Cory Booker

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I have to preface my remarks with my deep respect for the senior Senator from Iowa. I respect him not just because he slays it on Twitter, but I respect him because of his heart, because we have a great working relationship, and because we have worked together to deal with the drug crisis in America. We have worked together to make the judicial system more just. What you hear from the senior Senator is passion that comes from the crisis, as he said. I have traveled his State considerably, and the opioid crisis is a crisis from New Jersey to Iowa--all over our country. He read the statistics, but you could hear from his heart that these are families he knows; that these are people who have seen the tremendous loss of young people through opioid overdoses. We cannot in this country tolerate one more overdose. I agree with the Senator's sense of urgency in that we cannot tolerate one more death and that we have to address this public health crisis. But with this goal in mind, I cannot support the bill as it is offered today because extending the temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogs alone is a failed experiment. We have seen this temporary scheduling. We are in it right now. Classwide scheduling has not curbed the overdoses. In fact, overdoses have increased during the period that fentanyl analogs have been scheduled by nearly 40 percent from June 2019 to May 2020. Here is what makes it even worse. As a result of just blanket classwide scheduling--this broad sweep approach--the FDA recently testified that there is a potential lifesaving antidote to these fentanyl analogs. It is basically a stronger version of naloxone. That stronger version has been placed, because of this blanket scheduling, as a schedule I. The FDA knows that this could actually endanger more people. Why in the midst of a public health crisis are we criminalizing the next naloxone instead of rushing it to the hands of researchers for study and evaluation? When you put something in schedule I, it is a declaration that doesn't even have any health benefits. This is bad science and, therefore, bad policy. This bill, as it is now, would not prevent the steady increase of fentanyl-related overdoses that we are seeing nationwide. It wouldn't achieve that because we have had temporary scheduling, and it is still going up. It will not prevent the loss of one loved one that we see happening right now or the pain that motivates my friend and senior Senator from Iowa. This is a public health crisis, and our strategies should be informed by the science as a public health response. It requires a response that is dictated by science- and evidence-based interventions. Temporary scheduling, again, is not simply that. Classwide scheduling impedes scientists' and impedes researchers' abilities to develop evidence- based public health solutions that are needed to overcome the fentanyl crisis and deal with these fentanyl analogs. Look, right now, temporary scheduling has given this false impression that Congress is doing something to deal with fentanyl analogs while the death count goes up. What it has done, really, is allowed the government to neglect the deeper calling for us to really deal with the challenges as they are. There are a lot of evidence-based intervention strategies--things we know that work--that we are not investing in. There are things that could help these crises in our communities. Fundamentally, research by the FDA has confirmed that what is being proposed--classwide scheduling--has improperly scheduled substances with therapeutic promise and low abuse potential. We need to submit all fentanyl-related substances to the same scientific evaluation that we have done for other controlled substances. We need to test for their dangerousness. We must identify those that might be lifesaving overdoses. All we have done for nearly 4 years now is schedule these substances without thinking about the scientific and medical evidence. Kicking the can down the road by temporarily scheduling these substances, yet again now, without making any effort to follow the scientific process, is irresponsible. We are preemptively criminalizing substances that may not be harmful and may actually be antidotes, that might be the answer in helping to curb these horrific overdoses and these horrible deaths. The temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogs without testing for pharmacological effects means that people will be convicted and incarcerated for substances that may have no pharmacological effect. I want to again make clear that I am committed to ending this pandemic. I carry a picture in my wallet of someone who died from an overdose--it was given to me as I crisscrossed this country--so as to never forget the everyday emergency. As the President mentioned in his speech to this body yesterday, confronting the opioid epidemic is something that Republicans and Democrats, united, can get behind. It should be bipartisan, but at the same time, our response should not be guided by the same old drug war ideologies that didn't stop the overuse of drugs. It should be guided by the scientific evidence. It should be guided by compassion. It should be guided by what works. Classwide scheduling ignores the scientific and medical guidance. It sets in place a dangerous precedent, and it repeats mistakes we have made too many times in the past. I have seen the drug war go awry. I have seen this body act in ways that have compounded problems and not helped people. I have seen the people with addictions--that are diseases--with nothing but jail and prison. We can get out of this crisis if we follow the science and if we follow what works, but it means Democrats and Republicans coming together. I have tremendous respect for my colleague. I know we can find a way to move forward together. I know, if we continue to work together, we are going to find a way forward. I know, because of my experience with the senior Senator and his grace, that if we dedicate ourselves to working together, we can get good things done for this country. We have done it before. In this case, I think we can do it again. So, with the deepest respect to my colleague, I respectfully object.

Mr. BOOKER. The Senator may proceed. I have nothing else to say.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I have deep and tremendous respect for my friend from South Carolina. I am not a Senator from the South, but my family hails from the South, from Monroe, LA, to Alabama, to North Carolina. I know my roots, and I know the challenges of Jim Crow, and, thank God, we are not in a time of Jim Crow. The history that my friend talked to, I know. I know his history, and I know my colleagues in the Senate know his history. We are all not blind to what happened in terms of racial oppression going back to the founding of this Nation. The Constitution that people have been waving around, it is hard not to read that and not see that many of the compromises were based upon an acquiescence to that original sin of this Nation--slavery. We know the violence of what he said and talked about. I am frustrated that we can agree that there has been overwrought language on both sides of the political aisle around this issue, but we should be focusing on the facts. I have a hard time listening to people that want to talk about this issue and don't talk about facts. In the United States today, it is more difficult for the average African American to vote than the average White American. That is not rhetoric. That is fact. We know that Black voters, on average, are forced to wait on line twice as long as White voters. We began this session today swearing an oath to that flag, saying that this would be a nation of liberty and justice for all. Where is the justice in a nation where there is, on average, for a Black person twice as long to vote? It is factual. But let's keep going because I heard my colleague speak. During the 2016 Presidential election, residents of entirely Black neighborhoods waited to vote. They were 74 percent more likely to spend more than 30 minutes at their polling place relative to residents of entirely White neighborhoods. That is a fact. Similar racial disparities were observed right before the pandemic. In the 2018 midterm elections, the Brennan Center report found that Latino voters waited almost 46 percent longer than White voters and Black voters about 45 percent. The report also found that Latinos and Black voters were more likely than White voters to wait in the longest of lines on election day. You could go into State after State and you will see who waits, factually, on longer lines. Georgia--are we going to reduce this to just being about water? I find that law offensive, but that is not the thing that offends me most. Do you want to know what is going on in Georgia right now? They have a historical pattern of dwindling polling places in the diverse areas, with some voters in Georgia waiting up to 10 hours in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Think about this for a second. Do you want to talk about voter suppression? You are working a job, you are taking care of young kids, and you are going to give up a day's salary in Georgia to vote? You want to talk about a modern day poll tax? And my friends on the other side are saying that race is not an issue here? I am going to continue with facts because I was flabbergasted that someone could stand up here and say there is not a different experience for Blacks and Whites when voting. I am just going to continue to read the facts. Since Shelby v. Holder eviscerated the Voting Rights Act that people like Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner died for, Black voters in Georgia have faced disproportionately longer lines and fewer polling places. The average number of voters per polling place have grown 40 percent in diverse Atlanta Metro since 2012, and voters in Black neighborhoods waited nearly 10 times as long, on average, after polling places were closed in neighborhoods. I am looking for an amen from my colleague from Georgia.

