[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 105 (Wednesday, June 16, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4560-S4561]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Filibuster

  As America prepares to celebrate Juneteenth 2021, we must also 
remember that the ``absolute equality,'' promised at that first 
Juneteenth in 1865, has too often been denied to African Americans.
  Just a year after the Civil War ended, Southern States enacted the 
``Black Codes,'' State laws meant to preserve White supremacy. In 
response, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th and 
15th Amendments to the Constitution, guaranteeing African Americans due 
process of law and Black men the right to vote.
  Unbowed, Southern States invented Jim Crow laws, creating new hurdles 
to voting and participation that made it nearly impossible for many 
African Americans to exercise their voting rights and other basic 
rights of citizenship.
  As the great activist W.E.B. DuBois wrote in his essay ``Black 
Reconstruction in America,'' ``The slave went free; stood a brief 
moment in the sun and moved back down again toward slavery.''
  This betrayal of the promise of freedom for African Americans was 
possible, in part, because of misguided Court decisions by the Supreme 
Court, especially the infamous 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, which 
enshrined the concept of ``separate but equal.'' That odious decision 
stood for more than 50 years as the law of the land, making racial 
discrimination both legal and enforceable.
  The betrayal of equality for African Americans also was abetted by 
southern segregationist Senators who wielded the filibuster as a weapon 
for decades to stop civil rights measures in Congress.
  I know our Senate minority leader and some of his colleagues on the 
other side get upset when anyone utters the words ``filibuster'' and 
``Jim Crow'' too close together. They insist that the filibuster has 
nothing to do with race. Well, history, in fact, proves otherwise.
  Historian Sarah Binder is a leading expert on the filibuster. 
According to her analysis, of the 30 measures between 1917 and 1994 
that were killed on this Senate floor by the filibuster, ``exactly half 
addressed [the issue of] civil rights . . . including measures to 
authorize Federal investigation and prosecution of lynching, [banning] 
the imposition of poll taxes, and [prohibiting] discrimination on the 
basis of race and housing.'' That total doesn't count other major civil 
rights measures, such as the Civil Rights Acts of 1967 and 1964, which 
passed only after lengthy filibusters by segregationist Senators.
  Today, Senator McConnell is vowing to use the filibuster, if 
necessary, to protect a flood of new State voting laws that are as 
racially discriminatory as we have seen since the Voting Rights Act of 
1965 officially barred Jim Crow from American elections. After record 
numbers of Americans braved a deadly pandemic to vote in the 2020 
elections, Republican-controlled State legislatures are rushing to pass 
new laws to make it harder--not easier, harder--for millions of 
Americans to vote, especially people of color.
  Supporters of these new voter suppression laws cite the Big Lie as 
their justification, Donald Trump's dangerous, discredited claim that 
the 2020 Presidential election was somehow stolen from him. That Big 
Lie has been rejected by State election officials of both parties, by 
our Nation's top election security experts, and by every Federal judge 
it has faced, including several appointed by President Trump himself. 
Sixty times President Trump went to Federal courts with his Big Lie, 
and 60 times he lost.
  Despite all of that, Senator McConnell and many of our Republican 
colleagues have vowed to filibuster our measure, known as the For the 
People Act, which includes provisions to protect voting rights, defend 
the integrity of elections, prevent billionaires from buying elections, 
and strengthening ethics.
  Their opposition to protecting the right to vote doesn't end there. 
Senator McConnell has also said he will oppose the John Lewis Voting 
Rights Advancement Act, a bill that Senator Leahy and I are working on 
in the Senate Judiciary Committee, that would restore and strengthen 
the protections of the Voting Rights Act.
  I will say this. In all fairness to the minority leader, his use of 
the filibuster is not limited to matters of civil rights and racial 
justice. Senator McConnell has transformed the filibuster from a rarely 
used tactic to a weapon of frequent mass obstruction.
  When Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, our Nation was 
teetering on the edge of a second Great Depression, and Senator 
McConnell said his top priority was to make President Obama ``a one-
term President.'' Not to rescue the economy--no, that wasn't his top 
priority. Not to help people who had lost their homes or business. 
Senator McConnell's No. 1 priority was to make President Obama a one-
term President. He would do that by dramatically increasing the use of 
filibusters in order to deny the new President every possible 
achievement
  Fast-forward to this year. President Biden is sworn in during an 
epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and sent 
our economy into deep recession, and Senator McConnell was quoted again 
saying: ``100 percent of our focus is on stopping this new 
Administration.'' Not stopping the virus nor the economic devastation 
we are facing, but stopping the new administration. Again, the weapon 
of choice for Senator McConnell is the filibuster.
  Three weeks ago, 42 Republican Senators stood with Senator McConnell 
and filibustered a bill to create an independent, bipartisan commission 
to investigate the deadly January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. This 
independent Commission's mission would have been to examine the attack 
on the Capitol and the events leading up to it. Fifty-six Senators, a 
clear majority, supported creation of the January 6 Commission. It 
wasn't enough. We needed 60 votes. Senator McConnell's filibuster 
prevailed again.
  For those who argue that the filibuster encourages bipartisan 
cooperation, let me tell you: The January 6 Commission bill was the 
result of intense bipartisan compromise. Negotiations were worked out 
by top Republicans and Democrats in the House, and it was filibustered 
by Senator McConnell regardless.
  The Commission would have been more comprehensive and less political 
than the inquiries into the insurrection being conducted by 
congressional committees. Like the 9/11 Commission, the January 6 
Commission would have subpoena authority to get to the truth.
  For a short while, Senator McConnell said he would keep an open mind 
about whether to support the bill. The night before the House voted to 
create the Commission, however, former President Donald Trump posted a 
screed on his blog denouncing the Commission as a ``Democratic Trap.'' 
That was all Senator McConnell needed to hear. The former President 
demanded that Republicans reject the Commission and added: ``Mitch 
McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, I hope you're listening.'' Well, it turns 
out that they were.
  The next day--after 35 House Republicans joined Democrats to create 
this January 6 Commission--Senator McConnell announced that he was 
going to filibuster it and oppose it. He asked members of his caucus, 
as a personal favor, to support his filibuster of the January 6 
Commission.
  This is where the abuse of the filibuster has brought us. We aren't 
able to break through the partisan gridlock even to investigate the 
worst attack on the Capitol of the United States of America in more 
than 200 years. How can anyone believe, after that shameful vote, that 
protecting the filibuster as it is currently misused is protecting our 
democracy? Cynical, overuse of the filibuster imperils our democracy. 
There has got to be a better way.

