[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 3 (Wednesday, January 5, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S45-S48]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Recognizing January 6 Workers

  Madam President, I want to start by thanking my colleagues Leader 
Schumer and Senator Klobuchar for their work to honor the police 
officers who risked their lives to protect this country 1 year ago 
tomorrow.
  In the year since that dark day, we have learned more about all that 
those officers endured from the terrorists who stormed the Capitol--the 
racist slurs, the physical abuse, the mental injuries. We know things 
were so much worse than they appeared in the original reporting as more 
and more details have come out. These terrorists gouged someone's eyes 
out. They killed a Capitol Police officer and injured 140 others. They 
threatened to kill the Vice President. They brought a noose to the 
Capitol and paraded symbols of White supremacy. In fact, the people who 
broke into the office upstairs from my office in the Capitol--we have 
this on film--used flagpoles with Confederate flags and Trump flags 
attached to them. They brought equipment to take hostages.
  It wasn't only Capitol Police officers who endured this attack and 
put their lives on the line serving our Republic on January 6. Workers 
throughout the Capitol risked everything that day, workers who do the 
radio and television broadcast and work in the media center, workers 
who work the floor, workers who clean up, and workers who do food 
service. They often don't get noticed, like the Capitol support staff. 
Every day, Capitol janitorial and maintenance and other workers, 
essential workers, do their jobs with skill and dedication and dignity. 
They have shown up for work during this pandemic.
  Those workers were here on January 6 doing their jobs when the 
insurrectionists, when the rioters, when the--call it what you want--
traitors stormed this building, barging into this Chamber, acting as if 
no one would ever hold them responsible or accountable for their 
violence, for their disregard for American values and for U.S. laws.
  When the rampage was over, we know it was the largely Black and Brown 
custodial maintenance workers who were left to restore dignity to the 
Capitol. Their work, first of all, allowed us to come back and continue 
our work at 8 that night certifying the electoral votes and securing 
our democracy. As we know, domestic terrorists destroyed; Black and 
Brown custodians cleaned up; and maintenance workers, carpenters, 
painters, and union members rebuilt. Today, we honor them.
  Some of the most enduring and moving images of that day are the 
pictures of these workers sweeping up the mess that terrorists made in 
the people's houses.
  That night, after we voted--the Senator from Minnesota was there. We 
were all here voting in this Chamber. After the police and the National 
Guard--the DC Police, the Capitol Police, and others--after they 
cleared the terrorists out of this building, we came back at 8 and 
voted. I spent the night in the basement in my office. I live a 20-
minute walk away. I really didn't want to walk home that night. But I 
walked around about midnight, walked around this building, over in the 
House and the Senate. I saw the destruction. I saw the window right 
upstairs from me, the half-moon window that terrorists, with their 
flagpoles with their Confederate flags and their Trump flags attached, 
broke through.
  When I was back there at midnight that night, already the cleanup 
from the custodians had started, cleaning up after they had been 
threatened. After they had been called names as Black women, as 
immigrant women, after they had been called names by the terrorists, 
they were back there cleaning up. Already, a carpenter had cut a half-
moon piece of plywood and nailed it to that window to keep this 
building safe and keep the elements out.
  We honor those people today. It is what service looks like. It is 
what love of country looks like. It is what the dignity of work looks 
like. It tells you a lot about what is wrong with our economy. These 
essential workers--the people who prepare the food, the people who 
clean up, the people who provide security--the essential workers, like 
so many of their fellow service workers around this country, don't make 
a lot of money. They don't get much attention. They don't get much 
reward. They don't have much power. We simply don't value and respect 
all work the way we should.
  I think of the words of Dr. King. One of my favorite Dr. King quotes 
is this:

       If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep 
     streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed 
     music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets 
     so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to 
     say, ``Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job 
     well.''

  Dr. King said:

       No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity 
     has dignity and importance.

