[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 185 (Thursday, December 12, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6990-S6991]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Vote on Marzano Nomination
Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the nomination.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
If not, the question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the
Marzano nomination?
Mr. CARPER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the Senator from Kansas (Mr.
Marshall), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell), the Senator from
Oklahoma (Mr. Mullin), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).
The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 45, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 323 Ex.]
YEAS--50
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Fetterman
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Manchin
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Schumer
Shaheen
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--45
Barrasso
Boozman
Braun
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Romney
Rounds
Rubio
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sinema
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young
NOT VOTING--5
Blackburn
Marshall
McConnell
Mullin
Vance
The nomination was confirmed.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and
the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The Senator from Connecticut.
12th Anniversary of Sandy Hook Shooting
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, earlier today, I got to spend a little
time with a close friend of mine, Sam Saylor. As I was talking to Sam--
resident of Hartford, CT, the city in which I live--I was thinking
about who his son Shane might be today.
Shane had a tough life. Shane was born with a birth defect in which
one of his arms was essentially inoperable. He grew up in really poor
circumstances. He was often bullied. But Shane had a spirit about him--
a fighting spirit sometimes that got him in trouble but a spirit to
rise above his circumstances, to do something with his life.
His mom--strong mom--Sam's dad clearly gave him a vision of what his
life could be, such that when he was 20 years old, he had started a
small business. He was buying cars that needed to be rehabbed and fixed
up. He would do that, and he would sell them to make a little bit of a
profit. It was an extraordinary endeavor for a kid who lived that kind
of life, who had those kinds of obstacles.
I think about 12 years later--Shane would have been in his early
thirties today. What would Shane be doing? Would he be running an
autobody shop? Would he be an active member of his community? Would he
be making a difference in the way that his father and his mother have?
Shane could have been a life-changer, but he is not because on October
20, 12 years ago, Shane died. Shane died when he was selling one of
these cars. He was meeting a prospective buyer. He brought his
girlfriend along, and one of the group of kids who were with the buyer
said something mean or coarse about Shane's girlfriend. Some words were
exchanged. Shane, as he sometimes did, threw a punch. In the other
group's car, there happened to be an illegal gun. They were furious
that Shane had thrown that punch. They went and got that gun, and they
shot Shane dead in cold blood.
Shane's mom got there before he died, at the scene. He died at the
hospital. I just think about who Shane would be today, what great
things he would be doing.
Two months later, the entire world woke up to the epidemic of gun
violence in this country. Shane's murder happened on October 20, 2012.
And then on December 14, 2012, the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary
School happened; 20 first graders and 6 educators lost their lives.
I never really know what to say every year when I come down here to
give this speech. But because this is the year that those kids would
have been going to college and voting for the first time--this year of
transition into adulthood--it is worth thinking about who they would be
today and what amazing things they might be getting ready to do in
their adulthood.
Catherine Hubbard, as early as preschool, just adored animals. And
she knew, even when she was 6 years old, that her purpose in life was
to protect animals. She would catch butterflies and put them in her
hand and whisper to them, ``Tell your friends I am kind.'' And then she
would let them go. She made business cards--she is 6. She made business
cards for ``Catherine's Animal Shelter,'' because she knew that is what
she was going to do. She was going to save animals as an adult.
Chase Kowalski was a jock. He loved to run and swim and bike so much
that that year that he died, when he was 6 years old, he asked his
parents to find him a triathlon to compete in. He was 6. You wonder,
what triathlon--he trained for a triathlon. He ran in that triathlon.
He swam in that triathlon. He biked in that triathlon. And he won his
age group.
That kind of indomitable spirit--the willingness to tackle
challenges, so big--that is a recipe for success in life. What would
Chase Kowalski be getting ready to do right now? What big challenges in
the world would he see as an opportunity to confront? What a difference
might he be making in the world, having displayed those really rare
characteristics as a 6-year-old?
Emilie Parker was a supertalented artist who didn't travel anywhere
without her colored pencils and her markers. She wanted to do art
wherever she was. She was very attuned to kids around her who weren't
feeling well, who were feeling sad. And her immediate instinct when she
would run into a friend who wasn't feeling good that day was to paint
them a picture or draw them a picture to make them feel better.
