Floor Statements

Mr. President, last year, the city of Chicago, which I am honored to represent, lived under President Trump's mass deportation operation, which was dubbed by the administration as ``Operation Midway Blitz.''

While instances of ICE agents tear-gassing neighborhoods, firing rubber bullets at protesters, and using violent force to detain individuals have slowed since that monthslong campaign, arbitrary immigration enforcement continues to grip the city. There is fear in the neighborhoods as to what is next with ICE.

I would like to share one story with you. Two months ago, a high school student named Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete and his mother were arrested in Chicago by ICE while they were at a routine check-in for their family's pending asylum case.

Do you remember what President Trump told us about ICE, what he promised us with ICE? They were going after the rapists, the murderers, the terrorists, the criminally insane, the child predators, and those who would kill you and should never have crossed our border--the ``worst of the worst'' in the words of Donald Trump.

Well, let me tell you about this mother and son. They have no criminal record whatsoever--none. Ricardo is a student at Mather High School in West Ridge, IL, who also plays soccer with the iProSkills Academy. He has committed to play for Truman College in the fall after his graduation. He describes it as the answer to his prayer.

The good news is that yesterday, a Federal judge ruled that Ricardo's mother must be released from ICE custody. Unfortunately, Ricardo, who is only 18 years old, remains in detention.

Does Ricardo sound like one of the worst of the worst that the President promised would be his target--the murderer? the rapist? the terrorist? Not to me.

After being detained, the two were taken to Kentucky from Chicago, put in jail for detention, and separated by the Trump administration. They have not seen each other for 2 months. Ricardo said being in detention ``plays tricks on your mind'' and that the bathrooms are ``filthy'' with practically no privacy.

He continued, saying:

I miss my mother, [and] I miss playing soccer.

Ricardo and his mother followed the rules. His mother came to the United States in 2022 when Ricardo was 15. She filed for asylum, and that petition remains pending according to court documents. Both have been model neighbors ever since they arrived.

I will also note that a case like Ricardo's is one of the many reasons Senate Democrats continue to fight to rein in lawless, rogue ICE agents, including by making sure Federal agents follow the same standards of law, in compliance with the Constitution, as State police departments already do. That is not too much to ask. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are continuing to muscle through a partisan spending bill which would give to the ICE agents a blank check.

The memory of what happened with the ICE agents in Chicago and certainly what happened in Minneapolis is not gone. We still remember that when wearing their masks, they were harassing people and killing innocent American citizens. It happened twice in quick succession.

Giving ICE a blank check is a mistake--to the tune of tens of billions of dollars--to continue this campaign of terror unchecked. I am going to vote no on that bill.

I urge ICE to release Ricardo and reunite him with his mother as soon as possible.

(The remarks of Mr. DURBIN pertaining to the introduction of S. 4608 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, tomorrow, the State of Tennessee is planning to end the life of Tony Carruthers, a man with severe mental health conditions who was forced to represent himself in a murder trial 30 years ago.

Forensic evidence never connected him to the crime. Key witness testimony has been discredited. Fingerprints and DNA found at the crime scene were never fully investigated

even though they could exonerate Mr. Carruthers. Despite all of this, his execution is scheduled to continue tomorrow as planned. By 12 midnight tomorrow, Mr. Carruthers will depart this Earth for a crime he may not have committed.

When I was first elected to Congress many years ago, I was part of the majority of Americans who supported the death penalty for the most heinous crimes. Over the years, my views began to change for a number of reasons.

First, there have been numerous cases of potentially innocent people who have been executed, including as recently as 2024, and over 200 people who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973. One study found that more than 4 percent of the individuals on death row were likely innocent, and this figure does not include those who pled guilty to crimes they didn't commit to avoid execution.

For many on death row, their punishment stems from their inability to afford counsel and their struggles with mental illness. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, approximately 90 percent of people facing capital charges cannot afford an attorney. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that 43 percent of individuals executed between 2000 and 2015 had been diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lives--43 percent. The death penalty is not a punishment reserved for the worst of the worst; it is one reserved for the poorest of the poor.

In addition, it is a penalty disproportionately faced by Black Americans. Despite being 13 percent of the U.S. population, Black people make up 41 percent of all the prisoners on death row. A coincidence? Numerous studies have found that Black defendants are more likely than their White counterparts to face the death penalty.

On top of all this, it is far from clear that the death penalty even serves its primary purpose. There is yet to be conclusive evidence to demonstrate that the death penalty deters people from committing heinous crimes compared to the threat of spending life in prison.

Faced with all of this, 15 years ago, I announced that I could no longer support the death penalty. Luckily, I was in good company. I was not the first public official whose thinking about this issue changed. Supreme Court Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens had a similar journey to my own. While both initially ruled in favor of the death penalty, they eventually came to the same conclusion: that after decades of trying to make it fair, we had largely failed as a nation.

In the year 2000, in my home State of Illinois, George Ryan, a Republican Governor, instituted the first statewide moratorium on executions in the Nation. In 2003, Governor Ryan cleared death row by commuting the sentences of 167 inmates to life in prison.

In 2021, in his first year in office, President Biden instituted a moratorium on the Federal death penalty. Then, in December 2024, in response to a request from me and 11 other Senators, President Biden commuted the sentences of most individuals on Federal death row to life in prison.

Today, I am reintroducing the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act. This legislation would prohibit the imposition of the death penalty as punishment for any violation of Federal law and require the resentencing of those previously sentenced to death row.

This bill is particularly important today. Last month, President Trump's Department of Justice announced that it was bringing back firing squads and seeking to return to the use of electrocution and lethal gas for executions. Meanwhile, the State of Alabama became the first government in the world to carry out executions by nitrogen suffocation, an untested and inhumane death penalty method.

The Supreme Court has declined to intervene, over the dissent of Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson.

Listen to what Justice Sotomayor wrote:

Allowing the nitrogen hypoxia experiment to continue

despite mounting and unbroken evidence that it violates the

Constitution by inflicting unnecessary suffering fails to

protect the dignity of the Nation we have been, the Nation we

are, and the Nation we aspire to be.