  He later said that no job with adequate compensation is menial.
  Look at the words of Pope Francis a few days ago in his Christmas Eve 
address or think back 100 years, 120 years, to Pope Leo, the labor 
Pope, in Rerum Novarum, where he first introduced--at least in my 
view--first introduced the term, I assume in Latin, ``dignity of 
work.''
  Pope Francis, in his Christmas Eve address just a few days ago, said:

       [God] reminds us of the importance of granting dignity to 
     men and women through [their] labour, [and] also . . . 
     granting dignity to human labour itself.

  Those are Pope Francis's words.
  No work is insignificant. All labor has dignity. We ought to treat it 
that

[[Page S46]]

way, starting with honoring these workers.
  Last year, I joined my colleagues in a resolution to honor all the 
workers who risked their lives that day: custodians, maintenance 
workers, Capitol Police officers, journalists, the floor staff, the 
workers in our offices. All of them served this country. All of them 
risked their safety to preserve our democracy. All of them deserve our 
gratitude.
  Today, though, or tomorrow, actually, but I will ask tonight because 
my colleagues--because of Senator Isakson's funeral, many will be there 
tomorrow. I ask my colleagues to join me and Senators Klobuchar and 
Schumer and Senators Casey and Booker in a resolution honoring 
specifically the Capitol janitorial and maintenance staff--all 
essential workers--for their bravery and service to our country on 
January 6.
  One of my favorite parts of this job--and the Presiding Officer knows 
this because we have had these conversations and because of her 
appreciation for work and for the people who work so hard and get so 
little--one of the joys of this job is to do what Abraham Lincoln used 
to do. When staff wanted him to stay in the White House and win the war 
and free the slaves and preserve the Union, Lincoln said: No, I have to 
go out and get my public opinion bath.
  One of the joys of this job is to talk to the workers here just about 
their lives or about what happened on January 6. One custodial worker 
and I were talking. She has been in this country for 30 years. She has 
been a citizen for 20 years, and she has worked in this job for 30 
years. She has been a citizen for 20 years. She and a number of others 
were locked in a room where terrorists were pounding on the walls and 
were screaming racial epithets and were screaming anti-immigrant 
utterances, all of that. Yet she still works here. She was one of the 
ones who had to clean up after them.
  As I said, the terrorists destroyed; the Black and Brown maintenance 
workers cleaned up; and the union trades people rebuilt.
  This resolution that I am going to offer tomorrow reaffirms the 
Senate's commitment to strengthening their rights as workers and 
providing support and resources to ensure their health, well-being, 
safety, and protection from further attacks. Their support should 
include higher pay. It should include collective bargaining rights for 
all of them. It should include paid sick leave and vacation leave. It 
should include comprehensive health insurance with mental health 
resources.
  Don't think that many of these--you all understand that many of these 
police officers, many of these custodial workers, many of the movers 
and the plumbers and the others who were locked in their rooms or 
offices or buildings during this--I am not a mental health expert at 
all, but many of them, I am sure, suffer from issues of nightmares and 
other kinds of anxieties that we need to help them with.
  I hope my colleagues will join me, not as Republicans or Democrats 
but as Americans, as Members of this body. These workers serve us all. 
They allowed us to do our work for America that night. After we 
essentially were run out of this room and were safe for several hours, 
they allowed us, because of their work, to come back here and be safe 
and do our jobs that we took an oath of office on January 3, 2021, to 
do. This building wouldn't function without them.
  No one should have to endure what they did at the hands of domestic 
terrorists.
  To all of the Capitol custodians and service workers who come to work 
in this building each day to ensure our democracy functions, thank you, 
thank you, thank you.
  I have this resolution honoring the Capitol's essential workers, 
applauding them for their service. I had intended to try to pass this 
