Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I rise to recognize Mrs. Gloria Miller Blick, a Connecticut resident who turns 100 on March 1, 2022.

Mrs. Blick is a lifelong advocate for the elderly, who has worked tirelessly to inspire positive change.

She was appointed to the Commission for the Aged by then-mayor of Stamford, Dannel Malloy. Mrs. Blick was also active as a member of Stamford's Smith House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center's board of directors and Southwest CT Agency on Aging's advisory board. Later, she served 8 years as the chairwoman of Stamford's Senior Centers board of directors.

Mrs. Blick's advocacy had far-reaching results. Passionate about providing end-of-life options and other choices for the elderly, she spoke before the Connecticut State Senate. Her statement took prominence in the State's discussion regarding access to medical marijuana for elderly people with glaucoma, a condition she has faced for nearly two decades. Her commitment to supporting those who are marginalized and underserved inspired her son, Dr. Gary Blick, to pursue a medical career and a lifetime of humanitarian work. She even worked as the office manager for his practice for over 20 years and his billing specialist for over 30, commuting independently at age 97.

A remarkable advocate, I applaud Mrs. Blick on her outstanding record of service. I hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating Mrs. Gloria Blick, her son Gary, and the rest of her family on this milestone of her 100th birthday.

Mr. President.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, my colleague and friend from Utah and I agree on a couple of points. Yes, President Biden did rescind the global gag rule, which this proposal would not only reestablish but make permanent and expand, disastrously, and yes, women and children should not be political footballs, nor should this issue be one. Unfortunately, that is the objective of this proposal.

It is difficult to exaggerate the breadth of this proposed legislation or the breadth of harm that the global gag rule does. In fact, it prohibits foreign organizations receiving U.S. assistance from providing legal abortion services or referrals or even information-- information--on abortion services even when those activities are funded without any connection to U.S. Government money. It egregiously blocks organizations receiving U.S. funds from advocating for abortion legislation--mere advocacy--stifling their ability to champion their patients, even if that advocacy is not funded in any way by U.S. taxpayers.

This legislation would not only codify this dangerous policy but expand it even beyond what was implemented under previous administrations--expanding it, not just codifying it.

Thankfully, President Biden has rescinded this policy. It was an important effort to restore U.S. leadership abroad, promoting healthcare access in places it is needed most. It was a critical step toward what is now needed--permanent prohibition of the global gag rule, not codification of its expansion.

Let's be very clear. The global gag rule does nothing to protect the health of people around the world. It blocks healthcare access, it stifles local advocacy efforts, and it undermines reproductive rights worldwide, putting in jeopardy the people who need those services most. It impedes access to a range of health services, including contraception, HIV prevention and treatment, and maternal and child care, because it cuts off funding for many of the most experienced healthcare providers.

Some proponents of this dangerous policy seem to claim it will reduce abortions or it is intended to do so, but studies have shown that, in fact, it does just the opposite. The global gag rule actually increases rates of abortion--many of them unsafe--because it reduces access to contraceptives and it increases the number of unintended pregnancies.

In short, we should be joining other countries in addressing global goals like creating an AIDS-free generation, ending preventable maternal and child deaths, and achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, not putting unnecessary restrictions on U.S. funds that cause fear and impede access to healthcare. Unfortunately, that is what the global gag rule and this legislation do, impeding countries' efforts to improve global health, advance human rights, and achieve gender equality.

I oppose the Lee bill. I urge my colleagues to come together and work, instead, to promote global health. Therefore, I object.

Mr. President, just to be clear, I understand my colleague's point, but I think I have highlighted and I want to emphasize again the limited purposes for which our taxpayer dollars are used and the advocacy, the healthcare, the contraception, HIV screening and treatment--world health--that would be prevented by this legislation.

I think that is an unintended consequence. Maybe, it is unintended that it is gargantuan in its potential impact, and, therefore, I continue my objection.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have 1 request for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, I have just come back from a trip to Ukraine with six of my colleagues, a bipartisan group organized very ably by Senator Portman and Senator Shaheen, to express our solidarity with the people of Ukraine in their fight for freedom and democracy against Russian aggression.

They need us to stand with them as they stand strong for their country's independence against Vladimir Putin's effort to intimidate them, potentially to invade their country, but, assuredly, in a hybrid war consisting of misinformation, cyber attack, and military action that is designed very simply to destabilize, demoralize, and degrade their country's governance.

And as we stood with them, meeting with the President, Mr. Zelensky, and the top leadership, I couldn't help but think of this country and how grateful we should be for our strength, our freedom, our democracy.

All of us, when we return from travel abroad, I think, express our gratitude to be Americans, to live in a country where these freedoms and our independence are assured but where we, too, need to be strong and ever vigilant and vigorous in protecting those freedoms.

We are the greatest Nation in the history of the world, the strongest and most freedom-loving on the planet. We are still an imperfect nation, still struggling to do better and a work in progress, but we are proud to confront our imperfection and move forward in a way that demonstrates that we can broaden access to opportunity and to the right of people to determine their own destiny.

No freedom or right is more important than the right to vote. That is why we are here today and why I am so proud to have helped to lead the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and to support the Freedom to Vote Act, which are designed to safeguard Americans' right to vote and secure the sanctity of our elections.