Mr. BOOKER. I mean, in what country are we, where a certain minority in predominantly minority communities has to wait 10 times as long? And so when you read--and I have heard my colleagues read these laws. They read: Well, what is wrong with having no drop boxes because, hey, we didn't have them before the pandemic. What is wrong with not having that many days to vote by mail? What is wrong with these things is obvious because they are not designed for voter protection. They are not designed to help voters have more access to the polls. They are designed to suppress the vote and create these longer lines. That is the obvious result, and if you can't see that, I am flabbergasted. I am sorry. It is hard. This is not my turn to speak, and forgive me to my colleagues. But I am flabbergasted that the Republican Party, the party of the 14th Amendment, the party that once fought for equal access to the polls is now creating this ruse that 19 States--that the States that are passing these laws, 19 States--this is not about voter protection. Donald Trump's own person said the last election was the safest, most secure election in American history. This is not about in-person voter fraud. Study after study has shown that you are more likely to be struck by lightning. This is about lies. I am sorry. This is about lies, and they are targeting groups. I am going to go on with facts, but I just want to talk about students for a second. I heard Senator Jon Tester. I have heard my colleagues from New Hampshire, and they are not hiding the ball, folks. They are not trying to tell us: Oh, we are concerned about it. As early as 2011, the State Republican house speaker at the time in New Hampshire--Senators, you know William O'Brien; can I get a hallelujah there--promised to clamp down on unrestricted voting by students calling them ``kids voting liberal, voting their feelings, with no life experience.'' I hear what you are saying, that this is--oh, these laws are innocuous on their face. But if you start looking at the legislative record, you see groups are being targeted in this country. Polling places are diminishing on college campuses. Voter ID laws are being created so complex in Midwestern States that they are saying you can't use a 4-year ID; it has got to be a 2-year ID. Those are some of the laws that are being passed. Can somebody be a witness on that? And I hear this rhetoric where people pull out one law: Well, look at this law. This is just about shrinking the days, or this is so innocuous on its face, and I know there are people at home thinking to themselves: Hey, that doesn't sound like a big deal. Maybe the Republicans have a point. No. Let's return to the facts. I am going to go to Texas because I heard the Senator from Texas accuse this body of creating rhetoric that was divisive. Do you want to know what is divisive to a country that says ``e pluribus unum'' above where the presiding person is? Do you want to know what is divisive? It is telling people in the Congresswoman's State that if you live in a predominantly minority area, we are going to remove polling places and change laws so that Black folks disproportionately are waiting 5, 10, 15 times longer. Facts. The burden of long lines in polling places, closures in Texas in the post-Shelby County areas often falls disproportionately on Black and Latino voters. Congresswoman, of the approximately 750 sites Texas has closed since Shelby v. Holder, 542 were in the 50 counties with the fastest growing Black and Latino populations. Don't lecture me about Jim Crow. I know this is not 1965. That is what makes me so outraged. It is 2022, and they are blatantly removing more polling places from the counties where Blacks and Latinos are overrepresented. I am not making that up; that is a fact. I am not going to stop because I am tired of hearing that this does not have to do with singling out certain populations in our country-- students, Native Americans--and not others. I am not accusing anybody. Please, let's not go around in defense, where we crouch into defensive postures. I am not accusing anybody of being racist. I am just speaking to the facts in our country that I know motivate everybody here. A hundred of my--ninety-nine of my colleagues know it is wrong to create barriers for some populations and not others under the guise of a lie that there is a voter security problem. Let me continue. I am sorry, Congresswoman, to keep talking about Texas. In the Presidential primary on March 3, voters at historically Black Texas Southern University in Houston waited not an hour, not 2 hours, not 3, 4, 5--waited 6 hours. A poll of Texas voters conducted just in the 2020 election underscored the disparity non-White voters faced in casting their ballots. I am sorry. Senator Kaine, you were very good when you talked about that sign of 98 percent of people happy. I sat here stunned. I was wondering who they were polling because they were not polling Black and Latino voters in Texas when they did that. Let me give you the facts. Forty-eight percent of Black voters and 55 percent of Latino voters in Texas found it easy to vote, but that leaves a lot of folks who didn't think it was easy. White voters-- actually, 65 percent think it is easy to vote. Everybody is not happy. People who wait in 6-hour lines are not happy. I just want to give a couple more facts. Let's go to my dad's home State. North Carolina was one of the States most affected by poll closures. There were 158 fewer polling places in 40 counties with large Black communities, and African-American voter participation dropped 16 percent. Why? Well, my friend Bennet said this. We still live in a country where the economic disparities between Blacks and Whites is what it was in the 1960s. So if you are a Black, struggling family, and your option to vote means standing in line for 10 hours--compared to predominantly White counties--where the wait is longer, you don't go vote. That is not just Black folks. The stories about disabled voters, with about 1 in 7 or 1 in 8 pointing out that it is hard for them to vote because of physical impediments--that is discriminatory against them. It doesn't mean people here are anti-disabled. We are not throwing those labels around; I am just talking about the facts. So I just want my colleagues to know that I can pull story after story of these States--the 19 that are passing these laws--if you pull them out and want to read them absent context, you are going to try to obscure the larger picture of what is going on in our Nation, which is that we are seeing entirely Republican legislatures--entirely Republican legislators--passing laws that are disproportionately impacting certain groups, by the facts. I want to close with this: On the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were stopped and beaten back. They tried to go again with King and were again blocked by Alabama State troopers. But they finally got to their destination to protest voting rights. I love what King said there. He talked about those people whose hearts were discouraged because they hadn't passed voting rights. I know there are going to be a lot of people here on this day who are going to feel that kind of discouragement. But, Reverend Warnock, King gave one of his best speeches that day where he asked people ``How long are we going to have to wait? Not long'' because the truth--I am thinking about the lies we are hearing now, the big lies, the lies of in-person voting. The truth, crushed to the Earth, will rise again. Don't lie and say there is not a disparate voting reality for Blacks and Whites in this country right now; the facts speak differently. Don't lie and say that these laws are not being done in a way to make it harder for students to vote. Don't lie and say that we are a nation that should be doing more to ease access as opposed to putting up more barriers because to go on more barriers is anti-democratic. Those lies will not live forever. I do believe still that the arc of the moral universe is long and it bends toward justice. I still believe that the best of our democracy will come out if people do not give up and are not discouraged. I ask my colleagues right now to continue on the floor today, to continue to tell the truth of what is happening in your States, to continue telling the truth of what is happening in our Nation, because we will win this fight. I don't know how long it will take, but that will be determined by how dedicated we are to the principles of this democracy. We must live in a nation where everyone is equal--not in rhetoric or in slogans or in salutes, but everyone is equal in the experience they have to participate in democracy. The vote is the bedrock of our Nation. It is the foundation of the country, and it does have cracks that need our repair. Whether we get down on our knees in prayer or we stand tall, let's continue the work of this democracy so that freedom and justice do roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. Forgive me, colleagues, for speaking well beyond my time, and I apologize if I demonstrated too much emotion.