[[Page S4561]]

  Contrary to Senate myth, the filibuster is not in our Constitution--
just the opposite. The man who wrote that Constitution knew well how 
requiring supermajorities for routine bills had doomed the Articles of 
Confederation. They deliberately rejected a supermajority requirement 
for common legislation when they wrote the Constitution.
  Defenders say the filibuster encourages bipartisan compromise. Look 
around you. Does anyone really believe for a minute that this is the 
new golden age of bipartisan compromise in the Senate?
  There are proposals to mend the filibuster. We could bring back a 
talking filibuster. We all remember the movie ``Mr. Smith Goes to 
Washington,'' where he withered and fell to the floor at his desk 
carrying on an endless filibuster. It isn't that way any longer. 
Senators now can start a filibuster with a phone call and head home for 
the weekend. That is not what the filibuster was designed for. If a 
Senator feels strongly enough about an issue to grind the Senate to a 
halt, they should be willing to stand up and speak their mind and stay 
on the Senate floor.
  Some have proposed changing the number of votes needed to end debate, 
possibly lowering the 60-vote requirement for cloture to 55. That is a 
precedent that at least is consistent with historical trends, but 
leaders of both parties need to agree on it.
  I am willing to consider any reasonable plan that promotes genuine 
bipartisan cooperation and ends the tyranny of the minority. What we 
cannot do is nothing.
  After a minority of Senators used the filibuster to prevent--for 
now--the creation of the January 6 Commission, we all went home for a 
long Memorial Day weekend. On my flight home and all that weekend, I 
thought of the young men who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-day, 
running straight into enemy fire, knowing well that they might die to 
preserve democracy. And many of them did. Now we see Members of the 
Senate routinely abusing the filibuster because they are afraid to face 
an unpleasant vote or an angry insult from Donald Trump. Surely, we are 
better and braver than this.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.