[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 124 (Wednesday, July 29, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4325-S4330]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Unanimous Consent Requests
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I would like to address the Senate today
regarding a bill that has been passed by the House of Representatives
known as H.R. 7008. H.R. 7008 performs two badly needed functions to
restore faith and integrity in our system of government: Firstly, it
bans Members of Congress from using their unique access and knowledge
to profit through stock market speculation; secondly, it requires
something very simple, a voter ID.
You have got to show an ID when you pick up something at will call if
you are there to pick up tickets to the theater, if you are picking up
a prescription at the pharmacy, if you are going to the bank, if you
are boarding an airplane--you are doing all kinds of things that are
part of Americans' day-to-day experience where it matters whether you
are who you claim to be, you have got to show an ID.
We should require nothing less when it comes to the exercise of one
of the most fundamental rights that Americans have; that is, their
right to vote.
You see, when someone else votes in your place, they displace your
vote. They offset your vote. If they are double voting, if they are
voting when they are not allowed to vote because they are not a citizen
or otherwise, if they do something foolish and they try to go and vote,
they will be caught if they are asked to produce an ID at the balloting
place.
So this bill accomplishes both of these things. And like I say, both
of them would do a lot to restore faith, confidence, and integrity in
our system of government.
Dealing specifically with the voter ID requirement in this
legislation, this is a very straightforward requirement. When you show
up to vote, you just have to show an ID, just like you do at the bank,
just like you do at the pharmacy or the doctor's office or the bank or
when boarding an airplane.
And if you vote by mail, then that is easy to accommodate. You just
include a simple photocopy of your photo ID.
Now, we have gone to great lengths to make sure that everyone is
taken care of here, to make sure that there is not a single U.S.
citizen that would be disadvantaged or unable to vote if we were to
pass this.
So for those who, let's say, for whatever reason, don't have access
to a photocopier and they want to vote by mail, well, we have taken
that into consideration. The bill requires States
[[Page S4326]]
to provide the public to free access to photocopy machines so they can
make a photocopy of their photo ID and send it in with their mail-in
ballot if that is what they are using in their State.
Now, it is interesting. Right now the headquarters of the Democratic
Party here in Washington, DC, displays a sign very prominently, and
that sign makes clear that 100 percent of the visitors to the
Democratic Party's headquarters have to show a photo ID when they
enter.
Now, if they have to do that--and we know they have to do that when
attending the Democratic National Convention to enter the convention
hall, much less participate as a voting member of the Democratic
National Convention. You have to prove who you are, and you have to
show that you have the right to be there and the right to participate.
So far be it from us to second guess the Democratic Party in deciding
people need to prove who they are to enter their convention hall or
their party headquarters. We should have voters do the same thing.
And Democrats are smart in doing that because, after all, they don't
want somebody showing up to their convention. I mean, good heavens,
what if a Republican showed up to their Democratic National Convention
and tried to skew the results of their convention by pretending to be a
Democrat--a Democrat delegate no less. That wouldn't be fair.
So they are absolutely right to require photo ID and to require
delegates to present their convention credentials so that they can show
that they are who they claim to be and that they have the right to
participate at their own convention.
Americans at every corner of our country and at every point along the
political idealogical spectrum in this country agree that this makes
sense to do, specifically in the context--not just of needing to
produce ID where it matters whether you are who you claim to be, but
specifically in the context of voter ID, of having to produce
identification at the moment you vote, at the place where you vote. Mr.
President, 83 percent of American voters, in total, support voter ID,
and that includes a whopping 71 percent of Democrat voters.
So this is neither Republican nor Democratic. This is neither liberal
nor conservative. This is simply an American issue because we don't
want anyone's right to vote to be taken away. We don't want anyone
disenfranchised, and that is exactly what happens when you allow
someone who is not whom they claim to be, who is not entitled to vote,
to show up and cast a vote, and that is wrong. So today we have got a
really good opportunity to address these two issues that Americans are
deeply concerned about, and I hope we can take advantage of this
opportunity.
