[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 111 (Tuesday, June 16, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2982-S2994]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                  TAXPAYER FIRST ACT OF 2019--Resumed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 1957, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 1957) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 
     1986 to modernize and improve the Internal Revenue Service, 
     and for other purposes.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Recognition Of The Minority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.


                   Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that 
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does, in fact, prohibit employment 
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. 
It was a landmark decision that represents a step forward--a big step 
forward--on the long march to full equality for LGBTQ Americans. We 
salute that decision. That is what the Supreme Court should be doing--
moving us in a direction of equality and fairness. All too often, it 
doesn't these days. So this was a refreshing breath of fresh air from 
that Court.
  The march, of course, is not over. Yesterday's decision, welcomed as 
it is, reminds us that, even today, even in 2020, we have so much work 
left to do to advance the cause of justice and equality for all 
Americans. Only a few days ago, our laws didn't clearly establish that 
you couldn't be fired by your employer simply because of who you are 
and whom you love. Yesterday's decision is not the end of the fight. It 
was one step forward. If it is wrong to discriminate against people 
because of whom they love and because of who they are and if it is 
wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation 
and gender, isn't it wrong on the job? If it is wrong to discriminate 
against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender on 
employment, isn't it wrong on housing? Isn't it wrong on so many other 
issues?
  That is why we need the Equality Act to pass. The decision is 
certainly not the end of the fight. Disparities and discrimination on 
the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity still exist in so 
many aspects of our lives--education, housing, credit, public spaces, 
services, and in many other ways. If it is wrong to discriminate 
against people because of their sexual orientation and gender on jobs 
and employment, it is equally wrong in these other areas like housing 
and education. We need to pass the Equality Act, which expands the 
prohibition of discrimination to many other needed areas.
  Today, Senate Democrats will send a letter from our caucus to Leader 
McConnell urging him to schedule the Equality Act for a vote on the 
floor. The House passed it a year ago. It has been languishing in 
McConnell's legislative graveyard. I would say to my Republican 
colleagues: If some of the most conservative people around, like 
Justice Gorsuch and Justice Roberts, can come to the conclusion that we 
should stop discriminating, where are you? The Senate Republicans only 
seem 30 years behind the times on this issue for sure.
  I urge the leader to put the Equality Act on the floor now, and let's 
extend what the Supreme Court did in terms

[[Page S2983]]

of employment to so many needed other areas. Wake up, my Republican 
friends. The times, they are changing, and discrimination against LGBTQ 
Americans should be over once and for all and should be the law of the 
land in every aspect of our lives


                        Justice in Policing Act

  Madam President, now, on another issue where the Republican caucus 
seems to be behind, since the killing of George Floyd sparked 
nationwide protests, we have been pushing our colleagues in the Senate 
to respond to our national pain with collective action. This is a 
moment in American history where a great mass of our people are 
demanding change in the streets of our largest cities and smallest 
towns. Now is the moment to reach for real, lasting, strong, 
comprehensive change. We cannot merely make some changes around the 
margins.
  Democrats drafted and proposed comprehensive police reform 
legislation last Monday, the Justice in Policing Act, led by Senators 
Booker and Harris. With 4 weeks to go in this current session, we have 
asked Leader McConnell to commit to a vote on the Justice in Policing 
Act before July 4. We didn't say: ``Do our bill immediately.'' We asked 
our Republican colleagues to commit to a debate on our bill before July 
4--within the next 4 weeks--but so far we haven't heard any indication 
from the Republican majority that we will take up comprehensive police 
reform this month.
  Last night, a member of the Republican leadership said a bill was 
unlikely before July 4. Of course, Leader McConnell has also reportedly 
told his caucus that the Senate was unlikely to do another COVID relief 
bill until after July 4. When it comes to urgent national priorities, 
the Republican majority is like a broken Magic 8-Ball that keeps 
saying: ``Ask again later.''
  Peaceful protests have continued for 3 weeks, and Republican Senators 
want to wait another month, maybe even longer, to consider reform on 
the floor of the Senate? The popular anger over long-simmering issues 
of police brutality and racial justice has reached a tipping point. 
There is no reason to wait. There is no reason to delay. By delaying 
action, Senate Republicans are playing the same dangerous political 
games that they played after mass shootings last summer.
  Why is it that, when it comes to confirming rightwing judges who want 
to roll back the clock on healthcare and on voting rights, Senate 
Republicans always make time, but when it comes to making real changes 
to police departments, Senate Republicans are already making excuses? 
Democrats and the American people who overwhelmingly support real 
meaningful change and accountability in our Nation's police departments 
will not rest until we achieve comprehensive and bold reform.


                              Coronavirus

  Madam President, of course, we are also still waiting for the 
Republican Senate majority to propose anything related to COVID-19. 
Only a few weeks ago, Leader McConnell said that another coronavirus 
relief bill was likely during the June work period. Once again, in 
typical fashion of this Republican majority, the deadline has slipped, 
and now we have no time to consider another COVID bill before July 4, 
and this will have very real consequences for the American economy.
  Leader McConnell is willing to blow through his own deadlines, but 
some deadlines will arrive whether the Republican leader likes it or 
not. Whether he likes it or not, his inaction is creating some very 
steep cliffs for our economy and for the American worker. Funding for 
the very popular and bipartisan Paycheck Protection Program will run 
out on June 30. State and local governments need to finalize their 
budgets by July 4, and many of them will be forced to cut back on 
critical public services without public support. The moratorium on 
evictions that we passed in the CARES Act expires on July 24. The 
emergency unemployment insurance we passed in the CARES Act expires on 
July 31, and K-12 schools need over $150 billion and as much time as 
possible to safely reopen this fall.
  So, Leader McConnell and Republicans, there are at least five cliffs 
and many more we face if we don't act soon: the cliff of funding small 
business, the cliff of helping State and local governments, the cliff 
on evictions, the cliff on unemployment insurance, and the cliff on the 
need for schools to reopen in September.
  Today, Leader McConnell and I received a letter signed by over 100 
economists and scholars, including two former Chairs of the Federal 
Reserve, three former Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, and 
two Nobel laureates, urging Congress to pass another relief package 
commensurate with the $16 trillion hole in our economy caused by COVID-
19. At a minimum, these distinguished economists wrote: The bill should 
include ``continued support for the unemployed, new assistance to 
states and localities, investments in programs that preserve employer-
employee relationships, and additional aid to stabilize aggregate 
demand.''
  It sounds a lot like the Heroes Act, which passed the House of 
Representatives, but, once again, it is sitting in Leader McConnell's 
legislative graveyard. Economists from all walks of life are telling 
Senate Republicans to get off the mat and do something to help the 
economy before it is too late. Governors from both political parties 
are pleading for aid. Even the Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jay 
Powell, appointed by President Trump, is sounding the alarm about the 
need for another emergency relief bill.
  When will Senate Republicans finally get the message? When will they 
understand that unless we do these things, the economy will decline in 
the future, and that millions who are unemployed, millions whose 
businesses are in jeopardy, and millions who want to see schools open 
will not get what they need? We must act now. When will Republicans in 
the Senate finally get the message? We need to act
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, our economy has taken a huge hit from the 
coronavirus, and we have a lot of work to do to recover. There are 
encouraging signs, and one of those has been the success of the 
Paycheck Protection Program.
  The pandemic has presented a particular challenge for small 
businesses that frequently have very limited cash reserves to draw on. 
That is why, thanks to the efforts of Senators Rubio, Collins, and 
others, Congress established the Paycheck Protection Program, which 
provides forgivable loans to small businesses to help them keep 
employees on their payroll during this crisis.
  So far, more than 4.5 million small businesses nationwide have 
received relief from this program, and the majority of the loans have 
gone to the smallest businesses. Nearly 3 million of the 4.5 million 
total loans have been at or under $50,000. In my home State of South 
Dakota, more than 21,000 businesses have benefited, including some of 
the many seasonal businesses that have a limited amount of time each 
year to make the money that they need to survive.
  I am very grateful to the thousands of bank and credit union 
employees around the Nation who processed these loans under challenging 
circumstances during the pandemic. All told, millions of small business 
jobs have been saved, and a lot of small businesses that might have 
gone under during the pandemic are hanging on thanks to this program.
  In fact, the Paycheck Protection Program is undoubtedly one of the 
main reasons that the May jobs numbers were not as bad as expected. 
Instead of net job loss, the economy actually gained jobs.
  Now, that is not to suggest that the May jobs report was rosy. Our 
unemployment rate is unacceptably high, to put it mildly, but the fact 
that we gained jobs is a positive sign. It is definitely a step in the 
right direction, and the Paycheck Protection Program helped us get 
there.
  So far, Congress has provided $2.5 trillion to respond to the 
coronavirus, including the almost $700 billion allocated to the 
Paycheck Protection Program. That is a staggering amount of money, 
equal to roughly half of the entire Federal budget for 2020. These were 
extraordinary circumstances and extraordinary action was required.
  However, Democrats are now pushing for Congress to rush another 
massive bill out the door. It is important to remember that every 
dollar Congress has provided to fight the coronavirus has been borrowed 
money. Now, as I said, it

