[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 3 (Wednesday, January 5, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S38-S43]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Florida.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2895

  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, last month I was proud to see 
the Senate come together in a bipartisan effort and pass a 
Congressional Review Act measure to overturn President Biden's 
unconstitutional Federal vaccine mandate on private businesses. In that 
bipartisan vote, a majority of U.S. Senators sent a clear message that 
these job-killing mandates are wrong and have no place in our country's 
fight against COVID-19.
  Then, just days after Christmas, President Biden said something very 
interesting. While he was talking with Governors about the COVID-19 
pandemic, he admitted:

       Look, there is no Federal solution. This gets solved at a 
     State level.

  This is President Biden's message: States should be leading the 
effort. Now, that doesn't mean there isn't a role for the Federal 
Government. But what we have seen from the Biden administration is no 
progress, just worsening cases, and the horrible job-killing 
consequences of his unconstitutional mandates on private businesses.
  I want to be clear: His unconstitutional mandates are job killers. 
Back in October, the Federal Reserve reported that vaccine mandates 
were widely cited by businesses as a reason for low labor supply and 
hiring and retention issues. It was a finding my Republican colleagues 
and I have been warning about for months before their report, and it is 
directly tied to inflation.
  When the labor supply is reduced, prices go up, and families, 
especially those on low and fixed incomes, suffer. Restaurants, grocery 
stores, gas stations, and small businesses all have to charge more.
  I heard about a restaurant owner in St. Petersburg, FL, who had to 
take certain items off the menu because they simply cost too much, and 
he can't pass the cost on to his customers. He has even seen the price 
of oil and to-go boxes more than double.
  I talked to an operator of a food bank in Osceola County, FL. She 
used to see 15 families each day, and now she is seeing upward of 70 
families. Food prices have gone through the roof. It is more expensive 
for her to get food to give to people hurting at the very time demand 
is up. This is the reality for families and small businesses all across 
America, and vaccine mandates do nothing but make these problems even 
worse.
  I can't imagine why, just when our country is working to get back on 
its feet, the President of the United States would be pushing policies 
that kill jobs, but that is exactly what he is doing. Now lockdown-
loving Dr. Fauci and President Biden want to double down on their 
insane mandates and are considering forcing every American who wants to 
fly to show proof of vaccine before boarding an airplane. This is just 
another Orwellian response from the Biden administration and radical 
Democrats that does nothing to protect the American people.
  Providing information about the virus, providing tests, supporting 
vaccine and therapy developments, and getting the economy back on track 
should be the only role of the Federal Government in this pandemic.
  Congress has to take a stand and protect the American people from 
these

[[Page S39]]

