Cory Booker

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I rise at a time of great grief in our country. We have seen 200,000 fellow Americans perish due to COVID. In addition to that, we have seen heroes in our Nation fall during this period as well. Still, we have a heavy heart as we have seen the passing of civil rights greats like C.T. Vivian and, of course, our colleague in the House of Representatives, John Lewis. In many ways, we are walking through the valley of a shadow of death, but as our fellow Americans fall, it is apt that we give tribute to their character, to the values and virtues which marked their lives, and to the truth and ideals that they carried for their lives and how they advanced to us so that we might have better lives. Truly, if we are recognizing those values and those virtues, then, the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a time that calls upon Americans to pause and recognize her extraordinary life. She was a woman of small physical stature, but she was truly a giant amongst us. Even before her years as a Supreme Court Justice, she championed the rights of Americans and the ideals we hold so dear. She advanced the cause of liberty and equality and the understanding, as it says, literally, on the Supreme Court wall, of ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' This spirit that she fought for was buttressed by her massive intellect, her acumen, her skill, and her strategy that were seen in her career as a lawyer, as well as her opinions and work as a Justice. She understood more, or as much as anyone, that the decisions of the Supreme Court literally have a profound impact on the daily lives of Americans, that the decisions of the Supreme Court will affect some of the most fundamental ideals. It could mean the difference between life or death, the difference between economic security and economic ruin, the difference between environmental protection and devastation It affects not just the balance of power in institutions like the Senate but also the balance of people's lives and their well-being at their kitchen table. She knew that our laws are tools through which we could either make our Nation live up to its promise for all or fall further away from them. It is in this context that I want to join my colleagues this evening in discussing Justice Ginsburg's legacy and the future of the Supreme Court, because so many of the other things that matter most to us are in the balance right now with the decisions that this body makes. Americans know that the decisions of this body as it relates to the Supreme Court are going to affect some of the deepest issues that affect their lives--their economic security, their bodily autonomy, their right to vote, their civil rights, the environment in which we all live--and the area I most want to focus on is their healthcare-- their healthcare. The ideal of healthcare is fundamental to the ideals of our founding document. You cannot have life, liberty, and pursue happiness if you do not have access to healthcare. The next person appointed to the Supreme Court will make the kind of decisions that will quite literally affect the quality of healthcare and, therefore, will affect life-or-death issues. We know that over the past 6 months, this deadly pandemic has led to this valley of a shadow of death for our Nation and the globe and has led to 200,000 people perishing in our Nation. This is directly affected by the urgencies of this pandemic. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and 30 million Americans weren't getting enough food to eat. Communities that were already vulnerable have been devastated by this public health and economic crisis. Now, more than ever, Americans are relying on our safety nets, especially when it comes to access to healthcare. The next Supreme Court Justice will inevitably oversee whether the Affordable Care Act stays in place or not. Thankfully, because of the Affordable Care Act and, in particular, because the expansion of Medicaid has happened in 36 States so far, more Americans are getting insured. And now during this pandemic, more important than ever, many Americans--millions of Americans--are staying insured even though they have lost their jobs. An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in August reported: ``The ACA, having created several new options for health insurance unrelated to employment, will protect many recently unemployed people and their families from losing coverage.'' I know the difference that the Affordable Care Act makes, and in particular the difference that Medicaid expansion has made, especially for communities like mine in the State of New Jersey, like the one in which I live, of hardworking people who are still at the lower echelons of our economic nation. This is why I know what the Supreme Court decision could mean if it strikes down the Affordable Care Act. Especially right now, I know what it would mean. Turning again to the New England Journal of Medicine, they make it plain, and they make it clear: In the current context of millions of Americans losing their jobs and an ongoing pandemic, overturning the ACA would most likely be devastating to patients, clinicians, hospitals, and state economies. The very virus that has brought about record unemployment levels is the same agent that makes health insurance--and the new options created under the ACA--more important than ever. That is the New England Journal of Medicine. This fall, the Supreme Court of the United States of America will consider another challenge to the Affordable Care Act. President Trump's Justice Department has taken the dangerous position that ``the entire ACA . . . must fall.'' President Trump is trying to take away the security of the ACA, take away the law that allows Medicaid expansion, take away the law that protects people with preexisting conditions and allows them to have healthcare--the law that, literally, medical professionals are saying is saving lives today. And now here we are debating a decision of whom we should put on the Supreme Court. Will we put another--a third--Trump appointee on the Supreme Court, one that reflects his values and his views, a Justice that is likely now to tip the balance even further, that would most likely overturn the ACA and means that millions of families in the middle of a pandemic will lose their healthcare? Days before an election, when my colleagues, just a few short years ago, said we shouldn't make this decision. This is the conclusion of colleague, after colleague, after colleague. In that case with Merrick Garland, we were months and months away from an election--269 days. Now, we are mere days. It is a decision that will affect the lives of millions, a decision that goes to the core of our healthcare, our health, our well-being, our ability to afford what should be a right for this Nation--access to quality healthcare. If they go forward with this Justice, what will it mean? It will mean that the Federal health centers that serve communities that need them the most would be gutted because that is what the Affordable Care Act has done for America. It would mean that people with preexisting conditions, from asthma to cancer to lasting complications of COVID-19, could be kicked off their coverage at a time when they are more vulnerable than ever. That is what this decision is about. It would mean that many seniors who are already living paycheck to paycheck would have to pay more for their prescription drugs and more for the preventative services that they receive at no cost today because of the Affordable Care Act that Donald Trump believes should fall. It would mean that young adults who now, more than ever, are relying on staying on their parents' plan until 26 wouldn't be able to do so because of the Affordable Care Act that Donald Trump believes should fall. It would mean that countless babies who need to spend time in the neonatal intensive unit would hit lifetime limits on care within a few months or a few weeks of being born. Gutting the Affordable Care Act, seeing it fall as our President desires, would mean insurance companies would go back to spending more of Americans' premium dollars on administrative functions than actual care. This Supreme Court Justice will determine if the ACA, or the Affordable Care Act, stands or, as Donald Trump wants, it should fall. And if it falls, it would mean women would go back to paying more for their health coverage simply because of their sex. The Affordable Care Act falling would mean at a time when Black and Latino Americans are disproportionately dying of this virus, reversing the gains of the Affordable Care Act has made in narrowing those disparities now, we would see those communities with less coverage, less care, less access, less justice. Donald Trump tried to influence the Court, putting a person on who reflects his views and his values. Donald Trump wants the ACA to fail. If he is successful, it will mean more onerous requirements and barriers to healthcare access during a global pandemic that is already wreaking devastation and havoc on American communities from sea to shining sea. In New Jersey, my State, a repeal of the Affordable Care Act combined with the impact of COVID-19 would mean 686,000 people in New Jersey would lose their health coverage, all while dealing with a deadly pandemic and a recession. Nationally, it would mean 23 million of our fellow Americans, 23 million people--children, adults, and the elderly--could lose their coverage if the ACA were repealed during this pandemic. The fact is, health coverage saves lives. That is not an exaggeration. This is life or death. Study after study has borne this out. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the expansion of Medicaid alone under the Affordable Care Act saved over 19,000 lives between just 2014 and 2017, and the States that didn't expand Medicaid saw over 15,000 people die prematurely. That is just among adults age 55 to 64. The Affordable Care Act--think about the lives saved. Think about those who did not have Medicaid expansion and the lives lost, our fellow Americans. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--that is what is at stake right now and before the pandemic hit. We know that many of the people who have been hardest hit by COVID-19 rely on Medicaid. Since the pandemic, Medicaid enrollment in our country has gone up as more people have been in need. It has grown for the first time in 3 years. Because of this pandemic, more people are hurting, and more of our fellow Americans are finding themselves in crisis. Across the country, more families are able to turn to Medicaid during this crisis because of the Affordable Care Act. The State of Kentucky, which the Republican leader represents, had the highest rise in Medicaid enrollment, with a 17.2-percent increase from February to August. This is how our social safety net should work. It should be there in a crisis. When there is more disease, when there is more death, when there is more suffering, we as a nation should show more compassion, more empathy, and more care, not less. We saw in 2018, when people were asked why they were voting, why we saw a surge in turnout, it was because people were concerned about their healthcare. And that was before the pandemic. This election will be about many things, but most people will know that this is an election about the security of healthcare. One President says, again, and I quote: Let it fall. Another wants to preserve it and put people on the Supreme Court who will defend it as fundamentally in line with our constitutional ideals--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is the jeopardy. That is what is at stake using the logic not of any Democrat but using the logic of my Republican colleague after Republican colleague, my Republican friend after my Republican friend, who--I heard what they said when they denied Barack Obama a Supreme Court pick. I heard their words. They were clear. My friend, the head of the Judiciary Committee, even went as far as to say: ``Use my words against me.'' If it is the final year of President Trump's term, we should wait until after the election before we put someone on the highest Court in the land for a lifetime appointment. What is this about? It is about the most sacred ideals of our Nation--life, liberty, freedom from fear, freedom from disease. I don't know what to say because I see what is happening right now. People speak passionately about a standard, defend themselves, cite historic precedent, and then when things shift and they have a chance to show consistency and to show restraint, show allegiance to comity, show allegiance to the ideals that bond us together, they instead turn their backs on their very words. Instead, they betray the principle and rule that they set in place. If it was just politics, that would be one thing, but what is at stake is the healthcare of Americans. There are people afraid