[[Page S2984]]

is money that we needed to borrow, but it is still borrowed money that 
will have to be repaid.
  Will we need to provide more money to confront the pandemic and its 
effects? Probably. But we need to make sure that we are only 
appropriating what is really necessary. Rushing a $3 trillion bill 
through Congress, as Democrats want to do, before the $2.4 trillion we 
have already provided has even been fully spent is not a responsible 
way to go about providing additional relief. What we need to focus on 
right now is monitoring the implementation of coronavirus funding so we 
can identify where we have spent sufficiently and where we may need to 
do more.
  The Paycheck Protection Program provides a good example of the 
strategy that we should be using. Congress provided nearly $350 billion 
for the Paycheck Protection Program when it was first created. Within a 
short time, after the program's kickoff, however, it became clear that 
demand was so great that we would need to provide additional funding, 
and that is what we did. We provided an additional $310 billion in late 
April.
  Then, just a couple of weeks ago, we passed another update to the 
program--not additional funding but a package of fixes to provide 
additional flexibility to small businesses.
  I have proposed a further refinement to the program that I hope 
Congress will pass in the near future.
  While the Paycheck Protection Program is open to self-employed 
workers--which describes many farmers--in practice, the program's 
guidelines have excluded a lot of agricultural producers.
  Low commodity prices and a challenging planting season meant that 
many farmers and ranchers had a negative net income in 2019. And right 
now, the program's guidelines exclude farmers or ranchers without 
employees with a negative net income for last year.
  My legislation would allow more farmers to access the Paycheck 
Protection Program by allowing them to use their 2019 gross income 
instead of their 2019 net income when calculating their loan award. 
This is what we should be doing when it comes to additional coronavirus 
funding.
  The best way to make sure that we are spending taxpayer dollars 
wisely and not burdening our economy with more debt is to carefully 
monitor the implementation of the funds we have already provided and 
use that information to guide further action. That is what we have done 
with the Paycheck Protection Program, and that is what we should do 
with the other coronavirus funding we passed and the other coronavirus 
programs we implemented.
  It is also important to remember that sometimes what is required is 
not additional money but other types of solutions, like the fixes we 
passed that add more flexibility to the Paycheck Protection Program.
  As we move forward, I will continue to work with my colleagues to 
respond to the coronavirus, and I will continue to do everything I can 
to ensure that any additional money we spend is carefully targeted to 
the real needs, with an eye to minimizing the burden we are putting on 
future generations. We owe younger Americans nothing less.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, is there an urgent need for us to help 
America in this time of crisis? I think most people would agree there 
is. As a result, the House of Representatives more than 6 weeks ago 
passed legislation to continue to provide assistance to Americans who 
are in need. Certainly, that would include those who are unemployed. We 
created an unemployment Federal benefit of $600 a week over and above 
the State benefit, expanded eligibility and the time the benefit would 
be awarded, and made it available across this country right at the 
moment when some 40 million Americans were announcing that they had 
lost their jobs, were unemployed. It was a helping hand that was long 
overdue and certainly made a difference in the lives of many families.
  I think it is responsible for the fact that we did see welcome news 
last week that some 2 million Americans have gone back to work. I hope 
that trend continues, but in the meantime, of the 20 million who are 
unemployed, this helping hand of $600 a week from the Federal 
Government is essential. It is not exactly a windfall when you 
calculate it. The Federal benefit, plus State benefit really comes up 
close to the average wage of most Americans. It is not a major benefit 
that they can live off of for any long period of time--that is for 
sure--but it gets them through the crisis, we hope, in paying their 
rent, their mortgage, utility bills, and providing food and clothing 
for their family.
  Here is the problem: If you want to know if there is some urgency 
involved in unemployment insurance, consider the fact that on July 31, 
the program I have just described disappears. Do you think unemployment 
will disappear on July 31? We should be so lucky, but we know better. 
It is going to take a while for us to get back on our feet as a nation. 
We have to stand by those who are unemployed in the meantime, until 
they can get back to work and provide for their families.
  Unfortunately, the program we created ends July 31. Is there an 
urgent need to extend it in some form? I believe that is obvious to 
virtually everyone. I can't understand why Senator McConnell, the 
Republican leader in the Senate, doesn't feel this sense of urgency in 
his home State of Kentucky, as I do in my home State of Illinois, right 
across the river. We have common areas. Downstate Illinois and Kentucky 
are somewhat similar in their economies, and I know there are people 
who need a helping hand.
  I hope Senator McConnell will consider giving them that helping 
hand--but not just in this area. There is also included in the bill 
that passed the House of Representatives, the Heroes Act, an extension 
of COBRA benefits.
  What is COBRA? If you are working for a company that provides health 
insurance, you pay part of the premium, and they pay the other part. If 
you lose your job but want to continue that health insurance plan, 
under COBRA you can if you pay both sides, employer and employee, on 
the premium. The average cost is about $1,700 a month. It is a pretty 
hefty sum for anyone who just lost their job.
  Under the bill that passed the House of Representatives, there would 
be 100 percent coverage of the employer's portion of the COBRA premium 
during the period of your unemployment. That is a helping hand, which 
most workers desperately need. I am sure they need it in the State of 
Kentucky, just as we do in the State of Illinois and all across the 
Nation.
  There is a sense of urgency if you don't have health insurance, isn't 
there? We are more conscious than ever about the need for good health 
insurance. I would hope that Senator McConnell would consider that when 
he decides whether there is an urgent need for us to pass the bill that 
was enacted by the House of Representatives.
  In addition, there is a major portion of the House bill that provides 
assistance to State and local governments. We desperately need it 
across the Nation. Hardly any State--county, major city, even cities of 
modest size--hasn't seen the cost of government go up as government 
revenues from sales tax, for example, have diminished and the cost of 
government related to the COVID-19 crisis have increased.
  The helping hand to these State and local governments is consistent 
with what we did in the first bill, the CARES Act, and is desperately 
needed. What is the alternative? I know what it is, and most everyone 
does as well: There will be dramatic layoffs of State and local 
employees if we don't provide a helping hand from the Federal 
Government. These employees include, of course, teachers, medical 
personnel, law enforcement, and the like.
  If we want to make certain that we maintain the basic protections of 
government at the State and local level, then Senator McConnell should 
consider supporting the bill that already passed the House of 
Representatives.
  There is one major stumbling block when it comes to this issue of 
Senator McConnell taking up any measure to help our economy from this 
point forward. It was 6 weeks ago, in April, when Senator McConnell 
announced that he was drawing a redline that he wouldn't budge from, 
and that redline said that we had to provide immunity from liability 
for businesses and others before he would even consider additional 
benefits for American businesses and families. We don't know exactly

[[Page S2985]]

what the Senator had in mind. He announced on several occasions from 
the floor here that he wanted to put this immunity provision into any 
future package, but as of today, we still haven't seen it. We are still 
waiting.
  One of his colleagues, Senator Cornyn from Texas and my colleague on 
the Senate Judiciary Committee, has given several speeches on the 
subject. There was one that he gave on May 19, which I would like to 
refer to because it is perhaps his longest statement and the longest 
Republican statement on just what they have in mind. Senator Cornyn 
said that there has been a wave of COVID-19-related lawsuits rolling 
in. He called it an avalanche of lawsuits. He went on to use other 
terms equally cataclysmic. He called it a litigation epidemic, a tidal 
wave of lawsuits. He went on to talk about those as creating a need for 
us to provide some protection against lawsuits.
  I decided to take a look at this avalanche, this tidal wave that we 
heard about so much from Senator McConnell and Senator Cornyn. You see, 
there is a law firm tracker service that takes a look at every lawsuit 
filed in America to see what they are all about. They have a category 
of lawsuits related to COVID-19, and they give regular reports on how 
many lawsuits are filed.
  Let's take a look at the avalanche of lawsuits that have been filed 
as of yesterday. Remember, 2 million Americans have been diagnosed with 
the COVID-19 infection--2 million.
  Out of 2 million Americans with COVID-19 infections and over 115,000 
deaths, as of yesterday, how many medical malpractice lawsuits do you 
think have been filed based on COVID-19 against healthcare 
workers, doctors, nurses? How many across the whole United States of 
America? Five. Five. Some avalanche.