communist China-style policies that are meant to divide us. That is why 
a few months ago, I introduced the Prevent Unconstitutional Vaccine 
Mandates for Interstate Commerce Act. The bill would prevent Federal 
Agencies, like the Department of Transportation and Department of 
Commerce, from requiring proof of vaccination for companies trying to 
do business across State lines.
  Importantly, it would block the Federal Government from making 
airline passengers show proof of vaccine before catching a flight, 
which is exactly what Dr. Fauci wants to do.
  This bill also protects truckers and will ensure that the Biden 
administration can't ruin our supply chains even more. Our truckers are 
the key to fixing Biden's supply chain crisis, and we should do 
everything we can to protect them.
  President Biden has continually showed us his track record of failed 
policies and a mandate for domestic airline passengers would only add 
to his growing failures and blame shifting. We saw it in his failed and 
deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan. We have seen his administration's 
complete failure to handle the crisis across the southern border. We 
see it every day in President Biden's inability to fight inflation by 
stopping reckless spending. We continue to see his failure and complete 
void of leadership in how this administration is fighting COVID-19.
  Now, I am sure my Democrat colleagues will say that this legislation 
isn't needed because at this exact moment, there is not a vaccine 
mandate to fly on a plane, but they said the same thing last year when 
we tried to preemptively block vaccine mandates for private businesses. 
They claimed the President has committed not to do that. We know the 
President broke that promise.
  The American people deserve better than politicians who continue to 
mislead them on the Federal Government's failures to fight COVID 
properly. The back-and-forth has to end.
  We must end these ridiculous, unconstitutional vaccine mandates and 
focus on getting our economy back on track. That is why, as I mentioned 
earlier, the U.S. Senate passed a Congressional Review Act measure to 
invalidate President Biden's vaccine mandate on a bipartisan basis. The 
Senate, along with the majority of Americans, doesn't believe that the 
Federal Government should force people to choose between taking the 
vaccine and losing their job. That is why I am again demanding that the 
Federal Government stop trying to force the American people to follow 
draconian, job-killing mandates that hurt families.
  This is the second time I have come to the floor to try to pass this 
bill and protect the rights of American families and businesses. I 
would like to thank Senators Cynthia Lummis, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and 
Roger Marshall for joining me in introducing this important and 
urgently needed legislation. This is a commonsense bill, and I hope all 
my colleagues will support it.
  As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from 
further consideration of S. 2895 and the Senate proceed to its 
immediate consideration.
  I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and 
passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid 
upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The junior Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Reserving the right to object, my colleague is right--
he has been to the floor to talk about this issue, and I don't think, 
though, that he has all the facts right.
  We just had a major transportation hearing in the Commerce Committee 
before we left for the holiday recess, and we heard from airline 
executives--some who had implemented their own vaccines, some who had 
implemented other mandates and systems on their own, and others who 
basically responded to the Federal Government's desire to say that 
passengers would be required to wear masks. All of them said that this 
was a big success. All of them said that this, along with the Federal 
dollars that went into preserving the airlines, allowed us and our 
economy to recover better than other nations had; basically that when 
the upswing in transportation got to the point where people felt it was 
safe to travel, that those mechanisms themselves helped us have an 
airline sector and industry that could respond so that we literally, by 
Thanksgiving, were up to 85, 90 percent of where we had been the 
previous year.
  So my colleague, I think, would like us to predetermine today exactly 
everything we are going to do on this issue; that we would prohibit the 
President, the Department of Transportation, Amtrak, and the 
Transportation Security Administration from making these decisions in 
the future.
  Now, I can just tell you, I get up every day and I read the press. I 
also went to the gym today, and the first thing they said is, Where is 
your vaccination card or we are not letting you in? So there is the 
fact that businesses--the airlines and small businesses--are using this 
as a tool. Even though DC has the highest explosion of COVID cases in 
the Nation as a percentage right now--I understand that in the 
neighborhood I live in, there was a pretty hearty New Year's Eve, but 
everybody had to show a vaccination card to get into those businesses. 
Those businesses decided they were going to stay open. Those consumers 
decided they were going to participate--not the choice I would have 
made, but they decided to do that, and they showed their vaccination 
card.
  So these businesses, the ones that the Federal Government is involved 
in--Amtrak and our transportation system--they also might have further 
issues in the future that they want to look at, so why pass a bill 
today that restricts them from showing proof of COVID vaccine in order 
to travel?
  The proposals that were made at the time--we didn't really know 2 
years ago now what was going to happen. But I can say--and that is why 
we had our most recent hearings--that we were right that the 
transportation sector was going to be critical to helping us fight the 
pandemic, that it was going to be critical for us to respond in our 
economy, and that it was going to be critical to providing essential 
services to some areas of the United States. The things we did allowed 
that air service to respond, and those business leaders showed up. In 
fact, one of them made a little mistake and said: Oh, you know, I think 
HEPA filters have really, really good responses, and maybe we don't 
need anything.
  Well, he corrected that the next day. He corrected it the next day. 
He said: Oh, yeah, yeah, by the way, I believed in the mask mandate and 
still do.
  An airline executive was questioned by some of my colleagues, who 
said: Why did you implement your own vaccine mandate of your employees?
  He said: Because I wanted to have a workforce, and this is the best 
way I could get this workforce.
  So this isn't a clear-cut issue, but I know, right now, why should we 
prohibit Amtrak or anybody from a decision that some of these small 
businesses are making right in this neighborhood, here in DC or 
probably Baltimore? My colleague has just joined us on the Senate 
floor. These people are making these decisions, and all we are saying 
is that the Federal Government, instead of passing Senator Scott's 
bill, should also have that decision in the future in their toolbox if 
they so choose. Why? Because the movement of commerce and 
transportation is so important to our infrastructure. It is so 
important to us as a nation to keep it going. I don't want to preclude 
any of the tools in the toolbox at this moment.
  So therefore, Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. First off, I want to make sure my colleague 
understands what this bill would do. This bill would prevent Federal 
Agencies, like the Department of Transportation and the Department of 
Commerce, from requiring proof of vaccination for companies trying to 
do business across State lines.
  So what this bill does is say that the Federal Government is not 
going to mandate this. If a private business wants to say that you have 
to have a vaccine to come in, that is a decision that private business 
gets to make. But government shouldn't be in the position to tell a new 
business that they have to require a vaccine. I mean, that is not what 
you do.