tonight. There are people scared across our country--a parent with a child who has a rare cancer, an adult struggling to afford their prescription drugs, someone who is out of a job, someone with a preexisting condition. This is not about politics. This is about them. It is about their lives and their well-being. Millions of Americans benefit from the Affordable Care Act. By pushing, by rushing this through to get another Trump Justice by a President who wants that action by Congress, who wants the Affordable Care Act to fail, what will that mean? Where will that leave us when this decision goes to that Supreme Court with three Justices--one of whom should have been Barack Obama's? Justice Ginsburg stood up for our ideals. She stood up for this belief that it is the little person, it is the person with the margins of life, it is the person who has been demeaned and degraded by powerful forces--that they should have equality. She fought for and won battles that my generation takes for granted. Her last dying wish was not about one President or another but that we should wait until after this election. I believe she said that not just because of the conflicts of our time, she said that not just because she believed it was right but because she believed in the Supreme Court. She believed that the Supreme Court, no matter what the politics of our time, should be a place that holds legitimacy in the Republic, that America should not see that as a body that could be politicalized by the behaviors of Congress, so she said: Wait. Ironically, it is the same sentiment that my colleagues said we should do when Merrick Garland was nominated. Then, they were with Justice Ginsburg. I tell you, she may be gone, but they should honor her in truth right now by upholding that sentiment, their sentiments, the very idea that could possibly give us more hope--that healthcare, that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can win the day I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I thank you for the recognition, and I thank the Democratic leader for his words. The Democratic leader talked about what is happening in our country. I have never seen something like this before in all my years, where hundreds of thousands of Americans have been out in protest--and not just certain sectors. In all 50 States, in large cities and small towns, Americans from every background, race, religion, and political party have joined together following the gruesome capture of the torture and murder of a fellow American. This is a profound moment. It is a moral moment. We know this is not a partisan moment because the good will of all Americans is evident, from national polling that shows that real reform is widely supported by people of both parties to just the voices of people who are saying that we are a nation formed around a fundamental idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to have it so fundamentally violated. The call is for us to act, to come together as good men and women and do something to protect human lives. We have done that before on the Federal level in a bipartisan way, coming together to protect people against indiscriminate violence--from the Violence Against Women Act to even the historic, bipartisan work that went on to get 99 Members of this body behind an anti-lynching bill. I am grateful for that aspect of our history, that this is a body that has acted multiple times to try and protect human life. Well, no one need watch a video of 8 minutes and 46 seconds again to understand that this body now holds a true moral choice of how will we act. What will we do in this moral moment in our country? Will we come together and protect life and liberty or will we do nothing and allow the violence to happen, the cycle in our Nation, the name after name after name after name that we know and the thousands of other names that we do not know--Black lives being abused, civil rights being violated, lives being lost because we have failed the moment in our Nation? A little over 2 weeks ago, Leader Schumer, Senator Harris, and I, along with colleagues in the House, introduced an act that was narrowly focused on accountability. It zeroed in on what we could do to create accountability, to ensure oversight, to implement transparency, and to ban actions that people in this country, in both parties, widely believe should and must be banned. The bill that is being put forth by Leader McConnell is wholly unacceptable to bring accountability, transparency, and consequences when our common values as a country are violated. This is not about partisanship--a Republican bill and a Democratic bill. It is about taking meaningful action that will create change. The bill Leader McConnell wants to put on the floor is called the JUSTICE Act. It belies its name because it does not--in any way--even serve as a starting point or even a baseline for negotiations. The American people are not in the streets chanting ``We want more data; we want more data.'' The American people are not in the streets chanting ``Give us a commission; give us a commission.'' We know the data, and we have had commissions--from the Kerner Report all the way to the Task Force on 21st Century Policing. What we are hearing a demand for, from voices all over our country--including from leaders in police departments to mayors, to local leaders, to activists--is real accountability; that if you do something wrong in America, there will be consequences; that no one is above the law; that we, in this country, will make sure that those who represent law and enforcement do so in a way that accords with our common values and our common ideals. In fact, we want to go further in this country. We have a greater moral imagination that does not have us trapped in the quicksand of the present but calls to us to rise to a higher ground; that we could be a nation that imagines ourselves having a larger definition of law enforcement, a larger definition of public safety. We cannot get mired in this moment. This must be the start of climbing to that higher ground. The problem with the bill that Leader McConnell wants to put on the floor, it is not bold. It is not courageous. There is no great imagination about what we can be. It doesn't challenge us to come together. What it does is guarantee that the cycle of violence in our country, the cycle of the abuse of civil rights, the cycle of death that has so moved so many Americans will continue. If we don't implement real measures of accountability for police officers in this country--as the Republican bill fails to do--it is not if but when we will be back here again after another police officer kills another unarmed Black person and faces no fear of Federal accountability in the courts. If we don't establish real transparency measures with a national registry of police misconduct--which Leader McConnell's bill fails to do--it is not if but when we will be back here again, after another officer who has a record of inappropriate use of force will get fired from one town and hired in the next and end up hurting another citizen, violating their civil rights or--worse--killing them. If we do not end those harmful practices that Americans from all backgrounds know are wrong, like racial and religious profiling, no- knock warrants in drug cases, and the use of choke holds--which this McConnell bill fails to do--it is not if but when we will be back here again after another Breonna Taylor is murdered in her own home after a no-knock warrant, after another Eric Garner is suffocated to death on a sidewalk with an inhumane choke hold. If we do not create a national use-of-force standard in America-- which this Republican bill, again, fails to do--we will be back here again the next time another officer uses deadly force when they could have used deescalation because that deadly force was ``reasonable,'' though not necessary. I hear the voices. We all hear the voices, the anguish, the agony, the pain, the trauma, the hurt. It has triggered a nation to rise up like has never happened in the last 50 years. We are in a moment of profound possibility, but what do we face? We face it being shut down here in the Senate over an impotent bill that fails to meet this moment. The American people are demanding accountability, not commissions; they are demanding accountability, not study; they are demanding accountability, not data collection alone. We have to ask ourselves: Will we stand for a bill with zero accountability or will we rise? I am so frustrated because I have been here now for 6 years, and I have seen, from inside this body as a Member to even before I came here, how the leader has done bipartisan efforts. I saw it on immigration reform. A Gang of 8 was formed, discussions were had, and they came to a bill. They put it on the floor, and they voted for it. I have seen it in this COVID crisis. People met and worked on solutions. I have seen, time and again, when there is a sincere desire to come to a bipartisan consensus, how it works. But this is not how Leader McConnell is acting now. Where is the good faith? Where is the yearning for justice? Where is the desire to get something real done? There have been no hearings. He has called for no discussions. He has called for no meaningful engagement--in the way we have done in the past--from stakeholders and groups that have been working on this issue. He has not sent it to the appropriate committee of jurisdiction. This is not what the American people want. This is not what this moment calls for. This is shameful. This is a desire to turn a page, to point a finger of blame, and to leave the calls for justice in this country falling upon the mute ears, the deaf ears, of a body that should be hearing, listening, and responding. There is no easy fix for the problems we face, but they do demand work. They don't demand simple monologues; they demand real dialogue. This is not a time to retreat into our corners. It is a time to engage each other. I cannot, in any way, give any justice or sanction to what is going on in this body now. We will be back here again. We will see more video capturing the dark corners of our country that must be brought into the light and solved with the spirit of this Nation. I join Chuck Schumer and Kamala Harris in urging Majority Leader McConnell not to proceed in this way. It is not progress. It is an attempt to turn a page on history that we will have to revisit. Every minute, every hour, every day we do not act, Black lives are in danger; our fellow citizens are in danger; we as a Nation, our principles and ideals are in danger. It is time that we come together and provide hope from this body that serves, truly serves, to honor what the public is calling for, which is action--not retreat but for us to try, in this body, to rise together. I yield to my colleague from California.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Thank you, sir. If I may, I will make a personal appeal for a hearing on these matters. I hope that we can do that in due time. I know the pace at which the Senate often works, but I am grateful for this open dialogue and I know you had to adjust your schedule so I am grateful for your time and generosity. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, if I could just respond--I know how busy my colleague is. He has a well-earned reputation on both sides of this body for his sincerity, for his decency, and for his honor. I take to heart his words that this is often not a good forum in which to try to push a piece of legislation that might have controversy on both sides. I understand his sincere concerns with that. I guess he also understands the sincerity with which I bring this up: the hurt and the pain that these statues represent in a place where millions of Americans come to the Capitol and see this as their body. I say to the Senator, because there are complications in this and there are issues we would have to work through as a Senate, I guess the one last appeal to your more senior status and maybe your friendship is this: Will you join me, at least, on a letter to the appropriate committee, asking them to at least have a hearing on this issue so that we could have a full vetting of all of the complexities and have a real discussion on something that is a pressing concern? I note that you know it is a pressing concern because some States are already taking action. You see this action being taken across various parts of our country. You see this issue being pushed into the national consciousness. You see Republicans and Democrats, from Nikki Haley to my dear friend, the former mayor of New Orleans, Mayor Landrieu--I think it would be just and right that, perhaps, you and I, in a show of bipartisan concern and sincere awareness of the complexity of this issue, could just join--the two of us--in a letter asking the committee to take up this issue in due time so that we can have an appropriate discussion from all perspectives on this issue.