And, today, just as Ukraine faces a threat to its independence and freedom, we too, in America, face a threat, not from Vladimir Putin directly, although he has sought to destabilize and degrade our democracy and continues to do so through cyber attacks and misinformation. Certainly, 2016's interference in our elections is a warning bell, an alarm, that we need to be stronger against foreign interference.

But within, the threat is equally, if not more, alarming because what we are seeing across this great country in State after State are efforts to suppress the vote and restrict the franchise. Last year, more than 440 restriction bills were introduced in 49 States, and 19 of those States successfully enacted 34 laws that made it harder for people to vote. These laws make mail-in voting and early voting more difficult. They manipulate the boundaries of districts to reduce minority representation and have led to a purge of 3.1 million voters from the rolls in areas that were once covered by the Voting Rights Act preclearance requirement. We are seeing a tidal wave of voter suppression that continues even as we speak today on this floor.

The vote today comes in a week where we celebrate the legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For the first time in my memory, I was out of the country on that day. But it was ever present in my mind and heart, and it should animate us today, that memory and legacy which were so powerfully expressed on August 6, 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. He called it ``a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield''--a triumph for freedom.

And it followed a mere 7 months after Dr. King launched a Southern Christian Leadership Conference campaign based in Selma, AL, with the aim of supporting voting rights legislation. It was a great day for America. It is one that has, rightly, received a paramount place in our history. It is taught to our children.

The Voting Rights Act represents the best of America, and its commitment to guaranteeing that members of every racial group would have equal voting opportunities stands as one of the best days in this country. But it was no layup for the civil rights movement. It

culminated a hard-fought campaign, and it was a hard-won victory of civil rights leaders like Dr. King and John Lewis, who committed themselves--literally, committed their bodies, their physical well- being--to advance the rights of others in the face of violent opposition. They were beaten, sometimes near death.

And, for decades, the Voting Rights Act remained a crucial bulwark. It was retained and defended against insidious efforts to roll back the clock until--until--the U.S. Supreme Court did that work for opponents. In 2013, in Shelby County, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the highly effective preclearance regime, thereby jeopardizing the progress that the Voting Rights Act made over the course of half a century in protecting against those voter suppression efforts throughout the country.

Justice Ginsburg said it best in her powerful dissent in Shelby County when she wrote that Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act preclearance requirement ``to cope with this vile infection'' of racial discrimination which ``resembled battling the Hydra. Whenever one form of voting discrimination was identified and prohibited, others sprang up in its place.''

And the time to protect those voting rights is before they are restricted, and that is why preclearance was so important and why the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act now must be enacted into law.

We come here after a year that has seen the most destructive legislative session for voting rights in generations, with States and localities returning to the ``conniving methods,'' as Dr. King called them--``conniving methods'' of voter suppression that block people from getting to the polls and making their votes count--and undermines our democracy because, as the Founders sought to do, representative government means representing the people who are affected by these policies enacted by the Federal Government. And that means representation that enables every person to vote and to have that vote count.

There are no guarantees that rights will be protected in this country. The fight for voting equality has faced continuous, often violent resistance and enormous opposition, including from within this Congress, and now by a rule, a filibuster that will prevent the majority from protecting those rights.

The effort to change the filibuster is very simply an effort to convert it from a secret to a public debate mechanism--secret to public. We will vote tomorrow on a rules change that provides for a means to make majority rule count--not to abolish the filibuster but to make it public instead of secret.

As my distinguished colleague Senator Warnock posed the question in this Chamber last month, we want it to be bipartisan but, as he said, ``bipartisanship at whose expense?'' And as he also said, clearly in this country, ``some people don't want some people to vote.'' And the filibuster is a handy means of preventing reforms that secure the right to vote.

Historic denials of individual basic liberties and political freedoms have long garnered bipartisan support and have required courage and conviction to overcome, and that is why we must change the rules tomorrow.

Dr. King never quit. He never stopped fighting. As he said--I think I am quoting him correctly--disappointment is finite, but hope is infinite. And so, even if we are defeated tomorrow, we will continue this effort to eliminate dark money, to provide for disclosure, to stop State legislatures from eliminating districts in a way that knocks Representatives out of their seats and results in gerrymandering that is antidemocratic.

For decades, Members of this Chamber have deployed the filibuster to delay and block legislation that would have promoted voting rights by ending poll taxes and literacy tests, safeguarded against workplace discrimination, and advanced civil rights in this country. The filibuster has been used to block those kinds of efforts to promote voting rights.

The longest filibusters in this Chamber's history were deployed to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1964, a testament to this tool's history as a weapon against the advancement of civil rights. And Dr. King himself lamented that ``tragedy [of] . . . a Senate that has a minority of misguided Senators who will use this filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.''

We cannot continue to allow these kinds of procedural tactics to stand in the way of defending against a new era of hostility toward voting rights of people in this country. We must protect the right to vote. It should not be a partisan issue.

In fact, voting rights are widely supported throughout American society. Those civil rights measures were supported by bipartisan majorities in those years of 1957 and 1964 and in the renewal since then. Photographs showing Members of both parties at bill signing attest powerfully to the bipartisan support this cause has enjoyed throughout its history.

Since the original inception of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, overwhelming, bipartisan majorities of both Houses of Congress have reauthorized the Voting Rights Act five times.

