[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 155 (Wednesday, September 9, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5513-S5514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HAWLEY:
  S. 4543. A bill to subsidize the salaries of State and local law 
enforcement officers and promote officer hiring and retention, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to address the 
growing crisis in our country, in our cities and towns across our 
country: a crisis of law and order, yes, a crisis of the rule of law, a 
crisis of confidence, a crisis of solidarity. As our cities and towns 
come under siege, as so many of them descend into violence and 
lawlessness night after night, we witness before our eyes the fraying 
of the American fabric, the breaking of American bonds.
  The violence that we are witnessing is not just about the individual 
lives harmed or lost, neighborhoods destroyed, businesses burned and 
looted, families living in fear, whole neighborhoods cowering behind 
locked doors. No. The devastation that we are seeing, the crisis that 
we are facing is about the confidence in our society itself, in our 
ability to come together, to live together, to find common ground, to 
build this common community and pursue that more perfect union. All of 
that is under threat in this current crisis of lawlessness, of lack of 
respect for the rule of law, of the decline of due process and law and 
order.
  Let's just be clear. These are not peaceful protests that we are 
seeing across the country. They are violent and increasingly violent 
riots and attacks and looting, and I am sorry to say that too many in 
the media and my colleagues across the aisle are appeasing the mobs and 
the Marxists whose desire is to burn our cities down, to burn our 
neighborhoods to the ground.
  These attacks are occurring because they are increasingly enabled by 
the mainstream press and local and national politicians who are pushing 
a historically fraudulent version of American history, one where 
America is a fundamentally racist nation, one where America is 
systemically evil, one where police officers are cast as agents of 
oppression.
  What our leaders fail to recognize is that our police officers, the 
brave men

[[Page S5514]]

and women in blue, those who choose day in and day out, of their own 
volition, of their own accord, to go out to the streets, to put their 
lives on the line to serve and protect their neighborhoods, their 
fellow citizens, and to stand for our values--those police officers are 
an example and exemplars of our deepest held and most cherished beliefs 
because, without those police officers--let's just be clear--the 
Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, those things are 
just words on a page.
  Without law enforcement officers giving their lives, risking their 
lives to enforce and make available the fair and equal rule of law, 
well, our Constitution is just a parchment barrier. It may as well not 
exist.
  Now, our police officers are the best among us. They are the 
guardians of our neighborhoods. They are the sentries on the streets. 
But too often now, in the press, right here in this body, we hear 
attacks on police officers, we hear rushes to judgment. These voices of 
criticism don't see police as human beings, as working men and women 
whose experience and lives mirror our own, and too often these critics 
don't see the suffering, the suicides, the low morale that police 
officers across this Nation face.
  The consequences of this mistreatment that law enforcement are facing 
in this country are becoming ever clearer. Police departments are 
facing increasing retirements. They are struggling to retain the 
officers they have and struggling to hire new ones. Local law 
enforcement report plummeting morale as officers face increasing 
violence and police departments struggle to pay their officers a salary 
that is commensurate with the work that they do, work that is more 
challenging today with the riots and looting sweeping across our 
cities.
  What our officers need is not less funding. What they need is not 
defunding. What they need is not disrespect. What they need is support. 
What they need is for the leaders of this country and the good men and 
women of this country to say: We are with you; we support you; we will 
stand with you in the important and vital job that you do. They need 
more funding, not less; more recognition, not less.
  Our Federal Government exists to provide for the general welfare. 
Well, I believe it is time that Congress lived up to that promise. So 
let's make it simple. Let's give our officers a pay raise. Let's give a 
pay raise to every cop in America, and let's do it right now. Let's 
provide new funding for police departments across this Nation to hire 
more cops and to put them out on the beat. Let's put our money where 
our mouth is and stand by our law enforcement in this vital time for 
them and this vital time for our Nation.
  That is why, today, I am introducing legislation to back our police. 
My bill would authorize new funding through the Department of Justice 
to permit State and local police to raise the salaries of officers up 
to 110 percent of local median earnings. That is a real wage boost, and 
it would be available under my bill right now. It would provide funding 
to hire new officers to boost manpower, and it would withhold this 
funding from any city or jurisdiction that defunds their police and 
tries to cut officer pay.
  I can tell you, for law enforcement in States like mine, in Missouri, 
this could mean a raise of thousands of dollars a year, and our law 
enforcement deserve it. Not only would this legislation help officers; 
it would help all Americans by working to build a safer nation for our 
families to thrive and our communities to grow as one people together. 
Through safety, we can have solidarity.
  This bill is named in honor of David Dorn, the retired St. Louis 
police captain who was killed in June trying to protect his neighbors 
and his friends and his own neighborhood from violent looters. It is 
dedicated to all of those officers who have been a victim of violence 
this year.
  It is time that we rejected the false narrative that the police are 
inherently oppressive; that America is inherently evil; that structural 
racism and structural oppression define this country, its past, its 
present, and its future; and that the police are instruments of this 
oppression, of this history, of this evil.
  It simply isn't true. Instead, it is time to stand, again, with our 
law enforcement, to affirm the vital work that they do, to affirm the 
vital role that they play in making available the rule of law for every 
American, in making available and protecting the vital rights of every 
American. And it is time--by recommitting ourselves to safe streets, to 
the rule of law, to due process--to work on reforging those bonds of 
community, of solidarity, and of togetherness that are being torn apart 
night after night after night with the burning and the rioting in our 
streets.
  It is a fundamental choice we face. No nation can long endure 
lawlessness. No nation can long endure the breakdown of the basic 
operation of law. That is why the job that our law enforcement officers 
do night after night on that thin blue line is so vital. It is time 
that we stood up and thanked them for it. It is time that we stood up 
and supported them in it.
  May God bless our men and women who go to stand on that line every 
night
                                 ______