These barbaric tactics will be remembered as a stain on our Nation's history. We must not engage in the very conduct we seek to punish. My bill would ensure we do not.

I understand this subject brings up people's strongest emotions. When faced with the horrific acts of some of the people on death row, the hatred they hold, and the pain they caused, it is understandable to want them to face a punishment commensurate with their crimes. But how many innocent people must be put to death to feed a feeling of vengeance? How many Americans must be denied justice in the name of grief?

State-sanctioned killing is not an effective way to make our country safe. It is not guaranteed to only punish the guilty. It is not who we are.

I hope my colleagues will join me and together end this cruel and unusual punishment in America once and for all.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, tomorrow, the State of Tennessee is planning to end the life of Tony Carruthers, a man with severe mental health conditions who was forced to represent himself in a murder trial 30 years ago.

Forensic evidence never connected him to the crime. Key witness testimony has been discredited. Fingerprints and DNA found at the crime scene were never fully investigated

even though they could exonerate Mr. Carruthers. Despite all of this, his execution is scheduled to continue tomorrow as planned. By 12 midnight tomorrow, Mr. Carruthers will depart this Earth for a crime he may not have committed.

When I was first elected to Congress many years ago, I was part of the majority of Americans who supported the death penalty for the most heinous crimes. Over the years, my views began to change for a number of reasons.

First, there have been numerous cases of potentially innocent people who have been executed, including as recently as 2024, and over 200 people who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973. One study found that more than 4 percent of the individuals on death row were likely innocent, and this figure does not include those who pled guilty to crimes they didn't commit to avoid execution.

For many on death row, their punishment stems from their inability to afford counsel and their struggles with mental illness. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, approximately 90 percent of people facing capital charges cannot afford an attorney. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that 43 percent of individuals executed between 2000 and 2015 had been diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lives--43 percent. The death penalty is not a punishment reserved for the worst of the worst; it is one reserved for the poorest of the poor.

In addition, it is a penalty disproportionately faced by Black Americans. Despite being 13 percent of the U.S. population, Black people make up 41 percent of all the prisoners on death row. A coincidence? Numerous studies have found that Black defendants are more likely than their White counterparts to face the death penalty.

On top of all this, it is far from clear that the death penalty even serves its primary purpose. There is yet to be conclusive evidence to demonstrate that the death penalty deters people from committing heinous crimes compared to the threat of spending life in prison.

Faced with all of this, 15 years ago, I announced that I could no longer support the death penalty. Luckily, I was in good company. I was not the first public official whose thinking about this issue changed. Supreme Court Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens had a similar journey to my own. While both initially ruled in favor of the death penalty, they eventually came to the same conclusion: that after decades of trying to make it fair, we had largely failed as a nation.

In the year 2000, in my home State of Illinois, George Ryan, a Republican Governor, instituted the first statewide moratorium on executions in the Nation. In 2003, Governor Ryan cleared death row by commuting the sentences of 167 inmates to life in prison.

In 2021, in his first year in office, President Biden instituted a moratorium on the Federal death penalty. Then, in December 2024, in response to a request from me and 11 other Senators, President Biden commuted the sentences of most individuals on Federal death row to life in prison.

Today, I am reintroducing the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act. This legislation would prohibit the imposition of the death penalty as punishment for any violation of Federal law and require the resentencing of those previously sentenced to death row.

This bill is particularly important today. Last month, President Trump's Department of Justice announced that it was bringing back firing squads and seeking to return to the use of electrocution and lethal gas for executions. Meanwhile, the State of Alabama became the first government in the world to carry out executions by nitrogen suffocation, an untested and inhumane death penalty method.

The Supreme Court has declined to intervene, over the dissent of Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson.

Listen to what Justice Sotomayor wrote:

Allowing the nitrogen hypoxia experiment to continue

despite mounting and unbroken evidence that it violates the

Constitution by inflicting unnecessary suffering fails to

protect the dignity of the Nation we have been, the Nation we

are, and the Nation we aspire to be.

These barbaric tactics will be remembered as a stain on our Nation's history. We must not engage in the very conduct we seek to punish. My bill would ensure we do not.

I understand this subject brings up people's strongest emotions. When faced with the horrific acts of some of the people on death row, the hatred they hold, and the pain they caused, it is understandable to want them to face a punishment commensurate with their crimes. But how many innocent people must be put to death to feed a feeling of vengeance? How many Americans must be denied justice in the name of grief?

State-sanctioned killing is not an effective way to make our country safe. It is not guaranteed to only punish the guilty. It is not who we are.

I hope my colleagues will join me and together end this cruel and unusual punishment in America once and for all.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, if you follow the U.S. Senate priority agenda, you are realizing at this moment in time, we are in the midst of a national emergency--a national emergency. What would you guess that would be? The war in Iran? Well, certainly, when it cost America 14 lives at least at this point and when you have billions of dollars being spent. I believe the figures--the latest one reported was $29 billion. Is that the national emergency? No.

Is the national emergency in the Senate the pending invasion of Cuba? No.

How about the President's tariff taxes--tariff taxes that have raised the cost of living across the United States? No, that is not the national emergency.

Gasoline prices--would that be a national emergency to the Senate leaders? It was $5.49 a gallon in Chicago last weekend. But that is not it.

How about grocery prices, utility prices, rent prices, daycare prices? No, that is not on the Republican agenda as a national emergency.

What is on the agenda as far as the Senate is concerned is the billionaire boondoggle ballroom--ballroom. America desperately needs a new ballroom, and they are asking for $1 billion--$1 billion--to build it.

I thought the President promised that his golfing friends and business leaders were going to pay for this, not the taxpayers. Well, that has all changed.

This weekend, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that funding President Trump's personal pet project, his gold-plated ballroom, as currently written cannot be included in the Republicans' partisan budget reconciliation bill before the Senate. To that, I say thank heavens.