For nearly a century after the Civil War and before the Voting Rights Act, the scourge of racial discrimination in voting challenged our Nation's core commitment, our basic value as a country.

From that century of sacrificing and suffering, so embodied by Dr. King, came the Voting Rights Act and its extraordinary commitment to realizing our Nation's highest ideals, the best in America. For decades, it worked. In one decision and its progeny, the U.S. Supreme Court undercut and undermined those rights, and now we face this tsunami of voter suppression bills crashing against America.

We must defend America. We must secure those rights and liberties, just as we come to the aid of countries like Ukraine that resist attack on their independence. We must renew our Nation's commitment to protecting voting rights in this country. And tomorrow, we will do it. Tomorrow, we will vote. Members will be held accountable. We will be on record. And I hope my colleagues will do the right thing for America.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, today I rise to recognize the Palace Theater in Waterbury, CT as it celebrates 100 years of artistic achievement and advocacy.

The Palace Theater originally opened on January 28, 1922. With the culmination of a $1 million investment in decor by Sylvester Z. Poli and the remarkable architectural work of Thomas Lamb, the theater soon became a hub for cultural activity in Waterbury before the onset of World War II.

The ornate building started as a movie and vaudeville house. Over the past century, the Palace has hosted a wide breadth of performances and productions, from silent films to rock concerts and everything in between. In 1983, the U.S. Department of the Interior honored the Palace Theater by listing it on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1987, the theater closed for 18 years. However, a 3-year, $30 million restoration, renovation, and expansion project impressively reshaped the Palace. When it reopened, the theater was a state-of-the- art, 90,000-square-foot arena. Now a vast complex, the Palace is known as Greater Waterbury's Center for the Performing Arts.

In its current state, the Palace hosts educational programming, Broadway tours, and a variety of family entertainment. The theater's team is committed to serving the greater Waterbury community by establishing not just a magnificent artistic site but also a highly regarded educational and cultural center.

The Palace Theater is recognized as one of the premier arts facilities in New England, and I have had the privilege of visiting on a number of occasions to speak with the staff there. I am continuously impressed by the Palace's record of achievement and the tireless dedication of everyone involved to furthering arts education and advocacy for countless Connecticut residents and visitors.

I applaud the theater on its extraordinary history of accomplishment, and I hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating the Palace Theater on 100 years of excellence.

Madam President, I am really pleased and honored to follow my colleague from Ohio and to join in supporting the resolution that he is offering to pay homage and to express gratitude to the essential workers in this building, in the Capitol Complex, in this temple of democracy, for all they have done, not only on January 6 but in the aftermath of that brutal assault on our democracy.

We talk in abstract now about the institution and the assault on this institution, but the lasting and enduring trauma for those workers that we will recognize in this resolution is tremendously important. It is important to them, but it is important to us as well that we recognize our duty and our obligation to them for the dignity of their work and what they did to enable us to come back on that evening, January 6, and do our duty--and do it in a bipartisan way, coming together on that day.

We were all witnesses to a brutal crime. We were all witnesses to an insurrection and a riot that stands as a dark and terrible milestone-- the anniversary tomorrow of probably the most abhorrent attack on our democratic institutions. And all of us who were witnesses can never forget the horror of that day--the sheer physicality of the attack, the blood in the hallways, the sights and sounds of rioters with bats and pipes bearing Trump banners and Confederate flags and seeking to do physical harm to us and to kill the Vice President. That kind of physical, brutal, cruel attack, with the hope--in fact, intent--of killing and injuring, had its effect. In fact, people died.

Our Capitol Police bravely defended us, with determination and courage, and so did many other heroes that day--the National Guard and the DC Police. But let us never forget that mob was called here to this very Chamber by the former President in a cynical bid to keep himself in power through a coup that would subvert the will of the people on election day. And we were here--we were all standing and then sitting at our desks when we were rushed from the Chamber because of the threat of physical assault on us.

In the end, their efforts were thwarted. Congress certified the election result that night as planned. We were undeterred, undaunted by the violent and deadly attack on the Capitol and our democracy.

But that day was not a one-off. It was not an isolated or aberrant incident. In fact, it was a symptom and a symbol of a deeper, destructive violence of violent extremism--a virus of domestic terrorism that continues to infect our Nation; in fact, the most persistent and lethal threat to our national internal security.

According to the intelligence community and the FBI, it is violent extremism and White supremacy. That attack left scars and wounds that remain unhealed, the lives that were lost, and many of our staff, many of those maintenance workers, many of the cafeteria and janitorial staff struggle with lingering trauma from the violence that they faced on that day.

The attack reminded us of how fragile and in danger our democratic institutions are when our leaders, when we as leaders, fail to protect them. The mob that assaulted our Capitol was fueled by the Big Lie--the baseless falsehood that massive fraud occurred during the 2020 election.

That Big Lie was propagated and supported by the President and his enablers, and they have continued to fuel those delusions. Donald Trump has incited continually the kind of falsehoods that lead to a sharp rise in threats against lawmakers in the Capitol here and a higher comfort level with violence at every level--in school boards, in statehouses.

The Big Lie has now become a pretense. It has become a pretense for some Republican leaders and State governments across the country to pass legislation making it harder to vote--meaning that fewer people have fewer times and fewer places to cast their vote.