resolution by unanimous consent tomorrow, but I recognize that many of 
my colleagues are out of town at the funeral honoring one of the really 
good men who served in this body, Johnny Isakson from Georgia.
  I hope we can take this resolution up and pass this commonsense 
resolution next week when we return.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I am really pleased and honored to 
follow my colleague from Ohio and to join in supporting the resolution 
that he is offering to pay homage and to express gratitude to the 
essential workers in this building, in the Capitol Complex, in this 
temple of democracy, for all they have done, not only on January 6 but 
in the aftermath of that brutal assault on our democracy.
  We talk in abstract now about the institution and the assault on this 
institution, but the lasting and enduring trauma for those workers that 
we will recognize in this resolution is tremendously important. It is 
important to them, but it is important to us as well that we recognize 
our duty and our obligation to them for the dignity of their work and 
what they did to enable us to come back on that evening, January 6, and 
do our duty--and do it in a bipartisan way, coming together on that 
day.
  We were all witnesses to a brutal crime. We were all witnesses to an 
insurrection and a riot that stands as a dark and terrible milestone--
the anniversary tomorrow of probably the most abhorrent attack on our 
democratic institutions. And all of us who were witnesses can never 
forget the horror of that day--the sheer physicality of the attack, the 
blood in the hallways, the sights and sounds of rioters with bats and 
pipes bearing Trump banners and Confederate flags and seeking to do 
physical harm to us and to kill the Vice President. That kind of 
physical, brutal, cruel attack, with the hope--in fact, intent--of 
killing and injuring, had its effect. In fact, people died.
  Our Capitol Police bravely defended us, with determination and 
courage, and so did many other heroes that day--the National Guard and 
the DC Police. But let us never forget that mob was called here to this 
very Chamber by the former President in a cynical bid to keep himself 
in power through a coup that would subvert the will of the people on 
election day. And we were here--we were all standing and then sitting 
at our desks when we were rushed from the Chamber because of the threat 
of physical assault on us.
  In the end, their efforts were thwarted. Congress certified the 
election result that night as planned. We were undeterred, undaunted by 
the violent and deadly attack on the Capitol and our democracy.
  But that day was not a one-off. It was not an isolated or aberrant 
incident. In fact, it was a symptom and a symbol of a deeper, 
destructive violence of violent extremism--a virus of domestic 
terrorism that continues to infect our Nation; in fact, the most 
persistent and lethal threat to our national internal security.
  According to the intelligence community and the FBI, it is violent 
extremism and White supremacy. That attack left scars and wounds that 
remain unhealed, the lives that were lost, and many of our staff, many 
of those maintenance workers, many of the cafeteria and janitorial 
staff struggle with lingering trauma from the violence that they faced 
on that day.
  The attack reminded us of how fragile and in danger our democratic 
institutions are when our leaders, when we as leaders, fail to protect 
them. The mob that assaulted our Capitol was fueled by the Big Lie--the 
baseless falsehood that massive fraud occurred during the 2020 
election.
  That Big Lie was propagated and supported by the President and his 
enablers, and they have continued to fuel those delusions. Donald Trump 
has incited continually the kind of falsehoods that lead to a sharp 
rise in threats against lawmakers in the Capitol here and a higher 
comfort level with violence at every level--in school boards, in 
statehouses.
  The Big Lie has now become a pretense. It has become a pretense for 
some Republican leaders and State governments across the country to 
pass legislation making it harder to vote--meaning that fewer people 
have fewer times and fewer places to cast their vote.
  At least 19 States have passed 34 new laws that restrict voting 
rights based on that Big Lie--the bogus, false claim of fraud. And 
Republicans in a number of States are vesting the power to overturn 
election results--literally, to deny the results of the vote count 
rather