I distinctly recall the President's promise that the American people were not going to pay for this ballroom. How quickly he retreated on his word and asked taxpayers to cough up $1 billion--another broken promise.

This ruling by the Parliamentarian in response to a challenge brought by Senate Democrats is a win for the American people across the country, but don't kid yourself--Senate Republicans are already back to the drawing board for this ballroom emergency which we face, attempting to revise the provision so it can be included in the reconciliation bill.

Americans continue to struggle with high prices at the grocery store and at the gas station. Republicans have shown where their priorities lie: appeasing the President and writing him a blank check for a new ballroom and a mass deportation campaign.

This much we know: When President Trump has his way with his billion- dollar ballroom emergency project, there will continue to be no room on the Trump dance card for America's working families.

President Trump's war of choice in Iran, as well as his continued tariffs, is squeezing American families hard--in housing, groceries, and fuel costs and utility bills; inflation that surged to 3.8 percent--the highest level since the pandemic and is outpacing wage growth.

In Illinois, drivers are paying more than $5 a gallon for gas--as I mentioned, last week, $5.49 a gallon in Chicago. Illinois electricity bills are up by more than 15 percent on President Trump's watch, and grocery prices had the biggest 1-month jump in nearly 4 years. Fresh vegetables are 44 percent more expensive than they were just 3 months ago. Ask the shoppers at your local stores; they know this personally.

I recently heard from a constituent of mine from Southern Illinois: Reverend Dr. Anthony Paulson. He wrote about the cost-of-living issues. Reverend Paulson told me that, as a pastor, he witnesses the impact of rising costs on his family, friends, and neighbors. Residents come to his church seeking help with the cost of food, housing, and gas to meet their basic needs. The reverend said he offers the church's compassion and support to anyone in need, but the church and the people he serves have been stretched thin, thanks to the across-the-board price hikes we have under the Trump administration.

I think about Reverend Paulson and the countless other constituents who have called my office to sound the alarm whenever I cast a vote in regard to this issue.

But President Trump said he doesn't think about Americans' financial hardships ``even a little bit.'' He continued:

I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't

think about anybody.

President Trump.

Tell that to Reverend Paulson, tell him you don't care about his concerns or the concerns of the people he serves.

I will also note that just yesterday the President's politicized Department of Justice settled a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. What did the President get because of this settlement? A so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund of nearly $1.8 billion. And what will this money from the taxpayers be used for? The administration says it is for, ``victims of lawfare and weaponization.''

Hold on to your hats and let me tell you the whole story. The whole story starts here on January 6. I was seated in my chair. The other Senators were seated. We were counting the electoral votes.

The Vice President of the United States Vice President Pence was presiding. It was about 2 p.m., at which point the Secret Service came through that door, grabbed the Vice President from where he was sitting in that chair, and removed him from this room.

We sat here and waited, and a minute later, a member of the Capitol Police came before us in uniform and said: Stay in this room, there is a mob outside, but we will make this a protected safe room.

Not 10 minutes later that same officer came before us and said: Cancel everything I said. Evacuate as quickly as possible.

And the Senators of both political parties filed through that door to escape the mob that was invading the U.S. Capitol building where we meet today. It was the most amazing thing to happen in this building since the invasion of the British in the War of 1812. Those of you who have any questions as to whether it actually occurred, look at the video, look at the proof, look at the evidence. The net result was a melee that almost cost more than two or three human lives.

They had over 140 members of the Capitol Hill Police protecting Members of Congress, protecting the Vice President of the United States, and protecting visitors to the Capitol from the mob that President Trump sent to make an impression on the Capitol and the people who were working here. Over 140 instances where these mobsters and insurrectionists beat up the local police who had their lives on the line. You can see the videos. Don't believe a word I said, take a look at the videos and judge for yourself.

The net result was, when it was all over, some 1,500 to 1,600 individuals were arrested and prosecuted for crimes committed that day. Many of them ended up in jail as they should have.

What was the result when President Trump was reelected for a second term? On his first day in office, he gave full and unconditional pardons to all of those mobsters and insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol and attacked our police force. Attacked our police force. Members on the other side come to the floor and talk about who has respect for the police, not one word was said in opposition to the President's full and unconditional pardon to these people who attacked our local police doing their job. Two people as a result of that, two of our officers, died in subsequent days from the trauma that they endured. That is the reality.

Now, what does the President want to do? What has been the promise from the start? We are not only going to release full and unconditionally all of those arrested as an insurrectionist mob on the Capitol. We are going to give them compensation.

How much is it worth to be on the good side of the President with this new MAGA slush fund of $1.8 billion? That money is headed to the pockets of the individuals who crashed this Capitol. Can you think of anything worse, any incentive to attack police worse than that? I can't think of it.

Lawyers for those January 6 insurrectionists who Trump pardoned have already said they are going to apply for compensation. They are going to ask for money to be paid to them for committing a crime. Forget that working people are paying more for gas and they still haven't seen a dime in refunds in Trump's illegal tariffs that pushed up the prices of groceries and clothes and appliances. The President is making sure that those who fought to undermine a free and fair election and those who attacked this Capitol building cashed in, not the hard-working families of America who are struggling mightily to get by.

That should tell you all you need to know about what the President's priorities are. Democrats will fight this unprecedented and unacceptable slush fund, and this week, we will continue to push back on Republicans' partisan reconciliation bill and billionaire ballroom emergency bill every step of the way.

We will work to halt the flow of taxpayers' dollars to Trump's ballroom, his arches, God only knows what he will dream up next, and his mass deportation campaign. And when this bill comes to the floor later this week, the Republicans get to go on record on exactly what their priorities are going to be moving forward. Will our Republican colleagues support our efforts to drive down these family costs, or will they side with President Trump?

The last point I would like to make is from a statement made by a previous speaker on the Republican side. He said that we don't have any respect for law and order and the policemen and law enforcement officials who enforce it. This MAGA slush fund of $1.8 billion for those who came into the Capitol and sacked this building and did their darndest to hurt our law enforcement agents speaks for itself.

