[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 104 (Thursday, June 4, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2715-S2718]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 35

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the expedited 
passage of H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, as amended. I 
seek to amend this legislation not because I take lynching lightly but 
because I take it seriously, and this legislation does not.
  Lynching is a tool of terror that claimed the lives of nearly 5,000 
Americans between 1881 and 1968, but this bill would cheapen the 
meaning of lynching by defining it so broadly as to include a minor 
bruise or abrasion. Our Nation's history of racial terrorism demands 
more seriousness from us than that.
  W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in his autobiography about the 1899 lynching of 
Sam Hose in Georgia. Du Bois wrote that, after the lynching, Hose's 
knuckles were viewed on display at a store on Mitchell Street in 
Atlanta. His liver and heart were even presented to the Governor of 
Georgia as a souvenir.
  Sickening, grotesque--the images of lynching.
  In 1931, Raymond Gunn was lynched in Maryville, MO. The spectacle 
drew a crowd of almost 4,000 people, including, if you can believe it, 
women and their children. In the tragedy of lynching, the author writes 
that one woman even held her little girl up so high so she could better 
see the victim who was ``blazing on the roof.''
  Sickening and grotesque, these images.
  In the summer of 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was visiting family in 
Money, MS, when he went to a country store and bought some candy. While 
in there, he was accused of flirting with a White woman, and for that 
offense, Emmett Till was kidnapped in the middle of the night and 
bludgeoned so badly that, afterward, his body was unrecognizable. He 
could only be identified by the ring he was wearing. After seeing her 
son's remains, his mother insisted on having an open casket funeral so 
the whole world could see what the killers had done to her son.
  We must remember the murders of Emmett Till, Raymond Gunn, Sam Hose, 
and the thousands of others whose lives were destroyed by the barbarity 
of the lynch mob, but this bill will not do that. This bill would 
expand the meaning of ``lynching'' to include any bodily injury, 
including a cut, an abrasion, or a bruise, physical pain, illness, or 
any other injury to the body, no matter how temporary.
  Words have meaning. It would be a disgrace for the Congress of the 
United States to declare that a bruise is lynching, that an abrasion is 
lynching, that any injury to the body, no matter how temporary, is on 
par with the atrocities done to people like Emmett Till, Raymond Gunn, 
and Sam Hose, who were killed for no reason but because they were 
Black. To do that would demean their memories and cheapen the historic 
and horrific legacy of lynching in our country.
  As Congressman Amash stated, ``To be clear, the bill does not make 
lynching a new Federal hate crime. Murdering someone on account of 
their race or conspiring to do so is now illegal under Federal law. It 
is already a Federal crime, and it is already a hate crime.''
  He is right. We have had Federal hate crime statutes for over 50 
years, and it has been a Federal hate crime to murder someone because 
of his race for over a decade. Additionally, murder is already a crime 
in 50 States. In fact, rather than considering a good-intentioned but 
symbolic bill, the Senate could immediately consider addressing 
qualified immunity and ending police militarization.
  We can and must do better. That is why no one in the Senate has been 
more involved in criminal justice reform than I have. No one has 
introduced more criminal justice reform bills. In my time in the 
Senate, I have authored or cosponsored at least 22 unique criminal 
justice reform bills. I am acutely aware of the injustices perpetrated 
year in and year out in our cities, but reform needs to be more than 
window dressing.
  That is why I am on the floor today to offer the expedited passage--
pass it today--of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, as amended. 
Lynching is a particularly vicious kind of murder, and a Federal law 
should treat it as such. For these reasons, the Emmett Till 
Antilynching Act should be adopted with my amendment, which would apply 
the criminal penalties for lynching only and not for other crimes.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of H.R. 35, which was received by the House. I 
ask unanimous consent that my amendment at the desk be agreed to, that 
the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and 
that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the 
table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from California.
  Ms. HARRIS. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, the idea 
that we would not be taking the issue of lynching seriously is an 
insult, an insult to Senator Booker, to Senator Tim Scott, to me, and 
to all of the Senators, past and present, who have understood that this 
is part of the great stain of America's history.
  To suggest that anything short of pulverizing someone so much that 
the casket would otherwise be closed except for the heroism and courage 
of Emmett Till's mother, to suggest that lynching would only be a 
lynching if someone's heart were pulled out and produced and displayed 
to someone else is ridiculous--and on this day, the day of George 
Floyd's funeral and a day that should be a day of national mourning.