Now, the vote on the House of Representatives' side of this bill--
like I say, it was just passed recently by the House of
Representatives--it was bipartisan. You had Republicans overwhelmingly
support it, but you also had a number of House Democrats voting with
every House Republican in favor of this bill with the clean voter ID
requirement attached.
So we are going to be talking about this for a little while tonight,
and I just want to encourage my Democratic colleagues on this side of
the Capitol right here in the U.S. Senate to follow the lead of the
wise Democrats who joined every Republican to vote for this in the
House of Representatives.
We need to get this done. We should get it done. We have the
opportunity to get it done tonight, and we will be talking more about
that in a moment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to commend my colleague Senator
Lee and my colleagues Senator Ricketts, Senator Moreno. We are all on
the floor to seek unanimous consent to a bill that actually just makes
common sense.
Senator Lee talked about the different provisions of the bill, but I
think one thing that is important to underscore is it just passed the
House. These are issues that are on the minds of the American people,
and it passed the House in a bipartisan manner--a strong bipartisan
manner. So I am hopeful that we can move that House bill on both of
these issues that Senator Lee just talked about in a way tonight and
get this bill to the President's desk.
As I mentioned, Mr. President, common sense. Senator Lee talked about
the insider trading provisions. I think every American would agree that
Members of Congress should be prohibited, as well as their spouses and
children, from purchasing individual stocks while serving in office,
particularly given that we have access to different kinds of
information.
You know, this has been something that I have done a number of years
ago. I moved stocks into index funds to kind of get rid of this issue,
from my perspective, personally.
Senator Ricketts has been the lead here in the U.S. Senate on this
issue. I am actually a cosponsor of his bill that is very much focused
on this commonsense approach to the issue of insider trading.
And then we need to go to the issue of integrity of our election
system. As Senator Lee pointed out, it makes sense. It is very, very
common sense--simple in many ways--that if you are going to vote, you
have to have a valid ID to do that.
Now, this bill mandates that requirement, but it has a lot of
provisional elements to this bill that accommodate States like mine
that are very big, that have a dispersed population. So this bill
includes those kind of accommodations. Eligible voters can access a
provisional ballot. They can sign an affidavit attesting to their
identity and citizenship if they don't have an ID.
There are many ways in which this bill accommodates the important
element of making sure that American citizens vote in American
elections. And I don't think that is some kind of radical idea. I think
the vast, vast majority of Americans agree with this.
So I want to thank my colleagues for their leadership on this issue,
and I am hopeful that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle
will agree with us, and let's pass this bill and send it to the
President's desk.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, integrity; integrity inspires
confidence, and the reverse is true. If there is a perception of lack
of integrity, it undermines confidence.
We have a problem here in the Congress: 80 percent of Americans
believe that we do not do a good job of separating our financial
interests from the insider information that we receive as part of our
jobs. And because of this perception of lack of integrity, they don't
think we are doing a good job. Our approval rating is 15 percent.
Clearly, Americans are not trusting this institution on this issue.
But we have an opportunity to course-correct, to help restore the
integrity and, therefore, the confidence that Americans have in the
U.S. Congress, and that is by passing H.R. 7008 that includes the Stop
Insider Trading Act that was introduced in the House and passed, as my
colleagues pointed out, with bipartisan support. I introduced the
companion bill here in the Senate.
What this bill does is it says: You cannot buy stocks when you get
here.
Well, why is this important? Because we have disclosure laws right
now, but yet we have the problem that 80 percent of Americans think
that we do a bad job of keeping our financial interests and our insider
information separate.
And indeed we have seen people post on social media, for example, the
stock trades of the former Speaker of the House, and it has become a
legitimate trading strategy, as crazy as it sounds, because it is
successful; it makes money.
We have had a situation in the past where one of the members of the
Intelligence Committee sold about a million and a half dollars' worth
of stock right before the stock market tanked because of COVID. Even
the perception of using insider information to benefit yourself
financially is undermining the confidence.
And the same could be said as well for the voter ID. Thirty-six
States have voter ID. In my State of Nebraska, when I was Governor, we
passed it and put it on the ballot. It passed overwhelmingly, 65 to 35,
that Nebraskans wanted to have that voter ID as part of the process of
elections to make sure they could trust in the integrity and have
confidence.