What we feel on the Democratic side is that the men and women of law enforcement deserve our respect, and they should be held to the same standards in the Capitol and in the Federal Government as they are held in every State. I don't know of any masked State troopers in my State or in Wyoming. They don't wear masks because they are proud of what they do for a living. Whereas, the ICE agents are just the opposite; they are hiding their identity. And the Republicans want to protect them. I don't understand why.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, the issue is our right to vote in this democracy and in this country. For many of us, that has never been a big question. We registered. We vote regularly. We show our identification. We get our ballots, do our civic responsibility, push the ballot into the machine in my hometown, and get a little sticker to wear on your lapel that says ``I voted.'' It is simple, easy.

But I can remember when voting was not so easy for a lot of people. The year was 1965, and I was a college student here at Georgetown in Washington, DC. We heard about a march that was going to take place in Selma, AL, and a number of my fellow students and I sat up one night and said: Why don't we go? Let's go. Let's be part of this.

So we talked about it, and here is the way the conversation went:

Do you remember what happened in Mississippi last year when those three guys from up north--New York and places like that--went down to Mississippi for the Civil Rights Movement, and they were murdered, and they never found their bodies?

At that point in time, they had not found their bodies. They did later.

They associated the murders with members of the Ku Klux Klan who were out to get these foreign meddlers who were coming into Mississippi, pushing for the right to vote for Black people.

We talked about it and said: Well, is it safe to go down there and march?

We went back and forth and back and forth and ultimately decided not to go. Bad decision. I wish I had gone.

Why were they marching in Selma, AL--a town you haven't heard of except for that march? It was over the issue of the right to vote for Black Americans in that town.

Here are the numbers. There were 15,000 eligible Black voters in Selma, AL. How many were actually registered to vote out of the 15,000? There were 335. What happened? Why didn't more register? Because they put a test down, a literacy test, before they could vote, and you had to pass that test to be eligible to vote. They asked constitutional questions like ``The Constitution has the phrase `letters of marque and reprisal.' What does that mean?'' I am not sure I can answer it standing here today as a Senator. They couldn't answer it, either, and they were denied the right to vote.

That was the reality of the voting crisis in America in the 1960s that led to the Civil Rights Act.

Let me fast-forward in my story to a much more recent time. It was about 25 years ago. I was on a trip down to Alabama, this time with John Lewis, my friend and fellow Member of Congress, who actually marched in Selma the day that I didn't go. We went to a number of places and saw a number of key locations in Birmingham and Montgomery, AL, where important civil rights events had occurred.

The highlight of the trip was going to be on Sunday. After breakfast, we were going to go march together across and down the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL. Unfortunately, I was called back home. I had to leave to catch a flight.

I said to John Lewis: I am sorry to miss this opportunity, my friend. I really wanted to be there finally to march in Selma.

He said: What time is your plane?

I said: 8 o'clock.

He said: We are going to get up at 5 and go over there, you and me, and I will march with you down the Edmund Pettus Bridge and show you where they almost killed me.

I said: I wouldn't miss it for the world.

We got up at 5 o'clock, took the drive over to Selma, and marched down and across that bridge. And I thought of all the times I had seen the video and film of John Lewis--this young, idealistic Black man-- wearing a tan raincoat, marching with the folks across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the troopers coming up and battering him so badly, they fractured his skull and almost killed him. He survived, thank God. And he talked about that day and what it meant to him. I wish I had been there. I hope I would have survived it, as he did. I hope I wouldn't have had to go through the beating that he did.

When we talk about the right to vote and the Voting Rights Act, it was created here in Washington the next year by Lyndon Baines Johnson, as President, because he said: Once and for all, we have to put an end to this. We have to say that every American, regardless of race, creed, or color, has an opportunity to vote, and they can never be denied for their racial composition or whatever it might be.

We are back debating the same issue, and, of course, the question is: Do we need a Voting Rights Act? Senator Durbin, you are talking about something that was passed 50-plus years ago. Why do we have to continue to have a provision in the law to protect your right to vote?

Well, my experience as a Congressman and as a Senator has been that there are nefarious, devious ways to make it tough to vote. You can draw a map that basically says you will never get to vote for anybody you want. You are always stuck in the wrong district, the wrong place. That is called gerrymandering or redistricting to deny a constitutional right. Or you can basically be the object of discrimination. That can happen too.

So the issue of voting is so sacred and key to our democracy that I believe the Voting Rights Act should be in place. As a warning to those who would violate it, there is a price to be paid. That, to me, doesn't seem like too much to ask. In fact, it gets down to the heart of who we are and where we are today.

You hear a lot of people now talking about illegal and ineligible people who are trying to vote. There have been suggestions that some of them are illegal, undocumented people living here who should never have come into this country and once here, should never be allowed to vote.

In fact, the other side has proposed--the Republicans have proposed that people prove they are American citizens before they can vote.

The interesting thing is, they say: We want to see your identification before you vote.

Well, what identification would you produce? The same thing you produce every day--your driver's license, right? Everybody uses their driver's license. I do to prove who I am when I buy a plane ticket or something.

But the Republican approach says that a driver's license is not eligible to be used for identification under their new law. Under their new law, you basically have to produce one of two things.

A passport.

Well, I have a passport. Doesn't everybody?

No. Half of Americans don't own a passport.

Well, then get one before the election.

I have a problem. I need $165 to buy a passport, and I have to wait a few weeks, maybe a few months if it doesn't come through quickly.

So that is one proof of identification, which many people don't have and can't get in time for an election, not for sure.

The second thing they would like you to produce is your birth certificate that proves you are who you say you are because your name is on it. It is OK for me, if I can ever find the darn thing up in that box in my closet. But I can find my birth certificate that has my name on it.

My wife is not so lucky. It has her maiden name on her birth certificate, of course, so she has to go ahead of time and obtain a new birth certificate, pay for it, and get it delivered with her married name on board.

Why? The basic premise is to make sure that you are an American when you vote.