At least 19 States have passed 34 new laws that restrict voting rights based on that Big Lie--the bogus, false claim of fraud. And Republicans in a number of States are vesting the power to overturn election results--literally, to deny the results of the vote count rather

than respecting the will of the people, whether it is the vote canvass boards or legislative committees or other State officials having the power to strike down and overturn the results by refusing to certify them or literally disregarding them.

All of this voter suppression is poisonous. It is toxic to our democracy. And we have an obligation, on this solemn anniversary of that horrific attack, to recommit ourselves to holding accountable those domestic terrorists and violent extremists who stormed the Capitol and hunted us--lawmakers and others--ransacked the halls that we regard with so much reverence, defaced and debased not just the building but the concept of democracy. And we should pursue not only prosecutions against the 700 or 1,000 people who can be held criminally responsible for defacing the Capitol or illegally entering or other acts of violence but everyone who aided and abetted them. They must be held accountable, no matter what their rank or their office, no matter how high the facts and the law will go. I urge the Department of Justice to pursue them, to prosecute them, to make sure that they are held accountable.

We also need to fortify those institutions. And that is why passing the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act have to be among our priorities and changing the rules to make that possible.

My colleagues and I will bring to the Senate floor for a vote in the coming weeks, no later than January 17, those measures in an effort to change the rules to enable their passage. We need to do whatever is necessary to pass those measures, including limiting the filibuster.

There is a direct through line from the Big Lie in the January 6 assault, incited by Donald Trump, to violent extremism and domestic terrorism, to voter suppression and the overturning of elections, eventually to the destruction of our democracy. During the peaceful transition of power that eventually did take place last January, President Biden reminded us that a better world is not something that is given to us; it requires hard work. Unity is not inevitable; it is achievable through what we do to make it possible. Democracy is not a spectator sport.

The values and norms and institutions of our democracy are fragile, as threatened now as they are precious, and they depend on people fighting for them in times of adversity. And truly now we are in a time of adversity.

What haunts me, as I think back on January 6, is how close we came to losing our democracy, how close we came to shattering the traditions and norms--much as the windows of this building were shattered--and how a few people continue to believe they could demagogue and enable Trump to stage that coup.

There is no forgetting what some of our colleagues did. There is no denying it. But we have sought to work together because we come here and we are sent here for a common purpose, which is to meet the needs of Americans, especially in a time of pandemic and economic hardship.

This past year has truly been one of hardship and heartbreak for so many. And as we think back to that day, a year ago, we need to redouble our determination to hold dear the democratic values and institutions that mean elected representatives truly represent the people. That is what elections do. That is why every vote should count and every vote must count. And that is the purpose of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

We have our part to do. We need to do it. And I hope my colleagues will not only relive and remember but act on it--the common purpose of that day when we came back to count the vote--to make sure that we can come together again not just to honor the people who enable us to do it but also to honor the people of America who elect us to do it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I see my colleague from Kentucky on the floor, and I want to take this opportunity to express to him and to Senator McConnell my condolences for what the people of Kentucky have endured with this catastrophic devastation. I know he has been a strong advocate for his State, and I fully support a swift, strong Federal response to alleviating the suffering and assisting in rebuilding. In times of tragedy, our Nation comes together to support all who are in this kind of need.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, my colleague from Kentucky talks about money as though it were going to go to the Taliban, as if it were going to an entity that no longer exists. In fact, that money is necessary to terminate contracts, to fulfill obligations, not only under the contracts but to our allies, the Afghan at-risk allies who sought to fulfill our mission. We have a moral imperative, and we have, arguably, a legal obligation.

That money is not just sitting there. It is not fungible. But put aside the merits of that argument, we have also a moral and strategic interest to our ally Israel to replenish its defenses at a time when it depends on our assistance to defend itself, to provide that Iron Dome that saves lives of innocent civilians who otherwise would have perished as a result of those 4,400 rockets launched by Hamas and possibly led to escalating contention and conflict in that region.

So it is a win-win, in fact, for us to replenish the Iron Dome without conditioning it in any way on other funds. Therefore, I will not modify my request.

Mr. President, if I may just finish.

We are here again. I will come back again to the floor to seek this Iron Dome money.

Many of us are absolutely determined that the United States fulfill this moral, humanitarian, and foreign policy obligation. It is in our strategic interest.

This obligation is paid for; it is not debt; and it will incur no obligations that are unpaid for. So I regret that my colleague, again, has blocked this from proceeding.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this day is one of the profound moments for both Senator Murphy and myself, because we lived through that day--a searing, grief-stricken day that neither of us will ever forget, 9 years ago. And at this moment on that day, I stood before a church full of parents and members of that Newtown community. And what I said then was, ``The world is watching. The world is watching us and what we will do.''

Today, we remember not only what we lost but also what we still need to do as, 9 years ago, those 20 beautiful children and 6 great educators lost their lives. Today, as we did at St. Rose of Lima Church that evening, we remember the lives they lived. Their names will be forever engraved in our hearts. We remember them for bringing bursts of light and laughter and love into our lives, mostly into the lives of their families.

We also remember the heroism, the real heroism, of those educators on that day--of the six who bravely sought to shield their children. Literally, with their own bodies, they sought to protect their children--running unhesitatingly toward that danger, barricading classrooms, drawing on all their reserves of calm and professionalism to protect the children in their care. They were heroes, and so were emergency responders, State police, and all who came to the firehouse that day. I remember the broken faces--the heartbroken faces--of men who went into the school building to secure the crime scene and saw the bodies of children who could have been their own. They were tough State policemen who had seen it all. Those emergency responders, the ministers, the priests, the people of faith who tended to the parents, and, yes, indeed, the parents themselves--heroes.