[[Page S47]]

than respecting the will of the people, whether it is the vote canvass 
boards or legislative committees or other State officials having the 
power to strike down and overturn the results by refusing to certify 
them or literally disregarding them.
  All of this voter suppression is poisonous. It is toxic to our 
democracy. And we have an obligation, on this solemn anniversary of 
that horrific attack, to recommit ourselves to holding accountable 
those domestic terrorists and violent extremists who stormed the 
Capitol and hunted us--lawmakers and others--ransacked the halls that 
we regard with so much reverence, defaced and debased not just the 
building but the concept of democracy. And we should pursue not only 
prosecutions against the 700 or 1,000 people who can be held criminally 
responsible for defacing the Capitol or illegally entering or other 
acts of violence but everyone who aided and abetted them. They must be 
held accountable, no matter what their rank or their office, no matter 
how high the facts and the law will go. I urge the Department of 
Justice to pursue them, to prosecute them, to make sure that they are 
held accountable.
  We also need to fortify those institutions. And that is why passing 
the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement 
Act have to be among our priorities and changing the rules to make that 
possible.
  My colleagues and I will bring to the Senate floor for a vote in the 
coming weeks, no later than January 17, those measures in an effort to 
change the rules to enable their passage. We need to do whatever is 
necessary to pass those measures, including limiting the filibuster.
  There is a direct through line from the Big Lie in the January 6 
assault, incited by Donald Trump, to violent extremism and domestic 
terrorism, to voter suppression and the overturning of elections, 
eventually to the destruction of our democracy. During the peaceful 
transition of power that eventually did take place last January, 
President Biden reminded us that a better world is not something that 
is given to us; it requires hard work. Unity is not inevitable; it is 
achievable through what we do to make it possible. Democracy is not a 
spectator sport.
  The values and norms and institutions of our democracy are fragile, 
as threatened now as they are precious, and they depend on people 
fighting for them in times of adversity. And truly now we are in a time 
of adversity.
  What haunts me, as I think back on January 6, is how close we came to 
losing our democracy, how close we came to shattering the traditions 
and norms--much as the windows of this building were shattered--and how 
a few people continue to believe they could demagogue and enable Trump 
to stage that coup.
  There is no forgetting what some of our colleagues did. There is no 
denying it. But we have sought to work together because we come here 
and we are sent here for a common purpose, which is to meet the needs 
of Americans, especially in a time of pandemic and economic hardship.
  This past year has truly been one of hardship and heartbreak for so 
many. And as we think back to that day, a year ago, we need to redouble 
our determination to hold dear the democratic values and institutions 
that mean elected representatives truly represent the people. That is 
what elections do. That is why every vote should count and every vote 
must count. And that is the purpose of the Freedom to Vote Act and the 
John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
  We have our part to do. We need to do it. And I hope my colleagues 
will not only relive and remember but act on it--the common purpose of 
that day when we came back to count the vote--to make sure that we can 
come together again not just to honor the people who enable us to do it 
but also to honor the people of America who elect us to do it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.


                               January 6

  Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, why January 6? Why were thousands of 
Trump supporters here in Washington on that specific date, January 6? 
They were here on January 6 because that was the last possible day that 
Donald Trump and his followers could overturn the election in which Joe 
Biden had just beaten the sitting President soundly--81 million votes 
to 74 million votes. The gap in the electoral college was much bigger 
on a percentage basis, 306 to 232.
  But Trump and his followers decided that they were not going to just 
give up power just because their candidate lost an election. And their 
decision to put power ahead of the rule of law is, frankly, totally 
understandable.
  Over the course of human existence, thousands of second-place 
finishers, either through election or by the dynamics of power 
succession, have refused to bend to the rules.
  Most recently, Russia briefly flirted with democracy until Vladimir 
Putin and his cronies rigged the rules to set him up in power 
permanently. And throughout history, many slighted Princes or Generals 
have just chosen to seize power, through force or coercion, if they 
couldn't get it through the standing rules. Wanting power and willing 
to do anything to get power is as old as civilization. And that is why 
all those people broke into the Capitol a year ago tomorrow. They were 
called to Washington by President Trump to pressure Congress and State 
legislators and Vice President Pence to suspend the rules of 
succession, void the election, and install Donald Trump as President, 
even though he lost. Let's not pretend that anything else happened that 
day.