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the Confederate monuments that are in our hallowed Halls of Congress. I would like to make a live UC request, but preceding that request, I want to make just a few very brief remarks. The National Statuary Hall, where these Confederate statues are in the Capitol, is intended to honor the highest ideals of our Nation. It is intended to honor the spirit of our country and those who exhibited this spirit with heroism, with courage, and with distinction. It is a rare honor that every State gets to pick two people, out of the entire history of the country, who so exemplify the values, the spirit, and the honor of America. There are only 100 statues--just 100 statues--two from every State. Between 1901 and 1931, 12--12--Confederate statues were placed in the National Statuary Hall, that hallowed hall. During the vast majority of that same period, from 1901 through 1929, after a vicious period of voter suppression and violence against African-American voters and a stripping de facto of their rights, and often de jure, not a single African American served in either of the Congress. In fact, the exact same year the first Confederate statue was placed in the Capitol, 1901, was also the year that the last African-American person would serve in Congress for almost 30 years--almost 70 from just the South. This is a period that we don't teach enough about in our country. It is a period of untold violence of domestic terrorism, of the rise of the Klan and other White supremacist organizations in which, from the late 1800s to about 1950, literally thousands of Americans--about 4,400 well-documented cases--were lynched in this country. We cannot separate the Confederate statues from this history and legacy of White supremacy in this country. Indeed, in the vast history of our Nation, those Confederate statues represent 4 years--roughly 4 years--of the Confederacy. The entire history of our country hails as heroes people who took up arms against their own Nation, people who sought to keep and sustain that vile institution of slavery, who led us into the bloodiest war of our country's history, who lost battle after battle until they were defeated soundly. The relics of that 4-plus year period, giving this sacred space to these traders upon our Nation, is not just an assault to the ideals of America as a whole, but they are a painful, insulting, difficult injury being compounded to so many American citizens who understand the very desire to put people who represented 4-plus years of treason, the very desire to put them there in an era of vast terrorism, was yet another attempt at the suppression of some of our citizens in this country. The continued presence of these statues in the halls is an affront to African Americans and the ideals of our Nation. When we proclaim this not just to be a place of liberty and justice for all, but as we seek to be a more beloved nation, a kinder nation, a nation of equal respect and equal dignity, it is an assault on all of those ideals. I would like to ask for unanimous consent, but before I do so, I would like to yield to the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3957 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BOOKER. Of course.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues who are here and for all of the work that has been done around the Equality Act, not just here in the Senate but also in the House of Representatives. I want to make this very clear. You look at history, and you see that the fundamental equality of all Americans has been denied for so many generations--for women who fought for equality under the law and the right to vote; for African Americans, who fought for equality under the law. We have seen from our founding they have struggled to make real the promise of this Nation--a promise of an ideal that we are all equal under the law. Our Founders--these imperfect geniuses--enshrined these ideals. This Nation was not founded in perfection but in aspiration. The very Founders themselves referred to Native Americans as savages. They talked about women as not being equal citizens. They denied African Americans full and equal citizenship. Yet these aspirational documents were so profound that every generation of Americans has called to our founding ideals to overcome the inequality that has been inherent in our country. Susan B. Anthony called to the founding documents for her equality and the equality of women. Martin Luther King, on The Mall, called to that check--to that promissory note--that it was time. Yet here we are, in the year 2020, still calling for the full equality of all American citizens when it comes to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans. I think back to my own family--to my grandparents and great- grandmother--who talked about the excuses that were used to deny them equality. There were religious excuses. I am a big believer in religious freedom, but people sought to deny Blacks and Whites from marrying. In fact, when Loving v. Virginia passed, the majority of Americans were still against interracial marriage in this country. Somehow, people were using religion as a shield from establishing the fundamental ideals of this country. We overcame that. These types of reasons were given for the dehumanizing treatment of Native Americans, and these kinds of excuses were used to justify the segregation of African Americans. In every generation, we fought and we struggled and we came together--multiracial, multiethnic, diverse coalitions--to overcome this. This week, I was so grateful to see the decision of the Supreme Court, but I was of mixed feelings about it. Why would it take an action of the Supreme Court to justify what already is--equal humanity? equal dignity? Why would it take so long for a country to say: ``In this Nation, a majority of States cannot discriminate against you. You cannot be fired just because of who you are''? I hear the echoes of my own ancestry growing up in a country in which children were told and saw clearly before them laws enshrined that were bigoted and biased; that they were not equal citizens, and even though, when we stand up in our grade schools, we have to say those words ``liberty and justice for all,'' what does it mean to a child who is denied those things? I see us in a country now in which we are raising children who are in danger. LGBTQ kids are almost five times as likely as their straight peers to attempt suicide. LGBTQ kids--about 30 percent--admit to missing school because of being in fear for their safety. This is in America in 2020. Black trans women are dying at unacceptable, unconscionable rates. I say dying. They are being murdered. There have been 15 transgender or gender nonconforming people who have been murdered, and last week alone, two transgender women were killed-- Dominique Fells and Riah Milton. We have work to do in this country to establish the fundamental ideals that have been said from the founding of this country that we will all be equal under the law, the fundamental ideals from the founding of this country that we are a nation of liberty and justice for all. Here we are at the crossroads of history, forcing our fellow Americans to come and ask for what is fundamentally theirs already-- equal dignity, equal rights. The Equality Act is too late already. It is too late to do what was preordained by the very founding of this Nation. We are too late already to save the lives of children who have been forced to live in a nation that doesn't recognize their equal dignity. We are too late already to protect the shame of people who have been fired just because they are gay, who have been denied accommodation just because they are gay--the humiliation of which, I dare say, so many in this body know from their families' stories. So we come here to the floor to ask for what is overdue, to ask for us to establish in law what is true in the spirit of this Nation, and to echo the words of our ancestors, great suffragettes, great civil rights leaders, great Native Americans, who have all come to this Capitol to say: This is who we are--equal citizens under the law. To my colleagues who are with me today, I tell you that, no matter what happens with this unanimous consent, justice will come to this country. No matter who stands against this Equality Act, they stand on the wrong side of history, on the arc of the moral universe, but it bends toward justice. Well, it never bends automatically. We need some arc benders. For too many people in this country, justice delayed is justice denied. So we will not give up. We will not yield. We will not equivocate. We will not retreat. This will become the law of the land. We have made some steps in the right direction of justice, but we are still in the foothills. We have a mountain to climb, but I know we will make it to the mountaintop. I know that this Nation will fulfill its promise to all of its people and, indeed, become the promised land. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, before the good Senator from Illinois speaks, I just want to, if I may, express my gratitude to the two colleagues who just spoke. The Senator from Virginia, who has been a champion on these issues when he was a Governor and now as a U.S. Senator, has been in the Senate much longer than I have. I have a lot of love for the history that he knows of his own State and the fact that he knows that that history of injustice has to be confronted. My mom did sit-in events in Charlottesville, VA, when she lived in DC, where I was born, and she went out to help integrate lunch counters in his great State. The fact that he is on this bill and he is a leader on these issues is extraordinary to me at this important time--and doing it in such a unifying way. I am grateful for that. I wanted to just say to the Senator from Maryland, I am newer to the Senate, and he has components of his bill that, after challenges in Baltimore with Freddie Gray, he helped to lead and write. It is not a partisan thing that he is calling for. There have been many Republicans who have come out and say this idea that you will profile people because of their race or religion is anathema to the very ideals of the Constitution. It is so obvious on its face. I have seen polling where upwards of 90 percent of Republicans agree that we should not have people profiled based upon their race or religion, and that is one of the ideals of this bill, if you look at the common views of this; yet he has been fighting for this for years. I am grateful to have him as a part of it. I just want to say, as an introduction, on the Senate floor and for the record, to Senator Durbin, who has been a partner of mine on criminal justice reform: This whole system of policing and prisons and jails which has swept up millions of Americans and their families and their children is despicable, that we are the land of the free and incarcerate so many people. His work on crack cocaine/powder cocaine disparities before I even came to the Senate has helped to lead to the liberation of so many African Americans, so I am grateful that he, too, is on this bill. With that, I yield to the Senator from Illinois.