[[Page S4327]]
Now, the insider trading act has real teeth to it. It says that you
cannot buy stock, and if you own stock already when you come into the
Congress, you can only sell it on 7 to 14 days' notice.
Why is this important? Well, to make sure that the market and anybody
in the country can see that if you are going to sell your stock
positions, they can all do it first. They get that information first so
that if you have some sort of insider information, it is not insider
anymore because the rest of the world knows.
And if you do violate the rules and you buy stock or you sell stock
out of turn without giving the proper notification, significant
penalties: a minimum $2,000 fine or 10 percent of the transaction
costs.
So, for example, if you sold a million dollars' worth of stock, that
is a $100,000 fine--plus giving up all the profits that go along with
it. That has the enforcement and the teeth that require Members of this
body and Members of the House to take notice.
This bill would go a long way toward restoring the integrity of this
institution, restoring the confidence in this institution. And as was
mentioned already, it passed bipartisan in the House. But the President
has called on us to pass it and recently the Vice President when he was
speaking to House Republicans.
Let's restore the faith in this institution. Let's make sure people
know that we are not using our insider information to financially
benefit ourselves.
Coming to Washington, DC, to serve our communities is a privilege. We
do it for public service. It is not to be a profit center for people
who are coming.
So let's make sure there is no perception possible by passing H.R.
7008.
Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule
XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate
consideration of H.R. 7008, which was received from the House; further,
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 Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. Reserving the right to object.
Mr. President, it is a shame that Senate Republicans seem
particularly focused on scoring political points instead of passing
real policies that can actually make a difference because, yes, all
Americans--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike--are rightly
concerned about insider trading by government officials. But the bill
before us cannot address these concerns because, just like as was the
case on Monday--that is right, 48 hours ago--we were having the same
discussion, the same debate. This measure contains two giant poison
pills.
First, it exempts the President and the Vice President of the United
States, for that matter. But it exempts the President from the ban on
stock trading, and I can list at least 21,000 reasons why we should not
exempt the President from the ban on insider trading.
Last year alone, Donald Trump made over 21,000 stock trades--an
average of 85 trades per day--85. Does that sound like somebody that is
singularly focused on bringing costs down for hard-working Americans? I
don't think so.
As I also said on Monday, Donald Trump is clearly the ``Trader in
Chief.'' So you cannot be serious about reining in public officials'
stock trading if you present a bill that gives the biggest stock trader
in Washington a free pass.
My colleague from Nebraska spoke to the virtues of disclosure and
advanced notice. Well, on the surface, that seems very attractive, but
let me tell you what is really going on. President Trump's social media
company is publicly selling inside information about his market-
changing statements before the public sees them to hedge funds and Wall
Street for the low, low price of $100,000 a month.
It is all in the open--inside information from the President himself
for $100,000 a month. The average American earns less than that in a
year. But the President isn't worried about them. He is focusing on
profiting from his office.
So it is clear that Republicans in Congress are not actually serious
about banning stock trading where it is happening the worst. And they
are not about helping working Americans address the higher costs of gas
and groceries and housing and healthcare.
So what is it that they do care about? Let's talk about the other big
poison pill in this bill because the title of it seems like it is about
insider trading--Stop Insider Trading Act--but the way it is before us
includes the SAVE Act, a bill that we have debated for months and
months and months on this floor. Republicans don't have the votes to
pass it--a bill that would make it harder for eligible Americans to
participate in our democracy.
We have debated this bill for months, and it has gotten nowhere
because the Republican caucus isn't even united on this measure because
the bill--it is not about voter fraud. The massive voter fraud they
claim simply doesn't exist. There is no evidence of massive voter fraud
across the country.
What the SAVE Act proposal does do is it sows distrust in our system
and seeks to cause chaos in an election cycle that is already
underway--a midterm election, by the way, where Republicans are afraid
of voters holding them accountable for failing to do anything about
rising costs and increased corruption, let alone this unauthorized war
with Iran.
How do we know that? Because the SAVE Act, as written, is far more
restrictive than the voter ID laws that exist in the States that
already have a voter ID law. The House Republican bill would go further
and require a photocopy of your ID in your absentee or mail ballot.
