Floor Statements

Madam President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 190, the motion to invoke cloture on Daniel Aaron Bress, of California, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit.

Madam President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 145, the confirmation of Ryan T. Holte, of Ohio, to be a Judge of the US Court of Federal Claims.

Madam President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 146, the confirmation of Rossie David Alston, Jr., of Virginia, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Madam President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 147, the confirmation of Richard A. Hertling, of Maryland, to be a Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present on May 16, 2019, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 116, the confirmation of Jeffrey A. Rosen, to be Deputy Attorney General.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 123, the confirmation of Howard C. Nielson, Jr., of Utah, to be United States District Judge for the District of Utah.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 124, the confirmation of Stephen R. Clark, Sr., of Missouri, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 125,

the confirmation of Carl J. Nichols, of the District of Columbia, to be United States District Judge for the District of Columbia.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 126, the confirmation of Kenneth D. Bell, of North Carolina, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of North Carolina.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 114, the confirmation of Wendy Vitter, of Louisiana, to be the United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 117, the confirmation of Michael H. Park, of New York, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit.

Mr. President, I was absent for vote No. 77 on Executive Calendar No. 200, the nomination of David Bernhardt to be Secretary of the Interior. Had I been present, I would have voted no on the nomination.

Mr. President, I was absent for vote No. 76 the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 200, the nomination of David Bernhardt to be Secretary of the Interior. Had I been present, I would have voted no on the motion to invoke cloture.

I thank the Senator from Tennessee.

Dr. King continues:

You may well ask: ``Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches

and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?'' You are

quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the

very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks

to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a

community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced

to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue

that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of

tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may

sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not

afraid of the word ``tension.'' I have earnestly opposed

violent tension, but there is a type of constructive,

nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as

Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in

the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of

myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative

analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for

nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society

that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and

racism to the majestic heights of understanding and

brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to

create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably

open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in

your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland

been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue

rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the

action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is

untimely. Some have asked: ``Why didn't you give the new city

administration time to act?'' The only answer that I can give

to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must

be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will

act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of

Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to

Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person

than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to

maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell

will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive

resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without

pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must

say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil

rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups

seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may

see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust

posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups

tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never

voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by

the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct

action campaign that was ``well timed'' in the view of those

who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.

For years now I have heard the word ``Wait!'' It rings in the

ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This

``Wait'' has almost always meant ``Never.'' We must come

to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that

``justice too long delayed is justice denied.''

We have waited for more than 340 years for our

constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and

Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political

independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace

toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it

is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of

segregation to say, ``Wait.'' But when you have seen vicious

mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your

sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled

policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and

sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty

million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of

poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you

suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering

as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she

can't go to the public amusement park that has just been

advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her

eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored

children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to

form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to

distort her personality by developing an unconscious

bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an

answer for a five year old son who is asking: ``Daddy, why do

white people treat colored people so mean?''; when you take a

cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after

night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because

no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and

day out by nagging signs reading ``white'' and ``colored'';

when your first name becomes ``nigger,'' your middle name

becomes ``boy'' (however old you are) and your last name

becomes ``John,'' and your wife and mother are never given

the respected title ``Mrs.''; when you are harried by day and

haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living

constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to

expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer

resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating

sense of ``nobodiness''--then you will understand why [I]

find it difficult to wait.

I would now like to yield to my colleague Senator Cruz from Texas.

James Baldwin once said:

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing

can be changed until it is faced.

That is why we are here again today, to face the history of lynching in this country. From 1882 to 1986, the U.S. Congress failed to pass anti-lynching legislation when it had the opportunity more than 200 times.

We have an opportunity, once again, to right this wrong and face the ugly history of lynching in America. Let's recall this stain on America's history. Lynching is an act of terror. It is murder.

These were summary executions. Victims of lynching were dragged out of their homes. They had ropes wrapped around their necks. They were hanged on trees. In many cases, they were castrated and burned as crowds of people watched and applauded. The premise underlying all of these acts was that Black people were not full human beings.

According to the Equal Justice Initiative, lynching was used as an instrument of terror and intimidation 4,084 times during the late 19th and 20th centuries.

In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American boy, was lynched in

Mississippi after being accused of offending a woman in her family's grocery store. When Emmett Till's mother held open her son's casket at his funeral, the image of his body became one of the starkest examples of racial violence in America.