  How many lawsuits have been filed by those who say that they are 
forced to work in unsafe working conditions because of COVID-19? In 
this tidal wave, there have been 49 of those lawsuits filed--49 across 
the entire United States.
  By way of comparison, how many lawsuits have been filed involving 
COVID-related disputes between businesses and insurance companies? Six 
hundred and thirty-one.
  Five hundred and sixteen lawsuits have been filed by prisoners 
because of what they have alleged to be unsafe living conditions 
related to COVID-19 and 194 lawsuits challenging governments' stay-at-
home orders across the board.
  This doesn't strike me as an avalanche or a tidal wave or some spate 
of frivolous lawsuits being filed by workers or customers. Part of the 
reason, you learn in your first year of law school. In tort law 
classes, one of the first things you are told is, before you can 
recover in a lawsuit, you have to prove causation. What was it that 
caused your injury? How is that defendant responsible for your injury? 
It is a difficult thing to prove in many lawsuits and very difficult 
when it comes to an invisible virus as to what circumstances or what 
individual would be responsible for the fact that you became infected 
and are filing this lawsuit. Causation is hard.
  Here is what it really gets down to: I believe--and most people do--
that if a business or an entity is really making a reasonable, good-
faith effort to protect employees and customers, that should be a 
defense to any lawsuit. What would that consist of? We had a hearing in 
the Senate Judiciary Committee 3 weeks ago. The star witness on the 
Republican side was a very impressive individual who represented the 
convenience stores of America. He was from the same State as Senator 
Cornyn, the State of Texas. His name is Mr. Smartt. He came in and told 
the story about many facilities that he had which were providing goods 
and services to the people of Texas and how he was making a good-faith 
effort to protect those who work for him and those who did business in 
his establishment. He talked about plastic shields. He talked about 
hand sanitizers. He talked about spacing and distancing. It was really 
clear from the start that this CEO of this major Texas corporation was 
doing his best to protect the people who came into his business and his 
workplace.
  I thought it was a good statement when, on page 7 of his testimony--
and I will refer you to it if you would like to look at the Senate 
Judiciary Committee testimony--he said that his biggest problem was he 
didn't know what standard he had to live up to, what was the proper 
thing for him to do from a public health point of view. He didn't know 
which way to turn. Was it the Centers for Disease Control? Was it the 
Occupational Safety and Health Administration? Was it the State of 
Texas? Was it some Federal agency? He was really begging us: Give me a 
standard to live up to, and I will do my level best to live up to it.
  I don't think that is an unreasonable position. I salute him. I would 
like to be, if necessary, in court defending him, saying: This is a man 
who is trying his best in the business environment to be a responsible 
citizen, both for his workers and for his customers, but he doesn't 
have a standard to operate by.
  Why don't we have this Federal standard? Well, you point the finger 
of responsibility to the White House. President Trump and his 
administration have refused to come forward with enforceable and 
inspectable standards that we can use to take a look at those who are 
trying to protect others from public health exposures. Without that 
Federal standard, companies like that one in Texas really don't know 
where to turn. If OSHA came up with a standard and said ``This is what 
we expect in the workplace'' and you lived up to that standard, I would 
say, as an attorney who spent a lot of time in the courtroom, you have 
a pretty strong defense going for you--first, the issue of causation, 
and secondly, whether you have done what is reasonable on your part to 
protect people.
  That is what it comes down to. Democrats and others argue that we 
should hold businesses to a reasonable standard of responsibility. We 
certainly don't encourage or defend frivolous lawsuits. But we don't 
want bad actors who are ignoring any reasonable standards or 
responsibility to get away with murder. They should be held 
responsible, and they should be reliable in terms of their own 
activity. That is what it comes down to.
  Senator McConnell is holding back assistance for State and local 
governments, money for hospitals, money for the unemployed, because of 
the so-called redline when it comes to immunity. Listen, it is human 
nature. If you say to businesses across the board ``You are immune from 
lawsuits,'' I am afraid some people will take advantage of that. They 
will not even try. And people get sick as a result of it or maybe 
worse. We don't want that to happen in this country. We want people to 
do the right thing--to protect themselves, their families, and to 
protect others, and in business, to make sure they are protecting the 
public at large. If they live up to a certain standard, I think they 
have a good defense to any lawsuit.
  But the so-called avalanche and tidal wave of lawsuits--5 medical 
malpractice lawsuits after 2 million Americans have been infected by 
COVID-19--really tells the story.
  I would encourage the Republicans to finally produce and present to 
us the standard they want to make part of the law of the land. Let's 
see what is in it. Let's talk about it. And if you are willing to 
establish reasonable standards based on public health to protect the 
public at large, I want to be at the table. We can find common ground. 
But if you are saying ``We want immunity for these businesses. We want 
to let them off the hook no matter what they do, even if they do 
nothing,'' I am sorry, that is worth a fight. We have to make sure that 
people across America have a reasonable expectation that when they 
enter a business or go to work, they are going to be in a safe 
environment, and that the people who employ them, the ones who want to 
do business with them, have lived up to that responsibility.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Loeffler). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

[[Page S2986]]

  



                        Justice In Policing Act

  Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, just over a week ago, Senator Harris and 
myself, with the partnership and support of many of the Democrats in 
the Senate and our Senate leadership, Chuck Schumer, along with 
colleagues in the House, our Congressional Black Caucus, and over 250 
partners throughout the two Chambers, introduced the Justice in 
Policing Act, a bill designed to take concrete steps to bring long 
overdue, long called for, much needed, real accountability and 
transparency and oversight to policing in America.
  We introduced the bill in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by 
law enforcement officers in Minneapolis, along with what happened to 
Breonna Taylor in her home in Louisville, the killings of other 
Americans, names who are now known for the wretched, awful way in which 
they died: Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and so many others. 
So many others whose names we do not know are all part of a system that 
does not reflect our common values and does not reflect the highest 
ideals of this Nation. In fact, it is just the opposite. It reflects 
the darkness of our past and our present. It reflects racism and 
bigotry and not equal justice under the law.
  We are at a point in American history that is at a crossroad, where 
millions of Americans in all 50 States are engaging in some type of 
action of protest, whether it is on social media platforms or in the 
middle of a pandemic out in the streets. The question we have right now 
before us in this body is this: In the face of Americans of all 
backgrounds, races, religions, and parties who are calling for reform, 
what will this body do?
  A lot of folks want to reduce the approaches that are coming forward 
as a Republican or Democratic approach. I am telling you right now that 
this is not a choice between one side of the aisle or another. It is a 
choice between meaningful reforms in this moment or making symbolic 
gestures that will do nothing to save people's lives. It is a choice 
between action and inaction.
  The bill we are proposing is not new. These are reforms that have 
been put in place in some cities and in some States. This is a real 
effort to hold policing in America accountable for egregious behavior. 
It will create transparency, as sunlight is the best disinfectant to 
injustice. It will also bring about an end to policies and practices 
that should be ended in our country. They have been called for by 
President Bush in his first address to Congress for an end to racial 
and religious profiling.
  We see, in fact, as to some of the more, so-called, controversial 
elements of this bill, like qualified immunity, that conservatives and 
Democrats on both sides of the aisle--folks from the Cato Institute, 
Clarence Thomas, and you see conservative organization after 
conservative organization--say the obvious, that no one should be 
shielded from accountability when they are violating the civil rights 
of another American.
  We have a bill that calls for change that will protect lives and 
address the practices that have killed Americans, create accountability 
and transparency in departments, and make sure that no one in our 
country is above the law.
  This is not a time for half steps and half measures. It is not a time 
to nibble around the edges. It is not a time to find the lowest common 
denominator. It is not a time--when so many Americans feel a 
metaphorical knee on the neck of justice--for us to pull our knee 
halfway off of that neck and call it progress. No, this is a time for 
us to do what is right and necessary to end the kind of violence and 
murder and unaccountability that we see and that is too endemic in our 
Nation.
  This is the truth. The measures in this bill will pass. Congress will 
one day get this right. I am confident that one day in this country the 
provisions in the Justice in Policing Act will ban religious and racial 
profiling. I am confident that one day in this country we will ban 
choke holds. I am confident that one day in this country we will have a 
national registry of police misconduct, of police use of force. I am 
confident that one day no one who murders someone in broad daylight in 
front of cameras will be shielded from accountability on the Federal 
level, in our civil courts, or in our criminal courts, by impossible 
standards to meet. It is clear that one day we shall overcome what is 
now injustice, that this body will do the right thing.
  There will be a time in America when mental health issues will be 
treated with healthcare and not police and prisons. There will be a 
time in America that addiction will be treated with treatment and not 
police and prisons. There will be a time in America that the fragile 
within our society will not be further hurt and harmed by practices and 
prisons but will be elevated and cared for. I know this time is coming. 
But I believe that the time is now, that justice delayed is justice 
denied. If we do not act and claim this moment, this time, then we, as 
a country, are going to find ourselves here again.
  In my short life, I have seen decades of this. I was born right after 
the Kerner report calling out these practices and demanding reforms. In 
that time, I watched Rodney King get beaten and officers who did it be 
held unaccountable for their actions. This cycle is continuing in our 
country every day.
  There are so many cases that we don't see because we don't have 
transparency. They explode into the national consciousness when someone 
catches on videotape what we know is wrong but we have not taken the 
measures to stop it. Now is the time that we must act and not find 
ourselves here a month from now, a year from now, 3 years from now, 
watching this awful cycle play over and over.
  Listen to the American people--all 50 States, all backgrounds--
joining together in a course of conviction to put a stop to this 
nightmare. Now is the time--no half measures, no half steps, no diluted 
attempts, no fainting toward what should be done but not having the 
courage to boldly go in the direction that one day this bill will pass. 
But I believe ``one day'' should be today. Congress should act.
  I am so proud that I am not alone in this position. I am so proud 
that there are others in this body who are joining with me, with the 
same sense of urgency to get broad-based reforms done.
  I see my colleague from Oregon, one of the many champions for justice 
in this body. I am grateful now to yield to him
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I am honored today to join Senator 
Booker, Senator Harris, and so many of my colleagues to work to take 
this moment of national outcry and turn it into an opportunity, a 
moment of national action.
  For weeks now, in protests across our land, millions of fellow 
Americans have been rising up and speaking out to demand justice, 
accountability, opportunity, and, above all, the equality promised by 
our Founders 244 years ago.
  This latest movement may have been sparked by the senseless killing 
of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of public safety officers. 
One officer, sworn to protect and defend him, knelt on his neck for 9 
minutes, extinguishing his life. But this movement is about so much 
more. The pain and anger and the anguish that have burst forth from the 
hearts of Black Americans everywhere run far deeper than a single 
tragedy. It is a pain born of an endless string of tragedies, the 
senseless killings of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Tamir 
Rice, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and 
more--so many more Black men and women who should be alive today--of 
Rayshard Brooks, shot in the back by a police officer, who died this 
past Friday night. It is a pain borne even before we were yet a 
country, when more than 400 years ago, traders kidnapped Africans from 
their own lands, brought them here to these shores--American shores--
sold them, locked them into generations of brutal slavery, treated not 
as people but as property, chained, sold, whipped, raped, treated as 
something less than human.
  Our Nation has never come to terms with this legacy. There is no 
memorial on the National Mall. There is no Truth and Reconciliation 
Commission. So, still today, America's gaping wound of racism bleeds 
pain and injustice, and inequality continues to plague every system in 
our country.
  Too many Black men and women have lost their livelihoods, their 
lives, and their dignity to a justice system rigged against them: 
racial profiling, mandatory minimums, stop and frisk,