My colleague Senator Murphy has talked about Jesse's dad, Neil Heslin. Jesse's mom, Scarlett Lewis, became a hero as a champion of social and emotional learning to try to prevent the conflict and the emotional travail that could lead someone like Adam Lanza to do what he did.

I will never forget, at one of those wakes and funerals that we attended in the days afterward--they seemed interminable in the cold and the deadening light of winter--the one mom whom I approached and said: ``When the time is right, when you are ready, I think we should do something about gun violence.'' She looked at me and said: ``I am ready now.''

The ferocity, the bravery, the strength, and fortitude of those parents in the days and months afterward, coming here, as we sought to do something about gun violence, and then they sat in the Gallery when, by a handful of votes, we failed, and the cry of shame--shame--that one of those parents shouted to us.

They worked bravely, and they have continued that work with the kind of unflinching courage that it takes every time they tell their stories and every time one of the surviving families talks about their children in the quest to save others. That is what it is all about. That is why those brave parents--heroes--of this story have continued.

For them, that December morning began like every other. They took their children to school, kissed them goodbye, maybe admonished them to be good that day. It was a normal day until it wasn't. Then, time stopped for them and for all of us. Time stopped, and the world changed forever--irreparably. Irreparably, it changed forever for them and for all of us. Nine years later, they live with that grief so far more deeply than any of us that it almost feels like an incursion on their privacy to talk about that day. The scars of that day are for them but also for the brothers and sisters. For everyone who suffered a loss, that trauma and grief continue, and they relive it on this day.

There also are heroes in that community of Newtown and Sandy Hook--a beautiful, quintessential New England town, with such great spirit. They came together that evening at the St. Rose of Lima Church and in the days and weeks and years afterward with unyielding conviction and courage.

Yet we know that they are so far from alone because, in that time-- incredibly, in the time--of the 9 years since that day, 900,000 more people have perished; 900,000 more people have died from gun violence and so many of them children. One-third of American children live in a home with a gun, and 3 million children are exposed to gun violence every year.

Firearms are the leading cause of death among American children and teenagers--the leading cause of death for children younger than the age of 13. So often, they occur at home--outside the front door, in the neighborhood. Black children and teens are 14 times more likely than White children and teens to die by gun homicide. There is a searing inequity and injustice here that radiates outside the boundaries of Sandy Hook and Newtown. It affects every community. None is immune. None is above gun violence.

Because 60 percent of all deaths by gun violence are suicide, there are solutions here, like safe storage and emergency risk protection orders, and red flag statutes that simply keep guns safely stored, like Ethan's Law, or that separate guns from people who say they are going to kill themselves or others or who give evidence that that is what they are going to do.

The good news is we are seeing a new generation of leaders. We are seeing a political movement, not just a moment but a political movement, and a group of organizations that is mobilizing the vast majority of the American people who know we need to put an end to gun violence: Sandy Hook Promise, Newtown Action Alliance, Connecticut Against Gun Violence, Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, Giffords, Brady, March for Our Lives--in the wake of Parkland, March for Our Lives. This is a new generation brought together by tragedy, united regardless of their party. Regardless of their other politics, they are together in demanding action.

With every one of these mass tragedies--Parkland, Las Vegas, Charleston, El Paso, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Boulder, Indianapolis, and now Oxford, MI--the scourge of gun violence has united these groups in a way that has never happened before, with the hope that Americans will express themselves not only in their neighborhoods and at community meetings but also at the ballot box in order to hold us accountable--truly responsible--for the complicity of Congress. Yes, it is complicity in that death and murder that occur literally every day. More than 100 lives are lost every day.

There are real commonsense solutions here. I don't need to describe them in detail--that will be for another day: expanding background checks and closing loopholes in that background check system, keeping weapons of war and ghost guns off our streets, funding public health research and community violence intervention programs, protecting domestic violence survivors, setting standards for safe and secure storage, implementing those red flag statutes, and holding the gun industry and its nefarious partners accountable. We know what to do. We know what is necessary to help stop gun violence. There is no mystery here, and this movement--a political movement and social movement--can achieve it.

But I want to talk not only about the grief suffered by families who have lost loved ones but about the impact on the living who may not even know about Sandy Hook. There are children at schools right now, children who routinely do active shooter drills, diving under their desks or barricading their doors in anticipation of a mass murder in the place that should be the safest to them.

What will this generation think of school? What will this generation think of safety?

Today, in some schools, there was no school because of the copycat threats phoned in to those schools.

What kind of nation has to shut down schools because of the threat of mass murder? Not our Nation, I would hope; not our Nation, if we use our power to make our Nation safer; not our Nation, if we have the same kind of courage and guts and grit that those families of Sandy Hook have. We promised to honor them with action.

We should keep in mind the grace and bravery of people like Kristin and Mike Song, who lost their son, a teenager, at a friend's house, to a shooting that was the result of an unsecured weapon--unsecured because the parents of his friend failed to put it under lock and key. They made it accessible. Kids die like that every day, every week. As our hearts break, we should remember the bravery of Kristin and Michael Song, who crusaded for Ethan's Law, named after their son.