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

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, just over a week ago, Senator Harris and myself, with the partnership and support of many of the Democrats in the Senate and our Senate leadership, Chuck Schumer, along with colleagues in the House, our Congressional Black Caucus, and over 250 partners throughout the two Chambers, introduced the Justice in Policing Act, a bill designed to take concrete steps to bring long overdue, long called for, much needed, real accountability and transparency and oversight to policing in America. We introduced the bill in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by law enforcement officers in Minneapolis, along with what happened to Breonna Taylor in her home in Louisville, the killings of other Americans, names who are now known for the wretched, awful way in which they died: Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and so many others. So many others whose names we do not know are all part of a system that does not reflect our common values and does not reflect the highest ideals of this Nation. In fact, it is just the opposite. It reflects the darkness of our past and our present. It reflects racism and bigotry and not equal justice under the law. We are at a point in American history that is at a crossroad, where millions of Americans in all 50 States are engaging in some type of action of protest, whether it is on social media platforms or in the middle of a pandemic out in the streets. The question we have right now before us in this body is this: In the face of Americans of all backgrounds, races, religions, and parties who are calling for reform, what will this body do? A lot of folks want to reduce the approaches that are coming forward as a Republican or Democratic approach. I am telling you right now that this is not a choice between one side of the aisle or another. It is a choice between meaningful reforms in this moment or making symbolic gestures that will do nothing to save people's lives. It is a choice between action and inaction. The bill we are proposing is not new. These are reforms that have been put in place in some cities and in some States. This is a real effort to hold policing in America accountable for egregious behavior. It will create transparency, as sunlight is the best disinfectant to injustice. It will also bring about an end to policies and practices that should be ended in our country. They have been called for by President Bush in his first address to Congress for an end to racial and religious profiling. We see, in fact, as to some of the more, so-called, controversial elements of this bill, like qualified immunity, that conservatives and Democrats on both sides of the aisle--folks from the Cato Institute, Clarence Thomas, and you see conservative organization after conservative organization--say the obvious, that no one should be shielded from accountability when they are violating the civil rights of another American. We have a bill that calls for change that will protect lives and address the practices that have killed Americans, create accountability and transparency in departments, and make sure that no one in our country is above the law. This is not a time for half steps and half measures. It is not a time to nibble around the edges. It is not a time to find the lowest common denominator. It is not a time--when so many Americans feel a metaphorical knee on the neck of justice--for us to pull our knee halfway off of that neck and call it progress. No, this is a time for us to do what is right and necessary to end the kind of violence and murder and unaccountability that we see and that is too endemic in our Nation. This is the truth. The measures in this bill will pass. Congress will one day get this right. I am confident that one day in this country the provisions in the Justice in Policing Act will ban religious and racial profiling. I am confident that one day in this country we will ban choke holds. I am confident that one day in this country we will have a national registry of police misconduct, of police use of force. I am confident that one day no one who murders someone in broad daylight in front of cameras will be shielded from accountability on the Federal level, in our civil courts, or in our criminal courts, by impossible standards to meet. It is clear that one day we shall overcome what is now injustice, that this body will do the right thing. There will be a time in America when mental health issues will be treated with healthcare and not police and prisons. There will be a time in America that addiction will be treated with treatment and not police and prisons. There will be a time in America that the fragile within our society will not be further hurt and harmed by practices and prisons but will be elevated and cared for. I know this time is coming. But I believe that the time is now, that justice delayed is justice denied. If we do not act and claim this moment, this time, then we, as a country, are going to find ourselves here again. In my short life, I have seen decades of this. I was born right after the Kerner report calling out these practices and demanding reforms. In that time, I watched Rodney King get beaten and officers who did it be held unaccountable for their actions. This cycle is continuing in our country every day. There are so many cases that we don't see because we don't have transparency. They explode into the national consciousness when someone catches on videotape what we know is wrong but we have not taken the measures to stop it. Now is the time that we must act and not find ourselves here a month from now, a year from now, 3 years from now, watching this awful cycle play over and over. Listen to the American people--all 50 States, all backgrounds-- joining together in a course of conviction to put a stop to this nightmare. Now is the time--no half measures, no half steps, no diluted attempts, no fainting toward what should be done but not having the courage to boldly go in the direction that one day this bill will pass. But I believe ``one day'' should be today. Congress should act. I am so proud that I am not alone in this position. I am so proud that there are others in this body who are joining with me, with the same sense of urgency to get broad-based reforms done. I see my colleague from Oregon, one of the many champions for justice in this body. I am grateful now to yield to him

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, this is a bill that has already passed this body. Same bill, same language. There was no objection. Only four Members of the House of Representatives objected. Same bill, same language. I have heard this objection. We disagree with this. The truth is, what is being proposed is not just opposed by me, but our Republican colleagues who are sponsoring this bill, in this body, oppose these corrections as well. In addition to that, changes to this bill now would send it back to the House of Representatives. This is a tactic that will send this bill back over to the House, where again it would have to be voted on. This idea that somehow someone would be brought up on lynching charges for a slapping is absurd, especially as you see, with hate crime legislation, how difficult that is even to prove. So I am deeply disappointed by the objections we have heard that were not made manifest last year, in 2019, but somehow seem to be stopping it in 2020. So I object, with this prediction: We, as a body, will correct historic ills and pass lynching legislation through this body, through the House of Representatives. One day in this Nation, this legislation will pass. Perhaps it will have to wait until I am not here, until Senator Paul is not here, unless he decides to go back to the 2019 Senator Paul. The question is, What side of history will we ultimately be on? I pray that it happens in this Congress. I pray that the President signs legislation against lynching. How historic that would be. But today it is not going to happen, obviously. I am telling you right now, this celebration will come. This moment in American history will come. The frustrating thing for me is, at a time when this country hungers for common sense, racial reconciliation, an acknowledgement of our past and a looking forward to the better future, this will be one of the sad days where that possibility was halted. As we all know, one of the great leaders that Republicans and Democrats all hail asked that question--How long will it take?--and the simple answer is not long because the truth crushed to earth will rise again; not long because you reap what you sow; not long because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. We will pass this legislation. I pray that the Members of this body, as we are right now, are the ones to do it. I object.

Mr. BOOKER. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Harris for her words, and I want to thank her as the lead Senator on this bill. I want to thank her for her partnership and leadership. I also want to thank Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who has shown extraordinary commitment to this legislation as well. On the House side, I want to thank Bobby Rush, former Black Panther. I want to thank him for his leadership and generational commitment to racial justice in America. I also want to recognize the tireless advocacy of Airickca Gordon- Taylor, who is the actual relative of Emmett Till and founder of the Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation. She was here the last time this bill was before this body. She is dead now. I know she is looking down and hoping that we don't disappoint her. In February of 2019, this body did something historic--and I don't mean to be emotional. I am raw this week. But I stood here with Kamala and we wept. We talked about the hundreds of years--over a century, excuse me, of effort to pass legislation which was brought up and defeated time and again by this body by avowed segregationists. How proud I was that at a time when partisanship is high in this country we gathered together in one voice, 100 Senators, to pass this exact same bill, because there are good people in this body on both sides, and we were correcting a wrong of history. Nobody in this body needs a lecture on lynching and how horrible it is. Everybody in this body abhors racism and believes that this violence is unjust. There are friends of mine here. Unanimously, we passed that legislation. We made history on this floor. This is why I am confused because this bill has been passed unanimously, and here we are on a day of a memorial service for another person whose murder was condemned by people on both sides of the aisle. I have sat where the Presiding Officer is sitting, and I have watched the differences between the Republican leader and the Democratic leader. I don't go back that long in this body, but I have watched Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer disagree so deeply time and again, but, God, we came together and passed the bill unanimously. Mitch McConnell let the bill come to this floor, didn't try to block it. My colleague Rand Paul was one of the first hands I shook on this Senate floor. He is my friend, and everything he said about his commitment to criminal justice reform is right. One of the first bills I wrote here I wrote with Rand Paul, and then he went further at another time like this when America was raw, when another unarmed Black man was shot. He went as far as to, in Time magazine, stand up and talk openly about the ProPublica data about a Black man in America being about 100 times more likely to be shot by the police than someone who is White. He has said--and he is shaking his head, if I may recognize. He said that there must be something more going on there if it is that much. So I do not question--I do not question the sincerity of his convictions. I have had too many conversations with him to question his heart, but I am so raw today, of all days, that we are doing this--of all days, that we are doing this right now, having this discussion when, God, if this bill passed today, what that would mean for America; that this body and that body have now finally agreed because I know when Congressman White, the last Black person to serve in Congress before the God-awful fall of the backlash after Reconstruction fell. He gave this famous speech. We were talking about the Phoenix will rise; that one day Black people will serve in this body. And here we are in the Senate for the first time in history, when three African Americans serve together, Republican and Democratic, and we all came together on Kamala's bill There is something about us that we knew it was something more than the legalistic issues my colleague now wants to bring up; that we are a nation that needs this historic healing. If we passed this, it would not only do something substantive to make a difference on the books of the American system, but, God, it would speak volumes to the racial pain and the hurt of generations. I do not need my colleague, the Senator from Kentucky, to tell me about one lynching in this country. I have stood in the museum in Montgomery, AL, and watched African-American families weeping at the stories of pregnant women lynched in this country and their babies ripped out of them while this body did nothing. I can hear the screams, as this body's membership can, of the unanswered cries for justice by our ancestors. Every one of us is sensitive to that anguish. Everyone is sensitive to that pain, as is the Senator from Kentucky. This week, the Senator from Kentucky mentioned a colleague, Justin Amash. I want to tell my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, he was only one of four Congressmen of a 435-Member body to vote against the anti-lynching bill. That means that this bill was supported by the leader of the Democrats, the Speaker of House. It was supported by the leader of the Republicans, the whip of the Republicans, the whip of the Democrats--400-plus votes supported this. Yet my colleague thinks this bill is wrong. If this bill is wrong, then the Republican leadership of the House is wrong. If this bill is wrong, then the Democratic leadership of the House is wrong. If this bill is wrong, 99 Senators are wrong. If this bill is wrong, then the NAACP is wrong. If this bill is wrong, then the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is wrong. If this bill is wrong, then the Urban League of America is wrong, legal organizations, civil rights organizations, Democrats and Republicans. Tell me another time when 500-plus Congresspeople, Democrats, Republicans, House Members, and Senators came together in a chorus of conviction and said that now is the time in America that we condemn the dark history of our past and actually pass anti-lynchings legislation. And now one man--and I do not question his motives because I know his heart--one man--one man is standing in the way of the law of the land changing because of a difference of interpretation. This doesn't talk about bruising someone. It is a difference of interpretation. Does America need a win today on racial justice? Do the anguished cries of people in the streets? I have had children break down with me this week wondering if this would be a country that values their lives as much as White people's lives. I had to explain to grown men this week that there is still hope in America; that we could make change in America; that we could grow and heal in America; that we could make this a more perfect Union. Well, today is a day we can do it--to have one Member to yield for once, like he did in February of 2019, yield for 1 day and give America this win. Let us pass this piece of legislation today of all days. Let's give a headline tomorrow of something that will give hope to this country that we can get it right. It may not cure the ills that so many are protesting about, but, God, it could be a sign of hope. So, Mr. President, I object to this amendment. I object. I object. I object on substance. I object on the law. For my heart and spirit and every fiber of my being, I object for my ancestors.