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I stand here today with a sober heart. I am a big believer that if America hasn't broken your heart, you probably don't love her enough. We are here on the 1-year anniversary of one of our great Nation's moments of shame. We saw a violent attack on this Capitol, ignited and incited by demagogues who were trying to spread a lie; telling people their votes were stolen by a President who broke with our traditions of a peaceful transfer of power and told his supporters to come to this building. (Mr. VAN HOLLEN assumed the Chair.) On that day of that vicious attack, we saw heroic actions by men and women who stood in the breach to try to protect the 535 Members of Congress, their staffs--the people in this body who do so much good to keep this Nation's traditions moving. As a result of that conflict, lives were lost. Brian Sicknick from my State died as a result of his injuries. The feelings of that day are still with me. I was sitting right here next to friends and colleagues as we were told to stay in our seats, as we were told that the Capitol was under attack. I watched the basic decency of people in this room as staffers came in, in tears and in pain, and the comforting that I saw of some of my colleagues, and I watched other staff members protecting historic artifacts, protecting the very boxes that would ensure that our tradition would continue; that here on this Earth, a nation would be formed that values that highest ideals of humanity; that the people can come together and form amongst them a system of government. We were escorted out that door, and I think the gravity of it really hit me when we came right out that door, and one of the first things I saw was an officer down. I rushed over, and I said: ``What happened?'' He said: ``I was hit. I was hit.'' All along our retreat in that ignominious moment, all along that retreat, we saw officers injured. I eventually walked and worked my way to my office, and I will never forget this moment as long as I live. I felt not just my own pain, but I thought immediately of my dad, and I felt the pain of my ancestors because, when I turned on that screen, the very first thing I saw was the Confederate flag, and it all came rushing to my heart, and I felt an ache and a hurt. My heart was broken. I know that day shocked a lot of people, but when I saw that flag, it connected to a current of the dark eddies of our Nation's history that have persisted because violent mobs from the beginning of our country have tried to stop our democratic traditions. That flag in so many communities in this country is carried by Klansmen, carried by those who took democratically elected officials-- Blacks in Southern States--ripped them from their offices, dragged judges out into the street, beat them, lynched them. That was their flag. As I watched from my office, I saw swastikas. I saw Muslim hate. I talked to Black officers here, and as they defended the country they loved, they were repeatedly called the N-word over and over again. You can't be surprised. You just can't. As we have always, in every generation, tried to make a more perfect union, this is part of that story--people who want to stop the march of democracy. Do you think that the suffrage movement didn't face violence? It did, as people tried to intimidate and beat and stop the equal franchise. Do you think the civil rights movement didn't face violence? How many martyrs' names do we know, people who were shot down and killed because they did not want them to have equal representation? Why did I ache for my ancestors? Because those were the stories of my grandparents, those were the stories of my father, of the fear and intimidation of just trying to exercise their franchise. Why are we surprised by demagoguery and hate in our Nation? It is a part of our story. But the greatness of our country is not that that existed but the good people who have come together in every generation and said: Not on our watch. We are better than this. We will pull together, out of the great, vast diversity of our Nation, a rainbow coalition of people dedicated not to a race or religion but to a national ideal. I am here as a Senator, just the fourth Black person ever elected popularly in our Nation's history. I am here because White folks and Black folks and Asian folks and all Americans didn't just hope for a better democracy, didn't just condemn violence; they worked to preserve and protect and advance our Nation. What are we doing now? Is this going to be a day where we just condemn what happened? Is this just going to be a day where we point fingers of blame and feel good in our contempt for those who were at the core of that? If that is what this day is about, it is for naught because we fail then to recognize this is not about a day. This was not 1 day. It was not one moment. It is a part of our story, and the threats continue. How can we be blind to the violence that has continued since that day? Threats on Federal judges--we had a Federal judge's family shot and killed in my State. They are up 300, 400 percent. Threats on Members of this body, threats on all 535 Congresspeople are up around twofold. Do you think this is about a day, when election officials, nonpartisan people, all across this country are now seeing threats? Reuters documented more than 850 threatening, hostile messages aimed at election officials. In Philadelphia, a Republican who dared to tell the truth about the election, mirroring the words of then-President Donald Trump's highest official that the election was fair--what happened to him? Threats and intimidation. People calling his home, literally threatening to murder his three children. You think this is about 1 day in time? A survey from the Brennan Center for Justice in April of 2021 found that one in three U.S. American election officials feels unsafe because of their job, and about 20 percent listed threats to their lives as a job-related concern. This is not a foreign country. This is the United States of America, and our election officials, nonpartisan individuals--Republicans, Democrats, fellow Americans--are afraid to do their job because they tell the truth. This is not about 1 day. This is not. This is a story of the founding of our country. As our Founders tried to break with the course of human events and establish here the greatest experiment of humanity, there were people who wanted authoritarianism; there were people who wanted bigotry; there were people who wanted to protect with violence the kind of despotism that we broke away from. We make a big mistake if on this day, we just talk about what happened here. We have protection. We have security. But all across this country right now, there are believers in this democracy who have the same fears that my grandparents did, the same fears that my father did, the same fear that Blacks and Whites who joined arms to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge for voting rights did. This is a cancer. It has always been here. And we make a tragic mistake just by talking about this day, because when I survey the United States of America, I am so worried. There has never been a time in my life where I have been more worried about this democracy. I grew up with stories of family members who talked about the preciousness about what it is to vote. They love the heroes of John F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers and these people who fought for them from all backgrounds. My parents taught me to love people--Jewish people, like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Joachim Prinz; people who knew that in America, if you just fight for your own rights, who are you? This is a nation where we know we are all in this. But I stand here today to ask you, why aren't we talking about the fact that in States right now, laws are being passed specifically designed to disenfranchise people? Don't take my word for it. The year I came to this body, in 2013, a Federal judge in North Carolina looked at that voting law and said it was designed ``with surgical-like precision'' to disenfranchise Black Americans. But I don't need to go back to 2013 to see reason for us all to be concerned. When early voting started in the fall of 2020 in Georgia, some voters had to wait up to 10 hours to vote in six metro areas in Georgia counties--six metro areas. At polling places where minorities constituted more than 90 percent of active, registered voters, the average wait time in the evening for those Black communities was 51 minutes. When Whites comprised 90 percent, in those communities, the average wait time was 6 minutes. Think about this for a second. Are we satisfied with a democracy