[[Page S40]]

  What this does do is it is killing jobs. It is killing people and 
killing the jobs of people who worked their tail off in the prior 12 
months.
  Now, I don't know why this is controversial. The Senate, on a 
bipartisan basis, just passed a Congressional Review Act measure 
striking down President Biden's vaccine mandate. On a bipartisan basis 
we already decided we don't believe in what the President is doing.
  We have got families and businesses all across this country that are 
struggling to keep up with the cost of inflation, and the government 
should be doing everything it can to reduce inflation and get the 
economy going.
  Look, I know what it is like to go hungry because groceries cost too 
much. I watched my mom and my dad struggle for years. When prices rose, 
my mom took in odd jobs. When she struggled, we didn't have as much 
food on the table.
  It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to improve the 
economy and help families get ahead. We know the vaccine mandates are 
absolutely causing prices to rise. When prices rise, people are getting 
hurt, and they are making interstate commerce much more difficult.
  So instead of taking action to help families and curb inflation, the 
Biden Administration is taking every possible step to make it harder 
for them to put food on the table and afford to live in this country.
  The President has already said that this must be handled at the State 
level. I agree. And the Federal Government can take a step in this 
direction by ensuring vaccine passports won't be required for 
interstate commerce.
  They shouldn't be required to get on a plane. They shouldn't be 
required to carry goods across State lines.
  Even our Nation's healthcare providers know that mandates don't work. 
They stopped doing it in most cases. Just last month we saw hospitals 
across this country delay or suspend their vaccine mandates because 
they knew it was killing jobs.
  We know that Biden's unconstitutional mandates are going to make it 
more difficult to retain staff and deliver quality care to their 
patients. I don't understand why my colleague wants to give the 
government more power, more power, more power--upholding regulations 
that are causing prices to rise and forcing people to choose between 
keeping their jobs and getting a vaccine.
  We ought to give people the freedom to live their lives, to do 
exactly what my colleague just said: If a business wants to require a 
vaccine, they should require that. But if they don't, the government 
shouldn't be doing that. Our government should be giving people 
information, and let them make the decisions they want to make.
  I trust American families. I trust American businesses. They are 
smart enough to make informed decisions about their health. But my 
colleague's objection is bad for American families and bad for business 
owners, and I hope she will reconsider her objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.


                        Anniversary of January 6

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, tomorrow will mark the first anniversary 
of one of the darkest moments in our Nation's history. One year ago 
tomorrow, a mob attacked this building. A mob of Americans, incited by 
a sitting U.S. President, was determined to prevent the peaceful 
transition of power that is the hallmark of our representative 
democracy. A mob of Americans savagely attacked and overwhelmed the men 
and women of the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police 
departments, smashed their way into this sacred space, and disrupted 
the joint session of Congress fulfilling its constitutional duty to 
count the electoral college ballots awarding the Presidency to Joe 
Biden.
  January 6, like December 7 and September 11, is a date which will 
live in infamy.
  I refer to the U.S. Capitol as a sacred space because it is so much 
more than a building where the Senate and House of Representatives meet 
and conduct business. It is the embodiment of our ideals, our 
aspirations and hopes, not just to Americans but also to all of 
humanity.
  In the 1960 essay on ``national purpose'' for the New York Times and 
LIFE magazine, Archibald MacLeish wrote:

       There are those who will say that the liberation of 
     humanity, the freedom of man and mind is nothing but a dream. 
     They are right. It is the American Dream.