They were here just last week at a vigil--literally, within a stone's throw of the Capitol--reciting their story, seeking to inspire us to act and take that step toward safe storage but taking nobody's gun away. These measures take no one's gun away. They just make it safe to own a gun and to save lives.

We have children. I have four children. My colleagues on the floor have children and families. We remember those days when our kids were 6 years old. We remember the joy and life they brought to our lives.

There is a saying that no parent should outlive a child. Until we know someone who loses a child, but most especially at that age, the power of that saying may have less meaning.

In 10 years, we should have done a lot more, if we mark 10 years without doing more. In 10 years, next year at this time, we should hold ourselves accountable for doing more.

Over this next year, we have work to do. And as dark as December may seem, it is also a season of light. And the heroism of those families, of the first responders, of the community of Sandy Hook should provide us with the inspiration we need to honor those brave and wonderful children, to honor them with action, not just words.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am honored today to join Senator Ernst and Senator Graham in this call on America to honor our commitment.

This effort is completely bipartisan, and it is about values and ideals that we share and that we should reemphasize at this time of year, at this moment in our history, at this challenging moment in world history.

We are here to support a grassroots initiative called Honor Our Commitment. Our goal is very simply to keep this cause present and real for Americans, even as we complete the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so that we keep faith with the Afghan allies and their families to bring them to safety, to evacuate them, to enable them to escape the danger, death, and torture that threatens them now.

For 20 years, these men and women helped to protect our troops and our diplomats. They are the translators, civil servants, humanitarian workers, members of the judiciary, and others who supported the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. They were at our side, at significant risk to them, sometimes in combat. I know because one of my sons was a Marine Corps infantry officer in Helmand Province, and he felt so deeply that he had an obligation to bring to safety his translator, which he was able to do after years of effort. There are many other translators like him still in danger there who went into combat with our troops and helped to protect them. My other son is a Navy SEAL--was. He is out now. But he knows as well the importance of these people on the ground to protect them.

I fear for other parents in the future who will know their sons and daughters are in harms' way and who need those folks on the ground, the people who speak the language, who know the culture, who have friends in the community. How can we ask them to serve us when we are engaged in the same kind of conflict, if we fail to honor our promises to these men and women in Afghanistan who now have targets on their backs only because they helped us in moments of danger and crisis?

Most of my colleagues, I think, share these feelings of apprehension and anxiety on behalf of those men and women who now are in hiding, many of them with their families, trying to get out.

I strongly believe that honoring our past commitments, keeping our promises, as every great nation does, means establishing a clear, consistent, compassionate strategy for the evacuation and settlement of all of these individuals and their families. That is why I have called repeatedly for an evacuation czar, with clear Presidential direction and authority to implement such a strategy and coordinate all of the numerous Federal Agencies, with all of their individual responsibilities and authority, to evacuate and resettle our at-risk Afghan allies and their families.

Our at-risk Afghan allies deserve no less. That is what I have said to the President of the United States in a letter that I have written to him personally. That is the reason that I offered an amendment with Senator Graham and Senator Ernst, which, unfortunately, was not included in the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act. And that is why I enlisted colleagues to support it. And, indeed, it has broad bipartisan, broad bicameral support to establish a strategy--very simply a strategy--to support the mission of evacuating those at-risk Afghan allies.

I am saddened that the Congress has failed to require this basic plan and fulfill our moral obligation. That legislation directed the administration to develop a plan that would provide for an initial, expedited security screening and vetting, conducted remotely, if necessary, to get our allies out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

We need to encourage rapid departure by air charter and land passage because the United States has no presence diplomatically or militarily. Those charter flights, the on-land passage, are the only means of escape right now, and the situation of these at-risk Afghan allies and their families is increasingly dire and dangerous.

There are numerous humanitarian flights, independently organized and funded by nonprofit organizations, to expedite the evacuation process in parallel to U.S. Government efforts. We ought to encourage that assistance, not create bureaucratic hurdles to hobble these efforts.

We need a strategy to have our government engaged with relevant countries to facilitate transport to third countries--or lily pads, as they are called--where more rigorous and thorough security screening and vetting can be completed before onward movement to the United States or other locations for resettlement.

So I am disappointed--in fact, I am angry--that this amendment was not included in the National Defense Authorization Act, but I am committed that we will honor this commitment to these at-risk Afghan allies and families, and I am heartened by this green ribbon initiative.

And that is why I am wearing a green ribbon today and why my colleagues, I hope, will do so as well and why I thank my friend Sid Goodfriend of Greenwich, CT, for initiating this effort--and all of his support network.

I want to close by thanking our veterans. I have been inspired over these last weeks and months by their determination to enable those Afghan allies who served them to escape the danger in Afghanistan. Their steadfast commitment is a part of the reason why I feel we need to honor our commitment.

Those veterans and NGOs, the network of people, the coalition of groups that has worked so hard to evacuate allies against all the odds--and my office has been proud to work with them--have inspired me.

I call on my colleagues in both parties and in both Chambers of Congress and the executive branch to continue this work until we enable every at-risk Afghan ally to leave Afghanistan. To do any less is an immense tragedy, and it will forever stain the honor of this country if we fail to complete this mission.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, today, I rise to recognize Mrs. Julia ``Julie'' Rita Ursone, a longtime Connecticut resident who turns 100 on January 8, 2022.

