Mr. President, last night, the country lost a giant of Democratic politics, a kind and revered public servant, a Vice President who reimagined the position and expanded Americans' views of who could hold America's highest offices. Walter…
Mr. President, last night, the country lost a giant of Democratic politics, a kind and revered public servant, a Vice President who reimagined the position and expanded Americans' views of who could hold America's highest offices. Walter Mondale, known to friends and foes alike as ``Fritz,'' died at the age of 93.
As President Carter's right-hand man, Fritz revolutionized the role of the Vice Presidency. There is an old yarn about two brothers: One went off to sea, and the other became Vice President. Neither was heard from again. That is not true of Walter Mondale.
Walter Mondale was an uncooperative subject for those Vice Presidential comedians. Not only was he often the last person in the room with the President when the tough decisions were made, but he became an unofficial ambassador for the administration. His relationship with Prime Minister Begin of Israel helped paved the way for a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt at Camp David in 1978.
In his ultimately unsuccessful run for the Presidency, Walter Mondale's pick of my fellow New Yorker, the late Geraldine Ferraro, as Vice President was an early crack in the glass ceiling that our current Vice President, Kamala Harris, would eventually shatter.
Vice President Mondale will be remembered as a lion of progressive politics; an ardent defender of civil rights, aid to schoolchildren, childcare, healthcare, and consumer protections. Mondale once said:
My whole life I worked on the idea that government can be
an instrument for social progress. We need that progress.
Fairness requires it.
Indeed, as Mondale said, we need government to make social progress.
As we say goodbye to one of our country's most decent public servants, let us follow in his example.
Marijuana
Mr. President, now on a much different subject, today is what you might call a very unofficial American holiday, 4/20. It is as appropriate a time as any to take a hard look at our laws that have overcriminalized the use of marijuana and put it on a par with heroin, LSD, and other narcotics that bear little or no resemblance in their effects
either on individuals or on society, more broadly.
The war on drugs has too often been a war on people, particularly people of color. For decades, young men and women--disproportionately, young men and women of color--have been arrested and jailed for even carrying a small amount of marijuana, a charge that often came with exorbitant penalties and a serious criminal record from which they might never recover, being rejected from job after job because this minor, minor deviation from the law was listed as a serious criminal record.
It makes no sense. It is time for change. I believe the time has come to end the Federal prohibition on marijuana in this country, and I am working with Senators Booker and Wyden on legislation to do just that. My thinking on this issue has evolved.
A number of States--including, very recently, my home State of New York--have legalized the recreational use of marijuana for adults, and those experiments, by and large, have been a success. The doom-and- gloom predictions, when States like Colorado or Oregon went forward and decriminalized and legalized marijuana, never occurred.
In State after State, through ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments, the American people are sending a clear message that they want this policy changed. Senators Booker, Wyden, and I are going to continue to work on our legislation, and in the near future, we hope to have a draft of a comprehensive reform effort, not only to end the Federal prohibition on marijuana but to ensure restorative justice, protect public health, and implement responsible taxes and regulations. This was the approach taken by legislators in New York. I believe it is the right approach, and it serves as a model for how we should deal with the issue in Congress.
Hopefully, the next time this unofficial holiday, 4/20, rolls around, our country will have made progress in addressing the massive overcriminalization of marijuana in a meaningful and comprehensive way
Voting Rights
Mr. President, now on voting rights, today in the Judiciary Committee, Senators will hear testimony from a number of public officials and experts about the surge in voter suppression laws since the 2020 election, including former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
These voter suppression laws--more than 250 proposed laws in more than 40 States--constitute a grave and immediate threat to the very core of our democracy. In ways both large and small, they seek to restrict the franchise, often targeting minority communities, younger voters, and dense urban districts.
Our Republican colleagues have tried in vain to defend these laws as meaningful and appropriate protections against voter fraud. In many cases, those attempts have been just laughable.
Just to take one example from earlier this week, the Republican-led Montana State Legislature passed a law that ends election-day voter registration and would no longer allow student IDs to be used as a sole ballot form of identification. Just think about that for a moment. What problems are the Republicans in Montana trying to solve there? Has there been a rash of 40-year-olds showing up with student IDs to commit voter fraud? No, there certainly hasn't been. We all know what is going on here. Younger voters have been shown to be more Democratic. So Montana Republicans have made it harder for them to vote. It is despicable--just despicable--and these laws are moving through State legislatures all across the country, including the most recent one in Georgia, which, among other crucial reforms, makes it a crime--a crime--to provide food and water to voters waiting in line at the poles, even though in minority areas the lines are often much longer because there are fewer polling places.
I know my Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee are going to shine a spotlight on all of these efforts, and I applaud Chairman Durbin for holding this very important hearing today. Voting rights are a topic that deserves continued national attention. It is a top priority for this Democratic Senate majority.
Puerto Rico
Finally, Mr. President, you couldn't find a better study in contrasts than the Trump administration and the Biden administration. On so many issues, the executive branch is finally returning to competence, undoing the damage wrought by 4 years of Trump's Presidency.
One important example came last night. Beginning in 2017, the Trump administration maliciously held back billions of dollars in congressionally approved disaster aid to Puerto Rico, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans. This was vicious on the part of Donald Trump--nasty, so typical of the pettiness and inhumanity of his administration.
Well, the Biden administration has finally ended this appalling delay and will release the much needed disaster relief funds that Puerto Rico has waited for, for almost 5 years. The release of these funds means the people of Puerto Rico can finally and fully rebuild their homes, their schools, their businesses.
Puerto Rico, unfortunately, has too often been an afterthought to work here in Washington. Funds that would normally go to any State after a natural disaster like Hurricane Maria got delayed for years over the course of an entire administration.
Puerto Ricans are American citizens and should be treated exactly as such when disaster strikes. That is why, in the American Rescue Plan, Democrats passed the largest, most comprehensive relief package for the people of Puerto Rico in a long, long time. I am proud to have worked with my House colleagues, particularly Representative Nydia Velazquez, to get that done.
Prior to the American Rescue Plan, the Federal Government had never supported Puerto Rico's tax credit for low-income workers. We did that for the first time ever.
Shockingly, prior to the American Rescue Plan, only families with three or more children in Puerto Rico could claim the child tax credit. That seems, to me, to be racist in its application. We fixed that and made sure that every family in Puerto Rico can claim the credit, just like every other American family.
So as long as Democrats have a majority here in the Senate, I am going to make sure that Puerto Rico is treated fairly and gets its fair share of support. When it comes to this disaster aid, I am so glad the Biden administration is rectifying the issue. I hope we never repeat such a shameful delay.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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.
Order of Procedure
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the order of yesterday, the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. and that at 2:15 p.m., the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Gensler nomination and the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination; that following the cloture vote, the Senate resume legislative session and the Senate recess until 4 p.m. to allow for the all-Senators briefing; further, that if cloture is invoked on the Gensler nomination, all postcloture time be considered expired at 5 p.m.; that immediately following the disposition of the Gensler nomination, the Senate resume consideration of the Monaco nomination and vote on confirmation as provided under the previous order; that if either nomination is confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; finally, that following the confirmation vote on the Monaco nomination, the Senate resume legislative session.
The ACTING PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Therefore, Senators should expect one rollcall vote at 2:15 p.m. and two rollcall votes at 5 p.m.