Well, this must be a real problem. If we are going to ask people to produce a passport or a birth certificate with their birth name on it because we want to keep ineligible people from voting, this must be a real problem.

Well, we took a look at it, and here is how it turns out. Over a span of 20 years of voting in America--imagine the millions and millions of votes that were cast--they found a number of people who were ineligible because they weren't citizens of the United States, who actually tried to vote.

Out of 40 million people, how many do you think they found? Seventy thousand? No. Seven thousand? No. Seven hundred? No. Seventy-seven. Seventy-seven people who tried to vote who were ineligible.

Now the other side--the Republicans--is coming up with the idea to go buy a passport to prove you are eligible; go find a birth certificate that fits the law to show you are eligible.

The point I am making is this: 77 people who were stupid enough or devious enough to try to vote and weren't eligible shouldn't create a hardship for every other conscientious American who gets up regularly and never misses the opportunity to vote. To put some new identification requirement in there for registration just makes no sense to me whatsoever. That is why we continue to debate about voting.

Incidentally, let's say the obvious. One of the reasons we continue this debate is that a former President, and now President again, has decided he never lost an election. He says, in the year 2020, he never lost to Joe Biden.

It has reached a ridiculous point, where nominees to become a Federal judge for life--attorneys--come before us; take an oath; and testify in the Judiciary Committee, where I am the ranking member.

We ask these judicial nominees a basic question: Who won the election in 2020?

I will bet you, if I went to the Galleries up there, everybody could answer: Why, of course, Joe Biden won that election.

These nominees cannot say those words. They are afraid of the reaction of Donald Trump when he hears that they are not promoting the Big Lie--that he never lost an election.

Think I am exaggerating?

Just 2 or 3 weeks ago, Senator Coons of Delaware started asking those nominees who had won a lifetime appointment on a Federal bench another basic question. The amendments to the Constitution include an amendment that says: If you have been elected two times as President of the United States, you can't run for a third term. So Senator Coons asked these nominees that question: Do you believe that because Donald Trump was elected twice as President that he is prohibited from running for a third term?

They refused to answer. ``It may be an issue on a case before me someday.'' That is not what it is all about.

Donald Trump likes to hold out the possibility that he will run again, even though it is clearly, clearly unconstitutional for him to even consider it. But these nominees are in such fear that he will end up vicing them or taking them off the list to be judges that they won't answer these basic questions about who won the election or whether or not Donald Trump can run for a third term. That is the ridiculous extreme we have reached in this country.

There will come a day for some of these people--and they will be put on the Federal bench by my colleagues on the Republican side--when somebody is going to assemble a video of their testimony. It will be a moment of embarrassment for them to think what they had to do to finally get approval before the Judiciary Committee.

Today, the right to vote is under attack in this country. We are witnessing a brand of politics we have never seen before. The Trump administration has shown they are dead set on restricting Americans' right to vote by pushing for partisan gerrymandering, restricting mail- in voting, and demanding unreasonable voter registration requirements, such as those I just mentioned.

Incidentally, the President of the United States says he wants to eliminate vote-by-mail, which many of us have used over and over again, because of the fraud involved in it. How did the President of the United States vote in this last election in Florida? He voted by mail. Go figure. This is supposed to be a corrupt form of voting in America. Yet the President, who wants to end it, uses it himself.

All Americans need to have a fair say in who represents them, but in being led by a President who tried stealing an election, Republicans have lost all respect for election integrity. We are now witnessing a never-before-seen political pressure campaign to rig our elections by enabling politicians to choose their voters, not the other way around.

Rather than tit-for-tat political games, the American people deserve stability at the voting booth. The Voting Rights Act used to be an overwhelming bipartisan sentiment that we are all in this together and that we don't want anyone to cheat their way into public office.

In the most recent Supreme Court case of Louisiana v. Callais, the Court had an opportunity to protect this representation for all Americans, especially those who have been historically disenfranchised by gerrymandering and other discriminatory voting practices. Instead, the Court's conservative supermajority has again turned its back on the promise of an equal right to vote, further gutting the Voting Rights Act.

The impact is already being felt. Across the South--primarily in the former Confederate States--you see decisions being made to eliminate African-American Representatives from congressional districts.

Justice Kagan, in writing for the dissent, said the Voting Rights Act was ``born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers.'' We cannot allow that blood to have been spilled in vain. We must fight these dangerous attempts to restrict the right to vote, and we must restore confidence in our democracy by ensuring that every eligible American has access to the ballot.

That is why, in honor of my late friend and voting rights pioneer Congressman John Lewis, I have been proud to introduce a bill that bears his name. It is the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act.

It has been an honor to work with Senator Warnock of Georgia, who is cosponsoring this bill with me. We are going to try to make sure it has its day in court--or its day in the Senate, as we say.

We also need to advance additional tools against current voter suppression efforts. Attacks on voting rights aren't happening in a vacuum. Across this country, Republican lawmakers and litigators are using every trick in the book to rig the rules of the game. Why? They are afraid of losing in November. Purging voter rolls, closing polling places, restricting mail-in voting, and undermining the Voting Rights Act all serve one purpose--to limit access to the ballot box.

America is better than that.

Some Democrats will continue to stand up and push back against this effort. It is about time that this became a bipartisan effort again.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, later today, the Senate will move 1 step closer to confirming 50 Executive nominees without the consent or agreement of the Senate Democrats.

Last year, Senate Republicans made a change in the Senate's rules that has fundamentally undermined Senators' ability to fulfill our constitutional duty of advice and consent. They gave away this body's authority in order to appease the White House.

Now, I have been in the Senate long enough to remember a time when this was not even a major issue. It was rare that people would question a nomination. They would usually threaten to but not reach a floor vote. That has changed dramatically.

U.S. attorneys--let me use that as an example. Under President Trump's first term, virtually every U.S. attorney of the 94 vacancies was filled by voice vote--no record vote necessary. There was maybe one exception in that period, but virtually all of them were by voice vote.