  Insurrectionists desecrated this sacred space and everything it 
stands for, including liberty, self-government and the rule of law. The 
Architect of the Capitol can measure the damage they did to this 
building in millions of dollars. The damage they did to our moral 
standing in the world is inestimable.
  I want to take this moment to acknowledge and pay tribute to the 
thousands of people who work in Congress or cover it for the press and 
continue to suffer from the trauma of January the 6th. I am talking 
about the brave police officers who protected us. They engaged in a 
battle that one officer described as ``medieval.''
  And 140 of them, including Metropolitan Police Department officers, 
suffered physical injuries. One of them, Officer Brian Sicknick, died. 
I imagine all the officers who defended the Capitol bear the 
psychological scars of the attack.
  Four officers--Howard Liebengood, Jeffrey Smith, Gunther Hashida, and 
Kyle DeFreytag committed suicide in the aftermath. But I am also 
talking about the staff who work here in the Capitol, in the Senate and 
House Chambers: the doorkeepers, the Parliamentarian's office, the bill 
clerk, the Congressional Record staff, the floor and cloakroom staff, 
and so many others. Many of them had to shelter in place. They had to 
barricade themselves in offices, hoping the police would get to them 
before the insurrectionists did.
  I am talking about the committee and legislative staff in our DC 
offices and back in our State and district offices, who watched the 
attack in horror and disbelief and feared for the safety of their 
friends and colleagues, who answer the phones and hear death threats 
and obscenities.
  I am talking about the food service workers, custodial staff, and 
other Architect of the Capitol and Sergeant at Arms employees who were 
caught in the mayhem and then immediately went to work cleaning up the 
mess, repairing the damage, and providing other essential services, all 
in the midst of a raging pandemic.
  I am talking about those reporters who documented the insurrection at 
great personal peril after Donald Trump spent the previous 4 years 
calling them the enemies of the people and openly encouraged his 
supporters to attack them at his rallies.
  Congress could not function without this community of patriotic and 
hard-working Americans. This community is hurting. On New Year's Day, 
the Washington Post ran an article entitled ``Shaken by the Jan. 6 
attack, Capitol workers quit jobs that once made them proud.'' ``Quit 
jobs that once made them proud''--what a terrible thing, what a loss to 
our Nation.
  The danger our Nation faced on January 6 has not dissipated. As the 
New York Times editorial board stated a few days ago, ``the Republic 
faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous 
of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to 
achieve its ends.''
  The leader of this movement, of course, is Donald Trump. The 
organizing principle is the Big Lie that Democrats ``stole'' the 
election. The mindset is what historian Richard Hofstadter called ``the 
paranoid style in American politics,'' which ``produces . . . strivings 
for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can 
be believed.''
  The response to nearly nonexistent voter fraud is to engage in 
massive voter suppression. The objective is not election reform; it is 
election repeal.
  It is important to understand that the insurrection on January 6 was 
not a spontaneous event. As Ed Kilgore wrote in a New York magazine 
article entitled ``Trump's Long Campaign to Steal the Presidency: A 
timeline,'' ``The insurrection was a complex, years-long plot, not a 
one-day event. And it isn't over.''
  Rightwing media personalities and QAnon conspiracy followers 
feverishly and cynically stoke the movement for their own gain. Elected 
Republican officials, fearful of Donald Trump's wrath or eager to curry 
favor with him, enable it.

[[Page S41]]

  In 1950, Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine issued her 
``Declaration of Conscience'' in response to another authoritarian 
bully, fellow Republican Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin. Senator 
Smith was no fan of the Truman administration, but she said the 
following:
  [T]o displace it with a Republican regime embracing a philosophy that 
lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally 
disastrous to the nation. . . . I do not want to see the Republican 
party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny--Fear, 
Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear. I doubt if the Republican party could do 
so, simply because I do not believe the American people will uphold any 
political party that puts political exploitation above national 
interest. Surely we Republicans are not that desperate for victory.

       I do not want to see the Republican party win that way. 
     While it might be a fleeting victory for the Republican 
     party, it would be a more lasting defeat for the American 
     people. Surely it would ultimately be suicide for the 
     Republican party and the two-party system that has protected 
     our American liberties from the dictatorship of a one-party 
     system.