  In 2018, the Senate unanimously passed bipartisan antilynching 
legislation, which I proudly introduced with the only other Black 
Members of this body--Senator Cory Booker and Senator Tim Scott. It was 
a historic moment. It marked the first time in the history of our 
country that Federal antilynching legislation had been passed by the 
U.S. Senate. It passed again by unanimous consent in 2019.
  Senator Paul is now trying to weaken a bill that was already passed. 
There is no reason for this. Senator Paul's amendment would place a 
greater burden on victims of lynching than is currently required under 
Federal hate crimes laws. There is no reason for this. There is no 
reason other than its being cruel and deliberate obstruction on a day 
of mourning.
  On this very day, at this very hour, there is a memorial service to 
honor the life of George Floyd, who was murdered on a sidewalk by a 
police officer, with a knee on his neck. For 8 minutes 46 seconds, 
George Floyd pled for his life, called for his late mother, and said he 
could not breathe. The pain experienced not only by that man, that 
human being and his family and his children, but the pain of the people 
of America witnessing what we have witnessed since the founding of this 
country, which is that the Black lives have

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not been taken seriously as being fully human and deserving of 
dignity--and it should not require a maiming or torture in order for us 
to recognize a lynching when we see it and recognize it by Federal law 
and call it what it is, which is that it is a crime that should be 
punishable with accountability and consequence.

  So it is remarkable and it is painful to be standing here right now, 
especially when people of all races are marching in the streets of 
America, outraged by the hate and the violence and the murder that has 
been fueled by racism during the span of this country's life. America 
is raw right now. Her wound exposed. Raw from the fact that in the 
history of our country, Black people have been treated as less than 
human.
  I stood here with Senator Booker when we first proposed this lynching 
law, and we talked about the pain and the history of the pain of this 
issue in America. The fact is that the country is raw because America 
has never fully addressed the historic and systemic racism that has 
existed in our country.
  Our bill, in its current form, is an opportunity--it is an 
opportunity for this body to acknowledge the seriousness of this, to 
acknowledge that if someone places a noose over someone else's neck, 
why would it be required that in addition their heart would be pulled 
out or their body pulverized to the point beyond recognition?
  Our bill is an opportunity to right a wrong and an opportunity for a 
reckoning in Federal law. We cannot pretend that lynchings are a thing 
of the past. Ahmaud Arbery was a victim of a modern-day lynching. He 
was murdered on February 23, 2020, 3 months ago. Today, we learned that 
one of the men who killed Mr. Arbery used a racial slur after shooting 
him. He should be alive today, and his killers should be brought to 
justice. No longer should the crime of lynching go unpunished. No 
longer should victims and their families go without justice.
  In closing, Ida B. Wells once said:

       Our country's national crime is lynching. It is not the 
     creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled 
     fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. It 
     represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent 
     people who openly avow that there is an ``unwritten law'' 
     that justifies them in putting human beings to death without 
     complaint under oath, without trial by jury, without 
     opportunity to make defense, and without right of appeal.

  Our country has waited too long for a reckoning on this issue of 
lynching, and I believe no Senator should stop the full weight of the 
law in its capacity to protect these human beings and human life.
  Senator Booker and I are working on a comprehensive bill to address 
this hurt and the tragedy at the heart of this national day of 
mourning, and I object to Senator Paul's efforts to weaken this 
legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to Senator Paul's request?
  Mr. BOOKER. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Harris for her 
words, and I want to thank her as the lead Senator on this bill. I want 
to thank her for her partnership and leadership. I also want to thank 
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who has shown extraordinary 
commitment to this legislation as well. On the House side, I want to 
thank   Bobby Rush, former Black Panther. I want to thank him for his 
leadership and generational commitment to racial justice in America.
  I also want to recognize the tireless advocacy of Airickca Gordon-
Taylor, who is the actual relative of Emmett Till and founder of the 
Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation. She was here the last time this 
bill was before this body. She is dead now. I know she is looking down 
and hoping that we don't disappoint her.
  In February of 2019, this body did something historic--and I don't 
mean to be emotional. I am raw this week. But I stood here with Kamala 
and we wept. We talked about the hundreds of years--over a century, 
excuse me, of effort to pass legislation which was brought up and 
defeated time and again by this body by avowed segregationists. How 
proud I was that at a time when partisanship is high in this country we 
gathered together in one voice, 100 Senators, to pass this exact same 
bill, because there are good people in this body on both sides, and we 
were correcting a wrong of history.