[[Page S2987]]

acts of racial profiling, and racially driven predatory actions.
  We entrust to our public safety officers vast power to serve their 
communities, but have we ensured that their vast power is exercised 
equally on behalf of all citizens? We have not.
  Too often, forces--public safety forces, police forces--treat White 
citizens as clients and Black citizens as a threat. That is systemic 
racism, and it must change. It is why I am so proud to stand here in 
support of Senator Booker's and Senator Harris's sweeping Justice in 
Policing Act reform bill. We need to hold officers accountable for 
their actions. We need to change the culture of policing in America, 
and this legislation is the right law at the right moment to begin to 
do that.
  No one should ever be profiled based on the color of their skin. 
Choke holds, like the one that killed Eric Garner, must be a thing of 
the past. No-knock warrants, like the one that ended with Breonna 
Taylor being shot to death in her bed, should no longer exist. Under 
the Justice in Policing Act, these will be gone.
  When a public safety officer misuses the immense power of his or her 
badge, that misuse must be investigated, must be documented, must be 
penalized, and the record of that abuse must be public. That is the 
essence of accountability that goes hand in hand with the 
responsibility and the power that goes with wearing the badge.
  Never again should an officer who has been fired for abusing their 
power be able to go down the road and be hired by another department 
and be able to continue abusive practices in a new setting. That is why 
I have advocated for a national database of police misconduct, to 
achieve this outcome. And it is why I am so pleased that Senator Booker 
has included such a database in the Justice in Policing Act.
  In 1968, the Kerner Commission, which was examining the source of the 
demonstrations the year before concluded: ``Bad policing practices, a 
flawed justice system, unscrupulous consumer credit practices, poor or 
inadequate housing, high unemployment, voter suppression, and other 
culturally embedded forms of racial discrimination all converged to 
propel violent upheaval on the streets of African-American 
neighborhoods in Americans cities, north and south, east and west.'' 
Doesn't that sound familiar--all too familiar--here, 52 years later, 
half a century later?
  One person testifying at the Commission said: I read the report of 
the 1919 riot in Chicago, and it is as if I were reading the 
investigative report on the Harlem riot of 1935, the reporting of the 
investigating committee of the riot of 1943, the report of the McCone 
Commission on the Watts riot. I must say in candor to members of this 
Commission, it is a kind of ``Alice in Wonderland,'' with the same 
moving picture shown over and over again, the same analysis, the same 
recommendations, and the same inaction.
  That is why I am standing on the floor in support of this act, 
because inaction is not acceptable. Let the same not be said about this 
moment years from now.
  Today is a moment for a day of action, for greater investments in 
affordable housing and decent communities and in schools and teachers 
in minority communities, for greater investments in Black business 
owners and early education programs like Head Start. It is a time to 
ensure that every American truly has a right to vote and is free from 
voter suppression and voter intimidation.
  This Friday, our Nation will, once again, recognize and celebrate 
Juneteenth, the day when slavery officially ended in this country 155 
years ago. Let this Juneteenth stand as a day for all of us to reflect 
on the calls for justice crying out across our land. Now is a time to 
be agents of change--yes, to listen to the voices of the people, to 
join with those who have taken to the streets, enduring rubber bullets 
and the batons and the tear gas, to stand up for what is right. Now is 
a moment to stand shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Americans who 
have had enough of the suffering of inequality and of injustice, so 
together we can help our Nation live up to the ideal of a land where 
everyone, no matter the color of their skin, is treated with the 
dignity and the respect and the opportunity and the equality equal to 
all others.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, on Saturday, I attended a rally for 
justice sponsored by two young women--one, a high-schooler and one a 
middle-schooler--in my hometown. The rally was one of numerous marches 
and rallies that have occurred every day, sometimes multiple times a 
day, in Richmond in the weeks after the horrific public murder of 
George Floyd.
  Hundreds of people gathered in the Maggie L. Walker Plaza, a plaza 
named after a pioneering African-American woman, a business and civil 
rights leader.
  They gathered in the plaza to hear from our city's young people. Many 
raised their hands when they were asked if they were graduates of this 
class of 2020, a class whose senior year was upended in mid-March and 
who face a future that, frankly, seems very, very frightening to many 
of them.
  I attended to listen. I used to be the mayor and Governor--now a 
Senator--but I attended as a neighbor to listen. I wasn't on the 
program, and I didn't ask to speak. I wanted to hear how our young 
people view this moment in time and what they are asking of us.
  What I heard in many different ways, from speeches and artistic 
performances, was no more politics as usual; no more police killings of 
people of color; no more empty promises of reform after each new 
policing outrage; no more education system that downplays the reality 
of injustice in this country since its birth; no more educational 
content that also downplays the contributions of African Americans, 
Indians, Latinos, and others to our Nation; no more veneration of the 
Confederacy in Richmond, in Virginia, or anywhere else in the United 
States.
  This gathering, this rally, had a lot of police there. The police 
were there trying to keep the crowd from spilling from the plaza onto 
the busy Broad Street, where they would have been endangered by passing 
vehicles. Some of the attendees of the rally advocated to defund the 
police, but others disagreed. Some asserted ``all cops are bad,'' but 
others disagreed. The rally was robust, it was raw, it was diverse, and 
it was respectful. It was the epitome--the absolute epitome--of 
peacefully assembling to petition government for redress of grievances 
contemplated by the First Amendment.
  Just as my young activists urged in many different ways to end 
politics as usual, I desperately want to end apathy as usual. Apathy of 
the citizenry is a chief guarantor of politics as usual. In the 
tremendous energy demonstrated by these Richmonders and demonstrated on 
the streets of communities all over this country, I am starting to be 
hopeful about the end of apathy as usual. These young people, they want 
action and results, and they deserve it. That is why I am proud to join 
Senators Booker, Harris, and many others in supporting the Justice in 
Policing Act of 2020.
  We need to ban choke holds. We need to ban no-knock warrants. We need 
to ban racial and religious profiling. We need to hold police officers 
and police departments accountable for violent, reckless behavior. We 
need to promote better training and professional accreditation of 
police departments. Why do we demand that universities maintain 
accreditation to receive Federal funds but make no such demand of law 
enforcement agencies?
  We need to do much more within the criminal justice system--but also 
within all of our systems--to dismantle the structures of racism that 
our Federal, State, and local governments carefully erected and 
maintained over centuries.
  We know a little bit about this in Virginia. The first African 
Americans to the English Colonies came to Point Comfort, VA, in 1619. 
They were slaves. They had been captured against their will, but they 
landed in Colonies that didn't have slavery. There were no laws about 
slavery in the Colonies at that time.
  The United States didn't inherit slavery from anybody. We created it. 
It got created by the Virginia General Assembly and the legislatures of 
other States. It got created by the court systems in Colonial America 
in the sense that it enforced fugitive slave laws.
  We created it. We created it and maintained it over centuries. In my 
lifetime, we have finally stopped some of those practices, but we have 
never

[[Page S2988]]

gone back to undo it. Stopping racist practices at year 350 of 400 
years but then taking no effort to dismantle them is not the same as 
truly combating racism.
  I am mindful of the challenge laid down by our young people: no more 
politics as usual.
  It is one thing to introduce a bill. We do that all the time here. So 
often the introduction of the bill is all that occurs--no committee 
hearing, no committee markup, no committee vote, no floor debate, no 
floor vote, no signature by a President--merely words on a page and a 
1-day story and then, possibly, a blame game about who was at fault for 
nothing happening.
  That has been my biggest disappointment in 7\1/2\ years in the 
Senate. Unlike my service at the State and local levels, where we took 
action and then engaged in healthy competition about who should get 
credit, in Congress, it is too often a story of inaction and then an 
unproductive competition over who should be blamed for nothing getting 
done: politics as usual.
  I pray that the engaged activism of our citizens has brought us to a 
new moment that will compel us to act in ways, large and small, in 
accord with the equality ideal that we profess to believe.
  This bill is a test of our resolve, and I urge my colleagues to meet 
the moment so that we can look our young people in their faces and tell 
them that we truly heard them.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, it was 2015, shortly after the death of 
Freddie Gray in police custody in Baltimore, that I was in Sand Town, 
the community in which Freddie Gray grew up, meeting with community 
leaders, many of whom I had known for many, many years.
  We had an honest discussion about how policing in Baltimore had 
unfolded. I was surprised to hear that these community leaders who 
wanted safety in their community felt that they could not confide with 
the police because they did not want people from their communities 
subjected to the discriminatory policing of the Baltimore City police 
force.
  I had another meeting during that time with a group of African-
American families. Everyone told me the story about how they feared 
particularly when their young African-American sons went into the 
community because of the fear that they would be discriminated against 
and hurt by the police. That fear was real.
  As a result of the Freddie Gray tragedy, we requested a pattern-and-
practice investigation by the Department of Justice, and what was 
discovered during that investigation was that the policies of the 
Baltimore City Police Department's zero tolerance to crack down on 
crime were used to profile the African-American community. In many 
cases, the police presence in the community provoked the violence and 
added to the harm of the people in the community.
  I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Senator Booker and Senator 
Harris for putting together a bill that we need to take up on the floor 
of the Senate as quickly as possible: the Justice in Policing Act. It 
contains many provisions that, quite frankly, should have been enacted 
well before now.
  The tragic deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks just underscore 
the importance for us to act now. We need to debate these issues, and 
we need to pass legislation.
  I am grateful for Senator Booker including two provisions that I had 
filed as legislation in several Congresses. One is the End Racial and 
Religious Profiling Act, a bill I filed a while ago.
  I think many of us remember the Trayvon Martin tragic loss, profiled 
because of the color of his skin. Racial or religious profiling targets 
a class of Americans for discriminatory treatment. It is not when you 
have individual information about a specific crime and indicators; it 
is when you target a community for special treatment.
  It is wrong. It is wrong because it is against the values of America 
of equality and justice. It is wrong because it wastes resources which 
are so valuable to keep our communities safe. It is wrong because it 
turns communities against police. If we are going to have effective law 
enforcement, the community and police need to work together, not at 
odds. It is wrong because it becomes deadly. Too many innocent people 
have lost their lives because of discriminatory profiling. It is time 
for this practice to end in America.
  I want to applaud the Obama administration because they took action 
at the Federal law enforcement level to make racial profiling illegal, 
but it still takes place in local law enforcement. The legislation 
included in the Justice in Policing Act would make that illegal. It 
would prohibit it, and it provides for ways to enforce, to make sure 
that police departments comply with it.
  It also provides for training so law enforcement understands what 
racial profiling is all about. It also provides for us to get the data 
so we know exactly what is happening at all levels of policing, whether 
State, local, or auxiliary.
  The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights testified on the 
issue of discriminatory profiling last week, and I want to share some 
of the testimony of Vanita Gupta. She testified:

       The equal treatment of all people, regardless of 
     background, class, or characteristic, protects and preserves 
     public safety and builds legitimacy in police. Discriminatory 
     policing, which targets people of color more often than 
     others, has serious consequences not only for individuals and 
     communities but also for law enforcement and society, by 
     fostering distrust in law enforcement. . . . Through policy, 
     training, and practice, law enforcement agencies can work to 
     prevent and hold officers accountable for discriminatory 
     policing, and reduce and mitigate its disparate impact on 
     marginal communities.