This month, the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary broke
ground on what will become Catherine's Learning Barn. And over the last
10 years, the not-for-profit that her parents set up in her name has
conducted thousands of opportunities and workshops for kids to commune
with animals.
There is a Race4Chase Kids Triathlon today. And so there are children
all over Connecticut who are learning how to overcome obstacles by
racing in their first triathlon, named after Chase.
And the Emilie Parker Art Connection has helped support arts programs
that are under siege with local budget cuts. Not just in Connecticut,
but all over the country kids are getting the opportunity to experience
art because of the Emilie Parker Art Connection.
That is a lovely story: the triathlon, the animal sanctuary, the arts
program.
But what would Catherine and what would Chase and what would Emilie
[[Page S6991]]
have done with their lives? If they lived, what would all of these
other beautiful girls and boys, their teachers have done with their
lives had they been here today?
It is just unthinkable how many lives are cut off, how much genius is
extinguished, how much change could have benefited all of us because we
live in a world in which 100, mainly young men and women in their teens
and 20s, lose their life every day.
But I am here to tell you that that is not the extent of the story,
because it is not just those who die who have their potential
extinguished.
I live in the South End of Hartford. The Presiding Officer lives in a
neighborhood with high rates of violence, and he knows as well as I do
the biology that impacts kids who wake up every single day fearing for
their lives.
I have a group of middle schoolers who I sort of call my
``neighborhood kitchen cabinet,'' and I go and meet with them every
month or so to get their feedback on what needs to be better about our
neighborhood that we live in. And they regularly tell me that, for
them, school is the safe place. It is their walk to and from schools,
it is the weekends where they don't feel safe.
And when you have millions of children in this country who experience
that exposure to violence on a daily basis--in Birmingham, AL, 58
percent of people live within a quarter mile of a recent fatal
shooting. In New Haven--same number--58 percent of people live within a
quarter mile of a recent fatal shooting.
When that is your daily reality, whether you survive the year or not,
your brain is impacted as a child in a way that robs you of the basic
skills for life's success: resiliency, grit.
It is not a coincidence that all the low-performing schools in this
country are in the violent neighborhoods. It is hard to learn--
impossible--for those kids who see gun violence on a daily basis.
And so I wish I knew what Shane would be as an adult. I wish I knew
what all of these kids ended up to be--where they were going to
college, what their dreams were becoming. But make no mistake. The
potential that we are losing in this country because of the choices we
make here not to make combating gun violence a priority, it is
extinguishing the potential not of 100 people a day--those who lose
their lives--but literally tens of thousands. And it is just a choice
we make.
Shane's first small business was a water-selling business. He asked
his dad one summer if he could just set up a little stand and sell
bottled water to people in the neighborhood. And so his dad fronted him
the money and bought him one of those big Costco packs of bottled
water. And Shane set out his little stand to sell the water in a
neighborhood where, whether he knew it or not, he was already exposed
to levels of trauma due to the loss of life that was happening almost
every weekend that summer in Hartford, CT. And he put a sign in front
of his table. He named his business Shane Oliver Sells. And he wrote
the acronym: SOS.
When you send out an SOS call, right, it is your last chance. Right?
You are on that boat. You have tried everything--everything. You tried
bailing it out. You tried restarting the engine. You tried plugging the
hole. You are done. The only thing left is to signal that SOS call so
that somebody in charge will come and rescue you.
I don't know if Shane knew or didn't know what his acronym meant. But
Shane Oliver sat out there every day in a neighborhood plagued with gun
violence with a sign that said ``SOS.'' And it is representative of the
millions of kids all across this country who every single day are
sending out an SOS signal to the adults who are supposed to protect
them. They are supposed to show up here every day and make it a
priority that something like this never, ever happens again--where the
kids who live in my neighborhood never, ever fear for their lives
walking from their home to school.
That SOS call is being sent out from thousands of neighborhoods all
across this country here. That call is being delivered to us. It has
been 12 years since we lost these beautiful children and the adults who
protected them. And it is about time that we respond to that plea for
help.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Fetterman). The senator from Hawaii.