These lynchings, I think no one can deny, were acts of violence. They were needless, horrendous acts of violence, and they were motivated by racism. Lynchings were crimes that were committed against innocent Americans. These crimes, for the most part, did not go without consequence. They rarely were followed by an arrest or the charging of a crime or the prosecution of a crime or the punishment for the crime. Of course, the victims of these acts and their families never received justice in our courts of law or in their community.

This is an uncomfortable history to think of, to talk about, and understandably makes many people uncomfortable because of the violence we are describing, because it is part of America's history, because it is something we have never truly acknowledged and recognized, in terms of the crime it was, the crime it is, and how we, through our laws, must recognize the seriousness of it.

Today we have that opportunity, and we must recognize the context in which we discuss it today. Just in the last month, we have had difficult and high-profile conversations about slavery and blackface, issues that are claimed to be part of a bygone era. However, it is clear that in many ways our past is our present.

Lynching is not a relic of the past. In 2011, three men in Brandon, MS, murdered an African-American man, James Craig Anderson. They robbed him, beat him, and ran him over with a truck. That is modern-day lynching.

Let's be clear. No one should have to fear for their life because of their race, national origin, religion, or sexual orientation. We must confront hate directly.

In December of 2018, our Senate colleagues, I am proud to say, voted unanimously, in a bipartisan way, to pass the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act, which I proudly introduced with Senators Booker and Scott. After 100 years and more than 200 failed attempts in the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Senate finally spoke the truth about lynching.

Today I have reintroduced the bill and will ask the Senate to pass it again. The Justice for Victims of Lynching Act is a historic piece of legislation that would make lynching a Federal crime for the first time in American history. With this bill, we finally have a chance to speak the truth about our past and make clear that these hateful acts should never happen again and, God forbid, they do, we are making clear there will be swift, serious, and severe consequences.

We can now finally offer some long overdue justice and recognition to the victims of lynching and their families. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said: ``The time is always right to do what is right.''

I now yield the floor to my friend and colleague, the great Senator from the great State of New Jersey, Cory Booker.

Thank you, Senator Booker. Happy Valentine's Day to you.

Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 488, introduced earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

I know of no further debate on the bill.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you to all of our colleagues.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, our Nation mourns the loss of one of the country's greatest servant-leaders, The Right Reverend, Senior Bishop McKinley Young, whose life work ministering to countless individuals and whole communities in search of both hope and democracy exemplifies faith in action.

Senior Bishop McKinley Young was born on November 10, 1944, in Atlanta, GA; the eldest son of Reverend Lonnie C. Young and Mrs. Nellie Cummings Young. He attended Morris Brown College, where he earned his bachelor's degree and later received two master's degrees from Andover Newton Theological School and the University of Chicago Divinity School respectively.

Early in his ministry, Bishop Young pastored churches in the first, fourth, and sixth Episcopal Districts, including the historic Big Bethel A.M.E Church in Atlanta, GA. After being elected and consecrated the 109th Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1992, his first episcopal assignment was to the 15th District of Angola, South Africa, and Namibia where he led the Centennial Celebration of African Methodism. Bishop Young would later serve as presiding prelate in Texas, Florida, and the Bahamas. His final episcopal assignment was with the third District, which includes Ohio, West Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania, where he served until his transition to the church triumphant on Wednesday, January 16, 2019.

Bishop Young's commitment to the church community was as strong as his commitment to voter education, voter registration, and getting people from the pews to the polls. This passion came from his lifelong belief that ``a vote-less people is a hopeless people.'' For decades, Bishop Young organized voter registration drives across the United States, empowering those who were historically voiceless in the voting process. His commitment to democratic values led him to South Africa, where he worked on voter registration efforts during the first free democratic election of the President of South Africa.

Throughout his journey and in addition to his ministerial and civic work, Bishop Young worked diligently to increase educational opportunities for African-American students, especially those attending historically black colleges and universities. He served on the board of trustees for Payne Theological Seminary, led the church in financially stabilizing Paul Quinn College, helped raise $2 million to secure Edward Walters College's accreditation, and would later serve as chancellor of Wilberforce University.

Bishop Young has served the ecumenical community faithfully for over 40 years. He was a devoted leader of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Service and Development Agency, Inc., SADA for over 20 years and served as

chair of the board. Bishop Young's leadership among other faith councils only amplified the effectiveness of his advocacy across the faith community, including as a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, the World Methodist Council, and the Conference of National Black Churches.

Bishop Young was a courageous servant leader, activist, and champion for civil and human rights whose service and dedication to countless communities will continue to inspire others for generations to come.