Born in Providence, RI, Mrs. Ursone was the child of Italian immigrants who became U.S. citizens. She moved to Stamford, CT, in 1947, where she has lived ever since.

Mrs. Ursone grew up during the Great Depression and readily supported American efforts during World War II through factory work.

To this day, she still lives in the house she built in 1951 with her late husband, who served in World War II and was an active member of their community. Passionate about doing her part in support of our Nation, Mrs. Ursone remains an active voter.

I hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating Mrs. Julia Ursone, her son Lou, and the rest of her family on this milestone of her 100th birthday.

Mr. President, today I rise to recognize Mr. Carl Leogrande, a remarkable man and World War II veteran who turns 100 on January 3, 2022.

Following the invasion of Normandy, Mr. Leogrande served as a tank driver for the 12th Armored Division. After his tank was hit with artillery, Mr. Leogrande was transferred to the medical unit. While there, he efficiently deployed his first aid training from his days as a Boy Scout. This methodical, effective work earned Mr. Leogrande the attention of an officer. Soon, he received warfront training and was quickly assigned as a medic on the front lines.

Mr. Leogrande's division pushed eastward. Along the way, they passed concentration camps that were being liberated by other units. The indescribable sights and smells left Mr. Leogrande with trauma that he speaks of to this day.

At the age of 22, Mr. Leogrande returned home unharmed. Not long after,

he went on a blind date with a young woman named Annabelle. She ended up becoming the love of his life, and the two married a year and a half later.

In the 1970s, Mr. and Mrs. Leogrande moved to Mystic, CT, which they would call their home for the rest of their lives. They became proud member-owners of the Steamboat Wharf Condominium Association. The two were married for over five and a half decades, until Mrs. Leogrande passed away in 2003.

Mr. Leogrande continues to attend every reunion of the 12th Armored Division. Though 782 members were lost during the war, 14 of them still remain, and Mr. Leogrande looks forward to joining his fellow soldiers for their 2022 reunion, which will take place in Texas.

Mr. Leogrande's tireless service will be an enduring legacy. I applaud his many accomplishments and hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating Mr. Carl Leogrande on this milestone of his 100th birthday.

Mr. President, I wish I could end this exchange on a hopeful note. I have come here so many times wishing that an exchange like this one could lead to progress. And we have offered again and again and again--the Senator from Connecticut on background checks, myself on red flag or emergency risk orders, on Ethan's Law with safe storage, on a myriad of proposals--to sit down with our colleagues and engage in the kind of constructive and positive dialogue that Senator Grassley has suggested, and they have yielded nothing. And the reason they have yielded nothing is essentially that, unfortunately, our Republican colleagues remain in the grip of a lobby--the gun lobby-- which is waning in its impact across the country but still maintains its grip in this Chamber.

That is the grip we need to break. That is the grip that will be broken through the democratic process if the American people have their way. And the American people are changing in their view.

In fact, there is now a political movement. It is composed of the young people--March for Our Lives--who suffered in Parkland, FL, when they saw the same kind of shooting and suffered the same kind of trauma that those students did in Oakland County, MI.

And again and again and again, this tragedy has been repeated in schools across our country. We are here again with grief and sorrow for the lives taken by gun violence--needlessly and violently.

Four young people--Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Justin Shilling, 17; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Tate Myre, 16--were shot multiple times, as my colleague from Connecticut has described it in that video, among many others trying to escape.

Six other students and a teacher were injured, and their community is reeling from this horror--a horror of blood and flesh and lives cut short forever.

And their loved ones have joined a club, as it has been called--a club nobody wants to join. Nobody wants to be admitted.

In just 12 days, just 12 days from now, it will be the ninth anniversary of a tragedy whose survivors joined that club--the families of the Sandy Hook children--20 beautiful, innocent children and 6 dedicated, courageous educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.

And whenever I talk about this subject in this Chamber, I see them in the Gallery. I see them in the Gallery on the day that we failed. We failed by just a handful of votes to reach the 60 that we needed to pass a background check proposal. And one of them shouted ``shame.'' ``Shame.'' And it was shameful and disgraceful that we failed to act on that day.

Think of how many lives we could have saved. You know, in this body, we talk endlessly, and sometimes we act in a way that can affect real lives and real people. We could have saved real lives and real people on that day--not all the lives lost to gun violence, the tens of thousands who have perished since then, but some of them.

``When you save one life, you save the world'' is an adage in my faith. We had it within our grasp to save lives and to help save the world, but we failed then, and, again today, we failed, even with the impetus of that horror in our minds and before us played again and again.

And, for me, the voices of those survivors resonate. Their faces are forever with me, as they will be for all who knew the survivors of the Oakland, MI, tragedy.

They have become friends. They have become almost members of my family, and they relive their own tragedy when they see what happened in these shootings.

And the trauma affects not just the children in that school on Tuesday; it affects children everywhere.

Somebody said to me the other day: Do you know the three best words in the English language these days? ``Back to normal.''

We want to go back to normal. After a year and a half of the pandemic, we want to go back to normal, put kids back in school, put teachers back in the classroom--back to normal.