  I want to thank her for her testimony, and I want to thank Senator 
Booker for including those provisions that would end this practice in 
the Justice in Policing Act.
  There is a second bill that I have introduced for several Congresses: 
the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act. It provides for 
performance-based standards for police officers. It embraces 
accreditation standards based upon President Obama's Task Force on 21st 
Century Policing. It does provide for training and oversight and proper 
investigations for those police officers who have crossed the line. It 
enhanced the pattern-and-practice discrimination cases so that consent 
decrees can be effective in ending these wrong practices.
  I am pleased that these two provisions are included in the Justice in 
Policing Act, as well as so many other important changes for reform and 
accountability in law enforcement: the no-knock warrants, the standard 
that we hold officers accountable who have lost the trust of the 
American people, the registry so that law enforcement can know by 
background checks whether particular applicants have been involved in 
instances in other jurisdictions.
  All these are very, very important provisions that we need to act on 
and we need to act on now. Let us work together to guarantee equal 
justice under law and fulfill the promise of our Constitution in order 
to form a more perfect union, establish justice, and ensure domestic 
tranquility.
  Let this Nation finally guarantee equal justice under the law.
  I yield the floor
  Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, before the good Senator from Illinois 
speaks, I just want to, if I may, express my gratitude to the two 
colleagues who just spoke. The Senator from Virginia, who has been a 
champion on these issues when he was a Governor and now as a U.S. 
Senator, has been in the Senate much longer than I have. I have a lot 
of love for the history that he knows of his own State and the fact 
that he knows that that history of injustice has to be confronted.
  My mom did sit-in events in Charlottesville, VA, when she lived in 
DC, where I was born, and she went out to help integrate lunch counters 
in his great State. The fact that he is on this bill and he is a leader 
on these issues is extraordinary to me at this important time--and 
doing it in such a unifying way. I am grateful for that.
  I wanted to just say to the Senator from Maryland, I am newer to the 
Senate, and he has components of his bill that, after challenges in 
Baltimore with Freddie Gray, he helped to lead and write. It is not a 
partisan thing that he is calling for. There have been

[[Page S2989]]

many Republicans who have come out and say this idea that you will 
profile people because of their race or religion is anathema to the 
very ideals of the Constitution. It is so obvious on its face.
  I have seen polling where upwards of 90 percent of Republicans agree 
that we should not have people profiled based upon their race or 
religion, and that is one of the ideals of this bill, if you look at 
the common views of this; yet he has been fighting for this for years. 
I am grateful to have him as a part of it.
  I just want to say, as an introduction, on the Senate floor and for 
the record, to Senator Durbin, who has been a partner of mine on 
criminal justice reform: This whole system of policing and prisons and 
jails which has swept up millions of Americans and their families and 
their children is despicable, that we are the land of the free and 
incarcerate so many people.
  His work on crack cocaine/powder cocaine disparities before I even 
came to the Senate has helped to lead to the liberation of so many 
African Americans, so I am grateful that he, too, is on this bill.
  With that, I yield to the Senator from Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip is recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from New Jersey.
  During the course of one of his political campaigns, Abraham 
Lincoln's opponent said to him: You have switched your position. You 
have reversed your position on an issue. You have changed on an issue.
  Abraham Lincoln said: It is true. You see, I would rather be right 
some of the time than wrong all of the time.
  Well, I learned that lesson, as many of us have who have served in 
Congress, when you vote for a measure and, many years later, have to 
reflect on whether it was the right vote. I voted for something called 
the War on Drugs. It seemed like a sensible thing to do, and many 
joined me: Black and White Members of the House of Representatives. It 
was after the death of Len Bias, the Maryland basketball star who 
overdosed.
  In the moment of panic over crack cocaine, we did something which was 
going to just make a very clear public statement. The penalty for crack 
cocaine was going to be 100 times the penalty for powder cocaine--100 
times. We were going to let America know: Don't mess with crack 
cocaine.
  What a colossal failure it turned out to be. The price of crack 
cocaine on the street went down instead of up; the number of users on 
the street went up instead of down; and we filled the prisons of 
America, over the next 10 years, to a level we had never seen before, 
primarily with African Americans who had been convicted of possessing 
and selling crack cocaine.
  I realized, as I am sure many others did too, that it was a big 
mistake. It was an experiment that failed at the expense of many people 
and their families and their lives. So 10 years ago, I started out to 
try to change it. The 100-to-1 standard, in my mind, was indefensible. 
It didn't work, No. 1. No. 2, there was no scientific evidence that 
crack cocaine was that much more dangerous than powder cocaine.
  So I set out to make it 1 to 1, where it should be. I ran into an 
adversary by the name of Senator Sessions from Alabama. He didn't like 
the idea very much of my change. After long negotiations, we agreed to 
drop the standard to 18 to 1. I can't tell you the wisdom behind the 
number 18, but it was a compromised number.
  It changed a lot of things. Thousands of people in prison were able 
to leave early, and many had their sentences reduced. But it wasn't 
enough. We needed to go further. It was clear, when it came to 
mandatory minimums and ``Three Strikes, You're Out'' and all of the 
things that led to imprisonments--which were almost impossible to 
describe--we needed another bill.
  I joined with Senator Mike Lee, a very conservative Republican in the 
Senate, and we moved forward with the legislation. Others joined us as 
well, but we were stopped by one man who happened to be the chairman of 
the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley. Senator Grassley said: 
I don't like this bill.
  He came to the floor many times and gave speeches against the bill. 
So it became obvious to me, if anything was going to happen, I needed 
to win over Chuck Grassley. So I sat down with him and--literally for 1 
whole year--negotiated changes in the bill, things that I didn't want 
to give up but were part of the process to move us forward.
  We came up with the FIRST STEP Act, and he, proudly, was the lead 
sponsor on it, and I was his cosponsor--happy to be. Then we found an 
ally in the White House, Jared Kushner, who is open about the fact that 
his father spent time in prison and who believed in reform.
  We put together the FIRST STEP Act. One of the first people I went to 
was Cory Booker, then a new Senator from New Jersey, and said: I want 
you to support this bill. Read it, and tell me if you can.
  He came back to me with several proposals. One of them was the 
incarceration of juveniles that you wanted to make sure would be 
changed in America--and several other worthy suggestions we 
incorporated in the bill. And he became part of the team. The team was 
ultimately successful when, to the surprise of everyone in Washington, 
President Trump signed the FIRST STEP Act into law.

  So those who are skeptical that what we are about here cannot result 
in legislation have ignored the obvious--something that occurred in the 
last year or two with this White House, with this President, and with a 
Republican majority in the Senate. We did something significant, and we 
can do it again, and we should.
  What we are talking about now with Justice in Policing is so obvious 
to the world. What has brought us to this point of this debate? I think 
two things have brought us here, and maybe we didn't see it coming: 
videotapes and DNA. That is what brought us here. It is no longer 
speculation as to what happened in a parking lot. It is no longer 
conjecture as to what happened at the side of a curb in Minneapolis. We 
see it. We see it, and we can't get the images out of our mind.
  A knee on the neck for 8 minutes 46 seconds. Just in case that sounds 
like a short period of time, try kneeling, as Senator Kaine did in our 
moment of silence in the auditorium just a few weeks ago. Try imagining 
someone's knee on your neck for 8 minutes 46 seconds. George Floyd lost 
his life in that period of time.
  I think the image that sticks with me is not only that man on the 
ground begging for his life but the image of the policeman who was 
being implored and begged by all the people around: Take your knee off. 
Let him breathe. And he just looked with those cold, hard eyes as he 
took the life out of that man. That image is something I will carry for 
the rest of my service in life, as are the images from the Wendy's 
parking lot in Atlanta, GA.
  All of these things have brought us to the moment where we realize 
something must be done.
  I listened, Senator Kaine, when he talked about the rally he attended 
in Richmond over the weekend. What a coincidence that he would talk 
about the young people who organized it. In my home State, I have been 
to several rallies in the city of Chicago held by leaders in the 
community, religious and otherwise, but the meetings that I attended 
that had the most impact on me have been organized by high school 
students.
  In my hometown of Springfield, Nykeyla Henderson is a junior in high 
school. She is a tall young woman, kind of rangy, and doesn't look like 
the type of person who would ever speak up for anything. But she and 
her twin sister, Nykia, decided to put together a rally at the State 
capitol 2 weeks ago in Springfield. Fifteen hundred people showed up. 
No windows were broken. No curses were thrown around. Nobody was 
throwing anything. They made it clear that it was going to be a 
peaceful rally and all about Black Lives Matter.
  I told her later that it is an amazing achievement at her stage in 
life that she were able to do this. How unusual it was that a young 
woman--a young African-American woman--took on this role of leadership 
with others.
  This last Sunday, I went to Jerseyville, IL. I was telling Senator 
Booker about this. I don't know if there are many, if any, Black 
families in Jersey County. I represented this area for a long time, and 
I don't remember any. They had a rally on the lawn next to the 
courthouse at 4 p.m., Sunday afternoon. I went down there