where in some communities, the Black communities will have to wait eight times longer to vote? Is that what we mean, equal justice under the law? Is that what we mean when we look at our flag and say ``liberty and justice for all''? There are States right now passing voting laws to make it harder to vote. What happens when a working mom with three kids shows up, and the line is a 1-hour wait or a 2-hour wait? What does she do? Is it fair to her? Then they go as far in Georgia--say that person does want to wait and brings a folding chair and sits there for 2 and 3 and 4 hours. They make it illegal, for that person who might have diabetes, illegal, for that person who might have a mental condition, for someone to bring them water. I am sorry. I grew up--and I confess it on the Senate floor--with the naive belief that the stories of my father and the stories of my grandparents were history; that we wouldn't live in a country where Black people are waiting eight, nine times the wait of White people; that in some communities, the wait would be 5, 6, 7 hours--a day's work for families who can't afford to give up a day's work. You think this was about a day? I tell you it is about the cancer in our democracy that has been here from its start. This country's very survival has to be faced every generation. Democracy is not certain. It is not automatic. Democracy is hard. Democracy takes work. Democracy takes sacrifice, but as we sit here now, in dozens of States, laws are being passed that disproportionately impact the disabled, that disproportionately impact Native Americans, and that disproportionately impact people of color. So when I go back to the Confederate flag I saw waving just feet from where we stand right now--a flag that got so much currency during the backlash after Reconstruction and that got so much currency during the backlash after Brown v. Board of Education--I know it is part of a larger problem and that none of us who love our Nation and love this democracy can ever rest. There are two people I want to mention before I conclude, both men I have come to admire. Both men risked their lives for this country. They weren't like our great, great veterans who fought nobly--and many of them died--but I hope we don't cheapen the truth of their stories because they did the work here at home, evidencing our highest values when our Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we must mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Both of these men happen to be Black, but it is a value that is evidenced in all backgrounds and all people. I am here because of that truth. Both of them were riddled with hateful words, called the N-word over and over and over again. One of those men I had the privilege of serving with, and both of these men were violently attacked. John Lewis was violently attacked as he tried to advance this democracy. He was beaten and had his head cracked open on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He was spit on at sit-ins, and he won battles with others. He came to Congress, and he worked and fought and defended. Republicans and Democrats supported the voting rights bill, but then it was gutted by the Supreme Court. Maybe you will have the experience I have had of when your heroes become your friends. I would ask him how it felt to watch part of his life's work be torn apart and have these new voting laws that disproportionately impact African Americans. How did it feel? John Lewis, who was this man of peace and this man of grace, just said to me: You cannot stop the work of this democracy. One generation's gains don't pass on like an inheritance to the next. They have to earn them. The other person is a guy named Harry Dunn. Like John Lewis, he put his life on the line in defending the Capitol. He is a Capitol Police Officer. When I read and saw his interviews after battling to save our lives against a mob incited by a demagogic President, he was sitting under the Rotunda and turned to another person after being called the N-word over and over again and said simply: ``Is this America?'' I hope all of us see that we have a responsibility to answer that question. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act will be part of the answer to that question of whether a little Black boy and a little Black girl and a little White girl and a little White boy who go to vote with their parents can see an equal voting opportunity. That is going to be an answer to that question. Every generation has got to make this country live up to its promise. We are losing ground, and it didn't start on January 6 of last year. I end with an answer, an inadequate answer, to Officer Dunn, in a poem I learned from my parents and in a poem I shared an affection for with John Lewis that calls upon every American not to point fingers of blame to others but to accept a responsibility not just to be satisfied in your contempt for some but to rise up as a force of light and love for all. I end with Langston Hughes' poem: O, let America be America again-- The land that never has been yet-- [But] yet must be--the land where [everyone] is free . . . the poor [man], [Indian], [Negro], ME-- Who made America . . . Whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must [make this] mighty dream [live] again. O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be! I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, on rollcall vote No. 499, I voted aye. It was my intention to vote nay. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. It is frustrating, I know, to see such an incredible action taken, where we have made a difference, where the child tax credit already has had a significant impact. The Columbia Center on Poverty found that the October payment of the expanded child tax credit helped ensure 3.6 million American children--3.6 million American children--are no longer living below the poverty line. What does that mean? When a child is raised above the poverty line, their horizons are transformed. It actually saves an incredible amount of taxpayer dollars. For every dollar we spend bringing a child above the poverty line, we return $7 back to our economy. But it is deeper than that. There is a moral urgency. Children below the poverty line have so many more challenges. Their horizons are constrained, their life outcomes are lessened. Above the poverty line, our children start to exhibit their genius. Children raised above the poverty line have higher lifetime earnings. They have lower medical costs. Children above the poverty line are less likely to go to the hospital, less likely to get in trouble with the police. Children above the poverty line have less inhibitions with their contributions to this country. I, too, like my dear friend Senator Brown, have heard lots from people in my State about what this little bit of money in their bank accounts--how that little bit of investment makes a transformation in the lives of those families. Take Kelly in Pitman, NJ. She was forced to quit her job when her children's school and daycare closed due to the pandemic. She hasn't been able to return to work without reliable childcare, and the child tax credit is helping her family. It is helping to make up costs that were lost when she lost her income. It is helping her provide for her children. It is that little bit of help by returning those tax dollars which she has paid in--she is getting more out now--and helping that family. Take Stacey in Kearny, NJ, the child tax credit payments were a lifeline and helped her and her husband keep their family afloat during this pandemic, during this crisis. She was indefinitely furloughed, and Stacey used those payments to send her two daughters back to preschool. Well, we know the evidence is in. Sending her two daughters back to preschool means her children will do better in school, are more likely to go to college, have higher lifetime earnings, more success that inures to the benefit of us all in society. Senator after Senator, on both sides of the aisle, has thousands of these stories about what getting more of their hard-earned tax money back means. In a nation where we have seen the tax cuts of the last decade inure overwhelmingly to the richest of the rich, this was the first tax cut in my lifetime--the biggest of the tax cuts in my lifetime that went overwhelmingly to middle-class families, working- class families, low-income families. And now it sits on a precipice. As many people are aware, tomorrow is the last day that these payments are scheduled to go out to families like Kelly's and families like Stacy's and millions of families across this country. The changes we made to the child tax credit will expire. Struggling Americans, working Americans, middle-class Americans will not receive that payment in January, unless this body acts. To prevent this from happening, to make sure families continue to get more of their