Now, that violates the fundamental premise of a secret ballot, which is
a sacred right; and, therefore, it would undermine mail voting itself.
As I mentioned on Monday, the Republican Governor of Ohio vetoed a
similar bill because he saw no benefit in it and that the measure would
be a ``significant burden'' on voters. So that is truly the point of
the bill: to make it harder for some people to vote.
Now, let's get back to the title of the bill: Stop Insider Trading.
If we are genuine about doing that, then there is a bipartisan solution
that is available to us today, a bipartisan solution on stock trading.
Everybody watching at home, there is a bill that has been pending
before the Senate for nearly a year. The Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee voted it out on a bipartisan basis.
Senator Hawley is the lead sponsor; Senator Moreno is a cosponsor,
along with a number of Democrats--S. 1498, the Halting Ownership and
Non-Ethical Stock Transactions, otherwise known as the HONEST Act. So
let's pass that--or at least set up a vote on that measure.
And if Republicans aren't willing to do that, then let's sit down--
Republicans and Democrats together--to hammer out a real solution and
stop with these political games.
So, therefore, Mr. President, I ask that the Senator modify his
request to instead proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar
No. 294, S. 1498; that the committee-reported substitute amendment be
agreed to; that the bill, as amended, 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 an objection to the modification?
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, so I think it is important to clear up a
couple of things in no particular order. First of all, I did not
cosponsor the HONEST Act. I was the cosponsor of the PELOSI Act, which
was a tribute--an honor--to the Member of the House of Representatives
that made grift on this job an absolute master class.
Your Representative from Northern California came here almost five
decades ago and has managed to build a $300 million net worth. Her
Twitter account is one of the most followed accounts, as my colleague
from Nebraska pointed out. So I was very proud to sponsor the PELOSI
Act. In fact, it is extraordinarily similar to the exact same measure
my colleague from Utah and my colleague from Nebraska have proposed, as
has the Presiding Officer, my colleague from Ohio. So just to clear
that up.
Then the next question was: Well, why would you not sponsor a bill
called the HONEST Act? I mean--my God--how do you be anti-honest? Well,
that bill basically bans the ownership of all
[[Page S4328]]
assets. You can't even own them. So if you have mutual funds, stocks,
equities, investments, you have to get rid of all of that.
So, basically, that would be insane. There is no other way to look at
that. The Democrats put that in place during a Homeland Security
meeting which went something like this. We sat down to talk about the
PELOSI Act, and they gave us 15 pages of amended documents and said:
Hey, we are going to vote on this right now.
And, again--I should have predicted it, honestly, because it was a
tribute to Nancy Pelosi, who said: Well, you have to vote for the bill
before you know what is in it.
Of course, Republicans said: We are not going to vote for something
we haven't read--because, again, that is insane. But it wasn't as
insane as what is actually in that bill.
Now, let's go back to what we are really doing here tonight. We could
pass this today. Tomorrow, the President of the United States could
sign into law a ban on insider trading. This is a 100-percent zero
issue. Sometimes we talk about 80-20 issues. There is not an American
citizen--well, maybe Paul Pelosi--who would be against this.
But all Americans want us to get this done, and it is very
commonsense. My colleague from Nebraska worked diligently on this. It
is a great bill. It says if you own stocks when you get here, you can't
buy more--so, therefore, you can't use the information--and you can't
sell stocks without a 7-day notice period, which, in effect, eliminates
any kind of advantage that you would have.
It is a very good bill. It applies to all Members of Congress. We
should be able to get that done. We should be able to ban insider
trading without Democrats blocking that vote.
My colleague, I believe, from Nebraska--if the Presiding Officer
could ask him; I want to be clear--he has asked for a vote at 60; is
that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Unanimous consent.
Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, so I would ask unanimous consent that we
do that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. No. You are objecting.
Mr. MORENO. I am objecting. Sorry. Well, let me--just continuing. So
let's talk about voter ID really quickly.
My colleague from California said that the Republicans are not united
on voter ID, and that is absolutely, absolutely, positively false. This
is really important because you can't make accusations here that are
false.