[[Page S2990]]

because of another African-American high school young woman named 
Lay'Lhany Davis. Lay'Lhany goes to high school about 20 miles away in 
Alden. She called for a Black Lives Matter rally in Jersey and asked if 
I would come. I said I wouldn't miss it. She had done the same thing in 
Edwardsville, another small town. They had a rally, and when they 
started cruising with banners supporting political candidates and all 
the derision they were throwing at her, she said to these people: We 
are not going to be like that. We are not going to do that. This is 
going to be peaceful.
  I respect her very much for it.
  Here are these two 16-, 17-year-old young African-American women who 
are true leaders and inspiring in their humility. They are not looking 
for a headline. They wouldn't know what to do with it. They are wide-
eyed at the number of people who are showing up. The people who show 
up, by and large, are young people. White, Black, Brown people come 
there begging for freedom and liberty and hoping that we can do 
something in Washington. And why shouldn't we? The reason we ran for 
these offices is to address the issues of the day in our time, to take 
on the tough chores of finding compromise when it looks like it is 
impossible. I think we can do this, and I know that we must.
  I want to recount one other thing before I yield the floor. I see 
others arriving here. It was 10 days ago when I asked the African-
American members of my staff to get on a conference call. We spend a 
lot of time on conference calls. There were quite a few on the call, 
and I started talking about their experiences. They were a little 
reluctant to volunteer much. Then the dam broke, and one of them said 
something that led another one to say something. It turned out to be 
one of the best conversations I have ever had with my staff. They told 
me some things that I needed to hear because listening is sometimes 
more important for a Senator than speaking, although I do a lot of 
speaking.
  I can recall so many of them described for me the very first time--
and they remember it, and they remember who said it--they were called 
the N-word. They remember it. Each went through that experience on the 
playground or in a school. I am thinking to myself that I never had an 
experience in my life that was that profound that I remember it to this 
moment of someone using a word against me.
  Another young woman talked about the fact her mother sat her down at 
a young age and said: Listen to me. When you go to the store to buy 
something, always ask for a receipt. Always ask for a receipt. You put 
that receipt in that bag because somebody is going to stop you at the 
door and say you stole it, and you can show them you paid for it 
because you have the receipt.
  I thought, my mother never gave me that lesson. She never had to. I 
will never be stopped at the door. I am White. This young woman was 
Black.
  Time and again, the stories they told reminded me that the issue of 
racism is one we have faced in this country, as you said, for over 400 
years--when slavery came to our shores, before we were known as the 
United States of America, to this day. The greed and racism behind 
slavery still challenge us to this moment.
  Can we come up with an approach that is sensible? I hope we can. When 
you look at the history of Reconstruction, the Black codes, Jim Crow, 
the Great Migration, and everything that followed, you realize that we 
are still in the midst of this debate. We are as drawn to it as any 
moment in American history, and we have to face it and face it squarely 
and honestly. I think we can, and I think we must
  Let me say one word about the anti-lynching law. I read about the 
history of the anti-lynching law in the U.S. Congress. I am sure 
Senator Booker knows it well. A Congressman from Missouri, Leonitis 
Dyer, was not African American. He was a White Congressman, a veteran 
of World War I, an attorney from St. Louis, and a former prosecutor who 
was outraged by the East St. Louis race riots. East St. Louis is my 
hometown, born and raised across the river. He was outraged by the race 
riots there and people killed. He introduced the anti-lynching laws. He 
got it through the House, and it came over here and died in the Senate. 
That measure has languished in this Chamber ever since.
  I thought to myself, lynching is a terrible, Southern phenomena. Boy, 
am I wrong. I did a little research and studied the history over the 
weekend. I was saddened to learn that in my home county, St. Clair 
County, on the Belleville Square, an African American was lynched. 
Another African American was lynched in Decatur, IL, a town in Central 
Illinois I represented for years. Sadly, other lynchings took place in 
parts of Illinois that you might not have guessed.
  I learned the history of Anna, IL. I won't say it on the floor 
because I don't want to put it in the Record. Unfortunately, the name 
``Anna'' has some racial connotations to it, which I will share 
privately with others. There was a lynching based on a person living in 
Anna who was lynched in Carroll, IL. This happened in the land of 
Lincoln. It happened in the North. It happened in my home State that I 
love. It is a reminder that hatred can be found everywhere.
  It is our job here with this bill to move forward and say to the good 
police: Thank you for serving us. Now join us in making sure we don't 
have bad police. In your ranks, you know the people who cannot be 
trusted with their badge and gun to use them responsibly. You know the 
people who shouldn't be policemen. Join us in making sure your ranks 
show real quality in the recruitment, in the training, and in the 
review of performance of all those who are serving in law enforcement.
  We need to do so much more. I am sure there is much more to be said. 
I want to thank my colleagues, Senators Booker and Harris, for bringing 
us to this moment. This is our moment.
  I beg Tim Scott, whom I dearly love as a colleague and a person, to 
join us in a bipartisan effort to do something historic at this moment.
  Don't believe we can't do it. Believe we can do the right thing that 
will stand the test of time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I want to begin where my colleague, 
the Senator from Illinois, left off, which is thanking Senator Booker, 
the Senator from New Jersey, Senator Harris, CBC, and the people 
protesting around this country for bringing us to this floor at this 
moment to demand urgent change.
  I am pleased to be joined by my colleague from the State of Maryland, 
Senator Cardin, from across the Potomac River, Senator Kaine, and, of 
course, Senator Durbin from Illinois. We are here because, like those 
millions of Americans taking to the streets around the country, we 
understand that this is a moment when we must turn the pain into 
progress. We must transform the pain of George Floyd's death and the 
unjust deaths of so many other Black Americans into deep and lasting 
change. We must bring the passionate pleas of the protesters across the 
Nation to the floor of the Senate to take action to root out systemic 
racism in all its ugly forms
  This is a deeply ingrained problem, and it is clear that tinkering 
around the edges is not enough. Systems embedded with racism need to be 
overhauled. The State in the form of the police cannot be allowed to 
continue unjustly taking the lives and liberty of Black men and women. 
We must change the nature of policing. We need to change the culture.
  Here in the Senate, we must change laws to compel changes in culture. 
Let us remember that the police as an institution are a reflection of 
the greater society, and we have an obligation to change all those 
institutions where we find ingrained racist practices, everywhere we 
find it, since the Nation stood horrified by the video of George Floyd 
gasping for breath, crying out ``I can't breathe'' as his life was 
snuffed out of him with a knee to his neck.
  Other Black men have senselessly died at the hands of police.
  By now, we probably have all seen the video of Rayshard Brooks. He 
fell asleep in his car after drinking. He was then interviewed by 
police for over 20 minutes. If you haven't watched that encounter, I 
urge you to do so because after that 20-minute conversation, he ended 
up dead with two bullets in his back. That encounter should never have 
ended that way.

[[Page S2991]]