Then came President Biden and a decision by the man who is now Vice President of the United States to force a vote on every single U.S. attorney. It was Vice President Vance who insisted on that, and I came to the floor repeatedly, saying: Why are you doing this? We have done this on a bipartisan basis up until now.

He said: We want to vote on every one of them.

Well, he got his way, and we stopped filling the vacancies of U.S. attorneys under President Biden. Now, under President Trump's second term, we are having individual votes on each one. I don't believe it should ever have reached that point, but it has, and I just described to you how it reached that point. Still, we have this situation where there are objections and demands for votes time and time and time again. We waste too much time on that.

Now, some of these nominees are controversial, and they would have separate votes, but that is rare. By and large, we can have agreement if we do it on a bipartisan basis. Unfortunately, this kind of voting we are going to have today basically says that we are throwing in the towel, that we are not even going to try to make this a bipartisan process, and I am sorry for that.

I warned that this new Republican precedent would open the door to jamming through extreme nominees whose only qualification is loyalty to the President.

U.S. attorneys are the top Federal prosecutors in 94 districts across the country. We rely on them to be above politics, fairmined prosecutors who protect victims and hold bad actors accountable. They should not be instruments of political retribution ever. But, as I feared, several U.S. attorney nominees in this en bloc package are extreme and, I am afraid to say, unqualified.

Last year, President Trump nominated people like Ed Martin, Alina Habba, Lindsey Halligan, and others who are not qualified for the post but committed to carrying out his retribution campaign against President Trump's political enemies.

As an interim U.S. attorney, Ed Martin led an unprecedented purge of dozens of career prosecutors in the Department of Justice and FBI agents simply because they did their jobs investigating and prosecuting the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

I sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I am embarrassed for the nominees that come before us. They are so afraid that they are going to say one word or the other that is going to trigger the ire of the President.

When you ask them basic questions--who won the election between Trump and Biden in 2020?--they refuse to answer that question. You could take that question to any eighth grade classroom in my State or Montana--you pick it--and those kids know the answer: President Biden won. Of course he did. He got more votes than President Trump. But these nominees are afraid to say it because President Trump has never acknowledged the obvious. He has been engaged in this Big Lie strategy ever since. And they are afraid that if they cross him by saying the obvious, they are going to invoke his resistance and maybe even lose his support for whatever they are seeking--the nomination.

The same thing is true when you ask about January 6. Mr. President, you weren't here. I was here, and I will tell you exactly what happened. A mob came to the Capitol and started coming into the building, and we were warned in the Senate Chamber that the Vice President of the United States had to leave because of the danger to him personally.

Then they told us: Stay in the Senate Chamber. The mob is going to stay outside.

Ten minutes later, they stood up and said: Forget what we just said. Everybody file out as quickly as possible. They have broken the containment and are moving toward this Chamber.

And off we went to an adjoining building, waiting until the mob subsided.

Over 140 policemen were physically attacked. Two of them died a day or two later. It was a serious moment, and these men and women risked their lives to protect us.

That happened, and it was all captured on videotape. We know what happened. As a result of that, some 1,500 people were arrested for their participation in this mob action, and some of them were actually sentenced to time in prison.

What happened when President Trump was elected? Full, unconditional pardon of every single one of them. Even those that were physically assaulting the policemen in the Capitol were given a full and unconditional pardon by President Trump. That is a fact.

So when we ask these people who want to be lifetime appointments to the Federal bench what happened to the Capitol on January 6, they say: Oh, it was sunny, and there was a little wind outside.

Well, didn't you see the videotapes?

Of course they did, but they are afraid to acknowledge what actually happened for fear that President Trump will turn on them.

The latest is, when we ask them about the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which says that a President can only serve two terms--we ask them

a basic question--now, get this--President Trump is serving his second term, right?

Yes, he is.

Can he run for a third term?

I am sorry, I can't answer that. That may be a question that comes before the Federal court.

Once again, take it to the eighth graders in my State or yours and ask them the basic question: How many terms can a President serve? Two. The Constitution says it, and the President is in his second term.

They are afraid to say that for fear that this President will try somehow to enter into a third term in office. I can't imagine how he would. But they are afraid to answer the questions.

Those are the kinds of nominees we are getting before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I have never seen, in 20 years of service on that committee, people who are in such an embarrassing position that they embarrass themselves, their families, and friends who have gathered for them and refuse to answer fundamental, basic questions about the Constitution. I have just never seen anything like it.

Ed Martin led an unprecedented purge of all the people that I mentioned earlier. He tweeted from the Capitol on January 6, the day of the insurrectionist mob. I want to quote him. Ed Martin:

Like Mardi Gras today in DC today: love, faith and joy.

Ignore #FakeNews.

Dismissing the violence of the January 6 rioters, Martin said:

We have to have less judgment on somebody who hits a cop.

I want to repeat that in Police Week because of our bipartisan salute to our men and women in law enforcement. Ed Martin, one of the top guys in the Trump administration, said in reference to what happened on January 6 in this building:

We have to have less judgment on somebody who hits a cop.

Get out of here. This man is at the highest level of the Trump administration.

Although his nomination failed to advance, President Trump continues to nominate people like Martin who defend January 6 rioters and embrace the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

It is even more of an outrage that during Police Week, when we honor law enforcement's bravery, service, and sacrifice, Senate Republicans are poised to confirm nominees who continue to spread fabrications about the police officers who protected me and other Members of the Senate, Republican and Democrat, from the violent mob on January 6.

Take Darin Smith--Darin Smith, nominated to the District of Wyoming. He stood by his radical and dangerous view that Vice President Pence should not have certified the results of the 2020 election.

Smith was on the Capitol grounds on January 6--this nominee for judgeship was on the Capitol grounds on January 6--and made the reprehensible claim--listen to this. This is what Smith said: Hundreds of Capitol Police officers who risked their lives that day were guilty of ``massive incompetence.'' Smith blames the police for what happened on January 6. Without evidence, he claimed that rioters who breached the Capitol were victims of entrapment--1,500 victims of entrapment.