  I urge my Republican colleagues to follow the example of Margaret 
Chase Smith. There is nothing conservative about advocating force over 
the rule of law. There is nothing conservative about pledging loyalty 
to a man over upholding the U.S. Constitution.
  I understand that many Americans are disinclined to believe that the 
President of the United States would blatantly lie to them, but it is 
exactly what Donald Trump has been doing since he claimed that millions 
of people who voted illegally cost him the popular vote majority in the 
2016 election. In fact, his lies go back even further, to his vile 
birther claims about President Obama.
  We have the opportunity and the imperative for a course correction to 
save our Republic, and that is to restore, expand, and protect voting 
rights.
  The Senate must consider S. 2747, the Freedom to Vote Act, and S. 4, 
the bipartisan John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
  On multiple occasions, Senate Democrats voted unanimously just to 
begin considering these bills to protect people's right to vote, which 
has come under sustained assault. Each time we have tried to proceed to 
these measures, every Republican Senator has voted to sustain a 
filibuster. Senate Republicans put gridlock and partisanship before the 
rights of voters. They are blocking the Senate from having a chance to 
consider options and amendments and do what the Founding Fathers 
intended us to do: debate and legislate.
  Within the next few days, our Republican colleagues in the Senate 
will have yet another opportunity, a chance to do the right thing. Many 
Senators have worked diligently to come up with compromise legislation 
that still preserves the essential elements of S. 1, For the People 
Act, that the House of Representatives has already passed.
  And President Biden is absolutely correct that we need to enact 
voting rights legislation to repair the damage the Supreme Court did to 
the Voting Rights Act. President Biden rightly calls efforts to limit 
ballot access across the country as a 21st century Jim Crow assault. He 
warned Americans that the Republican efforts to restrict voting rights 
as a result of their selfish challenge of the 2020 election results 
represent ``the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil 
War.''
  In many States, Republican legislatures and Governors have responded 
to the falsehoods of the 2020 election by restricting voting 
accessibility. Donald Trump's Big Lie has directly led to 
disenfranchisement and suppression of the right to vote of millions of 
Americans.
  I urge my colleagues and my fellow American citizens to reflect on 
the state of our democracy and the rights we hold so dear. A blatant 
attempt to falsify an election and persistent efforts to deny the 
American people access to the ballot box has eroded American democracy 
to a dangerous level and undermined the freedom and liberty that so 
many Americans have fought to defend and advance.
  After elections are over and we win, we celebrate. We celebrate the 
fact that we have garnered the support of the majority of the voters. 
If we don't win--I think many of us have been involved in campaigns 
where our candidates have not been successful--we go to work and try to 
attract more voters in the next election so we can celebrate a victory. 
That is what participation in a free society is all about. That is what 
democracies are about.
  And repressive, autocratic regimes never accept the will of the 
people so they look at ways in which they can undermine the voting 
record, what the voters want, and the voters' will.
  We should all celebrate the record number of people who cast their 
ballots in the 2020 Presidential election. More Americans cast their 
votes for the Presidential candidate than ever before.
  After the election, both Democrats and Republicans conducted numerous 
reviews at the Federal, State, and local levels. Those reviews verified 
the simple fact that there was no widespread corruption or election 
fraud; that the will of the people prevailed; and Joe Biden and Kamala 
Harris were duly elected.
  Congress and Vice President Pence counted the electoral votes for 
President and Vice President and did their duty under the Constitution 
on January 6, notwithstanding the armed insurrection at the Capitol.
  But that did not stop Donald Trump from promoting the Big Lie, and 
that, in turn, has prompted Republican-led States to make it harder for 
people to cast their votes. The Brennan Center has pointed out that we 
are in the middle of the worst assault on voting rights since Jim Crow.
  So what are these laws doing? They are making it more difficult for 
people to register to vote. They are making it more difficult to vote 
by mail. They are making it more difficult to vote in person. 
Republicans apparently believe that demographic trends will prevent 
them from winning elections so they are surgically attacking the voting 
rights of people--mostly people of color--they believe will not vote 
for them.
  We have States that have 100 percent voting by mail. There has been 
no indication of fraud in voting by mail. But now, some States have 
shortened the time for requesting mail-in ballots, making it more 
difficult for individuals to vote by mail. They are making it more 
difficult for people to deliver their ballots by limiting the 
availability of ballot drop boxes, all because they think that will be 
utilized more by people who will not vote for them.
  The Republicans in charge of these States want to make it harder for 
people to vote in person too--stricter signature requirements, reducing 
the number of places where people can vote, purging voter rolls simply 
because a person didn't vote, and the list goes on and on and on; all 
of these making it more difficult for people to register to vote or be 
eligible to vote who are more likely to vote for their opponents. Some 
of these States are even opening up the possibility that election 
officials can substitute their judgment for the will of the people.
  The Freedom to Vote Act provides a basic Federal floor on protecting 
the right to vote. The legislation includes commonsense items such as 
automatic and online voter registration, uniform early voting, same-day 
voter registration, voting by mail and drop box standards and uniform 
national standards for voter identification.
  The Freedom to Vote Act ends political gerrymandering by creating 
nonpartisan redistricting commissions, requires voter-verified paper 
ballots and reliable audits, and ends the dominance of Big Money in 
political systems by increasing disclosure and transparency.
  S. 2747 includes two provisions I authored: First, it includes the 
Democracy Restoration Act, which deals with laws that many States 
passed at the end of the Civil War that are still on the books that 
disqualify a person convicted of a felony from voting for the rest of 
his or her life. The definition of ``felony'' can be quite general in 
many States so the impact of these laws fall disproportionately on 
people of color, which was its intent. There are States where one out 
of five Black Americans have been disqualified from voting because of a 
felony conviction, even when that individual has served his or her 
sentence and has returned to society. We need to remove that 
disqualification on voting.