  Nobody in this body needs a lecture on lynching and how horrible it 
is. Everybody in this body abhors racism and believes that this 
violence is unjust. There are friends of mine here. Unanimously, we 
passed that legislation. We made history on this floor.
  This is why I am confused because this bill has been passed 
unanimously, and here we are on a day of a memorial service for another 
person whose murder was condemned by people on both sides of the aisle. 
I have sat where the Presiding Officer is sitting, and I have watched 
the differences between the Republican leader and the Democratic 
leader. I don't go back that long in this body, but I have watched 
Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer disagree so deeply 
time and again, but, God, we came together and passed the bill 
unanimously. Mitch McConnell let the bill come to this floor, didn't 
try to block it.
  My colleague Rand Paul was one of the first hands I shook on this 
Senate floor. He is my friend, and everything he said about his 
commitment to criminal justice reform is right. One of the first bills 
I wrote here I wrote with Rand Paul, and then he went further at 
another time like this when America was raw, when another unarmed Black 
man was shot. He went as far as to, in Time magazine, stand up and talk 
openly about the ProPublica data about a Black man in America being 
about 100 times more likely to be shot by the police than someone who 
is White.
  He has said--and he is shaking his head, if I may recognize. He said 
that there must be something more going on there if it is that much. So 
I do not question--I do not question the sincerity of his convictions. 
I have had too many conversations with him to question his heart, but I 
am so raw today, of all days, that we are doing this--of all days, that 
we are doing this right now, having this discussion when, God, if this 
bill passed today, what that would mean for America; that this body and 
that body have now finally agreed because I know when Congressman 
White, the last Black person to serve in Congress before the God-awful 
fall of the backlash after Reconstruction fell. He gave this famous 
speech. We were talking about the Phoenix will rise; that one day Black 
people will serve in this body. And here we are in the Senate for the 
first time in history, when three African Americans serve together, 
Republican and Democratic, and we all came together on Kamala's bill
  There is something about us that we knew it was something more than 
the legalistic issues my colleague now wants to bring up; that we are a 
nation that needs this historic healing. If we passed this, it would 
not only do something substantive to make a difference on the books of 
the American system, but, God, it would speak volumes to the racial 
pain and the hurt of generations.
  I do not need my colleague, the Senator from Kentucky, to tell me 
about one lynching in this country. I have stood in the museum in 
Montgomery, AL, and watched African-American families weeping at the 
stories of pregnant women lynched in this country and their babies 
ripped out of them while this body did nothing. I can hear the screams, 
as this body's membership can, of the unanswered cries for justice by 
our ancestors. Every one of us is sensitive to that anguish. Everyone 
is sensitive to that pain, as is the Senator from Kentucky.
  This week, the Senator from Kentucky mentioned a colleague, Justin 
Amash. I want to tell my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, he was 
only one of four Congressmen of a 435-Member body to vote against the 
anti-lynching bill. That means that this bill was supported by the 
leader of the Democrats, the Speaker of House. It was supported by the 
leader of the Republicans, the whip of the Republicans, the whip of the 
Democrats--400-plus votes supported this. Yet my colleague thinks this 
bill is wrong.
  If this bill is wrong, then the Republican leadership of the House is 
wrong. If this bill is wrong, then the Democratic leadership of the 
House is wrong. If this bill is wrong, 99 Senators are wrong. If this 
bill is wrong, then the

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NAACP is wrong. If this bill is wrong, then the Lawyers' Committee for 
Civil Rights Under Law is wrong. If this bill is wrong, then the Urban 
League of America is wrong, legal organizations, civil rights 
organizations, Democrats and Republicans. Tell me another time when 
500-plus Congresspeople, Democrats, Republicans, House Members, and 
Senators came together in a chorus of conviction and said that now is 
the time in America that we condemn the dark history of our past and 
actually pass anti-lynchings legislation. And now one man--and I do not 
question his motives because I know his heart--one man--one man is 
standing in the way of the law of the land changing because of a 
difference of interpretation.
  This doesn't talk about bruising someone. It is a difference of 
interpretation.
  Does America need a win today on racial justice? Do the anguished 
cries of people in the streets?
  I have had children break down with me this week wondering if this 
would be a country that values their lives as much as White people's 
lives. I had to explain to grown men this week that there is still hope 
in America; that we could make change in America; that we could grow 
and heal in America; that we could make this a more perfect Union.