Mr. BOOKER. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise today with difficulty. I admit I am like so many other Americans who are hurting right now and frustrated right now and feeling a torrent of emotions that I wish I could say it was the first time I felt like this. I want to begin my remarks in a different way because the names that we are hearing shouted on streets--George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor--are like so many other names of people that we did not know as a Nation. They were not household names. Their names now are mixed into names that we have heard throughout my entire lifetime. But their names--and the way we say them mixed with horror and sadness and tragedy--it does not speak to their beauty, their humanity, the fullness, the texturedness of their lives. I just want to say that Ahmaud Arbery was a man, and he was 25 years old when he was murdered. He went out jogging where he was hunted by two White men who walked free for weeks after killing him. This man, this child of God, his loved ones talked to his humanity. They said he was a loving son, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, a cousin, and a friend. He was humble. He was kind. He was well mannered. He always made sure that he never departed his loved ones without saying ``I love you.'' Breonna Taylor, before we knew her name--an extraordinary American, an extraordinary servant--she was a first responder. In a pandemic, like so many of our first responders, she showed a courage and humble heroism. She was 26 years old when she was shot and killed by police, asleep in her home. She was an emergency medical technician in Louisville. Her loved ones, too, shared the truth of her spirit. They said Breonna Taylor was full of life. She loved social gatherings with her friends and especially her family. She loved life and all it had to offer. She continued to find ways to better herself and all of the people around her. George Floyd, he was a man that was raised in Texas. He was a Houston man. To his friends and loved ones, he was known as Floyd. In high school--I know this--he was an athlete, playing both basketball and football. He played the position I played; he was a tight end. He went on to play basketball at South Florida State College, a pathway I know to college ball. His girlfriend called him ``an angel that was sent to us on Earth.'' His family remembered him as being family oriented, loving, and godly. Floyd was a loving father. He was a devoted brother. He was a partner, and he was a friend. He is dead at 46 years old, on May 25, 2020, when he was restrained, pinned by his neck, and killed by law enforcement officers. The killings of George Floyd, of Breonna Taylor, of Ahmaud Arbery are singular in their pain, are singular in their particular details in the anguish and the horror, but this is a terror that is familiar. It is a fear that is baked now, cemented into our culture. For so many Americans, especially Black Americans, this has not just not been a tough few weeks. It has not just been an emotional time because of what we are seeing, the protests all around the country. This has been a tough life. This is the story of day after day after day that punctuates our consciousness only when someone captures on videotape what is a regular part of the fabric of our country. We have a long and wretched and disturbing history in this country of Black people being murdered by law enforcement. Our systems of accountability, our systems of transparency, our ability to end this has improved impotent and feeble. These killings for so many Black Americans today are searing reminders that Black people in this country, as I have heard from dozens of people in my life, as we hear from people on our media, that this could have been me; that this even would have been me in the same circumstances. To hear people at all stations of life--African-Americans saying--``I am alive,'' but questioning for how long, slipping into the savage reality of despair for your life and your safety. To be Black in America is to know that a misunderstanding, that an implicit racial bias, that an interaction that should be everyday and routine can become a moment where your life is turned upside down, where your body becomes broken or when you are killed. It is a common experience. This has been a stretch where bird watching in a park, to jogging in your neighborhood, to going to a corner store, it is a jarring reminder that is reinforced by personal experiences that it could be you. I was born to two civil rights activist parents. I was a big kid. I was over 6 feet by the time I was in seventh or eighth grade, and it was a time in my life that is a coming of age for so many people and cultures across our Nation. But something began happening to me in that period, and it was marked by the fear of my elders. Family members with jarring personal stories for a preteen or a teen would tell me what it meant to be Black, to be male in America. They were instilling fear in me as a survival mechanism. They were trying to make me aware of my surroundings. I have difficult memories of trips to the malls with elder Black men in my family and being lectured about what I couldn't do, what I shouldn't do, and what the consequences could be. I remember that talk with my parents where I tried to joke about it, but they got chillingly angry with me about what it meant to have a driver's license in America and what could happen to me. They told me stories of friends, of family members, of others and their experiences with the police. I spent those years of 12 and 13 in an America in the '70s and '80s where the words of my parents and elders were backed up with tragic and terrible stories of their experiences in generations before and were reinforced by my own experiences: being followed by mall security guards, being accused or stopped, being looked at with suspicion, and experience after experience after experience with police. I remember as a college student--and it all came to a head where I wrote a column in Stanford's newspaper: Why have I lost control? I remember that night writing that column like it was yesterday. I was so overcome with emotion and rage, and I would like to submit for the Record that column and read right now pieces of what I wrote that night that when I look at young men on the streets of America today and I see their anger and I see their rage, it brings me back, not to that moment, but to the own feelings that have churned within me for years. I will read from the column: Why have I lost control? How can I write, when I have lost control of my emotions? Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not shocked. Why not? Turn off the engine! Put your keys, driver's license, registration and insurance on the hood now! Put your hands on the steering wheel and don't even think of moving. Five police cars. Six officers surrounded my car, guns ready. Thirty minutes I sat, praying and shaking, only interrupted by the command, ``I said, don't move!'' Finally, ``Everything checks out, you can go.'' Sheepishly I asked, why. ``Oh, you fit the description of a car thief.'' Not guilty. Not shocked. Why not. In the jewelry store, they lock the case when I walk in. In the shoe store, they help the White man who walks in after me. In the shopping mall, they follow me--in the Stanford shopping mall. Last month I turned and faced their surreptitious security: ``Catch any thieves today?'' Not guilty. Not shocked. Why not? I am a black man. I am 6 foot 3 inches tall and 230 pounds, just like Rodney King. Do I scare you? Am I a threat? Does your fear justify your actions? Twelve people [a jury] believed it did. Black male: Guilty until proven innocent. Reactions to my kind are justified. Scrutiny is justified. Surveillance is justified. Search is justified. Fifty-six blows justified. Justice? Dear God. I graduated from Stanford last June. I was elated. I was one of four presidents of my class--I was proud. In the fall, I received a Rhodes Scholarship. I approached arrogance. But late one night, as I walked the streets of Palo Alto, as the police car slowed down while passing me, as his steely glare met me, I realized that to him and to so many others I am and [may] always be-- And I substitute now-- --I am and may always be the [N-word]: Guilty until proven innocent. I am struggling to be articulate, loquacious, positive, constructive, but for the first time in so long, I have lost control of my emotions: Rage, frustration, bitterness, animosity, exasperation, sadness. Emotions once suppressed, emotions once channeled, now are let loose. Why? Not guilty. Not shocked. Poverty, alienation, estrangement, continuously aggravated by racism, overt and institutional. Can you leave your neighborhood without being stopped? Can you get a loan from your bank? Can you be trusted at your store? Can you get an ambulance dispatched to your neighborhood? Can you get the police to come to your house? Can you get an education at your school? Can you get a job? Can you stay alive past 25? Can you get respect? Can you be heard? No! Not until someone catches on video one small glimpse of your everyday reality and even then, can you get justice? Why have I lost control of my emotions? Why do my hands shake as I write? Tonight, I have no answers. Dear God, help us to help ourselves before we become our own undoing. That was three decades ago. That was me as an early 20-something, writing about another one of those names that has become household. We remember it decades later. I wish I could stand here and tell you that much has changed for the experience of that young Black man. I wish I could tell you that that was the end of names becoming household words, but it has not. This is a cycle of violence in our country; these spasms jerk us from our comfort and pull us into the world that is faced by so many African-Americans and then we go back. So many of us go back to what is now normal in America, what has been normal in America. This cycle--I hear people now talking about the violence, the rioters. I condemn it in the same way that the other 99 Members are. It is awful, it is despicable, it is contrary to the aims of this Nation and the movements of our past. But to condemn the violence of those out there doing such awful, destructive, condemnation-worthy actions, but to only condemn them and not to condemn the fullness of that cycle of violence because there is violence going on even when we don't see it in the streets. Peace, even, is not just the absence of violence; it is the presence of justice. This is an unjust cycle in our country that we seem to be stuck in that makes the names of children like Tamir Rice household names. It is connected with the violence that is pervasive in our Nation that demands all of us to speak out against with the same fervor and enthusiasm and energy that people are condemning the violence we are seeing in America today. To fail to do that leaves us in a state of imbalance. To fail to condemn the totality of violence in our country leaves us far from the beloved community. We need to somehow find a way out of that cycle. There is violence in our Nation seen and our environment, that we still are a Nation where a person's race is the single biggest factor of whether they live near a toxic site or not. Ask the mother of a child who drank lead water for months and months and has had their brain permanently damaged if that was not violence. It is violence to not have access to quality care. Ask the woman who has lost her child because of lack of prenatal care. Ask the Black woman in America, who today is four times more likely to die, herself, in childbirth if this isn't a violence in our society that needs condemnation. It is violence we see from our healthcare system, to our criminal justice system, to environmental injustice, to the denial, as one author says, of the savage inequalities within our education systems. It is why so many Black Americans scream out: Do you see me? I do not have your equal justice under law. Do you see me? I do not have justice for all. Do you see me? I matter. I matter. Black lives matter. Black bodies matter. America, I love you. Do you see me? Do you know my experiences? Do you see the failings of our ideals? The murder of a Black man by multiple cops who knew they were being filmed in broad daylight is not the extent of the problem of racism in America. It is a final and deadly manifestation of that racism of a nation where everything about us is interwoven, it is interconnected, and we are in relationship with each other. This ideal that we are one Nation is not a quaint ideal. It is an inescapable fact of American society. The pain and the hurt of our brothers or sisters is our pain. I can show you that