tax dollars back and have greater security, hope in challenging times, Congress can pass the Build Back Better Act, which includes the extension of the child tax credit payments, which are lowering costs for American middle-class, working-class, and low-income families. Now, I know there is concern being raised about the Build Back Better legislation today, but I urge my colleagues to understand the high cost of inaction. First and foremost, letting this program expire will raise costs for families at the very worst time. With the cost of gas and groceries going up, a tax increase, which is effectively what this would be, would mean millions of families in difficult times would have it be harder to make ends meet, to make those kitchen table economics work out. It will add burdens to people at a time we should be lifting them, at a time that we should be providing relief. And, again, it is not just working-class families, middle-class families. It is children living in that moral obscenity, that dark place within our society that is termed ``child poverty''. The cost of inaction for all of those children, the cost to our society overall of having children grow up in poverty is $1.1 trillion--$1.1 trillion. That is what poverty costs. But there is a moral cost that is greater than that. There is a moral obscenity that we are experiencing right now, a stain on the soul of our Nation that we have without this tax credit--the highest child poverty rates of all of our industrial peers. This is a moral moment in America. Our inaction will plunge our Nation back with millions of families facing crisis. We have seen this body act in difficult times before. We have seen us invest in people. We have seen us stand up for children. My worry now is that tomorrow will be the last day, unless we stand up and act. I join my colleagues Senator Brown, Senator Bennet, and I join my colleagues Senator Kaine, Senator Warnock in calling us to meet this moment, to meet the moral urgency of now, and to please make sure that before this body leaves for the holidays, that for those families who are in stress and economic strain, those families who are worrying about what will happen next month, that we show them that we care, that we show them that we are fiscally prudent, and we make the best investment possible in America. It is not a stock or a bond. The best investment we can make is making sure the child tax credit continues because it is an investment in our children. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, today should not be a normal day. Today should be a day of national grief and pain and horror at what happened yesterday. Yesterday, in Oxford, MI, there was yet another school shooting. Within the span of just 5 minutes, four children were shot dead by a fellow student; seven more people--six students and one teacher--were wounded. Reports are that more than 100 9-1-1 calls were made in the span of minutes. Imagine the horror, imagine the fear, imagine the terror, imagine the pleas for help on those 9-1-1 calls as students listened to gunshot after gunshot ring out, killing their fellow students. The students huddled in corners as their teachers desperately tried to lock doors, barricading them with desks, fearful of what was happening outside--some escaping through windows and sprinting and running for safety. And what should outrage every single American is that this is not unusual in our country. This was not a one-time occurrence. We know the names--that should be hallowed names of pride--of our children, but, no, they are names that speak to horror when we think about Parkland and what happened there, when we think about Newtown and what happened there, and so many other communities that have been ripped apart by that nightmare that happened yesterday. We live in a distraught present in America. More people have died in my lifetime from gun violence than have died in all of our American wars combined--from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, to World War I and II, and Vietnam and the 20-year war on terror. More have died in gun violence in just the last 50 years. Our gun murder rate is 25 times higher than the next closer country-- not double, not triple, not quadruple, but 25 times more high than the next closest country. And 90 Americans are dying every day from gun violence, not to mention the many more like the seven from Oxford, MI, who have had their health shattered by gunshot wounds tearing through their bodies. And our kids, our American children. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, firearms are the leading cause of death for American children and teens--the No. 1 cause of death. We know that teens are dying at alarming rates due to gun violence and suicide rates, which are rising faster and faster than in any other group, near an all-time high. So the question that I must ask today--the urgent question that we must ask is: What will be our response? We cannot keep telling our children that we will protect you and then the only thing we are doing throughout our schools is teaching them how to hide--these drills that are now as common as fire drills, that are teaching our children that we won't stop the gun violence but we are going to teach you how to barricade yourself in, how to hide under desks, how to shelter for cover if someone comes through your school that should never have had a gun in the first place. I am tired of hearing the simple utterance of ``thoughts and prayers'' but there being no action. I am a person of faith, and I know, as it teaches, that faith without works is dead. And we have seen enough death. But now, after what happened in Oxford, what will be our response? My Republican colleagues in the Senate seem content with the status quo. There doesn't seem to be an urgency to save lives, to end the nightmare, to stop the fear and terror--the continued work to block compromise gun safety laws that the majority of Americans, including most Republican voters, including most gun owners, including most NRA members--blocking compromise laws that are supported by the majority of us Americans that would keep more guns out of the hands of people that would do our children harm. What is our response? We can pass universal background checks that are supported by 84 percent of voters. We can provide resources and support to help cities across America implement evidence-based gun violence intervention, proven programs that keep our children safe. We can start to heal the communities that have been shattered by gun violence by not just expressing our thoughts and prayers but investing in their healing and their help. It is no longer acceptable to have a culture of fear of gun violence in our country. It is no longer acceptable to teach our children just to hide while we do nothing. It is not acceptable that we are normalizing gun violence in our country at rates that have never before been seen in humanity. This is not normal. It demands a response. And what will be our response? Now is the time not to surrender to fear. Now is the time not to accept this as normal. Now is not the time just for thoughts and prayers. It is the time to act. It is time to lift our voices to take more collective responsibility, to stand up to the corporate gun lobby. It is time to work tirelessly to show our children that love is a demanding, active verb; love is sacrifice. And if we are willing to truly love our children, we won't just teach them fear; we will show them our strength. Are we going to wait? This is a cancer, and it is spreading. It is being seen in cities and churches and synagogues and nightclubs, concerts. Are we going to wait? Is there such a poverty of empathy that gun violence has to visit upon us, our communities, our schools, our places of worship, our families before we think this is an issue enough for us to stand up and fight for change? Will we wait? What will be our response? How many more times will Members of this body have to come to this floor and speak to the unspeakable, talk about children murdered in the greatest nation on the planet Earth, to know that our children's greatest threat to their lives, their top cause of death is gun violence? I pray. I do have thoughts and prayers not just for the victims but for this body. I hope more will join together not in a do-nothing caucus but join together to pass laws that reflect the will and the majority of the American people and end this national nightmare once and for all. This is a moment that demands a response, not business as usual. This is a moment that demands the best of who we are, not to cower in fear but to stand for change. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I first want to say before my colleague leaves--I know he has a packed day--when I came to the U.S. Senate, I found a friend, I found a mentor, and I found a leader on issues of justice. The incredible friend I have in the Senator from Illinois--he has been leading on issues from immigration reform and fighting for Dreamers all the way to being the principal leader on the Democratic side for the passage of the First Step Act. I will never forget that he invited me to the White House in my earliest days with then-President Obama, centering me on that table. I had just gotten here, and he then was talking about these issues--the issues of mass incarceration, the issues of racial discrimination and incarceration. What I rise to talk about really is an issue that my colleague has been dealing with for 35 years. He gave important history. It was a bipartisan issue 35 years ago when the Senate and House of Representatives voted to pass the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, and the President signed it into law that year. He said, very specifically, one of the things it did was create a massive sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. The bill made it so that five grams of crack cocaine--the example that my colleague gave--carried the same mandatory minimum prison sentence as 500 grams of powder cocaine. That is a 100- to-1 disparity. What is very powerful to me is what Maya Angelou said. She said: Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. And that is the leadership of Senator Dick Durbin. Understanding that this was a failure, that the policy did not achieve its intended purpose--in fact, it created, as he described, the opposite--Dick Durbin then led this body towards the long process of making reforms happen. I was proud that when I got into the Senate, Senator Durbin told me the story of how we got it from 100 to 1 down to 18 to 1. It wasn't necessarily based on science. It wasn't necessarily based on law enforcement evidence. It was a negotiation between Senator Durbin and another Republican colleague. I love the story because Senator Durbin pushed for what we are asking for right now. He then fought for 1 to 1. He couldn't get it but was able to negotiate down from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1. So what I would like to do is read real quickly the research that looked at cocaine use in the United States from right before this bill was first passed up until 2013. I want to quote: Despite harsher ADAA penalties for crack compared to powder cocaine, there was no decrease in crack use following implementation of sentencing policies . . . although both powder cocaine use and misuse of prescription drugs (the negative control) decreased. The report concluded that ``these findings suggest that mandatory minimum sentencing may not be an effective method of deterring cocaine use.'' This has been the growing consensus about the War on Drugs on both sides of the aisle. It has been one that has been changing policy. I am so grateful for Senator Durbin's work chipping away at the mistakes that were made. During the time between when I was in law school in the 1990s and mayor of the largest city in my State in 2006, we saw the prison population explode in this country. In that period, we were building a new prison or jail--about 1 every 10 days. We became the place on the planet Earth with the most incarcerated people. One-third of all the women incarcerated on planet Earth are now in the United States of America; one out of every four incarcerated people, period--in the United States of America. A growing consensus of bipartisan work led by Senator Durbin with his wingman from Jersey has been beginning to undermine that, with our partners. So we saw the 2018 passage of the First Step Act, a bill which was made retroactive, and we saw thousands of people liberated from Federal prison who were unjustly sentenced under that 1986 law. The bill Senator Durbin and I wrote and introduced, the EQUAL Act--this is again Senator Durbin's leadership--is now our opportunity to do better. It must feel good for everyone who understands the good intentions but disastrous results of the crack cocaine-powder cocaine disparity. For all those who understand that we say equal justice under law, but the disproportionate impact it had on Black and Brown communities, further punishing African-American communities in a disproportionate way--in fact, incarcerated Black men at rates that we now have more Black men under criminal supervision in America than all the slaves in 1850. So we are working to do better. The bill that I picked up to partner with Senator Durbin on passed the House of Representatives. And Senator Durbin hinted at this--I would have never expected it--it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. The bill was championed by Democrats and Republicans. It passed with 149 Republicans voting for it, and now it is over here. The great thing is, our list of cosponsors, which Senator Durbin read, is growing. I think we will have an announcement over the next few days of other Republicans joining this bill. We can't change the past, but we can make for a better future. We can't undo the disparities that have disproportionately sent African Americans to prison, but we can make for a more equal and more just future. There is an old saying that ``the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.'' It was a Martin Luther King quote. But he also said that ``change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability.'' It must be carried in on the backs of people who are willing to struggle for it, people who still believe that this Nation can be a symbol to this world about justice and its justice system. A terrible mistake was made 35 years ago. I was a teenager. There are people right now unjustly incarcerated--an affront to our most sacred ideal in this country, that of liberty. They are there because of this mistake. We have not fixed it. It was grievous. We have not fixed it. It is wrong. This is our moment. It is a moment of redemption to right past wrongs, to set this Nation on a more just course, to bend the arc of the moral universe more towards justice. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I urge them to be arc benders. Together, we can make this a more perfect Union. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I would object to further proceeding.

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I appreciate being recognized, and I am grateful that this conversation is being held between myself and the Senator from Utah, who is one of the more principled friends I have made in the U.S. Senate. He has been a friend and a colleague, and we have worked and partnered on numerous things together. He is someone that, even though I think I am an inch or two taller than him, I look up to, in all sincerity. I worry about our Nation right now, that we are taking statements that people have made and whipping around them a lot of presumptions. There is a difference between saying I am against capitalism and I am against racist, capitalistic policies. That is a big difference. We are a nation that exploded forth to be the dominating economy on the planet through the capitalist system. But the capitalist system was not fair and equal all the time. In fact, it did not reflect what Adam Smith himself, in his essay on moral sentiments, talked about. Capitalism is an ideal that the best way to distribute goods and opportunity is through this idea of a free market, where everyone has access. Clearly, that has not been the case in this Nation when African Americans were originally, in a capitalist system, slaves. Even after the period of our greatest national sin, Blacks were still held out of equal opportunity to be competitive. If you look at, perhaps, some of the greatest ideas of capitalism-- this idea of working the land with your sweat and labor to produce products to sell into the market--well, look at something like the Homestead Act, where in many ways that land belonged to Native Americans who did not have that same free and equal opportunity. Think about the Homestead Act and how waves of incredible, hard-working European immigrants got that land, but Blacks were excluded. No one in this body would deny that that is patently racist. And this continues. In a lot of our biggest businesses, up until the sixties and seventies, women weren't allowed equal opportunity. That is a capitalist, sexist system that denied equal opportunity. We know this from African Americans. I know this from my own family story about my father, here in this area, coming after college and being the first Black person hired by a small tech company the President may have heard of called IBM--the first Black salesman in the entire Virginia area, as walls were broken. My father told me the story of why he left the company that he was working with. Because one of his managers said: You should get out of here because no nigger is ever going to be allowed to be a manager at this company. That is racism. So here is a nominee who--in the