  Senators Cruz and Hawley and many, many other Republicans were, on 
January 6, trying to get Congress to delay the certification of 
electors to give Trump more time to overturn the will of the voters. 
The rioters came to the Capitol to use violence as a last resort to try 
to pressure Congress to adopt the Cruz-Hawley plan. They stormed the 
building, and many of them were explicit when they were here that day, 
that they were inside the building to support President Trump, to 
support Senator Cruz. By the end of the day, dozens were killed or 
badly injured.
  It wasn't a spontaneous random act of mass violence. It was a 
coordinated attempt to use violence, or at least the threat of violence 
for many, to void the 2020 election and install Donald Trump as an 
unelected leader of the United States of America.
  History has seen this play a million times before.
  But I think here in the Senate, we often get lulled into a little bit 
of a sense of complacency because the last vestiges of the pre-Trump 
era of the Republican Party still exist here in the Senate. In the 
Senate, only seven Republicans voted for Senators Cruz and Hawley's 
attempt to void Joe Biden's victory. And Senator McConnell and some 
others here said the right thing that day and the days afterward.
  Behind closed doors, many of our veteran Republican colleagues often 
whispered to us how awful and vulgar the Trump rioters are and how 
dearly they support the rule of law. But almost never do those 
Republican colleagues say those things out loud because the new 
mainstream of the Republican Party--the Trump Republican Party--does 
not believe that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Pick your conspiracy 
theory, but 7 out of 10 Republicans--literally, tens of thousands of 
Americans--believe that somehow Pakistani intelligence operatives or 
Italian satellites or Venezuelan communists were involved in secretly 
switching millions of votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
  But maybe more importantly, what leads these Republicans to believe 
these wild conspiracy theories is a more insidious belief, a belief 
that if a Democrat wins an election, it must be, by definition, 
illegitimate. That is why this many Republicans believed Joe Biden 
didn't win, even though they have zero evidence to back up this claim. 
They don't need evidence because they just believe the Democrats are 
evil, that Democrats are illegitimate in governance. And if Democrats 
win, it just cannot be allowed to stand. Defeating Democrats is, to the 
Trump Republican Party, more important than maintaining democracy.
  We know this because some of the most popular and revered national 
Republicans are calling openly for the suspension of democracy if 
democracy

[[Page S48]]

