twenty years ago, if you read what the President had done this 
August, you would say that is fiction. Unfortunately, it is true. 
Although we have become a bit inured to the President's volatility, it 
is hard to recall a President having a more destructive or bizarre 
summer.
  On the world stage, President Trump canceled a planned trip to 
Denmark because they refused to consider selling us Greenland. He 
released a reportedly classified satellite image on Twitter and 
suggested inviting Putin to return to the G7, hoping, of course, that 
he could host the next one at, of all places, his own private resort in 
Florida.
  Here at home, the President called the Chairman of the Federal 
Reserve an enemy, continued to attack the FBI, again falsely claimed he 
won the popular vote, and called Jews who voted for Democrats disloyal.
  On the issue of policy, the President began the month vacillating 
wildly on support for gun safety measures, despite three mass 
shootings, and ended the summer by diverting funds intended for our 
Nation's defense and for our soldiers and their families and taking 
that money away from them for the construction of a border wall that we 
all know he promised Mexico would pay for.
  Of course, we have now spent the past week and a half watching the 
President desperately trying to justify--sometimes with a Sharpie--his 
warning that the State of Alabama lay in Hurricane Dorian's destructive 
path--what a circus.
  This is America. We are so proud of this country. We can't be proud 
of the

[[Page S5350]]

President's actions in the last month--no one can, no matter what your 
politics.
  I say to President Trump: There are real issues facing real 
Americans, and it is our job as their elected representatives--whether 
we be in the executive branch or the legislative branch, whether we be 
Democrats, Independents, or Republicans--to do something to help them, 
but this President seems uninterested or maybe simply incapable.
  As we return to work in Washington, let us aim for progress on the 
issues President Trump ignored during his strange, lost summer: gun 
safety, election security, healthcare, infrastructure, making progress 
on funding the government in order to avoid another government shutdown 
that the President caused and had to back off from last time.
  That is the people's business. Even if the President isn't interested 
in it, it is our job to be. Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work, 
and sometimes we have to ignore the President's shenanigans.
  One issue of particular importance looms on this upcoming Senate work 
period, and that is gun safety. In the month of August, more than 50 
Americans were killed in mass shootings, the latest barrage in the 
litany of mass shootings that have become all too routine in our 
country, to say nothing of the American lives lost in everyday gun 
violence in our communities.
  It is on the minds of the American people. I was at the airport, and 
someone I didn't know grabbed my arm and said: Senator, do something 
about gun violence. I lost my nephew to gun violence last year.
  It is on so many people's minds. That is why our first order of 
business in the Senate should be to take action on H.R. 8, the House-
passed Bipartisan Background Checks Act. We must grapple with the stark 
reality that gun violence is becoming an all-too-routine occurrence and 
that we in Congress have both the ability and responsibility to do 
something about it.
  H.R. 8 is the most commonsense way for the Senate to save American 
lives. It is bipartisan. It has already passed the House. As a matter 
of policy, it is absolutely necessary to close the loopholes in our 
background check system in order to make other gun laws effective. We 
can and should pass a very strong red flag law, but what good would a 
red flag law do if someone were adjudicated, unable to have a gun, and 
he could go online and get that gun with no check at all? If you don't 
have background checks, bad people will get guns--felons, spousal 
abusers, those mentally ill, and people who get red flags. So it is 
critical that we pass a universal background check law and close the 
loopholes and that we do everything we can to prevent guns from falling 
into the wrong hands in the first place. Background checks must be the 
base, the foundation we start from, when we talk about gun safety 
legislation.

  Just look at the case of the shooter in Odessa, TX, who reportedly 
failed a background check in 2014 but was able to purchase a firearm 
through a private sale with no background check. This is one of the 
loopholes that the Bipartisan Background Checks Act would close.
  These loopholes were never intended--I was the author of the Brady 
bill back in 1994, when I was a House Member and the chair of the Crime 
Subcommittee. I am proud of it. It saved tens of thousands of lives. 
Back then, there was no internet. When some of the gun advocates here 
said ``Well, exempt gun show loopholes,'' gun shows were simply a place 
to show antique-type guns, like your 1938 Derringer. Now, of course, 
they have become the huge loopholes that felons and other people who 
shouldn't have guns seek to use to get guns. We have to close these 
loopholes. It is not doing anything more to take away the rights of 
legitimate American citizens who want to bear arms--something I believe 
in--than it was when it passed. It is just closing loopholes as time 
has evolved.
  There are two people in Washington who would make this legislation 
pass, which would greatly reduce gun violence: Leader McConnell and 
President Trump. Leader McConnell has the power to make sure this 
legislation passes this body or to make sure that it doesn't pass. It 
is in their hands.
  The Republican leader determines the Senate's business. After the 
shootings in El Paso and Dayton, we demanded that the leader call the 
Senate back into session so that we could respond to the crisis. He 
refused. Maybe he hoped the scenes of violence would fade from the 
minds of the public, and the issue would fizzle out. That certainly has 
not happened, and the Democrats will not let it happen. Unfortunately, 
the increased frequency in mass shootings will not let it happen 
either.
  As Democrats return to Washington, we carry with us the frustration 
of Americans who demand action but have seen far too little. These are 
demands of Democrats and Republicans, people northeast, south, and 
west, men and women, and people from urban areas, suburban areas, and 
rural areas. With their importuning in mind, we will make sure the 
issue of gun safety remains front and center for these next 3 weeks and 
beyond, until meaningful change is achieved.
  By contrast, Leader McConnell did not even mention gun violence in 
his opening remarks today, after promising that we would have a debate 
in the Senate when we returned. We await word from the leader when that 
debate might take place. One thing we do know is that Leader McConnell 
has said that the question of background checks will come down to 
President Trump. ``If the president took a position on a bill,'' Leader 
McConnell said, ``I'd be happy to put it on the floor.'' That is what 
he said. Those are his words.
  If that is the case, the President has a historic opportunity to save 
lives by signaling his support for the House-passed background checks 
bill. So far, he has been all over the lot.
  The President told me he is going to get his ``strongest possible 
bill'' but has not committed to what he might support and then, in 
future days, seemed to have backed off that statement. That is why 
Speaker Pelosi and I sent President Trump a letter today, urging him to 
support H.R. 8, the universal background checks bill, to make his 
position public.
  President Trump can lead his party to do something that the NRA has 
long prevented Republicans from doing by providing these Republicans 
the cover of a Republican President's support.
  President Trump, please read our letter. Support the bipartisan 
universal background checks bill. It is common sense. It is enormously 
popular with the public--93 percent--even popular with Republicans and 
gun owners, and above all, would save American lives.
  Maybe that man at the airport--I don't know his name or where he was 
from--would not have to come up to me and tell me his nephew died of 
gun violence if we had passed some of these laws. The time to act is 
now, before more lives are lost. The pressure is on President Trump and 
Leader McConnell to act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.