[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 144 (Thursday, September 7, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4261-S4263]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ORDER FOR ADJOURNMENT

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come 
before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned 
under the previous order, following the remarks of Senators Cardin, 
Lankford, and Lee.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Maryland.


              60th Anniversary of the March On Washington

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, 60 years ago last week, on Monday, August 
28, hundreds of thousands of men and women descended on our Nation's 
capital for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
  The march has become synonymous with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 
``I

[[Page S4262]]

Have a Dream'' speech, which he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln 
Memorial and has become a central rallying theme for the civil rights 
movement.
  Dr. King was prophetic in his remarks, beginning by saying that the 
day ``will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom 
in the history of our nation.''
  To this day, it is the standard by which every other march and rally 
in Washington is judged. I thank all the Marylanders who attended the 
march and wanted to give a special thanks to those who joined the 
reenactment last week in Annapolis, which was kicked off by the Morgan 
State Marching Band. Had he lived to see the progress that has been 
made, and sometimes lost, six decades later, I am confident that Dr. 
King would have been uneasy and deeply frustrated that we are still 
fighting many of the same battles against bigotry and racism as well as 
economic repression and hate-fueled gun violence. Yet I am sure he 
would have leaned into the words he spoke on March 31, 1968, just days 
before his assassination, when he said:

       We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is 
     long, but it bends towards justice.

  Of course, Dr. King knew that we cannot leave it to fate to bend the 
arc of the moral universe on its own. We must work together for 
justice, equality, and democracy so that all people in this great 
Nation can be free. As Dr. King said:

       All men, yes, black men, as well as white men, would be 
     guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the 
     pursuit of happiness.

  Labor leader A. Philip Randolph's opening speech at the march was 
also explicit in the broad demands of the moment:

       We want a free, democratic society dedicated to the 
     political, economic, and social advancement of men along 
     moral lines.

  To that end, for many years in the U.S. Senate, I have been humbled 
to lead the fight for a number of key civil rights measures that would 
move the arc in the right direction of progress. These are basic 
measures that rebuke the structural racism that has been so deeply 
ingrained in our legal, social, and economic system for generations.
  All of these legislative measures have healthy Democratic support; 
but, regrettably, with few exceptions, they are not yet bipartisan.
  So let me go through some of these efforts. First, the End Racial and 
Religious Profiling Act would ban discriminatory profiling by Federal, 
State, and local law enforcement nationwide. Prohibited behavior would 
include targeting based on actual or perceived race, ethnicity, 
nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
  This prohibition covers Federal, State, and local law enforcement 
agencies carrying out criminal, immigration, or custom laws. Nothing in 
this bill would keep law enforcement officers from pursuing suspects 
based on legitimate descriptions--including their race and ethnicity, 
et cetera--but the days of targeting groups of people solely on how 
they look would end. My legislation was included in the broader George 
Floyd Justice and Policing Act, and I was pleased to see the U.S. 
Department of Justice recently strengthened their guidance against 
discriminatory profiling.
  Next in my efforts, I would like to mention the Democracy Restoration 
Act, which would finally end the permanent denial of voting rights 
nationwide for individuals with criminal convictions who have been 
released from incarceration.
  The bill aims to eliminate the complicated patchwork of State laws, 
many harkening back to the Jim Crow era. The current system worsens 
racial disparities in access to the ballot box and contributes to 
confusion and misinformation regarding voting rights.
  In early August, a Federal appeals court issued a decision stating 
that the Mississippi's lifetime ban on voting for individuals convicted 
on some felonies ``violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against 
cruel and unusual punishment.''
  As described by the Brennan Center For Justice:

       The remarkable 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for 
     the Fifth Circuit will re-enfranchise tens of thousands of 
     people.