keeps electing Democrats. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called 
for States with Republican Governors to disallow people from voting if 
they showed an inclination to support Democrats. Our colleague, Senator 
Rand Paul, said efforts to convince people to vote--if those votes 
resulted in Democrats winning--should be illegal.
  Sensible Senate Republicans--the ones who whisper the sensible things 
quietly to us here on the floor of the Senate Chamber--will claim that 
Marjorie Taylor Greene is an outlier, a fringe character, but she is 
exactly the opposite. She is the mainstream. She doesn't believe Joe 
Biden won the 2020 election, just like 7 out of 10 Republican voters. 
The fact that she is willing to say the quiet things out loud, it 
doesn't make her fringe; it makes her royalty. The best attended 
Republican event in my State since the 2020 election was an event 
headlined by Marjorie Taylor Greene.
  She and Rand Paul and their ilk are the Republican Party right now. 
They are the healthy trunk of the tree. Sensible Senate Republicans who 
believe Joe Biden is a legitimate President are the dead limbs, bound 
to fall off soon in a slight wind.
  The mainstream of today's Republican Party believes that beating Joe 
Biden and other Democrats is just more important than preserving 
democracy. So that is why they are methodically working to clean up 
their mistakes from 2020. They couldn't declare Joe Biden's win 
illegitimate because they just weren't ready on January 6. That is what 
January 6 was about, an attempt to postpone the certification of 
electors so they could get ready.
  Well, in 2022 and 2024, they are going to be ready. At the heart of 
this plan is an attempt to just make it a whole lot harder for 
Democrats to vote by eliminating voting sites in Democratic 
neighborhoods or eliminating days to vote--days that typically 
Democrats vote on.
  But Republicans are also preparing a secret weapon--a backup plan--if 
on election night, their attempts to depress Democratic turnout don't 
work out and a Democratic candidate for Governor or Senate or President 
still wins. And this backup plan is all about changing who counts the 
votes. It used to be that even in Republican-majority States, Democrats 
had a role in counting the votes, either through bipartisan panels or 
through the ability for cities and counties to choose their own 
election officials, which often meant that in Democratic counties you 
had Democrats in charge of counting votes and in Republican counties 
you had Republicans in charge of counting votes. This has been a 
longstanding foundation of our democracy, making sure that no one party 
had the monopoly on vote counting.
  If both parties are engaged in the process, there is a lot more 
incentive for both sides to play it safe and play it straight--but no 
more. In Republican-controlled State after State, the rules are being 
changed to put Republicans and only Republicans in charge of counting 
the votes and, more consequently, deciding which votes count.
  Trump and his followers are making sure that only Republicans who are 
100 percent loyal to Trump will be the chosen few Republicans in charge 
of vote counting.
  Everybody has heard that phone call from 2020 in which President 
Trump personally lobbies the Georgia secretary of state to disqualify 
just enough Democratic votes in order to shift the State's electors to 
Trump. ``I just want to find 11,780 votes,'' Trump pleads in that phone 
call. During that hour-long call, he makes it exactly clear what he 
wants. He wants 11,780 or more Democratic votes to be disqualified 
through vague made-up claims of fraud in order to flip the election. He 
tells you exactly what he wants on that phone call: votes to be 
disqualified on zero basis of fraud in order to flip the election to 
him.
  The new State laws and the purge of straight shooters like the 
Georgia secretary of state from the party will make sure that in 2022 
or 2024, if an election is close enough to flip to Republicans, the 
obstacles that were in place in 2020 will be gone.
  Now, I know that every Republican Senator, and even a few Democratic 
Senators, think this scenario that I just outlined is hyperbolic. They 
think it is a scare tactic. But why would you think that? Trump and his 
allies aren't even trying to hide what they did or what they are doing. 
Trump lost the election. He lost the election by 7 million votes, and 
he didn't care. He did everything in his power, including using 
violence, to try to stay in power, despite the fact that he lost. Since 
then, he has cheerled all these changes in State laws.
  Do any of you really think that he is doing this because he believes 
in good governance or clean elections? Of course, not. He has told you 
in words, in deeds, over and over, what his goal is, and his goal is to 
achieve power, whether or not he actually wins the election. He is not 
hiding it. His supporters, leaders of the Republican Party, are now 
openly calling for States to strip from Democrats, and Democrats only, 
the right to vote or the right to campaign for election.
  This is all happening in front of your eyes, out in the open, right 
now. And only we--the 100 of us--have the ability to stop this. January 
6 was just a preview. It was what happens because Trump and his minions 
hadn't done the necessary planning ahead to steal the election. They 
panicked, and they brought violence upon this building.
  They may not need a physical rebellion in 2022 or 2024 because they 
will have changed the rules to make sure that Republicans loyal to 
Trump are installed in power, regardless of whether they win or lose 
the election.
  None of us are helpless here in the U.S. Senate. We can pass laws 
that take away from States the power to disenfranchise any voters or 
the ability to put only one party in charge of vote counting.
  A few of my Democratic Senate colleagues think that they are saving 
the Senate by preserving Republicans' right to stop these reforms. They 
are wrong. If we don't take steps right now to stop Trump's plan, there 
won't be a Senate left to protect. That is not hyperbole. If the loser 
of an election for the U.S. Senate gets seated as a Member of this body 
in 2023, then our democracy is effectively dead.
  It is time we started actually listening to what Trump Republicans 
are telling us over and over again, out loud, that they are getting 
ready to do. They have made their choice, and they have chosen power 
over democracy.
  I get it. It is always easier to do nothing and hope that the threat 
will just go away--just shut the door, box your ears, cover your eyes, 
and hope for the best. But we are the U.S. Senate. We are the ones that 
are put on the watch. We are the ones that are supposed to meet the 
threat head-on and stop it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

                          ____________________