economically. I can show you that by every ideology that is expressed here on the floor of this Senate. The cycle of violence has to stop, the cycle of wretchedness and hurt. Our ancestors scream out at us now. Millions of Americans scream out right now, and I know we have an obligation in this body to do something. I have heard words from people on both sides of the aisle speaking toward the injustice of racism that exists in our country. I have heard words. But for generations what they sought from this body--greater men and women that any of us--what they sought on the streets, what they sought in front of the White House, from Alice Paul, the first person to protest out there, was legislative changes. That is what they sought. The march on Washington. Disability activists were throwing themselves out in front of buses. They fought for tangible legislation. Martin Luther King said: While it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me. It is on us. The cries for justice in the street, it is on us. The pain being made manifest for all America to see, it is on us. Those who have been comfortable for too long are now pulled from their seats as they stare at a television that shows them a window into a nation that is not at rest. It is on us in this body to do something, to change the law. We can do that. In the coming days, Senator Kamala Harris and I have partnered together on a comprehensive police reform proposal that takes into account the incredible work of Congressional Black Caucus members, many of them who have been in this congressional body much longer than I have. They have been working on these issues much longer than I have. It takes the work of so many people in both of the bodies that make up our Congress and pulls them together. There are so many injustices, but this comprehensive package is about police accountability. It is an answer to the pain, to the hurt, and the agony. It speaks to the young children whose parents right now are teaching them fear as an art of survival, teaching them not to be a threat to anyone who could kill you, to try to shrink from the fullness of your body so that they don't take your body, they don't harm your body, and they don't kill your body. It creates accountability and transparency and practices that can repair police community relations. It can give faith back to those who have lost it. It can rescue people who are slipping into a deeper despair about this Nation and perhaps cobble together some semblance of hope. This is a moment in American history where we must recognize the hurt and the pain and do something about it where this body that has so nobly acted in past years to pass legislation--the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the spasms of 1968. Fair housing laws were passed. I said I come to you today torn up inside. As so many Americans, the soil of our souls have been plowed up in pain, hoping for seeds of possibility, hoping that somehow, borne out of agony and despair, can sprout a new harvest for America. As a man who believes in this country and believes in the ideals of hope and love and faith and charity and kindness, I want to confess to you something, that right now hope is essential, but it is not enough. I confess to you, right now, words of kindness and grace are essential to America, but they are not enough right now. I confess to you even something that is hard to admit, that the spirit of courage and grit being shown by people on the streets--not in the comfortable hallways of the Senate--who in one of the most noble traditions of our Nation are protesting, are petitioning their government, are peacefully gathering, I want to tell you, right now, that that is not enough. It is essential, but it is not enough. These things are necessary, but not sufficient. So how? How do we go forward? In Washington, the people talk about being so savagely broken. How? At a time that I worry about King's ideal of a beloved community, how do we create that out of this moment? I do not know. But I want to tell you this: When I find myself disturbed and sad, when I find my heart that, on most days, has an invincible hope for our Nation, I turn to our history, but I don't need to turn too far. I know the heroes whose names are hailed from generations past. I don't know how Harriet Tubman, Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer mustered their strength and courage. They were marvelous magicians that could turn the most wretched of times into progress. So at a time that I need hope, I tell you I turn to the spiritual alchemists of our day. I met them. I have been to a church in South Carolina where White supremacists stormed in and murdered nine blessed souls. I have watched on a TV screen this spiritual alchemist who somehow turned the most unimaginable grief into forgiveness and a lesson for our Nation. I visited a church just a few months ago in Tulsa, OK. It was the last structure that was left standing out of one of the greatest acts of domestic terrorism we had ever seen--the torching, the bombing of Black Wall Street--and I met a pastor there, Pastor Turner. He is a great spiritual alchemist, who somehow turned the only remaining structure--after horrific violence--he somehow turned it into a symbol of struggle. I have talked to mothers of the movement. These are these great Black women whose sons were murdered and are names we now know. I learned from them this unbelievable demonstration of spiritual alchemy, that somehow they turned their tragedies into a grit and guts and a determination to never stop fighting as long as they have breath in their body and blood in their veins. They will fight for this Nation, even when it so savagely lets them down. I get strength from those in our Nation today who demonstrated alchemy greater than any power I can possess, that somehow, in our darkest of times, we still are a Nation that can find a way to ignite the world, in a Nation where so many people have been so thoroughly failed, that they can still manifest the ability to fight for the ideals that have been denied for them. They are the ones right now whose spirit we all must try to summon. We will come up short, but we must try to summon it. It is the only way forward that, somehow, this Nation that shares one spirit can find a way to put enough indivisible into this one nation under God, that somehow this great country can find a way in this time of our generation's great crisis--that we, like those before us, those magicians, those alchemists of love and spirit and sweat and struggle-- that out of this time of crisis, we can make this Nation truly one of liberty and justice for all. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I thank Senators Cassidy and Menendez for leading on this extraordinary bill and the broad bipartisan support that it has. I know Senator Menendez and I have both been mayors in our communities, and when there is no crisis, we know intimately the challenges that so many of our public servants face. In times when we do not see pandemics, our firefighters put their lives on the line, our police officers put their lives on the line, and our teachers extraordinarily work above and beyond the call of duty. Indeed, our communities are strong because of these dedicated public workers. At a time of crisis, we see that our teachers are rising to the challenge, working to keep their students engaged, even though they are now miles apart. I hear stories of teachers riding around, going out to visit students, keeping their distance but ensuring that the students get the support they need. Our firefighters are out there now, putting their lives even more at a risk, putting themselves on the line to help their communities. Police officers are answering calls without hesitation, despite the great risk that puts on them and their families when they go home. So many of our other public servants are working diligently to keep our communities running, to keep our States strong to meet a crisis, and to try to help folks stay healthy and stay safe. Without hesitation, across New Jersey--across all of our 50 States--we are seeing more clearly the heroic actions of people who are leading in a time of crisis. But as was said by my colleagues, across the country, States are being hit by significantly declining revenues and extraordinarily increasing costs. We are already seeing early projections, as discussed by my colleagues. Even independent rating agencies like Moody's are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in deficits for our State and local governments. My own Governor has estimated New Jersey's protracted gap caused by those declining revenues--those extremely rising costs--to be somewhere between $20 and $30 billion. Due to these shortfalls, without immediate action from Congress, State and local governments will be forced to make deep cuts to public services, including laying off folks who are not just essential in word but who often make the difference between life and death, safety or crisis in our communities. These would be the workers who would be laid off at a time when we need them the most. Not only do we need these vital public servants on the job, protecting our communities, educating our kids, and supporting our neighbors, but cuts like these actually will aggravate and deepen the overall economic crisis facing our country. Independent rating agencies and others say that cuts like these will actually prolong our economic crisis and the time needed for recovery. This is not the time for half measures. This is the time to act at the scale that the crisis demands. The Federal Government needs to be providing a robust, accurately tailored response to this crisis by funding our State and local governments in a way that prioritizes those areas that have been hit the hardest. The SMART Act does exactly that. It is a bipartisan bill. It is thoughtful. It is tailored narrowly to fit this crisis. The SMART Act is a commonsense approach that will make sure that the help is going to where it is needed most--to our hardest hit communities and States--and to help ensure that those workers whom we hail with our words--firefighters, police officers, and teachers--we support with our actions, as well, for they are out there right now supporting us. No State should go bankrupt fighting this virus, because of this virus. No State should go bankrupt because we in the Federal Government refuse to support them. No essential public worker should lose their job because of this crisis and because Congress was not stepping up to lead through it. There is no time to waste. As was said by my colleague, we have folks in my State who are putting together their budgets right now. As we heard from my colleague from Louisiana, they are already accounting for the need to make cuts. We have already seen hundreds of thousands of public workers being laid off. The delay has costs, and when you are talking about first responders, the delays can have costs that are hard to imagine. I encourage my colleagues to see this as what it is. It is an accurately tailored response. It is a bipartisan bill. It is what our Nation needs right now. I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to work to get this to the floor so that we can vote on it, pass it, and get it through Congress to the President's desk, so we can avoid the storm that we are in and, ultimately, overcome the severity of its ravages