  Not far from here, in Woodstock, VA, we had another recent encounter 
that did not end in violence but exposed some of the racist assumptions 
that are too often wired into police responses and into societal 
responses. A Black pastor and Air Force veteran saw a man and woman 
disposing of an old refrigerator on his property. He told them to stop. 
The two were upset that the pastor would not let them dump this 
refrigerator on his property, and they grew irate. They went away, and 
they came back with three others. Then these five White people 
surrounded the pastor, began jostling him, taunting him, calling him 
names, and saying they didn't give a darn about his life and the Black 
Lives Matter stuff.
  In defense, he drew a gun, which he legally carried. He called 9-1-1 
to get the police to come. The police did come. They arrested and 
handcuffed the Black pastor while the five White people continued to 
threaten him and wave as the police took him away.
  The sheriff in Woodstock has apologized, and the proper charges, 
including hate crime charges, have been filed against those who 
trespassed and harassed the pastor, but that initial response tells you 
what you need to know.
  Those are the kinds of encounters that Black men and women face 
everywhere in this country on a regular basis--North, South, East, and 
West.
  It reflects the same impulse of the woman in Central Park, NY, who 
was asked by a Black man and birdwatcher enthusiast to obey the law and 
leash her dog. Instead, she called the police on him to tell them that 
an African American was threatening her life. She was exploiting the 
fact that she would likely be believed.
  It is same ingrained and racist impulses that resulted in five Black 
youth--now known as the exonerated five but who were locked up and 
spent years and years in prison after being falsely accused of a brutal 
assault in that same Central Park in New York.
  It is the same racist narrative of one of the first American films, 
``The Birth of a Nation,'' showed by Woodrow Wilson in the White House.
  You can draw a straight line from slavery to Jim Crow, legal 
segregation, de facto segregation, and institutionalized racism to the 
deaths of George Floyd and so many other Black Americans.
  Tinkering with the system will not be enough. Calling for more data 
and transparency is necessary, but it will not be enough. We have to 
take up and pass the Justice in Policing Act.
  I want to thank Senators Booker and Harris and the Congressional 
Black Caucus for leading this legislative effort.
  The Supreme Court yesterday had an opportunity to take up and change 
the doctrine of qualified immunity. They chose not to. Qualified 
immunity has allowed police and other State officials to act with 
impunity. There must be consequences for unjustly depriving citizens of 
life and liberty. The changes called for in the Justice in Policing Act 
are necessary to protect individuals, to protect communities, and to 
protect all those police officers who uphold their oath to protect the 
communities they serve.
  The police are the agents of the State. Holding police accountable 
and requiring justice in policing is just the first step. We must also 
confront the other manifestations of systemic racism and the 
institutions and societal norms that allow them to continue. We must 
dismantle them with the same deliberate actions that ingrain them in 
the first place.
  Tinkering with the system will not be enough. We need dramatic 
reforms in our criminal justice system. We have less than 5 percent of 
the world's population but 20 percent of its prison population--
something that the Senator from New Jersey has spoken about often, as 
have my colleagues. We need to change that. That is a stain on our 
country. We need to get rid of the private prison system that gives 
some corporations a financial incentive to propagate a system that 
locks so many people up, but we need many other changes as well.
  We know that COVID-19 has disproportionately killed people of color. 
We must address the underlying health disparities that lead to 
radically different outcomes for the Black community from COVID-19 to 
maternal mortality.
  President Trump celebrated the fact that the May unemployment rate 
was 15 percent. That is nothing in and of itself to celebrate. It means 
millions and millions of Americans are out of work through no fault of 
their own. But he neglected to mention that the Black unemployment rate 
went up in that May report because we have deep inequities from our 
systems of income and wealth.
  We have deep inequalities in our school systems. Title I is 
persistently underfunded by over $30 billion every year. Think about 
the $2.1 trillion we are spending to help keep the economy from going 
underwater in this short period of time. My goodness, we could spend 
$300 billion over 10 years to fully fund title I.
  We are seeing continued discrimination in housing and the Department 
of Housing and Urban Development has to make efforts to advance 
fairness.
  We have a lot of work to do in this country. We have a lot of work to 
do in the Senate.
  This is a moment of reckoning for this country--another one. This 
time, let's not allow it to pass and let's start--let's start--right 
now by taking up and passing the Justice in Policing Act. But that is 
just a start. We have so much more work to do to build a truly more 
perfect union and to live up to the promise of equal rights and equal 
justice and equal opportunity and really ensure that we have equal 
justice under law, which of course is ensconced above the Supreme Court 
of the United States.
  Let's get to work. Let's do it now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I come to the floor today because it 
is time to end systemic racism with systemic change. So I am calling on 
my colleagues to work with us to immediately bring the Justice in 
Policing Act to the floor.
  I thank Senator Booker, who is here with us today, and Senator Harris 
for their work on this bill, as well as the House Members who are 
leading in the other Chamber. We must pass this bill, and we should do 
it immediately with bipartisan support.
  George Floyd should be alive today, but he isn't. He was murdered in 
my State. He was murdered in my city. He was murdered on videotape so 
the whole world could see it. The whole world saw as his life 
evaporated before our eyes.
  Our Nation has been left in pain, grieving, marching, and demanding 
justice. His murder has galvanized a nationwide movement for justice, 
both for George Floyd and for the Black community and communities of 
color across America that have experienced injustice for far too long--
not just injustice at the hands of the police, but also economic 
injustice, educational injustice. And, if anything, these last few 
months of this pandemic have shed a big magnifying glass and put it on 
top of what has been happening for way too long.
  As we grieve this loss, we have work to do in our own States, and 
that is justice in this particular case, including accountability for 
the officers involved. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whom I 
have known for many, many years--I am very sure that he will have full 
faith and has forever in his conviction for justice, and he is pursuing 
this case against the officers.
  But as lawmakers, we must also make systemic change. We cannot answer 
our Nation's calls for justice with silence. That would make us 
complicit. We cannot answer with what the President called domination. 
That would make us monsters. We must answer with action. That is what 
makes us lawmakers.
  Since I have come to the Senate 13 years ago, I have watched as 
change has come inch by inch. I see Senator Durbin with us today, who 
led the effort on changing the disparity on crack cocaine. I was a new 
member of the Judiciary Committee when he led that work. I see Senator 
Booker here. Both of them, as well as a number of us, worked on the 
FIRST STEP Act. That was really important to reduce sentencing for 
nonviolent offenders. But, again, it is inch by inch. We must move by 
miles.
  There is systemic racism at every level of our justice system, and it 
has

[[Page S2992]]

taken far too long to right these wrongs. And it is on us in Congress, 
especially on those of us who have worked in this system--mayors, 
prosecutors, attorneys general. Those of us who have seen what is 
happening have a special obligation to make this change.
  We took an oath as Senators. We didn't wave a Bible in the air for a 
photo op. We placed our hand on that Bible and swore to support and 
defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That 
enemy we face right now is racism; it is injustice.
  This is not a time for half measures and equivocation. It is a time 
for real change and swift action, including holding police officers 
accountable for misconduct and violence, changing police practices, and 
making our justice system more transparent.
  There are a lot of good police officers out there--a lot of good 
police officers--but they are brought down, just as our entire 
community is, when you have someone like Derek Chauvin commit the 
murder that he did. When they watch the videotape, they feel like we 
feel. And that is why this bill is so important--the Justice in 
Policing Act.
  This comprehensive legislation changes Federal law so that officers 
can be held accountable for misconduct and increases that transparency 
and improves police training.
  First, on accountability, the Justice in Policing Act will hold 
officers accountable for misconduct and violence by changing the 
Federal use-of-force standard from reasonable to necessary so that 
force is only used when necessary to prevent death or serious injury, 
and it requires States to adopt similar stands if they want to receive 
certain Federal funding.
  Changing the standard is not just some little legalese word that 
makes a change. It will save lives.
  When these changes have been adopted at the local level, there has 
been a significant drop in the use of force. These words can be the 
difference between whether a prosecutor can prove a case against a 
police officer or not.
  People ask what has happened around the country with some of these 
cases--some of these blatant things that people recently have seen on 
videotape.
  In my State, Philando Castile, who was in a neighboring jurisdiction 
to Minneapolis--look at what these standards are. Lawmakers have 
control over these standards. Even when a case like that was prosecuted 
with excellent prosecutors, who did their all, they were not able to 
get a guilty verdict. Look at the standards.
  In addition to improving the way that individual officers are held 
accountable for misconduct, the bill holds police departments 
accountable, because we know that there are systematic changes that are 
needed at police departments.
  I have called on the Department of Justice, along with 26 of my 
colleagues, to conduct a full-scale investigation into the patterns and 
practices of the Minneapolis Police Department. We have waited weeks 
for a response.
  Under the Obama administration, 25 of these pattern and practice 
investigations were brought. Under the Trump Justice Department, just 
one unit of one department in Springfield, MA, was examined.
  Now, just as I headed to the floor here, we got a letter from the 
Justice Department, but they did not commit to this investigation. They 
said they were going to continue to look at the evidence
  Meanwhile, the Governor of Minnesota and the State human rights 
department has had to fill in. They are conducting their own 
investigation, and I have faith that they will do the right thing. But, 
again, this should be coming from the Justice Department.
  We know that Minnesota is not the only State whose recent events have 
shown us misconduct from the police and that have experienced a pattern 
and practice that need to be examined. But, again, we wait that 
investigation from the Department of Justice.
  After what we saw on the video, is it not warranted in this case to 
have such an investigation? I would ask the Justice Department under 
Donald Trump and under William Barr: What facts would warrant an 
investigation if not these?
  In addition to improving the tools to hold police accountable, we 
also need to ensure that there is transparency so we can once again 
build trust with our communities. What does this mean? Well, it means 
that we have officers that actually get in trouble in one department 
and then they go to another department and no one even knows what 
happens. It means that the public does not have access to information 
about serious issues of misconduct that are held tightly within city 
departments and city archives in some place, when in fact it is a 
matter of life and death for the people of this country.
  And, of course, we need wholesale changes to the way policing 
happens. I worked with Senators Smith and Gillibrand to include 
provisions in the bill to require States to ban the use of choke holds 
in policing to receive certain Federal funding and to ban them overall.
  This would be an important change that actually would help with 
prosecutions across the country, if this practice was actually banned.
  George Floyd's murder, at the hands of police officers, was horrific 
and inhumane and, sadly, as we know, not the first or last time a Black 
man was taken too soon by those in uniform. We must stop this cycle of 
violence to get something done.
  We have an opportunity to make real change here, and if Leader 
McConnell refuses to bring this bill to the floor, he and his 
colleagues who support him are on the wrong side of history.
  In the words of George Floyd's family, whom I had the honor to speak 
with, ``We will demand and ultimately force lasting change by shining a 
light on this and by winning justice.''
  I will conclude with this. A few years ago, like so many of my 
colleagues, I went to Selma, AL, with Representative   John Lewis. I 
stood there on the bridge where he had his head beaten in. I was in awe 
of his persistence, his resilience, and his faith that this country 
could always do better.
  That weekend, after 48 years, the White police chief of Montgomery 
handed his police badge to Congressman Lewis, and he publicly 
apologized on behalf of police for not protecting Congressman Lewis and 
the Freedom Marchers 48 years before.
  I don't want it to take another 48 years for my city to heal. I don't 
want it to take another 48 years for my State to heal or for this 
country to heal or for our Nation to fix a justice system that has been 
broken since it was built. I want justice now. The voices you hear from 
across the country--they want justice now.
  It is time we delivered, and not just in platitudes. It is time we 
acted, and not just talk about acting. This is our moment. This is 
history. So let's make history.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). The Senator from Wyoming
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss the 
Senate plan for justice reform.
  First, it is important to note that justice will not come from any 
community with lawlessness. It will not come from any community with a 
disregard for law and order. It will not come from any community with 
radical cuts in police budgets in cities like New York and Los Angeles. 
It will not come from any community that defunds the police.
  These are not the solutions that Americans are seeking. Yet I see 
headlines from around the country with pictures of those demonstrating 
and applauding Democrat politicians who are calling for defunding of 
the police--the Democrat politicians who are demanding not just 
defunding but also dismantling the police in their own communities.
  That will not work. That will not work, and the American people see 
it and they know it. In fact, a new ABC poll finds that 64 percent of 
Americans oppose these dangerous, liberal ideas like defunding the 
police, and 60 percent oppose police department budget cuts.
  Liberal leaders, meanwhile--look, they have let anarchists occupy 
part of Seattle. You turn on the TV, and you can see what is happening 
there. They have actually burned down a police precinct.
  They called this area CHAZ--C-H-A-Z--the Capitol Hill Autonomous 
Zone. Can you imagine such a thing? Well, now they have renamed it to 
CHOP, which stands for the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest. Whatever they 
want to