We wish every member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church that he served and those whose lives were touched by Bishop Young peace during this difficult time, especially his wife Dr. Dorothy Jackson Young, his children, Karyn, Deana, Andrea, and Stephanie, and eight grandchildren:

We are now 26 days into the longest government shutdown in American history, and 800,000 workers--800,000 Americans--are going without pay. Half of them are working anyway.

Let's be very clear about how we got into this mess. The Senate unanimously passed a bill to open the government right before the holidays. The vote was 100 to 0. There was such jubilance on this floor that, literally, Members of the Senate were singing Christmas carols.

Yet 2 weeks ago, the House, doing its job, then passed a bill to reopen the government. They sent six bills over to the Senate. This body needs to hold a vote on that legislation and send it to the President and ask him to sign it.

The real obstacle to ending this shutdown is in the White House. The President is holding the American people hostage over his vanity project on the southern border and peddling his usual propaganda to distract from a crisis of his own making.

The President has said that ``most of the workers not getting paid are Democrats,'' as if that is true or if that should matter. He has said that ``many of the people that we're talking about . . . agree with what we're doing.'' It has been said that the workers have said to ``stay out until you get the funding for the wall.''

Well, that is contrary to what we have been hearing and what I have been hearing. Last week, for example, I heard from a woman by the name of Trisha. Trisha and her husband are both air traffic controllers with nearly 40 years of Federal service combined. Trisha's husband served in the Navy. He now has to work long hours of overtime to compensate for the workers who are absent because they have been furloughed, and he is not being paid.

Trisha's job was deemed nonessential, so she is also not being paid. Neither parent in this family is being paid. They have three young children, and this is on top of the fact that Trisha and her family have already endured hardship these past few months as victims of the Thomas fire.

As she wrote me:

On December 5th of last year, our home was completely

destroyed in the Thomas fire and we have used every resource

available to us to work towards rebuilding our home.

While their home is being rebuilt, Trisha's family moved into a rental home, and they are currently evacuated from that rental home due to the flood and mudslide risks that are currently an issue in California.

Trisha said:

We have small children that we are most concerned about

(with the uncertainty of our careers as Federal employees and

the incredibly long road ahead in rebuilding our home but

most importantly our livelihood).

She writes:

We will continue to stand with our NATCA Brothers and

Sisters in ensuring the safety of the National Airspace

System, but without the support staff working, it is a

daunting task.

Trisha's message is one of nearly 20,000 phone calls, emails, and letters my office has received since the shutdown started 26 days ago-- all pleading with us to reopen the U.S. Government.

They are 2 of the 42,300 workers who are currently being furloughed in California. I don't know which of them are Democrats or Republicans, and it doesn't matter. What matters is the people who are being hurt and the critical government functions that are going undone. They are the TSA agents who protect our flights and the air traffic controllers who help to land our planes. They are park rangers and FBI agents and Coast Guard members. They inspect our food and provide loans to our farmers. They conduct lifesaving research. Right now, though, they are being told to pay their bills by babysitting or selling their belongings on craigslist.

These Americans need their government to do its job. They don't need a wall. They need paychecks. Congress is a coequal branch of government. We don't need a permission slip before we can vote on a bill.

On behalf of Trisha and hundreds of thousands of Americans like her, let's take up the legislation that we have already approved. Let's send it to the President, and let's end this pointless shutdown as soon as possible--right away, now.

I yield back my time.

Madam President, over 2 months ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to advance the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act of 2018, which I introduced proudly with Senators Booker and Scott. This is a historic piece of legislation that would criminalize lynching, attempts to lynch, and conspiracy to lynch, for the first time in America's history.

Lynching is a part of the dark and despicable aspect of our country's history that followed slavery and outrageously continued unabated in our country. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, lynching was used as an instrument of terror and intimidation 4,084 times during the late 19th and 20th centuries. These lynchings were needless and horrendous acts of violence motivated by racism. We must acknowledge that fact, lest it be repeated.

Lynching is a crime committed against innocent people. These crimes should have been prosecuted. There were victims who should have received justice, but they did not.

With this bill we are finally able to change that and correct a burden on our history as a country. We finally have a chance to speak the truth about our past and make clear that these hateful acts should never happen again without serious, severe, and swift consequence and accountability.

From 1882 to 1986, the U.S. Congress failed to pass anti-lynching legislation when it had an opportunity 200 times. We now have an opportunity to pass this bill and to offer some long overdue justice and recognition to the victims of lynching and their families-- recognition that these are crimes for which there should be severe consequence and accountability.

I now yield to my friend, the Senator from the great State of New Jersey, Cory Booker.

Madam President, I thank my friend Senator Booker. It is truly an honor to be on the floor of the Senate with my colleague and friend proposing this legislation.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 3178 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I further ask unanimous consent that the substitute amendment be agreed to and that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time.

