[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 110 (Monday, June 15, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2959-S2960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BUSINESS BEFORE THE SENATE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 3 months ago, States were implementing 
stay-at-home orders as the coronavirus spread throughout our country. 
Three months ago, George Floyd was still alive, and the killing of 
Breonna Taylor in Louisville had just begun to reignite a national 
discussion around policing.
  Our country has confronted what feels like several years' worth of 
upheaval in just 3 months. Small businesses and childcare centers are 
trying to figure out how to safely reopen. Schools and universities are 
trying to plan for the fall. Healthcare professionals and essential 
workers are continuing to man their posts, help strangers, and keep our 
country going. Peaceful protesters have continued to express outrage 
over the killings of Black Americans, and our Nation's police 
officers--overwhelmingly good, decent, and brave people who put 
everything on the line for their neighbors--have continued to 
faithfully serve under trying circumstances.
  These are the kinds of challenges our Nation should meet with unity, 
like when the Senate wrote and passed the historic CARES Act 
unanimously in March. But unfortunately, in some corners of the 
country, our Nation's strategic reserve of sanity appears to have run a 
little low. We have seen peaceful protests hijacked by violent riots. 
Apparently, rioters thought the best way to argue against a strong 
police force was to terrorize innocent people and small businesses for 
nights on end.
  Then, completing the absurd cycle, we have seen the far left hold up 
these riots as proof that we should defund or disband the police in 
this country--as though the vast majority of Americans in the country 
would not interpret the anarchy in precisely the opposite way.
  As I noted last week, we have seen some big-city mayors use health 
restrictions to construct constitutionally dubious double standards, 
where massive protests are blessed and encouraged, but small, careful 
church services are still banned. In Seattle, we have

[[Page S2960]]

seen the local officials cede several blocks to a rag-tag band of 
demonstrators who call themselves the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. 
Fear of the far left has literally caused local officials to let a 
chunk of their own city devolve into a no-go zone for their own cops.
  Naturally, left-leaning media outlets have been quick to shower 
praise on this legacy and slow to amplify reports of arson and other 
unchecked crimes. One story from the New York Times praised the 
``liberated streets''--liberated, as if spray-painting a boarded-up 
business were the equivalent of the Normandy landings.
  Amid all this, our Democratic counterparts in the House of 
Representatives have mostly continued to keep their doors locked and 
their lights off. But here in the Senate, we came back in over a month 
ago. We have taken smart precautions, but we have not let the people's 
business come to a halt.
  Our committees have been overseeing the CARES Act and working on 
other essential business, like the National Defense Authorization Act.
  Our colleagues are considering what else might help the country 
reopen, like strong legal protections for schools, colleges, employers, 
and healthcare workers.
  Under the leadership of Senator Tim Scott, our conference is 
developing a serious proposal to reform law enforcement in smart ways 
without lashing out needlessly and counterproductively at the first 
responders who are a credit to their communities.

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