[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 115 (Tuesday, June 23, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3146-S3147]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            The JUSTICE Act

  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Madam President, I come to the floor to 
continue a conversation, a dialogue, about the importance of moving 
forward on the motion to proceed on the JUSTICE Act.
  It was just an hour and a half ago, in front of the entire press 
corps, when I, Leader McConnell, and the leadership team on the 
Republican side had a very open conversation with the press about fact 
that voting for this motion to proceed is voting for an open process. 
He said--and I agree--that this process must be open. I have asked that 
we have amendments, and the leader has said yes.
  So, to my friends on the other side who believe that somehow--in some 
way--this does not include an actual open process, wherein you have a 
chance over several days, in the sight of the public, to talk about and 
offer your amendments, that is wrong. If you want a process whereby you 
will have an opportunity to persuade those in this body and the 
American people about the value of your amendments, this motion to 
proceed is a motion you should vote for. More importantly, rather than 
persuading the American people that this is a motion to proceed that 
you should vote for, if you really want to get into police reform, we 
will need a vehicle with which to get there. The JUSTICE Act is that 
vehicle.
  Speaker Pelosi herself said--and I do not often quote Speaker Pelosi 
or even paraphrase Speaker Pelosi about something that she and I might 
agree on, but I agree here--that it would be important for us to have a 
conference, which would require this body to pass legislation. Then it 
would go to conference with the House. The only way we will pass 
legislation in this body is for there to be a bipartisan coalition of 
Republicans and Democrats, working together, because a majority of the 
Senate is not 51 out of 100. From a legislative purpose, the majority 
of the Senate is 60 votes. That means we require 60 votes to even start 
the process of saying to little boys and girls in communities of color 
around this country: We see you. We hear you.
  I grew up in some impoverished communities and in a single-parent 
household--mired in poverty. I understand how it feels to leave your 
home, get in a car, and be afraid of being stopped. I get that. I have 
spoken about that too many times already. What I will say is that this 
body has a chance to say to those kids: We see you. We hear your 
concerns.
  A motion to proceed is simply a procedural motion that says: Let's 
debate the underlying bill. Let's have a conversation in front of all 
of the American people about the importance of doing police reform the 
right way. If you don't trust the Republicans or if you don't trust the 
Democrats, you get to watch the process play out right here, within the 
world's greatest deliberative body--you can watch it play out right 
here, live on C-SPAN--and come to your own conclusions about the 
seriousness of this issue. Yet if we miss that golden opportunity--if 
we miss the opportunity to debate the underlying issues--all you will 
wind up with will be talking points and campaigns.
  You see, some believe that one side would rather campaign on police 
reform than solve police issues. I believe that both sides of the aisle 
have vast majorities of people who are willing to come to the table to 
have a serious debate on the underlying issues that have brought 
combustion into this Chamber and solve them, not have them explode. All 
of us do not have to tackle the issues like I did when I was 16 and 17 
and 18 and 25 and 26 and 30. We are all here now on this sacred ground, 
and we have the ability to say to that young man and to that young 
lady: We didn't just see you. We didn't just hear you. We acted on it. 
By doing so, I believe we can make a difference in the lives of 
Americans whom we actually save.
  There have been some criticisms. I sat in my office and listened to 
some of the criticisms about our JUSTICE Act by my friends on the other 
side. One of the criticisms was that the JUSTICE Act does not require 
new reporting measures on use of force. What? I sat in my office, 
speechless, because our legislation absolutely, positively, 
unequivocally requires more information. The House bill has a 10-
percent penalty, and our legislation has a 20-percent penalty, or twice 
the penalty.
  I heard that our legislation does not ban no-knock warrants, which is 
critically important because, in Louisville, KY, the conversation 
around no-knock warrants took a drastic turn in the wrong direction 
that led to the killing of Breonna Taylor. My friends were talking 
about how the House bill--their bill--bans no-knock warrants in drug 
cases, but when you open the legislation and read the pages, what it 
does ban are no-knock warrants for Federal agents. In Louisville, KY, 
those were not Federal agents. So the complaint and the concerns about 
what actually helps situations in places like Louisville, KY, aren't 
answered by the House bill
  I will be honest. In our legislation, we want to get the data around 
no-knock warrants so that we can actually direct the resources and the 
decisions in the right way. So, yes, you could say ours allows for a 
more deliberative process. Well, let's debate that, and let's come to 
an agreement.