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, let me just say, right at the top, how grateful I am to stand on the Senate floor again with Senator Chuck Grassley. He has been one of the great partners I have had in my short time in the Senate, and I am honored to have gotten a lot of good work done and good law passed. I thank him and his entire staff. They were all tremendous to work with and went above and beyond for us to get this done at a very quick pace. I thank our colleagues for acting with the urgency that this issue demands. I am excited that this bill was able to pass, for it will ensure that the families of first responders who lose their lives to the coronavirus will be taken care of under the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program. We expect now that over 100 of these death benefit claims will be submitted to the Department of Justice in the coming days and weeks, and we cannot leave these grieving families to fight alone for the benefits they need and deserve. As Senator Grassley very pointedly put it, we hope that the House of Representatives will pick up this legislation for immediate consideration. While COVID-19 has changed daily life across this country, for so many of us, I am grateful that my colleague and so many of my colleagues understand that our firefighters, our EMTs, our police officers, and our other emergency service personnel continue to put their lives on the line to protect our communities and have done so at significant and increased risk to themselves and their families. In hard-hit areas across our Nation, we see first responders stepping up to enormous risk. Being a first responder during this pandemic is not a job; it is an all-consuming mission and, unfortunately, a tremendous sacrifice. It is responding to a call and knowing that, just by stepping inside someone's home, you are running a high risk of exposing yourself to the virus. It is wondering whether your personal protective gear--or PPE--that you have on is enough. In many cases, it is wondering whether your PPE is even real, with there being so many of our first responders, unfortunately, using whatever they can scrounge up. Whether it is the buying of foreign masks that are not designed for use in the United States or the buying of them from unknown vendors, they are doing what they can to protect themselves as they go about their urgent mission. When they remove their PPE, there is a concern with their gloves or goggles or gown as they take them off piece by piece. They strain to remember what they touched, washing their hands repeatedly but wondering and worrying if it is enough. When performing lifesaving procedures like CPR, which may aerosolize the virus, you hope that the PPE you are wearing is enough to protect you. These are the daily, hourly, moment-by-moment concerns our first responders have. Senator Grassley has worked with first responders in so many ways, and he knows the challenges this brings, from having to meticulously clean every surface of an ambulance, cleaning the squad houses, police stations, knowing that the virus could be lingering there, and when they are going home, undressing in the basement, garage, or even outside their homes, heading straight into the house for a shower but still worrying if it is enough to protect their family. We know that many of these first responders aren't actually going home to their families. They are separating themselves for periods of time because they live in fear of spreading the disease to a spouse, child, or parent. There is emotional stress and strain when responding to a call, doing everything they can to save someone from this virus. But we know our first responders are often seeing death in areas of the country at a rate and at levels that they have never experienced before. This all adds to the fear and anxiety, the worry about their families, and the worry about their communities. Our first responders are doing what very few of us will ever have to do. They put their lives, their health, and often the health of their families on the line to protect their communities. They have always helped, but now, in the time of coronavirus, their sacrifices are intensified. The very least we can do is to ensure that they don't have to worry about what will happen to their loved ones if something should happen to them. The Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program that Senator Grassley mentioned was created to provide death and disability benefits to families of law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMS, and other first responders who are killed in the line of duty. Their benefits come in the form of financial support, as well as educational scholarships, for surviving spouses and children. As Senator Grassley said, it cannot replace the life that is lost, but it is something that could give comfort to those families and even to the first responders who themselves are being put in grave danger. Infectious disease is currently covered under the program, though the officer's family or department is required to provide evidence that the disease they contracted occurred while on duty. Providing that evidence can be straightforward, when the first responder came into contact with a dirty needle, for example, and then was infected by something that caused their death. The problem with COVID-19 is that it presents an entirely different challenge. While the Department of Justice works to ensure that families who have members who are killed by COVID-19 are covered, we must eliminate the instances when families are asked to prove what is unprovable, to prove that somehow they caught this while they were in the hours of their duties. This is why our bill makes urgently needed changes to the PSOB program to reflect the unique threat that COVID-19 poses to first responders in putting their lives on the line in this crisis. Many first responders have already made the ultimate sacrifice. I am so grateful that Senator Grassley mentioned that. In New Jersey alone, 29 first responders have lost their lives to coronavirus just in the past 7 weeks. We know this crisis is ongoing in our country. The bill that Chuck Grassley and our team wrote creates a presumption that, if a first responder contracts COVID-19 during this pandemic and tragically dies, their death will be treated as a line-of-duty death without the need to affirmatively prove their illness was contracted while on the job. When this bill is passed by the House and signed by the President, this presumption will be retroactive to January 1, 2020. It will last until the end of 2021. The bill ensures that the families of first responders have the support they need and deserve when they face unimaginable loss. Twenty-seven years ago, New Jerseyan John Careccia watched as two EMTs saved his son's life. That same year, he became a volunteer EMT so that he could pay it forward. Since then, he has worked as an EMT and served as the chief and training director at the Woodbridge Township Ambulance and Rescue Squad in Woodbridge, NJ. John passed away on April 17, after contracting COVID-19. He is survived by his children, Toni, Roseanne, and John, and his 10 grandchildren. John's loved ones shared in his obituary that he ``will be remembered for his contagious laugh, big heart and greeting you with `hey guy.' He loved to spend time with his family and always had a story to tell. His favorite place to eat was the Reo Diner. He always chose to bring a chocolate cream pie for his dessert contribution to any family gathering.'' His family asked that in lieu of flowers being sent, ``John would hope that you will perform an unexpected act of kindness for someone in his name.'' Charles ``Rob'' Roberts joined the Glen Ridge, NJ, Police Department in 2000. He lived in Glen Ridge with his wife, Alice. Together they raised their three children, Shea, Natalie, and Gavin, right there in Glen Ridge. Officer Roberts contracted COVID-19 in the line of duty in April and was rushed to Mountainside Medical Center after being resuscitated in his home by his fellow officers and members of the volunteer ambulance squad. On May 11, Officer Roberts passed away at the age of 45. Last week, hundreds of residents of his town of Glen Ridge stood on their front lawns and sidewalks to pay tribute to Officer Roberts' life, his service, his love of community and family. In a New York Times article published after his passing, many of Officer Roberts' colleagues and neighbors shared stories about his kindness and his calm demeanor in the face of challenges. Quoting from the article: There was the couple who remembered how calm he was when he helped deliver their baby in their kitchen. There was the older woman, forever grateful for the gentle way he held her hand when she broke her hip and they waited for an ambulance. And there was the father who struggled with a difficult son and remembered how Mr. Roberts looked him in the eye and reassured him that his boy was a good kid. Officer Roberts' father shared at his memorial that he ``wanted to make others happy.' Israel ``Izzy'' Tolentino served in the U.S. Marine Corps before becoming a volunteer EMT and then a firefighter for the City of Passaic, NJ. Izzy contracted COVID-19 in the line of duty and on March 31 passed away at the age of 33, the first New Jersey firefighter to be killed by the virus. Israel is survived by his wife, Maria, and their two children, daughter Ailani, age 9, whom he called his princess and his son Israel, age 7, whom he called his best friend. I would like to share a few words from an NJ.com article published in the wake of Izzy's passing. Israel Tolentino was born to be a firefighter. It wasn't out of love of the uniform, though Tolentino beamed with pride everyday he walked out wearing the Passaic Fire Department emblem. It wasn't even out of a mountain of bravery or a penchant for running towards the flames. It was, his wife Maria Vasquez said, because he couldn't help but be selfless. ``It fulfilled his urge to serve others,'' said Vazquez, his wife of more than 10 years. ``He was so selfless. It drew me closer to him. It drew everyone closer to him.'' These are only 3 among the 29 heroes just from New Jersey. There are countless more first responders across the country who lost their lives in responding to this crisis. Some of their names we know, and some we will learn in the weeks and months to come. What we do know is, we owe it, as a nation, to their families and to the departments they served to be there for those families and to be there for those children. Their families and the families of all first responders across the country who have lost loved ones to this virus deserve to be taken care of. For their sake, I hope the House of Representatives will act quickly to pass this legislation and that the President will sign it into law. Our first responders in this unprecedented global pandemic did not hesitate or equivocate. They did their duty. They stood up and faced danger. They answered the call. We now must answer the call, and we must have their backs just as they had ours. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, this past week, we have seen that the spread of COVID-19 has really become a crisis not just for our Nation but a crisis for every American. Today, millions of Americans are asking themselves how they will endure this crisis, how long will the crisis last, how will it affect their families, their communities, and their Nation as a whole. We have many people who are now trying to do the dollars-and-cents of this crisis, literally sitting down to try to calculate how many weeks they can stretch the last 2 weeks of pay. We see people who have been furloughed, had their hours reduced, been laid off. We have seen that small businesses--from the mom-and-pop pizza joints, to small interior design shops, to barber shops--are all trying to determine how they can keep themselves afloat when their doors are closed and how they can deal with their fixed costs. I have been on the phone with so many employers in my own State who have spoken to me about the challenges they have trying to continue to cover the health insurance of their employees even with the fact that no revenue is being brought in by their businesses. Over and over again, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, our sports arenas, hotels--all of them have been emptied, and millions of workers have been let go and had their hours slashed. On top of that, schools across this country, from colleges to kindergartens, have been closed, and millions of families are now scrambling to try to find childcare. College students are displaced and moving back in with families. This is, on so many levels, a true crisis like none of us have ever faced before in our Nation. The emotions are running the gamut. People are angry. People are afraid. People are fearful for their own physical safety, as well as their economic well-being. This is something that is challenging because we do not know how long it will last. The one thing we do know is that this crisis is a shared one, but many people face their own privately painful challenges. I will give one example. There is a single mother in my State--a mother of two--who works at a nursing home and is also raising her granddaughter. At work, she cares for elderly patients, and because family members can no longer visit, she is rising to the challenge of not just being a professional there, but she also feels she is serving as a surrogate family member. Now, for weeks, the basic personal protective equipment she needs to keep herself safe is in short supply and is literally dwindling. For all of this incredible work, this incredible dedication literally on the frontlines, she makes $14 an hour. With schools now closing, her teenage children will be responsible for caring for her granddaughter while she works because she can't afford childcare. She doesn't know what she would do if she got sick and actually had to miss work. She is living every day afraid of getting the coronavirus. There are millions of families in a similar situation and millions of Americans who are