My colleague from Ohio, the Presiding Officer, has put forward the
exact, in essence, voter ID bill, and it was 53 out of 53 Republicans
that voted for that--53 out of 53. That is 100 percent of Republicans.
If I did that math correctly, I believe that 53 out of 53 is 100
percent.
Where he is correct is that Democrats are united in their opposition.
There wasn't a single Democrat that voted for a stand-alone voter ID
bill. Tonight, we have the opportunity to do that--ban insider trading
and get voter ID on the floor.
Because my colleagues don't want to do what the American people want
them to do, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard to the modification.
Is there an objection to the original request?
Mr. PADILLA. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, what we were just attempting to do was
to pass it with unanimous consent. That means all 100 Senators agree
that we can move forward on H.R. 7008, which includes the Stop Insider
Trading Act and the voter ID. And as I mentioned in my opening remarks,
it is about integrity. Integrity inspires confidence.
Eighty percent of Americans don't believe we separate our inside
information from our financial interests, and therefore we have a 15
percent approval rating. It is the lack of confidence in what we are
doing, about how we are handling this, that is creating those low
ratings.
So we have an opportunity to be able to address that with the Stop
Insider Trading Act and the voter ID, to restore that integrity and,
therefore, that confidence.
I certainly understand if my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle don't wish to do that unanimously; that, for whatever reason,
somebody objects going forward, as my colleague from California has. I
offer an alternative that let's schedule a vote.
So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding
rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by
the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader, the
Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 7008 and vote on
the passage of the bill at a 60-vote affirmative threshold; further,
that if the bill is passed, the motion to reconsider be considered made
and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
The Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, before I
offer a good-faith counterproposal to my colleague from Nebraska, let
me just clarify one item that my colleague from Ohio was seeming to
correct--or attempting to correct, I should say, a measure that I was
referencing.
So to folks watching at home, let me suggest: Don't take my word for
it. Go to Congress.gov and look up S. 1498, and you will see that,
indeed, Senator Moreno is a cosponsor. And if you read the measure
itself, you will see that it does not ban mutual fund investments.
And with that true correction and clarification, Mr. President, let
me ask that the Senator modify his request to, instead, at a time to be
determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic
leader, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar
No. 294, S. 1498; that the committee-reported substitute amendment be
agreed to and the Senate vote on passage of the bill at a 60-vote
affirmative threshold; further, that if the bill is passed, the motion
to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection to the modification?
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, reserving my right to object, the bill
that my colleague from Nebraska, my colleague from Ohio, and my
colleague from Utah is proposing is a bill that has already passed the
House of Representatives. It has massive bipartisan support. Lots of
Democrats voted for that in the House. If we pass it, it can become
law. Putting that bill on the floor at 60 is a very low-threshold ask.
I think the American people deserve to know what each Member of this
Chamber decides to do on banning insider trading and voter ID.
The proposal that my colleague from California is putting on the
floor is a bill that has neither gotten through any committee where it
has been actually read by committee members. It is a bill that has not
been presented to the House of Representatives, so they would have to
take it up over there. It would, of course, be modified and come back.
In other words, it is what I say--it is the DC two-step--or if you want
to have a headline that says ``I am for banning insider trading''
knowing nothing will actually happen.
Now, maybe you don't think that the bill that my colleague from
Nebraska worked diligently on is perfect, but it is a massive step in
the right direction. This would get us to 99.9 percent of the way there
on banning insider trading. It could happen tomorrow. It could happen
tomorrow. And the voter ID law, which virtually all Americans support,
could happen tomorrow.
So what we are dealing with is one bill that can be signed into law
that has been vetted, that has massive bipartisan support, versus a
bill that, quite frankly, the person talking about it wasn't even on
that committee, is not 100 percent sure what was in that bill, doesn't
know the history of the bill. It wasn't a year ago; it was a few months
ago. It is a smokescreen, and for that reason I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Is there an objection to the original request?
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, we see a lot of debates around here on a lot
of different topics--too many topics, in my view, given the fact that
the Federal Government is a government enterprise with narrow
responsibilities.