context literally that my colleague read, racist, capitalist policies--no one can deny that these policies existed in our country and that the free-market system hasn't been free. People on both sides of the aisle, I have heard, speaking to the corporate concentration that is going on, the monopolistic practices we are seeing everywhere from the pharmaceutical industry to pharmacies, from farms to tech, that is working against the free-market, capitalist ideas of great philosophers, like Adam Smith. So to object to someone for that reason, to me, is patently unfair. And my colleague also objected because of a policy. He described one policy. Well, Shalanda Baker is not going to be in a position where she is making policy. She is going to be charged with ensuring that there is equal access and opportunity in a wide range of the Department of Energy's programs, opportunities, and resources; that we are a more inclusive and more equitable Nation. That is her charge. And this work is vital because nearly, in America, one in three households are energy insecure, meaning that they have difficulty paying their energy bills; and research has, unfortunately, shown that low-income households, disproportionately Black and Brown households, are more likely to be energy insecure. I love this Nation more than any other country on the planet Earth. Yet we still have injustices that show that African Americans are disproportionately subject to inequalities. The crazy thing about this is a spiritual law that Martin Luther King embodied so well. He said: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It is a truth. In America, poverty is not just a problem of the poor; it costs this country more than a trillion dollars every year. So dealing with the fact that Blacks are disproportionately poor brings resources to us all. Every dollar raising one child above a poverty level returns $8 to our economy. So addressing inequality, addressing disparities, helps everyone. Energy justice isn't something we talk nearly enough about, and that is why Ms. Baker's role is so important. So I am disappointed today. I voted against a lot of Trump nominees, but I voted for a lot whom I disagreed with on policy. There is an urgency right now on this issue in America. There is an urgency right now to be a more just and inclusive society. There is an urgency right now to create deeper community in this country and to ensure that everyone has the fruits of liberty and opportunity. It is what we swear an oath to. It is what Ms. Baker's job is all about--making real the words of our united pledge that we will be a nation with liberty and justice for all. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the following nomination: Calendar No. 265, Shalanda H. Baker, of Texas, to be Director of the Office of Minority Economic Impact, Department of Energy; that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order to the nomination, and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I want to thank the two leaders that I joined, Senators Brown and Bennet, for championing this issue, not just for this Congress but for years. Before I came to Washington, these two men were standing up and talking about the moral core of our country. If you want to see how a nation is doing, don't look at the buildings we build or at how many billionaires we have. Just look at children. What is galling me right now is that we have come to the 1-yard line. We are at an inflection point in our country where we have to ask a question: Who are we? My friend Senator Bennet and I have been working with kids well before we came here. He rattled off data that should be repeated. I say this is a moral issue, but he has shown us it is an economic issue. We are the wealthiest Nation on the planet Earth, and of the top 41 countries, we are at 38 in poor kids. What he pointed out is that poverty costs all of us. It is a deep, self-inflicted wound in this society, because poverty costs this Nation over $1 trillion as measured by economists. But I would state that economists don't measure all the things that are important. Our GDP does not reflect well-being. It doesn't reflect how many antidepressants people take or how many child deaths there are. But the truth of our economy is that every dollar that we invest in getting children out of poverty returns $8 to this economy. So it is an economic issue, clearly. It is a globally competitive issue because in a global, knowledge- based society, the Nation whose children learn the most will earn the most and will outcompete. It is a national security issue as we go up against countries like China, whose top 10 percent of their graduating high school classes outnumber all the children we have, virtually. But it is a moral issue most of all. If we are going to create a more beloved community, how do we treat our children? Children who live in poverty literally have physical effects. Poverty is violence. Study after study shows that the brain development of children in poverty is inhibited, literally--the stress hormones, the cortisol. It is akin to an adult having a traffic accident every single day. It is an indicator of childhood trauma. Poverty is a moral obscenity, and we, the richest Nation on the planet, where, year after year, our rich are getting richer, our children are getting poorer--who are we when we pledge allegiance to a flag and say ``liberty and justice for all''? Who are we? We don't even know the demographic changes in our country. We have cities across America where 1 out of every 10 children is being raised by a grandparent. So here we are discussing childhood poverty, and some people are talking about work requirements, when we know from the data, from conservative think tanks to what we see in other nations like Canada, that things like the child allowance--or in our country, the child tax credit--increase workforce participation. But if you get rid of the child tax credit, those grandparents raising grandchildren--half of them--plunge back into poverty. The stories are profound. We heard from my colleague from Colorado. We know families in New Jersey, like a woman I just saw named Margarita. She used her child tax credit payments for exactly what so many said they would be used for. She used them for food for her children, for school supplies, to keep the electricity running in her house. We have heard stories that they are used for a car bill to get people to work. They are used to pay for childcare that they need for their families so that they can work. Families are not using this money so they could quit their jobs. Quite the contrary, they are using them so they can get to work. We are a nation in crisis because of how we treat our children. The child tax credit is a lifeline for the millions of grandparents raising grandchildren. It is a lifeline for low-income children. So you heard from Senator Bennet. We are at an inflection point. What will we do right now? Will we extend the child tax credit? Will we make the full refundability permanent? Will we keep people having these monthly checks? That is a policy question. But the question before us really is a moral one. For once and for all, this is not partisan. It is a defining moment for the character of our country, and I say words are not enough. We should show the child tax credit--the truth in our policies and what we do with our budgets. We should show our love through what we do, not what we say. And the best leading indicator of that will always be how the most vulnerable in our society are doing, how we take care of our elderly, and, in this case, how we care for our children. I am honored now to have come to the floor our Senator from Georgia. I would remark that as much as I love the Senator from Ohio and the Senator from Colorado, the Senator from Georgia has a much better haircut. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I am so excited. This is perhaps the highlight of this long and painful and tortuous night. Again, if it wasn't complete abdication of Senate procedures and esteem, I would walk over there and hug my colleague from Alabama. And I will tell you right now--thank God--because there are some people who have said that there are Members of this deliberative body that want to defund the police, to my horror. And now this Member has given us the gift that finally--once and for all--we can put to bed this scurrilous accusation that somebody in this great, esteemed body would want to defund the police. So let's all of us--100 people--not walk but sashay down there and vote for this amendment and put to rest the lies. I am sure I will see no political ads attacking anybody here over ``defund the police.'' And I would ask unanimous consent to add something else to this obvious bill. Can we add also that every Senator here wants to fund the police, believes in God, country, and apple pie. Thank you. (Applause.)