I know of no further debate on the bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I want to thank our colleagues for this incredibly important act of bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress.

Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Thomas Dotstry, a fellow in my office, be given floor privileges for the remainder of the 115th Congress.

Mr. President, today I wish to express my deepest appreciation to Governor Edmund G. ``Jerry'' Brown, Jr., for his nearly 50 years of committed public service to the people of California.

The son of a former California Governor, Jerry was born in San Francisco in 1938 to Pat Brown and Bernice Layne. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1961 before earning his law degree from Yale University in 1964. He began his statewide career in public service in 1970 after winning his first election as California secretary of state.

In 1974, Jerry became Governor of California for the first time, implementing an agenda that epitomizes the essence of California values. He helped create millions of jobs and strengthened the environment. He passed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act and led the cause for the introduction of government funding in renewable energy research. After 8 years in office, Jerry had a distinguished law career, ran for Federal office on a platform dedicated to empowering communities and affecting change, and served as chairman of the California Democratic Party.

He reentered public life in 1998, this time as mayor of the great city of Oakland, my hometown. As mayor, Jerry worked diligently to revitalize downtown Oakland, reduce crime, and expand educational opportunities. In 2006, he became California attorney general and prioritized consumer protection, environmental protection, and combating the underground economy.

Finally, in 2011, Mr. Brown returned to the Governor's seat where his record can only be described as extraordinary. Jerry has brought California's unemployment rate to record lows, expanded health coverage to millions in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, and established groundbreaking policies to combat climate change that have inspired our Nation and the world. Before joining the U.S. Senate, I worked with Jerry for 6 years as attorney general of California, during which we tackled an economic and housing crisis of epic proportions and fought to protect the privacy and cyber security of California's residents and businesses. Since joining the U.S. Senate, Jerry, Senator Feinstein, and I have worked together to bring critical aid to those affected by the deadly wildfires that have ravaged our State.

I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to honor Governor Brown's leadership and achievements today on the Senate Floor. His ability to bring sweeping change to improve the lives of the people he serves and the communities he governs is truly inspiring. His unwavering commitment to the people of California and vision for a more perfect union will long be remembered and cherished in the pages of history.

Mr. President, it is with gratitude that I rise today to acknowledge Arturo S. Rodriguez for his 45 years of leadership and commitment to protecting and advancing the civil, political, and economic rights of farm workers, most notably as president of the United Farm Workers of America, or UFW.

Born the grandson of a cattle farmer in San Antonio, TX, in 1949, Arturo first learned of Cesar E. Chavez and California's farm worker movement in 1966. His passion for civil rights and social justice motivated him to become an active farm worker supporter as a student at Saint Mary's University, where he would later graduate in 1971 with a degree in sociology. After receiving a master's degree in social work from the University of Michigan in 1973, Arturo joined the farm worker movement full-time, working with Chavez for the next two decades to develop and train new organizers, manage UFW industry organizing campaigns, and oversee national boycott strategies that would increase wages and improve working conditions. Following Chavez's passing in 1993, Arturo became the second president of the UFW and committed himself to fulfilling Chavez's legacy of creating a more just and equitable food system that treated farm workers with the dignity and respect they deserved.

Arturo's presidency has been nothing short of extraordinary. Under his leadership, farm worker wages have risen to an average of $13.18 an hour, above State and Federal minimum wage laws. Arturo established industry-wide organizing campaigns resulting in 80 percent of the mushroom, rose, and strawberry workers now represented by a union contract. He held employers accountable for wage and hour laws, winning millions of dollars for workers in back wages and overtime pay. He won historic State legislation to provide overtime pay to farm workers and protect them from heat exposure.

As president of the largest and most active farm worker movement in the Nation, Arturo has also pushed a national agenda for immigrant and workers' rights. He led negotiations with major agricultural associations to develop the agricultural provisions in the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill passed in 2013. He and the UFW worked closely with the Obama White House to secure protections for farm workers from the harmful effects of pesticides, in addition to protections for children and parents as part of President Obama's immigration Executive actions. I was honored to work closely with him as a newly elected Member of the Senate to introduce the Fairness for Farm Workers Act, S. 3131, to strengthen critical Federal protections for farm workers as they face long hours and exposure to harsh working conditions.

Arturo's legacy represents the best of who we are as a nation. His unwavering commitment to bettering the lives of the most vulnerable epitomizes the kind of servant leader we should all

strive to be. His contributions to the farm worker movement and our Nation will have a lasting impact for generations to come.