  Well, today is a day we can do it--to have one Member to yield for 
once, like he did in February of 2019, yield for 1 day and give America 
this win. Let us pass this piece of legislation today of all days. 
Let's give a headline tomorrow of something that will give hope to this 
country that we can get it right. It may not cure the ills that so many 
are protesting about, but, God, it could be a sign of hope.
  So, Mr. President, I object to this amendment. I object. I object. I 
object on substance. I object on the law. For my heart and spirit and 
every fiber of my being, I object for my ancestors.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator for Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. I think it is important to know and let the record show 
that I have been working with Senator Booker's office for 3 months on 
the amendment of this bill; that I am willing to have unanimous passage 
of the bill today, but I think it is incredibly important that we get 
this right.
  A Black woman in New Jersey assaulted three Jewish women and slapped 
them. It was terrible. She uttered racial epithets about these Jewish 
women. She was charged with third-degree misdemeanor assault with up to 
1 year in prison, which to me sounds pretty significant for slapping, 
but she was then charged with a hate crime in addition to that, which 
was 4 years in addition.
  If slapping someone and hurling racial epithets gets you 10 years in 
prison, this is exactly what we have been fighting about in criminal 
justice reform. We set up a system and didn't pay attention to the 
penalties, and all of a sudden things we didn't intend happened. So we 
have to be smart about this.
  I am willing to pass the bill today, as amended, which would simply 
say not that you even have to harm someone--you have to attempt to harm 
them, but it has to be an attempt to harm them.
  So all the discussion about bruising while trying to lynch someone--
yes, that is attempted murder. It would be covered by this bill. 
Nothing in the bill would stop or prevent the prosecution of heinous 
behavior. That is what it is intended for
  What I am trying to do is to make sure we don't get unintended 
consequences. We fought the battle against mandatory minimums for a 
decade now because we tie up people in sentencing that makes no sense. 
Ten years for slapping someone would be an abomination, and it could 
happen to anyone. Do we want a Black woman who slapped three Jewish 
women in New Jersey to get 10 years in prison? If there is a group of 
them, it is now a conspiracy to lynch.
  We have to use some common sense here. We should not have a 10-year 
prison sentence for anything less than, at the very least, an attempt 
to do bodily harm. The statute lists what bodily harm is, but it could 
still be an attempt. It doesn't mean you actually have to have it, but 
what it would preclude is when somebody shoves somebody in a bar and 
they fall down and have an abrasion and they say: ``He did it because 
of a racial animus toward me,'' and then you have a 10-year penalty. 
That is not right.
  All of us are advocates on the same side of criminal justice reform. 
We have all argued on the same side that the law is screwed up and has 
incarcerated too many people unfairly. That is what I am trying to 
prevent here. So the point is, I understand the emotions about this. Do 
you think I take great joy in being here? No. I am the sponsor of 22 
criminal justice bills. Do you think I am getting any good publicity on 
this? No. I will be excoriated by simpleminded people on the internet 
who think I don't like Emmett Till or appreciate the history and the 
memory of Emmett Till. I will be lectured to by everybody that I have 
got no right to have an opinion on any of these things, and I should be 
quiet.
  But we cannot just not read our bills. I have worked in an honest way 
with Senator Booker's office for 3 months on this bill. We have gone 
back and forth. We gave them some language. They came back to us and 
said it wouldn't work, and I said: What about this, and we haven't 
gotten any more responses. We haven't gotten responses back in a month 
or more.
  The situation now is they are litigating in the press and trying to 
accuse me of being in favor of something so heinous that it makes my 
skin crawl and makes me sick to my stomach to even read the accounts 
about what happened.
  But we also ought to be fair and honest about this. Lynching is 
illegal. People who say there is no Federal law against lynching are 
not telling the truth. The law says that if you kill somebody and you 
have racial animus, under the hate crimes statute, it is illegal. You 
can't do that. It is also illegal in all the States. This bill does not 
make lynching illegal. So for all the discussion of that, this bill 
creates a new crime called conspiracy to lynch. Oh, yes, I am for it. 
If there is a crowd, let's arrest the whole mob. All four policemen 
should be responsible for what happened to Mr. Floyd.
  The thing is, when we do that, we have to be careful that we don't 
then put a crowd of people in where someone pushed into someone or 
someone slapped someone.