Moreover, Smith is not remotely qualified to be a U.S. attorney. He is going to be in the package, take it or leave it. Prior to becoming interim U.S. attorney, he had no courtroom or litigation experience whatsoever--none.

Smith's lack of experience has had real-world consequences. At least seven criminal defendants have filed motions to dismiss charges brought by Smith because he told members of the grand jury that the defendants were ``murderers'' and that every case before them involved ``bad people.'' Even the Wyoming U.S. Attorney's Office has admitted Smith's irresponsible and unprofessional comments were ``ill-advised.'' That is the word they used--``ill-advised.'' Worse than that, Smith has violated these defendants' rights and endangered public safety by putting these prosecutions at risk.

He wasn't ready for this job. He still isn't.

Another nominee Senate Republicans are rubberstamping today is Phil Williams, nominated to the Northern District of Alabama. He bears many unfortunate similarities to Ed Martin. Neither one had any prosecutorial experience prior to their nomination. Instead, like Martin, Williams' main qualification appears to be he is a podcaster and he makes social media posts in which he spouts MAGA orthodoxy.

Like Ed Martin, Phil Williams has whitewashed January 6 and maligned the law enforcement officers--not the mobsters--the policemen who were here protecting Members of Congress, our staff, and visitors. Williams claimed that January 6 rioters were ``hunted down''--his words--by law enforcement, whom he accused of ``prosecutorial abuse many, many times over.''

This is a man whose nomination for a lifetime appointment to the Federal court is going to be voted on today, during Police Week.

He went on to call the prosecution of January 6 rioters ``the Salem Witch trials on a national scale.''

Williams criticized the 87-month sentence imposed on a rioter named Guy Reffitt, claiming he is, according to Williams, ``nonviolent.'' In fact, Reffitt traveled to the Capitol on that day--January 6--wearing body armor, carrying handguns and cuffs, and planning to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.

Prior to his arrest--listen to this--Reffitt, who has been described as ``nonviolent,'' said to his own minor children:

If you turn me in, you are a traitor, and traitors get

shot.

Senate Republicans will also approve Dan Bishop, nominated to the Middle District of North Carolina--another nominee who has no previous experience as a prosecutor. Lifetime appointment to the Federal bench.

As a Member of Congress on January 6, 2021, Bishop voted against certifying the 2020 election results. He didn't accept what is clearly the fact: The President lost the 2020 election. President Biden won.

Bishop falsely claimed that ``Democrats' attack on our elections . . . was coordinated & widespread.''

Even today, Bishop refuses to disavow debunked theories about the insurrection. He told me: ``I have heard credible accounts that black- bloc/Antifa agitators were in the crowd and among the first to vandalize the Capitol building, so I think that leftists participated in and perhaps instigated the mayhem in part''--one of the wild conspiracy theories which he still stands by.

There is a clear through line here with these extreme, unqualified nominees. Their MAGA loyalty all but guarantees they will use their post in the U.S. Attorney's Offices to go after the President's political opponents.

President Trump has nominated these January 6 apologists for another equally concerning reason: He wants to make the case that the 2020 election was stolen to justify interfering in the 2026 elections, and he wants loyal foot soldiers in the U.S. Attorney's Offices who will help him carry out this mission.

Confirming these nominees to top law enforcement positions, particularly given their attacks on police officers simply for doing their jobs on January 6, is disrespectful to law enforcement--even more so during Police Week.

I urge my colleagues: Today, when this package comes before us, oppose these nominees. And because this rancid package of nominees is a ``take it or leave it'' on nearly 50 nominees, by all means, leave it.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Michigan (Ms. Slotkin) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanious consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanious consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, first, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled rollcall vote: Senator Cornyn for up to 10 minutes and Senator Kennedy for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, like many families across America, mine was touched by the disease of cancer when I was a young man. At the age of 14, my father died of lung cancer. I was 14; he was 53. Seeing my dad struggle changed my life. I made it a priority during my time in Congress to try to spare others from the suffering. We have made significant progress in reducing smoking over the last several decades. After I passed legislation banning smoking on airplanes, it turned out to be a tipping point. And, increasingly, we have seen tobacco and cigarettes disappear from public spaces.

But Big Tobacco did not dissipate like a cloud of smoke. They rebranded with flashy new products: vaping and e-cigarettes. And they followed the same playbook they used to sell Marlboro cigarettes and so many others: They targeted our children in America.

Tobacco companies have donated generously to Donald Trump's election, his inauguration, and his ``Great Gatsby'' ballroom with the expectation of favorable treatment, and President Trump's administration has delivered for tobacco. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration did something it had never done before. After pressure from President Trump, the FDA authorized the first ever flavored e- cigarettes.

Why is that important? That is what lures the children into this deadly habit. Scientists, doctors, and parents--even the FDA's own studies--all acknowledge sweet and fruity flavored e-cigarettes are responsible for addicting our children. Health experts I have spoken to believe the true number of high school kids vaping is at least 40 percent--40 percent of our kids vaping--a percentage that teachers, principals, and students acknowledge. These are not kids vaping to quit cigarette smoking. These are kids who first became addicted to nicotine because of flavored vaping.

Why would an administration supposedly committed to making America healthy again unleash this new wave of addiction on our children? Formaldehyde, chromium, and heavy metals like nickel and lead all are present in e-cigarettes. A recent study found that vaping is likely to cause cancer.

We should not trust Big Tobacco when they promise they won't market to kids. We know better.

Then, on Friday, the Food and Drug Administration granted a free pass to scores of illegal vapes, permitting them to stay on the market without having met the law's requirement that they first prove to the FDA that their product is ``appropriate for the protection of public health.'' They didn't try to do it because they can't do that; they can't prove it.

But even that gift to vaping and cigarette titans like Altria and R. J. Reynolds was not enough to spare the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Yesterday, President Trump canned him, forced his resignation. Dr. Makary is gone for his resistance to this expansion of vaping in the high schools of America.