[[Page S4329]]
In Federalist 45, James Madison described the powers of the Federal
Government as few and defined while describing those reserved to the
States as numerous and indefinite.
We are in charge of national defense, weights and measures,
trademarks, copyrights and patents, regulating trade or commerce
between the States with foreign nations and with Tribes, bankruptcy
laws, intellectual property laws, coastal roads, declaring war,
granting letters of marque and reprisal, serving as the sole sovereign
lawmaking authority for what we now call the District of Columbia, the
city where we stand today. That is about it. There are a few other
powers, but the lion's share of it can be found somewhere in that list
of relatively limited authorities that I just described.
We venture sometimes too far afield from those powers, and that is
one of the reasons why a lot of things come up.
My point in reciting all this is that in all the debates we see,
which probably range further than they should, we see some things that
are weighty and some things that are more on the trivial side. Just to
cite one random hypothetical, one minute, you could see something
debated and maybe passed on this floor recognizing, I don't know,
National Sofa Care Week or something like that that goes by sort of
with a yawn, and then the next moment, we will be debating something
more weighty, something more significant and more definitely relevant
to the U.S. Government's powers.
Under article I, sections 4 and 5, this legislation that we have been
discussing this evening, H.R. 7008, deals with a couple of core powers
that Congress has, one of them involving the regulation of behavior and
activities on the part of Members of Congress, Members of the House and
the Senate. In the second instance, you have the regulation of the
casting of ballots for Federal elections--for elections for Federal
office, elections for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of
Representatives. We certainly have authority to act in both of those
two areas.
There is not a lot of dispute--in other words, there is a lot of
bipartisan consensus over the fact that it is time to restrict stock
buying and selling on the part of Members of Congress. It is stunning,
however, that the voter ID component of H.R. 7008 is at all
controversial. This one should be a no-brainer. For the American
people, it is a no-brainer. Democratic voters--71 percent favor voter
ID requirements. When you add Republicans--so Democrat voters and
Republican voters combined--you take it up to 83, 84 percent. If you
poll Republican voters alone, we are talking in the mid- to high-90
percentile range for people who support voter ID requirements.
The reason for this is simple. This is obvious. It is intuitive. It
is just as we have to prove who we are everywhere else we go where who
you are matters and whether you are who you claim to be can make a big
difference.
Americans intuitively understand that whatever mild inconvenience
might accompany having to provide documentation for who you are, when
most of the time, that can be done with a simple card like a driver's
license, for example, a passport, something like that, something
showing who you are that is issued by the government--we have come to
accept as a society that that is just sort of the cost of living in our
country. That is part of what it takes because if we didn't do that,
the alternative would be bad.
You don't want to show up to your bank one day and discover that
somebody else impersonating you, falsely claiming to be you, came in
and withdrew all of your money. You don't want that.
We don't allow people to board aircraft without a photo ID, and the
reason is there are all kinds of things that can happen in the sky that
are dangerous, and you don't want to make it too easy for somebody
claiming to be who they are not to board an aircraft and then carry
out, you know, crimes of one sort or another--acts of terrorism,
perhaps.
These are just a couple examples of the myriad instances in which we
have to prove who we are. It is not an undue burden; it is a momentary
detour from what we would otherwise be doing.
Most of the time, most people, when they show up to vote, already
have their wallet with them, and in their wallet, they presumably have
a driver's license or another form of government-issued photo ID, so
why not require them to show that?
We saw tonight my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator
from California, contorting himself into a pretzel trying to explain
why it is we can't pass this bill. To be clear, his objection, as far I
can tell, didn't relate nearly as much to anything else in the bill
other than the voter ID provision. That is the concern.
The question is, Why is it that when 70 percent of Democrat voters
and 83, 84 percent of all voters, Democrat and Republican combined--why
is it that my Democrat colleagues are so adamantly opposed to this? Why
do they care? Why do they want the status quo?
I am always reluctant to speak on someone else's behalf because what
they say--No. 1, I don't have the ability to read minds, but sometimes,
what they say can give us an indication. We have had Democratic
politician after Democratic politician part from their own Democratic
voter base, which overwhelmingly supports voter ID, time and time and
time again, showing up and saying: Oh, we don't want voter ID.