  There has to be justice. People are chanting ``justice.'' Justice has 
to have a brain and has to have vision and can't be hamstrung into 
something that could give someone 10 years in prison for a minor crime.
  This is a very minor attempt. Everything we left in here we have 
worked with Senator Booker's office to make sure it is inclusive. They 
came back and said: What about attempted? We said: Let's change the 
language. So we have in there ``attempt to cause serious bodily harm.''
  So there could be no injury, but someone will have to have a 
discussion of whether there was an attempt and it was an attempt that 
looked like it would be serious. So I think slapping someone isn't, but 
under the current statute as is--people say: Ah, nobody will ever do 
it. Maybe, but we are putting it on the books.
  The mandatory minimums have kept people in jail for decades. There 
are people who have life for nonviolent crimes. All of us have worked 
on the same side of that issue.
  I am asking for a very minor change. I will pass it right now. I am 
completely out of the way. I am for the bill. I am asking unanimous 
consent to pass the bill today with one amendment that just says let's 
be careful not to arrest people for slapping someone or not arrest 
somebody for pushing into someone and get them 10 years in prison.
  This isn't about someone trying to kill another person or someone 
attempting bodily harm. Those people would be included in this language 
even if they did not have a mark on the person. But if they were 
rounding him up, tying him up, and they had thrown a rope over a tree, 
that is attempted murder. They would still be included under this bill, 
even without a mark on them.
  What we have to preclude and what we are trying to preclude is that 
the bill doesn't get used for the wrong purposes. We are all on the 
same side about whom we want to punish and whom we should prevent. We 
are also

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on the same side on the symbolism of this, but we can't pass laws that 
do exactly what all of us have said is wrong with our penal system, all 
of the unintended consequences. There is one here, and I ask, in a very 
polite way--I have been asking for 3 months--for one small change, and 
I will let the bill go today, on this day, if we can have it.
  The changes have been out there. They are not brand-new. They have 
been in Senator Booker's office for 3 months. We have tried to, as he 
has had objections, work with him on his objections.
  So I would ask unanimous consent, once again, to pass the bill, as 
amended.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. BOOKER. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, this is a bill that has already passed 
this body. Same bill, same language. There was no objection. Only four 
Members of the House of Representatives objected. Same bill, same 
language.
  I have heard this objection. We disagree with this. The truth is, 
what is being proposed is not just opposed by me, but our Republican 
colleagues who are sponsoring this bill, in this body, oppose these 
corrections as well.
  In addition to that, changes to this bill now would send it back to 
the House of Representatives. This is a tactic that will send this bill 
back over to the House, where again it would have to be voted on.
  This idea that somehow someone would be brought up on lynching 
charges for a slapping is absurd, especially as you see, with hate 
crime legislation, how difficult that is even to prove.
  So I am deeply disappointed by the objections we have heard that were 
not made manifest last year, in 2019, but somehow seem to be stopping 
it in 2020. So I object, with this prediction: We, as a body, will 
correct historic ills and pass lynching legislation through this body, 
through the House of Representatives. One day in this Nation, this 
legislation will pass.
  Perhaps it will have to wait until I am not here, until Senator Paul 
is not here, unless he decides to go back to the 2019 Senator Paul.
  The question is, What side of history will we ultimately be on? I 
pray that it happens in this Congress. I pray that the President signs 
legislation against lynching. How historic that would be. But today it 
is not going to happen, obviously.
  I am telling you right now, this celebration will come. This moment 
in American history will come. The frustrating thing for me is, at a 
time when this country hungers for common sense, racial reconciliation, 
an acknowledgement of our past and a looking forward to the better 
future, this will be one of the sad days where that possibility was 
halted.
  As we all know, one of the great leaders that Republicans and 
Democrats all hail asked that question--How long will it take?--and the 
simple answer is not long because the truth crushed to earth will rise 
again; not long because you reap what you sow; not long because the arc 
of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
  We will pass this legislation. I pray that the Members of this body, 
as we are right now, are the ones to do it.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, before my colleagues exit the Chamber, 
I want to acknowledge their words. I want to say thank you. The 
passion, the emotion, the true rawness in your words are words that I 
think all of us, as Members of the Senate, should hear, reflect, and 
respect. I just want you to know I am thankful I was on the floor to 
personally hear. Because we can read words, but it is when we have the 
ability to hear and to feel those words that their true meaning comes 
out, so I appreciate and I thank you for that

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