  My legislation was included in the broader For the People and Freedom 
to Vote Act legislation.
  On voting rights, I joined a bipartisan working group to help pass 
the Electoral Count Reform Act to address some of the tactics used to 
attempt to overthrow the 2020 elections, which led to the January 6 
insurrection at the Capitol.
  But Congress still needs to take up and pass the John Lewis Voting 
Rights Reauthorization Act to begin to repair the damage done by the 
Supreme Court in curtailing the rights to vote and the use of voter 
suppression tactics, particularly against minority communities.
  And when it comes to the lower Federal courts such as the district 
and circuit courts, I have continued to work with the Biden 
administration to recommend highly qualified and diverse Federal judges 
for lifetime appointments who believe in equal justice under the law 
that protects all Americans.
  In regards to equal rights for women, we still have unfinished 
business. In May of this year, a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate 
voted to remove the arbitrary deadline for the ratification of the 
Equal Rights Amendment and making it the 28th Amendment to our 
Constitution.
  I was proud to lead the effort on this historic vote, along with my 
partner in this effort, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. For more than 
a decade, I have been working with a full grassroots army of women and 
men who understand that constitutional equality will not be a reality 
until the Equal Rights Amendment is recognized and ratified.
  I first introduced a similar resolution in 2012. At that time, I had 
only 17 cosponsors, and we were still three States short of 
ratification.
  Today, we have a bipartisan majority of Senators affirming that 38 
States have ratified the ERA thanks to Virginia's ratification as the 
38th State in 2020. This vote was decades in the making. I served in 
the Maryland House of Delegates in 1973 when the Maryland General 
Assembly voted to ratify the ERA. For my wife, my daughter, and my 
granddaughters, I have been working to complete the ratification of the 
ERA to protect their rights and the rights of all people across this 
Nation.
  The ERA simply states that equality of rights under the law shall not 
be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of 
sex. That is it. That is the very straightforward text of what the 
Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution says. Ratification would 
affirm women's equality by enshrining the principles of women's 
equality and explicitly prohibiting against sex discrimination in our 
Nation's founding document.
  Most Americans think the ERA already is part of our Constitution, and 
nearly three-quarters support it. A majority of States covering a 
supermajority of Americans have equal rights or gender equality 
provisions in their State constitutions--as does Maryland--but millions 
are still left behind.
  At the Federal level, the only current explicit guaranteed right in 
the United States Constitution based on sex is the 19th Amendment, 
which is the right to vote. That amendment was proposed by Congress in 
1919, shortly after the end of World War I, and ratified by the States 
in 1920. Clearly, existing legal protections against sex discrimination 
fall well short of addressing the systemic sex-based inequality in our 
society.
  Congress ratified the ERA in 1972 and sent it to the States for 
ratification. But back in 1972, an arbitrary deadline of 7 years was 
included in the enabling legislation for the ERA. The deadline was 
not--is not--in the amendment itself.
  Congress extended the deadline to a full 10 years when it was clear 
that 38 States would not complete their ratification in time. What we 
are now trying to do is follow that precedent and change that deadline 
again. Actually, we want to remove that deadline.
  With Virginia's ratification in 2020, the States completed their 
work, and it is now up to Congress to remove any doubt about the ERA 
being part of our Constitution. This has been a struggle, but we must 
make it to the finish line. Our resolution S.J. Res. 4 would clarify 
once and for all that the ERA has met all the requirements of article V 
of our Constitution.

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  As the 28th Amendment, the ERA would serve as a new tool for 
Congress, Federal Agencies, and in the courts to advance equality in 
the fields of workforce and pay, pregnancy discrimination, sexual 
harassment and violence, reproductive autonomy, and protection of the 
LGBTQ+ individuals. It is also a signal to the courts that they should 
apply a more rigorous level of review to laws and government policies 
that discriminate on the basis of sex.
  That is what the ERA is all about: equality, the most fundamental of 
American values. I am disappointed by the outcome of the vote this May, 
but this is not the end. Just before the Senate vote on the measure, I 
led my colleagues in a vigorous floor debate in support of the ERA and 
our resolution to affirm the ratification.
  Not one opponent showed up to debate the merits of the resolution or 
equal rights. No one. It tells me that we are on the right side of 
history, and they know it.
  So make no mistake about it, this march towards equality on account 
of sex continues. We will not rest until the ERA is in the Constitution 
of the United States. The States have done their job. We will get the 
necessary votes to make that a reality.
  My life of public service was inspired by my faith but also by the 
civil rights movement and elected leaders of the 1960s. I was first 
elected to Congress in 1986 and sworn into office in 1987, along with 
Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, who would become a lifelong friend 
and mentor.
  Years earlier, John was one of the original Freedom Riders and served 
as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was 
one of the major organizers of the 1963 March on Washington.
  For John, the movement for freedom, justice and equality--
economically, socially, and all aspects of life--was not merely a 
movement; it was his life's work.
  As times changed and as the struggle for equality took on new forms, 
his commitment never faltered. He marched on Washington through Selma 
and in the Halls of the U.S. Capitol with the same faith, courage, and 
conviction.
  This past weekend, tens of thousands gathered on the National Mall to 
continue to march for freedom and justice, hearkening back to those who 
stood on the same ground six decades earlier. Dr. King's daughter-in-
law, Arndrea Waters King, described to the crowd:

       We are here to liberate the souls of the Nation, the soul 
     of democracy from the forces who would have us all go 
     backwards and perish rather than go forward as sisters and 
     brothers.

  As President Joe Biden said recently, recalling Dr. King's reference 
to a ``promissory note'' to every American, it is ``a promise derived 
from the very idea of America, that we are all created equal and 
deserve to be treated equally throughout our entire lives. While we've 
never fully lived up to that promise, we've never--thank God--fully 
walked away from it . . . for our administration and with your help, it 
means pushing back against voter suppression, election subversion, and 
hate-fueled violence.''
  So, Mr. President, my message to our colleagues is let us work 
together to do the work necessary to make sure that the moral arc of 
the universe moves toward justice. We must carry out that mission.
  With that, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________