[[Page S42]]

  I am proud that S. 2747 also includes my Deceptive Practices and 
Voter Intimidation Prevention Act. Spreading false or misleading 
information or intimidating the electorate remain regularly employed 
and effective methods to keep individuals, particularly Black Americans 
and racial minorities, from voting. Advancements in communications, 
including the rise of social media platforms, have made it easier for 
bad actors to use these strategies. My provisions prohibit individuals 
from knowingly deceiving voters about the time, place, eligibility or 
procedures of participating in a Federal election. It criminalizes 
intentional efforts to hinder, interfere with, or prevent another 
person from voting, registering to vote, or aiding another person to 
vote or register to vote.
  The late John Lewis of Georgia was a dear friend and a former 
colleague. We first won election to the U.S. House of Representatives 
on the same day. Representative Lewis recalled an important lesson that 
he learned from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he said 
that ``each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up, and 
speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say 
something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an 
act. And each generation must do its part.''
  Well, we need to follow Congressman Lewis' admonition. We can do our 
part by passing the bipartisan John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement 
Act, S. 4. Congress has a historic and bipartisan tradition of coming 
together across party lines to safeguard and strengthen the right to 
vote, which is the bedrock of our democracy.
  Congress passed and the States ratified the 15th Amendment after the 
Civil War, which declared that ``the rights of citizens of the United 
States to vote should not be denied or abridged by the United States or 
by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of 
servitude.''
  The 15th Amendment also states that Congress--Congress--has the power 
to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
  That is exactly what the Senate is trying to do with the John Lewis 
legislation. The bill would restore key provisions of the Voting Rights 
Act of 1965 that the Supreme Court severely weakened in its Shelby 
County v. Holder decision.
  Fifty-seven years ago, Congress designed the Voting Rights Act to 
protect equal access to elections for all eligible Americans and passed 
the measure to respond to widespread disenfranchisement--particularly 
of racial and language minorities--between the post-Civil War period 
and the 1960s.
  S. 4 would require the Federal pre-clearance for certain changes to 
voting laws and procedures. It would block changes that restrict the 
right to vote, particularly changes that disproportionately 
disenfranchise minority communities. The bill would allow plaintiffs 
and the Justice Department to bring lawsuits that deny or abridge the 
voting rights of minority voters and restore legal tools needed to 
enforce nationwide, permanent Federal bans on voter suppression efforts 
targeting minorities.
  We cannot pass voting rights legislation as long as the Senate 
Republicans continue to filibuster even just to proceed to S. 2747 and 
S. 4. Inaction on voting rights is not an option as we prepare for our 
2022 elections, which must be free and fair so that the American people 
have faith in our elections and their outcomes, particularly after the 
insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
  We need to change the filibuster rule. As President Biden just said 
before the holidays, ``If the only thing standing between getting 
voting rights legislation passed and not getting it passed is the 
filibuster, I support making the exception of voting rights for the 
filibuster.''
  I agree with President Biden. We cannot take action to safeguard 
voting rights if we don't start right now. States are already drawing 
their 2022 political boundaries to comply with population changes from 
the 2020 census, and we cannot start our work unless my colleagues 
allow us to proceed to this issue on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
  I urge my colleagues not to filibuster the right of the U.S. Senate 
to start the debate on protecting voter integrity, where each Member 
will have the opportunity to debate the issue and offer amendments. 
Many Senators have offered suggestions about how we can improve these 
two voting rights bills. Collectively, we have a chance to come 
together for the American people, something they elected us to do.
  We will not reach a consensus if we cannot even proceed to the bills. 
I will support changing the Senate rules, returning the Senate to its 
historic role of debating and voting on critical issues.
  Voting rights legislation needs to be debated in the Senate and voted 
upon by a majority vote in the U.S. Senate.
  Our noble experiment representing democracy is in grave danger. Let 
us come together and protect the integrity of the Senate, respond to 
the threat we saw on January 6 of last year, and take up and pass 
voting rights legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.