[[Page S2993]]

call it, to me and to Americans all across the country, it is still 
criminal lawlessness.
  Democrats and Republicans need to stand up to these dangerous 
radicals. We must never defund or disband the police--never. Defunding 
police departments is a dangerous idea. Violent crime will spike. Call 
911, and no one will be there to respond to your emergency.
  I believe that rather than defund, we must defend the police as 
appropriate and make sure that we invest more in law enforcement, not 
less. We need to improve police training, accountability, transparency, 
recruiting, and community engagement, and that is what the Republican 
bill does.
  House Democrats have written a very partisan bill, aimed at making 
over and taking over--not just making over but also taking over--
policing in America. The Democrats' plan would nationalize the police--
nationalize it--18,000 police units and 800,000 police officers--
nationalize the police and, of course, without adequate funding.
  The truth is that the House isn't even in session. Their plan was 
written in secret. House Democrats didn't consult Republicans and, 
apparently, didn't even consult a number of their own Members. They 
didn't plan to debate the bill and don't plan to debate it for a couple 
of weeks.
  As you know, Republicans, on the other hand, have been working and 
listening, and we are leading. Our effort, of course, is led by Senator 
Tim Scott of South Carolina. We have developed what I believe is a 
smart plan and a workable solution. The bill is called the JUSTICE Act. 
It is written to garner bipartisan support, and I hope some of our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join in this effort.
  This is a sensible measure that will make bipartisan justice reform a 
reality that we need. It is not a political exercise. It is practical 
legislation, and it deserves to become law. So I hope Democrats will 
join in the effort.
  The JUSTICE Act includes a number of very important reforms. It 
provides for every police officer in the country to use body cameras to 
curb the unnecessary use of force. I will tell you that I believe that 
body cameras have made a difference in changing the hearts of Americans 
all across the country.
  It requires States that receive Federal grants to report details of 
all uses of force causing death or serious injury. For the first time, 
we will have real, actionable data.
  It promotes greater access to officer employment records to improve 
hiring practices. This prevents bad officers from moving from one 
department to another.
  It provides funds to help police departments recruit and hire officer 
candidates that better reflect the diversity of the communities in 
which they serve.
  It requires higher standards for police to obtain and use no-knock 
search warrants. These warrants will allow officers to enter homes 
without announcing their presence.
  Our bill creates two commissions to report back to Congress. A new 
commission on civil rights will study and report on ways to address 
issues affecting Black men and boys, and a criminal justice commission, 
modeled on the 
9/11 Commission, will recommend criminal justice reforms.
  Now, the Senate has already passed this commission, and we have done 
it unanimously. We sent it to the House and they have failed to act.
  Our bill also requires police training on deescalation tactics and 
alternatives to the use of force.
  I believe the JUSTICE Act is important legislation. I would like to 
see it on the floor in the very near future.
  Still, there are limits to Federal action. Law enforcement is 
governed by State laws and is largely managed by local officials. State 
and local leaders must step up and do their part.
  With the JUSTICE Act, we have taken an essential step forward in what 
we all realize is a necessary process.
  So I urge all my colleagues--on both sides of the aisle--to support 
this plan for necessary justice reform.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to complete my 
remarks before the lunch recess.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as the Nation discusses the need for 
police reforms, our work in the Senate to deliver those reforms is 
ramping up. This afternoon, the Judiciary Committee, on which the 
Presiding Officer and I serve, will be holding a hearing to examine the 
use of force and community relations.
  I am glad that our witnesses include two outstanding Texas 
witnesses--Erin Nealy Cox, the U.S. Attorney of the Northern District 
of Texas, and Chief Art Acevedo, Chief of the Houston Police Department 
and also the chair of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. I know they 
will be able to help shed some light on the changes that need to be 
made to restore trust between officers and the communities they serve, 
and I appreciate their willingness to share their perspectives with us.
  It is important, I believe, for us to hear from a variety of sources 
as we debate what those potential reforms might look like: those who 
represent law enforcement, community and faith-based organizations, and 
the men and women who get up every day and put on the uniform to 
protect us by serving in law enforcement agencies. We need to hear from 
all of them.
  In recent weeks, African Americans across the country have shared 
their experiences with law enforcement--stories we have heard of being 
profiled, discriminated against, targeted, and having a negative 
perception of law enforcement that even in dangerous situations they 
are afraid to call the police. Really, the way it was described in a 
meeting I had on Friday in Dallas by Chief Hall and Sheriff Brown is 
that they called it a wedge between law enforcement and some minority 
communities for lack of trust. John Crusoe, the district attorney, said 
because of the number of offenses for which minorities are arrested and 
prosecuted, it seemed to be disproportionate. They have the impression 
that somehow they are being targeted unfairly. We know that even our 
friend, Tim Scott, an African-American Senator, has said he knows what 
it is like to be driving while Black and to be stopped, where somebody 
who looks like me would not be stopped by the police.
  We need to work our way through this. We know that Black parents have 
spoken openly about their concerns for their own sons and daughters and 
that lessons that they have given them of what they should do if pulled 
over by the police: turning off the car, rolling down the windows, 
placing their hands on the dashboard, and explaining what they are 
doing before reaching in their pocket for their driver's license.
  Well, the lack of trust between law enforcement and our communities 
isn't unfounded, but it is unsustainable. In order for every American 
to not only be safe but feel safe, we need to enact long overdue 
reforms to our Nation's police departments. Mostly, these are not 
prescriptive in nature. These are in the realm of being an assistance 
to our law enforcement officials and not somehow assuming, as some do, 
that racial discrimination is rampant among law enforcement. I don't 
believe that. I don't believe that there is systemic racial 
discrimination in our law enforcement officers where they target 
minorities. I just don't believe that.
  I do believe there are some bad actors who abuse their power and 
violate even the status of their own police department. And, 
unfortunately, in the example of the officer who had his knee on the 
neck of George Floyd, we know that there have been 17 separate 
complaints made against him in their internal affairs division there, 
but, apparently, neither the police department nor the city 
leadership--the mayor and city council--did anything about it, or if 
they did, we have not yet learned about it.
  Well, we know that Senator Scott has been leading the effort in our 
conference to try to come up with a reasonable package of legislative 
responses, and it is really kind of surprising to me to see the overlap 
between the political parties and also our colleagues in the House.

[[Page S2994]]

  Now, there are some things that I don't think we should do. For 
example, there are some who call for reforming qualified immunity, a 
judicial doctrine that protects the discretionary acts of a government 
employee or government official and holds them financially responsible 
only if they violate an established standard. Well, the same legal 
doctrine that protects police officers protects school teachers as 
well, and I will bet that a number of our colleagues who are calling 
for wholesale reform of qualified immunity didn't even know that.
  Well, as I said, it is important that we hear from a variety of 
voices, and that is why I appreciate Mayor Johnson in Dallas hosting a 
roundtable with a group of law enforcement leaders and faith leaders 
who are committed to delivering real change. I spent a few minutes 
talking about what we are doing here in Washington, but I spent most of 
my time listening. I think that is something we need to do more of--to 
listen. We are all pretty good at talking, but we need to do more 
listening.
  Everyone agrees that there is a problem--a big one--that will not go 
away if we ignore it. As the mayor acknowledged, the fact that everyone 
agrees that the status quo is not sustainable represents progress in 
and of itself. That is the first step toward solving a problem--
recognizing that you have one. But now it is time to turn that 
consensus into collective action.

  We know that many of the changes that need to be made will happen at 
the local and State level. At the U.S. Congress, we have a Capitol 
Police, but we don't control what happens in the Minneapolis Police 
Department or the Dallas Police Department or San Antonio or any other 
locally run and controlled law enforcement agency. We know that they 
are not all the same. Most major law enforcement agencies, like the one 
in Dallas, have deescalation training. It has been mandatory for years.
  So when people talk about doing that and mandating it here from 
Washington, the fact is that most of our major law enforcement agencies 
are already doing a lot of these things, like banning choke holds, for 
example. One of the participants in our roundtable was Frederick 
Frazier, a longtime law enforcement officer who actually trains 
officers in deescalation.
  More recently, the Dallas Police Department banned choke holds, as I 
mentioned, and any use of force intended to restrict a person's 
airways. They have also embraced a policy requiring officers to 
intervene in a situation where use of force is unnecessary and 
inappropriate. For example, if a law enforcement officer sees another 
officer use excessive force or dealing with that use of force 
inappropriately, the Dallas Police Department requires the other 
officers who witnessed that to intervene--something we did not see 
happen in Minneapolis.
  During our discussion, Chief Hall also discussed steps they are 
taking to release body camera or dash camera footage and overall 
increased transparency. Similar changes are being made in cities across 
Texas and across the country, and I think transparency is an important 
area where changes can and should occur. A one-size-fits-all Federal 
approach to policing would be, I think, a mistake.
  But here in Washington, we do have a role to play. We have both the 
opportunity and the responsibility to ensure that America's police 
departments are helping public safety and are not considered to be a 
threat by the communities they serve. The bill being led by Senator 
Scott would take major steps in the right direction. While the final 
details are being ironed out, our discussions have included a range of 
proposals that would address everything from training to transparency, 
to minority hiring.
  I am not interested in passing a bill for the sake of just checking a 
box and saying we have done something significant. That route is sure 
to lead to even more problems. I am interested in delivering real 
reforms, as I am confident all of my colleagues here in the Senate are, 
and I think our legislative efforts can produce a product that will be 
responsive to the crisis we are now experiencing--a crisis largely of 
trust.
  Of course, for those changes to reach communities in Texas, they also 
need to be able to pass not only a Republican-controlled Senate but a 
Democratic-controlled House and be signed by President Trump, and I 
believe the legislation we will unveil tomorrow could deliver in each 
of those bodies. I think each of us has a responsibility to take action 
to repair and address the fear, the anger, and the lack of trust 
between law enforcement and our communities, and this bill does an 
important first step.
  I am proud to have worked with Senator Scott and all of our 
colleagues in this effort, and we all will make our contribution before 
we are through. I am looking forward to sharing those details tomorrow 
during the press conference.
  With that, I yield the floor.

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