We are back to normal in gun violence. In fact, we are worse than normal. We are back to normal with school shootings because kids are back in school, but the rate of gun violence has, if anything, explosively increased. This normal cannot be normalized. It cannot be made the new normal. The finality of evil cannot be taken for granted.

The shame that that vote, 9 years ago, brought to this body is a stain that will forever haunt us and haunts us evermore when we fail, as we did today, to provide real action. And there isn't any panacea. My colleague from Connecticut is absolutely right. No single proposal is a solution.

And there are others that we have advanced and tried to make it a matter of bipartisan support. Senator Graham and I have worked on a red flag or emergency risk protection order statute that separates people from guns when they are dangerous to themselves or others, separates them when they are under a protective order and they buy those guns, or when a family member knows they are about to commit or take their own lives, not to mention other people's lives. More than half of all the gun deaths in this country are suicides. We can save those lives.

A large number of these deaths occur when children are playing with guns in their own homes because the guns have been unsafely stored. Ethan Song was killed in Connecticut because a parent failed to safely store a gun. Ethan's Law, requiring safe storage, would save lives.

Holding manufacturers accountable and depriving them of sweetheart deals that led to PLCAA--giving them immunity from any legal accountability--reversing that immunity would help to save lives in repealing PLCAA. There is more than one proposal that we need to seriously consider if we are going to have the kind of dialogue that my colleague Senator Grassley suggested.

But the simple fact is, the House of Representatives did its job back in March when it passed that bipartisan legislation to expand background checks.

We are trying to do our job today, seeking unanimous consent from our colleagues to move forward on H.R. 8, and there is no rational explanation--

none--when the vast majority of American people, gun owners as well as NRA members, all backgrounds, all walks of life, all geographic areas, all demographic areas, support this measure.

So back to normal--we are back to normal. We cannot tolerate this normal. And as we approach that ninth anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting--and I recall that bleak day in December when we gathered at a firehouse with parents who were waiting to find out--waiting to know whether their children were still alive.

No matter what the ages of our children--I have four--we can relive that moment in our own minds, in our own hearts, and we can see in this Gallery those parents who came to speak truth to us, speak truth to power, and who will call us to account. The American people should call us to account for our failure to act today, our complicity in those deaths. This Congress is complicit. The Members who vote against these measures are complicit in the tragedies that follow.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I rise to recognize Mr. Ben Cooper, a lifelong resident of West Hartford, CT, and outstanding World War II veteran who turns 100 on December 24, 2021.

Mr. Cooper was a freshman at The George Washington University when the United States entered World War II. Eager to support his country, he went to work at Colt's Firearms in Connecticut, where he tested machine guns until he was drafted in September 1942. Mr. Cooper was sent for training at Camp Barkeley. While on furlough, he met his future wife, Dorothy, and the two married when he received news he was going to be sent overseas. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper had four children and celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary shortly before Dorothy passed.

After boarding a liberty ship, Mr. Cooper was assigned as a combat medic to the U.S. Army's 45th Infantry Division, also known as the Thunderbird Division, which was largely comprised of Native American soldiers. They saw combat in Italy, France, and Germany. While in Europe, Mr. Cooper was instructed by his friends to keep his dog tags in his pocket rather than around his neck. They were labeled with an ``H'' for Hebrew, indicating his Jewish faith, which could have led to harm if he were captured by the Germans. In April 1945, the 45th Infantry Division received orders to secure a camp. As Mr. Cooper explains, no one in the division knew anything about the camp other than their instructions to not allow anyone to enter or exit.

When Mr. Cooper and his division arrived at Dachau in southern Germany, they witnessed scenes he describes as ``virtually unspeakable.'' He met the survivors who were able to walk up to him and was traumatized by what he encountered. On April 29, 1945, the 30,000 prisoners were liberated by American troops, including Mr. Cooper and the 45th Infantry Division. In the following days, the division helped capture Munich.

Though the division was sent to France with the expectation of fighting the Japanese, they were instead discharged when the war ended before they made it to the Pacific. Mr. Cooper returned home to his family and did not speak about Dachau to anyone for 45 years.

In 1990, Mr. Cooper shared his story for the first time, speaking to a group of students. From there, he started to recount his experiences wherever it could be helpful. For over three decades, Mr. Cooper has spoken to schools, colleges, civic groups, and archival projects, repeating his eyewitness account to make sure the realities of the Holocaust are not forgotten.

His speaking engagements have led to a number of remarkable events. At the annual Holocaust commemoration at the Connecticut State Capitol in 1996, he met a man who revealed he and his wife were liberated from Dachau by Mr. Cooper and his division. They recognized the Thunderbird logo on his jacket. The two families became friends, and in 2006, their son performed open heart surgery for Mr. Cooper, who mused, ``what goes around comes around.''

In 2017, Mr. Cooper was inducted into the Connecticut Veterans Hall of Fame, and in 2019, he received the Legion d'honneur, France's highest military merit. That same year, I had the privilege of presenting Mr. Cooper with a certificate of special recognition at the Connecticut Veterans Memorial, where he also received the Connecticut Wartime Service Medal from the Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs.

Mr. Cooper's lifetime of service and advocacy serves as a model for all of us. On his business cards is the motto that guides him: ``No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.''

Mr. Cooper's courage and compassion will be an enduring legacy. I applaud his many accomplishments and hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating Mr. Ben Cooper on this milestone of his 100th birthday.