Mr. BOOKER. Voice vote. Voice vote. Vote on Amendment No. 3113

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise to ask unanimous consent that the following materials in support of section 40209 of the bipartisan infrastructure framework, the Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling Grant Program, be entered into the Record. These sources, which include congressional testimony, disparity studies, and other evidence, shed further light on the longstanding barriers and disparities faced by minority-owned small business entities in the manufacturing sector that have lingering effects today. According to one study, while minority-owned businesses play a significant role in U.S. industry, they are underrepresented in the U.S. manufacturing industry and represent only 12.8 percent of all manufacturing firms. And in testimony from a July 9, 2020, hearing before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion, multiple witnesses spoke to the ongoing barriers that minority-owned businesses face in accessing capital during the pandemic. These sources further highlight the importance of and need for the Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling Grant Program.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, first I want to recognize my colleague from Connecticut, his moving tribute to a great American, and also thank him for his steadfast leadership on issues of gun safety in this country. I am standing here with my colleagues today to talk about what is going on in this country around empowering children. We have a big thing happening tomorrow with the vast majority of families with kids across the country. As of tomorrow, they will start seeing more money in their bank accounts every year for the rest of the year. These payments are the result of changes that we have made to the child tax credit, which was signed into law by President Biden as part of the American Rescue Plan because of the changes we advocated for. What President Biden made law, more families and children are going to benefit from the child tax credit. More than ever before in history, in fact, this will be the greatest cut in overall child poverty in the history of America for this coming year. So starting tomorrow, 90 percent of kids in America--90 percent of their families across the country--will start to see these payments for the rest of this year, up to $300 for every child in a household under 6 and $250 for every child in the household ages 6 through 17. For families in suburbs and cities and rural areas, for families across the country, this policy is transformative. For the family of people with essential workers in Florida, the grandmother raising three children in California, a single mom in Pennsylvania working the same job for 20 years, for a parent in Utah-- you can go on and on and on--this is one of the most transformative policy changes made in our Nation in more than a century. This policy means stability. It means help is on the way. It means hope is here. In my home State, Margarita from Passaic, NJ, who is raising three kids on her own while working two jobs, one before sunrise, starting tomorrow, she will see hundreds of dollars a month to help her pay the electric bill, help her make rent, and help her children succeed in school. For the family of two educators with kids in New York, tomorrow is transformative. Washington State, North Dakota, blue State, so-called red State--all over this country, we are seeing a transformation. This is what a mom from Kansas said: [This child tax credit] would help so much for single moms like me to be able to feel secure as a parent. If at any time something were to happen to me, such as a car repair, a doctor visit, even a book fair for my children, I am just not making enough to have any extra for anything other than bills. Shoes and coats, maybe a ball glove. Karate or dance lessons to improve social skills and athletic abilities and teach children teamwork would be possible; [and] maybe even at Christmas since they didn't get one in 2020. For middle-class families trying to stay afloat, lower income families desperate to make ends meet, and families living in poverty struggling to put food on the table, tomorrow is a new start. For millions of Americans across the country, from this body, our President, tomorrow will begin a historically unparalleled moment. Senator Brown, Senator Bennet, Senator Warnock, and I, along with our House colleagues, are going to continue to do what must be done. This change for this year--cutting child poverty, empowering millions of families, 90 percent of whom with kids will see a benefit--we must make this permanent. I will fight alongside my colleagues to see that this is not a one-time benefit for 1 year but a permanent change that we-- change our status. We are the 36th wealthiest Nation on the planet, and we are 4th from the bottom in child poverty. We are second to last in terms of child allowances. We in America have to make this country live up to its promise to every child that we are the cornerstone of the idea of the American dream; that we are the most fertile soil for which a child could thrive; that we love our children not just in words but in the policies we make. This is a historic moment. The one thing I will say to anyone listening to my words, because, as my colleague knows, some families are eligible but might not benefit, please, we need to make sure that portal--that people know to go to childtaxcredit.gov to get the information. All of us have an obligation to help everyone avail themselves of this policy. I believe, God willing, we will make it permanent. I now turn to my colleague Senator Bennet from Colorado, Mr. President, with your permission.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I thank my senior Senator, who himself has an improbable story, his lived experience, a son of immigrants coming up in New Jersey, being born in a way that he knows struggle and knows poverty. And the fact that he is on the Senate floor speaking about someone else who has an improbable story shows you the greatness of America. I am grateful for my senior Senator and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for taking time to show us the importance of this moment. This is history here. America has never before had an article III judge who also happens to be a Muslim. That has never before happened. Think about this: 200-plus years in American history, a country that was born and our Founders enshrined in our very founding documents, in the Bill of Rights, this ideal of freedom of religion. We celebrate religious plurality and religious diversity. So this is an extraordinary moment. Now, I am thrilled that it is a bipartisan moment. In committee, during this time of heightened partisanship, in the Judiciary Committee, Judge Quraishi passed out 19 to 3--19 to 3--which is a further testimony not just to the gravity of this historic moment, not just to a man's religion, but to the man himself, the core of who he is. Senator Menendez said this. Many people, after 9/11, felt the deep, agonizing grief in this country. We are not defined as a nation by what happens to us. We are defined by how we choose to respond. From the attacks at Pearl Harbor to the attacks on 9/11, those horrific moments, you saw how this Nation showed who it is--our grit, our guts, our grace, our greatness. That is the tradition of Judge Quraishi. A man that had a glide path toward a career of comfort and private sector success made a decision. Those horrific tragedies, he would not let them define our Nation. How we defined ourselves was by people like him. He joined the Army. He became a U.S. Army judge advocate. He attained the rank of captain. He was deployed to Iraq--first in 2004 and then again in 2006. And after his service in the military, Judge Quraishi continued his service to the Nation, like so many of our veterans do-- first as the assistant chief counsel in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as a Federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey. Do not define a person by what they say. Simply do not define them by their faith and do not define them by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character and in the actions that they take. In a time that our Nation was crippled with grief, he stood up and he served, and he has been serving every single step since. He is ``well qualified.'' That is what the American Bar Association says. But I tell you, he is well qualified on a higher standard than that. He is a patriot to this country. Patriotism is love of Nation, but love is not a being verb. It is a doing verb. It is action. His actions have shown his love for America, and now he is up here in this Chamber to make history. I urge my colleagues, as we saw in the Judiciary Committee in a 19-to-3 vote, to vote in a bipartisan way. This is a chance for the annals of time to show our commitment to great people, to a great man, to a person of character, to a person of commitment, to a person of conviction, to a person of patriotism who happens also to be Muslim and, for the first time in American history, to achieve something. It should have been achieved a long time ago. I am going to conclude by saying something: Judge Quraishi and I are relatively of a similar age, and we share another painful life happening that I know many of my colleagues have shared as well. During COVID-19, during this pandemic, the judge's father died. I talked to him during this time, and he is a man that was clearly grieving but kept a lot of that emotion under his jacket, in his heart. I just want to say for the record: Judge Quraishi, you and I are both people of faith. And I want to tell him right now and say into this record: It is your father who also loved this country, who brought about an American dream for his family. He is watching right now this happening, these deliberations on the Senate floor. He, I pray, will see his son make history. And, Judge Quraishi, I am telling you right now, Your father is proud of you. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I appreciate the 180 seconds, and I will be patient and wait. I am sorry. There is a quorum call, correct?

Mr. BOOKER. Reserving the right to object, I would just like to say that is why he is the senior Senator.

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

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, is there a pending vote now on the cloture vote?