Why?
Now, they actually say this: We believe this would shut out a lot of
our voters.
What? Is that an admission that a lot of their voters aren't who they
claim to be? that a lot of their voters perhaps aren't U.S. citizens
and aren't eligible to vote?
This ought to be concerning to everyone. It ought to be concerning
especially to Democrat voters, especially in States that have elected a
Democrat Senator who is now opposing any and every sort of voter ID
requirement.
A few months ago when we had the SAVE America Act on the floor for, I
don't know, 10 blessed days--should have been longer, but it was on the
floor for about 10 days. During that time, I was on the floor a lot
responding to arguments that they made, and I think I heard every
single argument they made.
The overwhelming majority of them--and I mean probably 95-plus
percent of the arguments they made against the SAVE America Act--
weren't even against the voter ID provisions of the SAVE America Act.
Overwhelmingly, they were instead about the proof of citizenship issue.
In fact, many of them, Democratic Senator after Democratic Senator,
intimated one way or another that they are OK with voter ID
requirements. So why are they opposing it? You have to ask yourself
that question.
In Latin, there is a word for this: ``Cui bono?'' Who benefits? Who
benefits from people being able to show up and claim to be someone they
are not or from someone showing up who is not entitled to vote because
they are not a U.S. citizen? Who benefits from that?
I can tell you it is not Republicans. Why? Well, you don't see a
single Republican politician making the ridiculous, absurd arguments
against voter ID and citizenship verification that these guys are
making. Who benefits from illegal voting? Their words seem to suggest
that they are benefiting.
This issue isn't going away. The SAVE America Act isn't going away.
Voter ID requirement demands aren't going away. I will be back. I will
be back day after day, week after week, until this passes because the
American people deserve to go to bed every night knowing that their
government is run by people they themselves elected, not foreign
nationals. They don't want a government that has been chosen with
significant foreign influence in our elections.
There was a time when the Democrats in this august Chamber--a time
not so very long ago indeed--spoke of little else other than their fear
of foreign election interference.
If we don't face the real challenge as to foreign election
interference right now, as long as we are not passing the SAVE America
Act or its key components, it would appear that those who are against
this are just fine now with foreign election interference.
The American people shouldn't be because, again, it is not free. When
somebody else votes who is not who they claim to be, when somebody else
votes claiming to be a citizen and they are not a citizen, it robs
hard-working
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Americans, actual American citizens, of their most sacred, their most
fundamental right: their right to vote.
No. No. We can't look the other way, nor do we, in my view, have any
business taking a 6-week recess until such time as we have done
everything humanly possible to get these reforms put into law. The
American people deserve better than this. Most of them don't have that
luxury of doing that.
Now, I know it is a time-honored Senate tradition. I know it is a
tradition that has its roots back to long before the advent of modern
air-conditioning and to a time when Washington, DC--you know, it is
typically not the most pleasant weather in Washington, and this
Chamber, I am sure, became suffocatingly hot and muggy, so for a long
time, we had that August recess. Well, we have air-conditioning now. We
can handle it.
It is true we frequently do take a recess in August, but it is not
written in stone anywhere, it is not written in law anywhere that we
have to do that. I would be fine doing that if we had gotten our work
done. I would be fine doing that if we knew how our government was
going to be funded past September 30. Right now, we have no idea. So
when the government remains unfunded and we have no idea how we are
going to secure an election system that, quite frankly, is recklessly,
criminally insecure--we have no business leaving this Chamber for 6
weeks when we have no idea how we are going to take care of any of
that. These problems are not going to solve themselves while we are
gone.
I remember 15 years ago when I was first sworn in. I was younger
then. I had a full head of hair. I was only 39 years old. I was the
youngest Member of the Senate when I got sworn in.
Right after I got sworn in, we were walking one evening around the
Capitol. I was showing it to my family. My daughter Eliza was 10 years
old at the time. She pointed to one of the little doors out in the
hallway just outside the Senate Chamber.