  Next, I heard that the JUSTICE Act would not end choke holds and that 
their legislation would actually ban choke holds. Let's take a closer 
look. That is false. With strict penalties facing local police 
departments, they go after choke holds by holding off on grant dollars 
for local agencies and State agencies. Our legislation does the exact 
same thing. We go after local departments and State agencies by 
withdrawing some grant dollars.
  What theirs says about the ban on choke holds applies only to Federal 
agents. That is really important. Why is that important? When you are 
watching at home, you hear there will be a ban on choke holds, but you 
don't necessarily make the correlation or have the information to reach 
the conclusion that they are talking only about Federal agents. Why is 
that important? Because Eric Garner's was not an incident with a 
Federal agent. It was not.
  For 700,000 of the 800,000 law enforcement officers, the ban would 
not apply. That is really important information to share with the 
American people. Why is this so? It is called the Constitution. It is a 
pesky, little thing sometimes, but it is a fact. The Constitution does 
not allow for the Federal Government to dictate to those in local law 
enforcement what they can and cannot do. So they use the inducement of 
resources at the Federal level.
  I talked to 10 Democratic Senators today, and I told them all the 
same: Let's get on the floor and amend the bill and see what happens. 
By the way, our legislation says the same thing. We instruct the AG to 
figure out how to ban it for Federal officers, and we reduce money and 
take money away as a penalty for those departments that have not banned 
choke holds.
  The President's Executive order says that the certification process 
must include being certified by a governing agency that doesn't look 
favorably on choke holds. So whether you are in the House or whether 
you are a Senate Democrat or Republican or are in the White House, we 
are all closing in on the same outcome.
  Here is what may be just as important as the distinctions that, I 
hope, I have cleared up as to the differences that are not necessarily 
the biggest differences on the important issues of what they said this 
morning was not what we were doing. I think selling something is 
important, but you can sell by manipulating or you can sell by 
motivating. I want to be clear that our legislation says what it says, 
not what others say it doesn't say.
  Why am I so passionate about this issue? Beyond my 18 stops as a 
person of color, beyond my issues here in the Senate, beyond the fact 
that I am the one who grew up in poverty, in a single-parent 
household--beyond that point--in my legislation, which is the Senate 
Republican legislation, and the House legislation, there is so much 
common ground on which we can work, and to lose this moment for the 
kids and the young adults who are watching this process would be 
terrible. Let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean by the 
things that we have in common.
  Both sides agree on more deescalation training and on duty-to-
intervene

[[Page S3147]]

training. Both sides agree on ending choke holds. Both sides agree on 
passing anti-lynching legislation. Oh, by the way, I and Senator 
Grassley--the then-chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary--worked 
with Senator Harris and Senator Booker to get it passed not once in 
this Chamber but twice. It stalled in the House before it stalled over 
here. We got it done twice, and it is another area of agreement. Both 
sides agree on the importance of more minority hiring in law 
enforcement. Both sides agree that more body-worn cameras are a good 
thing. We actually go further and have penalties for not having the 
body cameras on, but both sides agree. Both sides agree on the creation 
of a National Criminal Justice Commission, which, by the way, was the 
No. 1 recommendation of President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century 
Policing.
  So why can't both sides agree on a motion to proceed? If there is 
that much commonality in the underlying legislation, if we are all 
watching the same pictures that we have all found disgusting and 
unbelievable, why can't we agree on tackling the issues in a 
substantive way here on the floor of the world's greatest deliberative 
body? That is what we are supposed to do here. We debate the issues. I 
want the Nation to see; I want the public to see; I want the world to 
see; I want all of America to see our debating this issue.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, across the country, there has been a 
national outcry for justice and for real changes in law to address 
police brutality and reflect the undeniable truth that Black lives 
matter.
  This week should be our opportunity in the U.S. Senate to come 
together--Republicans and Democrats--to begin to fix our broken 
policing system, which is what so many people in big cities and small 
towns in Oregon and in every State across America are demanding of us. 