                        Anniversary of January 6

  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, January 6, 2022, marks 1 year since the 
attempted coup at our Nation's Capitol.
  I am deeply grateful for the Capitol Police for their heroic acts on 
that dark day. The American people will always remember the sacrifices 
they made to protect our democracy.
  But marking this date has another purpose, too. The January 6 
insurrection made painfully clear that American democracy is seriously 
at risk. In November of 2020, American citizens braved a deadly 
pandemic to cast their ballots. But following that election, the 
defeated President refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
  Instead, he falsely sowed doubt about the legitimacy of the election 
and inflamed his most dangerous supporters to attack this Capitol. His 
attempts to cling to power through lies and violence were a violation 
of his oath of office and a grave abuse of power that can never be 
tolerated in a free and democratic society.
  We mark this anniversary not only to reflect on that dereliction of 
duty, but also to call out the ongoing efforts to undermine our 
democracy.
  Threats to our democracy are not new. For years, in State after 
State, Republican legislatures have passed laws making it harder to 
vote, all on a purely partisan basis with simple majority votes. They 
have imposed strict voter ID requirements and purged voter rolls to 
disenfranchise minority voters. They have made it harder to vote by 
mail and register to vote. They have gerrymandered districts for 
partisan political gain.
  Over the past year, these shameless efforts have become even more 
brazen. Just as the former President was clear that he wanted to 
overturn the results of the 2020 election, Trump and his allies are 
entirely transparent about their goal of overturning future elections. 
Today, Republican opponents of democracy are exploiting every possible 
avenue to allow their party to maintain control, even if that means 
overturning the will of the American people.
  Rather than putting a stop to these attacks on voting rights, the 
Supreme Court has enabled them. The Roberts Court gutted the core of 
the Voting Rights Act, which is why Republican legislatures right now 
can pass anti-voter laws with ease.
  Last year, they destroyed what was left of the country's landmark 
voting rights law, making it nearly impossible to block laws with 
racially discriminatory effects. They twice overturned key protections 
against dark money in our elections, and they gave a green light to 
partisan gerrymandering.
  The Senate must not turn a blind eye while the Federal judiciary and 
State legislatures lead an all-out assault against free and fair 
elections in America. It is clear that Donald Trump's Republican Party 
is embracing an increasingly authoritarian movement.
  In 2006, the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized unanimously in the 
U.S. Senate. And yet today, only one Republican supports the Voting 
Rights Act, and none have endorsed the Freedom to Vote Act. The Senate 
filibuster means that Mitch McConnell gets a veto and Congress cannot 
protect the sacred right to vote unless Republican politicians agree, 
all while they are actively undermining our democracy in State after 
State.

[[Page S43]]

  My view on this is simple: We did not swear an oath to protect a 
procedural rule like the filibuster, which has been the tool of racial 
segregation and Jim Crow. No, we swore an oath to defend the 
Constitution. When the Senate rules stand in the way of voting rights 
legislation, then those Senate rules must change.
  A year after an insurrection at our Nation's Capitol, we must do more 
than speak up about the importance of democracy. Now, we must act. It 
is time to end the filibuster, time to protect voting rights, and time 
to defend our democracy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.