It is a door that is maybe 18 inches tall at the most. I later
learned that it was installed when they built this wing of the Capitol
in the late 1850s. That was their source of water. They had a pipe in
there. The custodial staff at the time used it to get water so that
they could clean the floors. I didn't know that at the time.
As we were walking around, my 10-year-old daughter Eliza asked me:
Dad, what is that door for?
Not knowing how to answer, I just said the first thing that came to
mind. I said: Well, that is for the House elves. The House elves live
in there.
Of course, there are no House elves here, but sometimes, we act as if
we are relying on the House elves to not only clean the Capitol but
also clean up the messes that we make and that we leave undealt with,
unaddressed legislatively while we are gone. The cavalry is not coming.
We are the cavalry. The House elves aren't going to show up and do our
work for us if we retreat into the sunset for 6 weeks.
We have to do this. We had an opportunity tonight to make a
meaningful dent in our election security problem. And it is tragic that
the Democrats chose not to let this reasonable measure pass into law--a
measure that 71 percent of their voters and 83 percent of all American
voters support. They can't handle it--apparently because they benefit
too much when people vote illegally. Shame on them for taking that
position, but shame on us if we leave before the job is done.
Lastly, far too much gets said around here about, Oh, we can't do X,
Y, or Z because we don't have 60 votes. I get that that is said. That
cannot become our anthem. That is an absurd suggestion.
Now, I know it takes 60 votes to invoke cloture, but, you know, long
before there even was a cloture rule--there has only been a cloture
rule for 109 years. Before that time, we still had the filibuster, just
no cloture. Remember, a cloture vote is just one way of breaking the
filibuster.
If a supermajority of Senators--under the current rule, three-fifths,
60 votes in the Senate--if 60 Senators want to force debate to come to
a close even if some Senators want to continue debating, then the
Senate can do so, but that is not the exclusive means by which you can
break a filibuster. Other techniques are available--techniques that
were available for nearly 150 years before the first cloture rule was
even adopted in 1917.
If you can't break a filibuster and you don't have 60 votes to bring
debate to a close using cloture, you can put legislation on the floor,
and you can debate it, and you can require any Senator wishing to
filibuster to continue to show up and continue to speak to prolong
debate.
The filibuster is about speaking; it is about debating; it is not
about perpetually forestalling the passing of legislation until you
have 60 votes for it.
Passage in this Chamber, with rare exceptions not relevant here, is
set at a simple majority, at 51 votes. And if the Vice President is
with you, you can do it at 50 votes. The Vice President supplies the
tie-breaking vote of 51, and then it is passed. We could do that.
We should be putting this measure on the Senate floor. We should be
debating it for weeks on end, if necessary, cutting into weekends and
long-scheduled recess time, if necessary, making clear we are going to
keep debating it until it passes, and making clear that the minute
those filibustering it fail to show up and continue to speak, we will
call the question, and we will pass it with a simple majority.
We could do that. We should do that. It takes time, yes. But time is
on our side. We have got weeks in which to do this. We should do that.
Now, if we don't want to do that, there are other mechanisms
available to us. We could continue to attach it to other must-pass
vehicles. We could also push something in the form of budget
reconciliation.
Now, that is a little trickier. You could bypass the need for cloture
with budget reconciliation, but it has to be budgetary, and it has to
meet a whole bunch of requirements.
It has to be budgetary, which means it needs to manage changes in
mandatory outlays or revenues; and it can't, among other things, have
budgetary features that are merely incidental to policy changes.
But there are ways that we could capture some of the benefits of the
SAVE America Act through reconciliation.
But my point is just to say there are multiple ways of skinning this
cat. I don't care nearly as much which way to skin it. I would
personally prefer to bring it up on the floor and debate it until it
passes. I think that is the cleanest way of doing it. But I am not a
purist on that. I don't insist it be my way or the highway. I am just
saying we do have to do it. We can't pretend this isn't here. This will
not disappear simply because we leave.
The cavalry is not coming. We are the cavalry. There are no house
elves who will come and fix our election security problems. So let's
get this done. And for the love of all that is sacred and holy, let's
not go on a 6-week recess with all of this undone. The American people
deserve better.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
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