What a disgraceful display in Washington. The President wants yes-men no matter the consequences, even if it harms our children.

While I did not agree on everything that Dr. Makary did, I appreciated his commitment and focus on protecting kids from Big Tobacco.

Whether it is for drugs, medical devices, or tobacco products, it is never a good idea for the President and the White House to pressure regulators to approve applications. That is a recipe for deadly consequences.

As the President's whims have created dangerous vacancies now at the

Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control, my Republican colleagues should have the nerve and fortitude to call out this alarming, unacceptable, and dangerous behavior and treatment of our children.

American Cures Act

Mr. President, on a separate topic, every family, like my own, has wrestled with a dangerous medical condition. When you or a loved one receive a diagnosis, there is only one question on your mind: Is there a cure? Is there a treatment? Often, thank God, the answer is yes.

America's world-class medical researchers and institutions have pushed the boundaries of science and achieved so many important and lifesaving breakthroughs. Medical researchers have turned terminal illness into treatable conditions in many instances--from HIV and AIDS, to heart disease, to many types of cancer--and they have developed treatments that have given patients what they desire the most: more time with their loved ones.

This work is primarily supported by the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. It is not only the Nation's premier medical research agency; it is the world's premier medical research agency.

Today, the budget of the National Institutes of Health is nearly $50 billion. The vast majority of their research is competitively awarded to scientists, research institutions, and small businesses in every State across the Nation. Last year, Illinois hospitals and universities received more than $1.2 billion in NIH funding.

What do we have to show for this investment? Well, thanks to NIH research, cancer deaths have declined by 34 percent between 1991 and 2022, and death from heart disease and stroke fell by 78 percent between 1968 and 2013. Medical research works. Because of NIH funding, we are on the verge of curing--yes, curing--sickle cell disease. Consider this: Between 2010 and 2016, the FDA approved more than 200 new drugs and treatments. Every single one of them benefitted from NIH research funding--money well spent.

Congress has long recognized the importance of NIH, which is why we, on a bipartisan basis, provided NIH with $19 billion in additional funding over the past decade, a 60-percent increase. I was part of that effort, and I am proud to announce that it was bipartisan from the start. Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, was chairman of the key Appropriations subcommittee. Senator Patty Murray, who is the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, was a leader in this field. Senator Susan Collins did remarkable work in the same area. It has been bipartisan from the start. And working together as a team, we have achieved an amazing investment in medical research.

However, thousands of chronic diseases still need treatments, causing millions of families to suffer. These families are depending on us to support NIH in groundbreaking research today. So, this week, I have reintroduced the American Cures Act, which would provide our top medical research agencies with 5 percent real funding growth every year. My bill would ensure that the United States remains at the forefront of new treatments and would provide researchers with the strong, stable funding they need to continue their lifesaving work.

This legislation is more important than ever since we currently have a new administration that seems hell-bent on dismantling America's medical research infrastructure. No nation has ever made such a significant investment in science as the United States. No nation's scientists have ever done more to improve the quality of life on Earth. Through government support for scientific research, we have split the atom, defeated polio, and mapped the human genome.

American leadership comes with the responsibility to continue to move forward, to never be satisfied when there are those suffering with sickness, and to push the boundaries of what is possible. Let's pass the American Cures Act on a bipartisan basis and give families facing terrible illnesses today the hope of treatment and cures tomorrow.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for the President of the United States, there are few decisions more important than nominating leaders of integrity and good judgment to hold trusted positions in office. And few of those trusted positions are more important than the Chair of the Federal Reserve. Those words were uttered by President Trump during his first term when he announced Jerome Powell as his nominee to Chair the Fed. How times have changed.

During his tenure, Chair Powell served with competency and dignity as he navigated the economic problems of our time, from the COVID-19 pandemic to rapidly rising inflation. Yet he also faced a challenge unlike any other Chair in history: a sham legal battle waged by the very President who nominated him. To President Trump, it seems that exercising good judgment does not mean reliance on the economic facts and data, but instead obedience to his every demand.

Because of Chair Powell's refusal to kowtow, Donald Trump has weaponized the Department of Justice to pressure, belittle, and threaten him. I want to commend Chair Powell for standing firm in the face of the President's tirades. It is not easy to face Trump's vengeful wrath, and it is indefensible that DOJ has kept open the possibility of pursuing these baseless, politicized charges in the future.

But Mr. Powell's term as Chair expires on Friday, and President Trump seems determined to nominate a Chair who will do his bidding, instead of one who is independently minded. Earlier this year, President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to lead the Fed after Powell's departure. Mr. Warsh previously served as member of the Board of Governors from 2006 through 2011 as a Bush appointee.

Warsh's actions during that time raise cause for concern: Mr. Warsh played a central role in arranging numerous multibillion-dollar bank bailouts, while warning against interest rate cuts even as unemployment soared. He has expressed no regrets about these bailouts and continues to support Trump's Wall Street deregulatory agenda. We already have seen the damage across our government, from the Department of Justice to Health and Human Services, that Trump loyalists can wreck. We cannot allow that chaos in our central bank.

America's economy is trusted by the world because of the belief that our economic policies are determined by facts not politics. Warsh threatens to undermine that.

When President Trump asks him to juice the economy by lowering interest rates, even if it raises inflation, will Warsh have the courage to say no? When one of the President or his allies' many shady business ventures fail, will Warsh stand strong amid pressure to provide a taxpayer funded bailout? When the chips are down, will Warsh make the decisions that best benefit his country or the President who picked him? Warsh's record and his answers at his confirmation hearing indicate the answers are no. Americans are struggling more than ever to afford basic goods, from housing, to gas, to groceries. Yesterday, data showed that Trump's war of choice in Iran has caused inflation to reach 3.8 percent, the highest in 3 years. Working families deserve a central bank that will fight for them, not the President and his billionaire buddies.

I am not convinced that Mr. Warsh has the willingness to do what is best for the American people. For that reason, I will be voting no on his nomination and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) is necessarily absent.