[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 184 (Wednesday, November 30, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6868-S6869]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Crime

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, a few days ago, the Washington Post 
published a major report on the explosion of violent crime that has 
startled and shattered communities all across America. This terrible 
trend is familiar to many of us by now, but the tragic human stories 
are still quite shocking.
  In St. Louis, 25-year-old Damion Baker was killed in July in an 
attempted carjacking while escorting a woman to her car downtown. 
``Damion cannot just be some random number of homicide,'' his mother 
told reporters. ``It's gotta look different.''
  In New Orleans this past March, 20-year-old old Shane Brown didn't 
come home from work one day. His body was found 5 days later in a 
canal, and his family still doesn't know why he was killed.
  In Birmingham, 13-year-old Jaylon Palmore was on his front porch when 
he was cut down in a driveby shooting that police say was targeting 
someone else. The family home now holds so many painful memories that 
Jaylon's parents have decided to sell it and move somewhere else.
  The national media may just be coming around, but the American people

[[Page S6869]]

have known for a long time that the erosion of law and order is a 
terrible and pressing problem.
  After the nationwide murder rate clocked its largest single-year 
increase in more than a century in 2020, it climbed even higher last 
year. A record-high majority of Americans report that crime in their 
communities is getting worse.
  This is an area where our two political parties, the two sides of the 
aisle, have totally opposite instincts about the right way forward. 
Republicans are focused on making American communities safer, and we 
know that accomplishing that takes compassion for innocent people, not 
weak justice--not weak justice--for violent criminals who hurt them.
  Meanwhile, Democrats are focused on making it even harder to secure 
real justice. They have spent 2 years doubling down on anti-law 
enforcement rhetoric and putting radical local prosecutors at the 
center of their plans to make America softer on crime.
  Far-left special interests have poured massive amounts of money into 
political campaigns of radical, soft-on-crime prosecutors in major 
cities, from New York to Chicago, to Philadelphia, to Los Angeles. Up 
to one in five Americans now lives in the jurisdiction of prosecutors a 
Democrat mega-donor has handpicked for their willingness--their 
willingness--to ignore entire categories of criminal law.
  This soft-on-crime campaign has gone to such absurd lengths, 
communities are taking it upon themselves to push back. Earlier this 
year, voters in San Francisco showed their radical left district 
attorney the door for using their neighborhoods as a proving ground for 
soft-on-crime experiments. Just earlier this month, the Pennsylvania 
House of Representatives impeached Philadelphia's liberal district 
attorney for ``misbehavior in office'' after violent crime in the city 
soared.
  Here in Washington, things are no different. Our colleague, the 
junior Senator from Connecticut, made this crystal clear a few days ago 
when he kicked off a fresh wave of Democratic calls to defund the 
police. Senator Murphy says that because, in his estimation, 60 percent 
of the counties in this country are friendlier to citizens' Second 
Amendment rights than Senator Murphy would like, those communities 
should be punished by defunding their police forces. Fewer resources 
for police officers, less safety for local communities--unless every 
county in America kowtows to Senate Democrats' particular view of the 
Second Amendment.
  Democrats spent all this past year insisting they don't support 
defunding the police, but here they go, yet again, proposing to do just 
that. One wonders how the American people--the people of Georgia, for 
example--feel about this renewed push to respond to violent crime by 
defunding local police. After all, the per capita homicide and assault 
rate in the city of Atlanta is now even higher than it is in Chicago.
  Working American families deserve safety in their communities. 
Grieving families deserve the small measure of peace that comes from 
actual justice. And the people of Georgia deserve a check and balance 
against Washington Democrats' reckless and radical defund-the-police 
proposals, not a rubberstamp.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.