Yet, instead of allowing that kind of bipartisan discussion, Leader 
McConnell is plowing ahead with partisan business, as usual, on a bill 
that falls very short of what the Senate ought to accomplish.
  I see my friend on the floor, Mr. Scott, the distinguished Senator 
from South Carolina. I want to make it clear that I have great respect 
for Senator Scott. He is an important member of the Senate Committee on 
Finance, on which both of us serve. I appreciate every opportunity to 
work with him. In fact, I think a fair number of people around the 
country will note the work we have just done in the last few weeks on 
nonprofit organizations. So we will be working together, I know, in the 
days ahead.
  Unfortunately, the majority leader is giving short shrift to this 
debate on ending systemic racism by putting forward an inadequate bill 
and essentially daring the other side to oppose it. That is not the way 
you bring together both sides to address big, important national 
challenges.
  Let me take just a few minutes to talk about some of the specific 
shortcomings of the legislation that Senator McConnell wants to bring 
to the floor. For example, how can 100 Senators not agree that choke 
holds are wrong and ought to be banned? That is what my Democratic 
colleagues and I have called for: a nationwide ban on choke holds, 
period--full stop.
  The Republican bill does not take that same strong, firm position. In 
my view, you cannot equivocate when it comes to a reform as basic as 
banning the choke hold. Anything short of a ban creates loopholes for 
the use of choke holds, and that is the wrong way to go for our 
country.
  Second, this bill doesn't create any real accountability for police 
misconduct. It doesn't set up independent investigations for 
prosecutions of police abuses. It doesn't create national standards for 
law enforcement. It does not end qualified immunity.
  Those issues are right at the center of the challenge of reforming 
policing in America, and they are the issues the American people want 
to see addressed head-on.
  A lot of what the majority's bill--Senator McConnell's bill--does 
with respect to police conduct is essentially collecting data. Nobody 
is protesting collecting data. What people are protesting on is they 
want to save lives. The Senate ought to do better and make those real 
changes that improve public safety.
  Third, the extreme militarization of our police forces in recent 
years. It is actually an issue that goes back more than a few years, 
but the danger of a military mindset in domestic law enforcement was 
never more clear than when Trump officials started talking about 
``dominating the battle space.''
  Our communities are not war zones; our citizens are not enemy 
combatants; and our police officers should not be occupying forces, so 
why has the United States undergone this years' long military 
mobilization on its own streets, against its own people?
  It is long past time for this to end and for all our communities to 
institute 21st century community policing policies, but the Republican 
bill does not do that either.
  The truth is, Senator Scott's bill does take a few good steps, like 
establishing the duty to intervene and making lynching a Federal crime. 
Those are issues that I and other Democrats would like to work on with 
Senator Scott on a comprehensive bill, but that is not what Senator 
McConnell has put on offer this week.
  My concern is that if the Senate takes up the McConnell bill, it is 
going to just be business as usual under the Republican leader: a short 
debate cut off arbitrarily, not enough votes, and not enough 
improvements to the actual bill. I just don't believe that, when 
millions and millions of Americans are demanding more, that business as 
usual is somehow acceptable.
  That video of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police 
stirred a part of America's national consciousness. There have been 
peaceful protests in all 50 States over the last few weeks calling for 
us to stamp out racial injustice--people of all ethnicities, of all 
ages, all genders. It has been a rare display of common purpose and 
common engagement in America.
  As Senators, we have an obligation to respond to that call with 
something significantly better than business as usual. I know that 
Senator Scott wants to get there. I know that my Democratic colleagues 
and I want to get there.
  I am proud to support Senator Booker and Senator Harris, who have 
been doing outstanding work on this issue, and I know that, regardless 
of the outcome of tomorrow's vote, we are going to keep working.
  As for this week, the Senate would be wrong to just rush this process 
and just check the box with a partisan process, a partisan approach, 
before shrugging its shoulders and moving on to the task of dealing 
with more far-right judges.
  So I am going to vote against cloture. I urge my colleagues to do the 
same.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Boozman). The Senator from Minnesota