getting up every day knowing that their going to work is essential for the well-being of others. Yet they still don't know how they will take care of their families. The most recent bipartisan relief package that came out of Congress, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, is a very important step in helping those families and combating the spread of the virus and its effects. It will help to increase testing, ensure the availability of emergency paid family and sick leave for many workers, increase food assistance programs, and make emergency unemployment insurance available for more workers who really, really need it. Now, as we turn to the next package of policies and funding to help Americans who are suffering now, we know this is a moment that demands bold, decisive action and doesn't leave anybody behind. We know we are a nation born out of crisis. We know that our founding ideals--you have to understand that this government was formed to protect people and to defend people. We, in our Declaration of Independence, talk about mutually pledging to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. The spirit of this Nation is about being there for each other and coming together to be stronger despite the crisis, despite the challenge. I am so grateful at this time that we are seeing bipartisan work on both sides of the aisle, as we are all seeing--from our personal lives to our States as a whole--we are all seeing the urgency. I am worried now that the first proposal that we have seen, though, falls short of addressing the needs of our healthcare workers and first responders--those Americans who are really putting themselves out there. I am confident, though, that we are going to come together in the coming hours to try to create a package that rises above or rises to meet the moment we are in. Right now, our Nation's first responders, our firefighters, and our healthcare professionals are being asked to respond to situations where they don't have the personal protective equipment they need to stay safe. In my own city, I talked to the head of public safety, who talked to me about the courage of these folks who, no matter what, are going to go to work, even without that protective gear. But, dear God, shouldn't we be doing everything we can, because if they get sick, if they can't show up, we will see a cascading crisis. It would be disgraceful. It would be dangerous. It is not an exaggeration to say that if we don't move quickly to get personal protective equipment to our frontline responders, we are going to be ill-equipped not just to fight COVID-19, but we could see widespread interruptions in the delivery of all lifesaving emergencies in America. Also, this bill we have seen now, which we must make better, must address not just this issue but also do more for healthcare workers and first responders to get them the equipment they need. There are a lot of things that I feel strongly about that I know will be in these negotiations. We should all be able to agree on supporting our veterans and VA facilities as they prepare to fight this virus. There are gaping holes in that in this bill. We should all agree on funding for our transit systems--like Amtrak-- that are going to make sure to keep our country connected, that those systems don't fail and fall, especially when we will need them switched on and running vibrantly when our economy gets going. We should all agree that this is a time to deal with some of the massive shortfalls that we have now more than ever. While places like South Korea have universal broadband penetration, we should all agree that broadband access in devices for our students is critical if we are going to continue to educate our children for the months ahead. We should all agree on providing tests for our troops that are still serving in high-risk areas like Afghanistan. We need to make sure these bills address these holes. We should all agree on strengthening our community colleges and our minority-serving institutions so they, too, can continue to educate their students digitally. These are holes that must be filled. We should all agree that we need to be providing funding and flexibility for our schools and food banks to continue to serve meals to children in our country so that, crisis or no crisis, the next generation can grow healthy and strong. We should all agree that the utilities in our Nation should not be shut off during this crisis--we need to address that in this bill--so that families, regardless of income, who are already now struggling to make ends meet don't see themselves without light, power, and gas. These holes in this bill should be addressed. We should all agree that everyone must have coverage for testing and access to healthcare services that keep them and their families safe, and that includes the people who are in our country, whether they are documented or not, because our health is directly interrelated with their health. And to make sure that the only people who can get treatment are citizens of the United States--ignoring the millions of people who are not--means that the citizens of the United States are at risk. We should also think about those folks whom we don't think about enough, like those who are incarcerated, as well as the correction officers and workers who deal with those who are incarcerated. We are not doing enough to address that pending crisis in our country. There are holes in this bill. I want to take one moment, though, to address an aspect of this bill which there seems to be general consensus about but which can be made so much stronger, and that is the issue of cash payments. Economic relief packages coming from this body should be about offering everyone relief, including those who, through no fault of their own, now find themselves on that financial brink. It is why we must strengthen unemployment compensation that includes both increasing benefits across the board and expanding eligibility to include more workers, like gig economy workers and other independent workers. That is why I specifically want to address this cash payment part, because that is not enough. As for the idea of cash payments, I am so grateful to see a lot of my colleagues be supportive of that idea. Earlier this week, Senators Bennet, Brown, and I, along with several of our colleagues, proposed sending cash payments directly to American families, starting with $2,000 sent immediately to every American, low- and middle-income, with additional payments if our economy remains in distress. Under our plan, in the worst case scenario, over an entire year, with three tranches of payments, if our economy remains in distress, a family of four would be eligible for $18,000. Critically, our plan would not require an income threshold to receive payments, which means that everyone under a certain income level would qualify. The current proposal would exclude exactly the people and households who actually need it most. By creating an income requirement and phase- in, this plan currently proposed would be skipping over the most vulnerable people. That means a mom who quit her job to spend the last year caring for her sick child or a husband or a parent with Alzheimer's, whose full-time job has been caring for that spouse or loved one, would receive nothing under this plan. It also means that a college student, forced to leave school, now no longer having the sources of support at college, trying to enter the job market but not able to, would receive nothing under this plan. Some tipped workers, seasonal workers, and people coming out of the criminal justice system, who paid their debt to society, would receive nothing under this plan. This is a moment where we have to understand that we should be thinking boldly and acting in a bipartisan way at a scale we have never seen before because we have never seen a crisis like this before. This is not a time to do something that is anemic, that is inadequate, that leaves some of the most vulnerable people out in the cold, when we know those people--they are our family members; they are our neighbors-- wouldn't qualify for the plan as it is right now. I know those family members because they are people who live in my community. Someone who worked their entire life, who has a mother who is dying, just last year quit their job to try to support her. These are folks we know. They might even be in our own family. We shouldn't exclude them at this time. By the way, including them helps to further the impact of the stimulative effects of this plan. It literally puts more money in our economy and into the hands of people who will spend it, and that will have a multiplier effect. We need to be injecting cash directly into our economy and giving people agency again in their lives at a time when so many people feel helpless amidst this health and economic crisis. And, God, we need to be doing it quickly, getting payments to people as soon as possible. For seniors, these payments should simply be added to their next Social Security check. And I remind you that about 7 million of our seniors live at or below the poverty line because their Social Security checks don't go far enough. For veterans, they should receive theirs at the same time they get their VA benefits. We can do that quickly. For everyone else, the IRS should send checks or deposit funds directly into their bank account. These are the kinds of actions we need to ensure that, once we get through this public health crisis, we have the tools in place we need to reactivate the world's greatest economy and enable it to recover. The great thing about designing something this way is that we could put it in place now, while we are all assembled here as a body. I said this to my caucus, and I didn't mean it to be in any way draconian. But there are 100 of us, and it is likely some of us could be sick. While we are all assembled here, let's put things in place so they are triggered. If the economy is still down, it triggers the next set of actions. Instead of having to come back here and negotiate more now, put things in place with automatic triggers so 3 months from now, if the economy is down, it triggers more action, like the next tranche of payments. At the end of the year, if the economy is still where it is, let's trigger another automatic payment. That is not just common sense; it is proactive. It means that people can begin to rely on those resources and do that kind of planning, by having predictable sources of income, and not having the challenges that I am starting to find now, just for a week or 2, which are the emotional challenges, the stress of families. I talked to medical professionals this week who worry about this home isolation, people stressed over bills, and people worried about their next paycheck. This is an emotional strain to our country and will have physical manifestations. I want to say that I love my Nation for so many reasons, but one of the reasons is because it has often been my life experience that during the toughest times, I have witnessed the best of us. I was a college student in 1989, when a horrible earthquake hit the Bay Area. In Stanford, we were closer to the epicenter than even San Francisco was. I remember the fear, as people were knocked out of their homes. But the other thing I saw was America. I saw the best of who we are--people pulling together, sheltering friends, sharing food. It was one of these experiences, as a young person coming of age, that I will never forget. I am not happy an earthquake happened, but, God, it so inspired me to see the best of who we are. Later, as a young man and a city councilman in Newark, about 10 miles from the World Trade Center, 9/11 happened--horrible, horrible things. I lost my childhood best friend in one of those buildings. God, in that crisis, what did we do in this country? God, I remember the lines--people lining up in front of hospitals to donate blood--how people pulled together, stood for each other, and sacrificed for each other. There was something so powerful and so patriotic--people remembering that patriotism is not a flag pin, and patriotism is love of country. You cannot love your country unless you love your fellow country men and women, and love is not sentimentality. It is sacrifice. It is service. It is being there for each other. God, when Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey and thousands of people lost their homes and power was shut off in our communities for days or over a week, again, I saw the best of who we are as a nation. In a crisis, in a challenge, we don't pull apart. We pull together. We stand up for each other. We serve each other. It may put us back individually, but the generosity I saw--people reaching into their bank accounts, buying blankets, buying food--was inspiring. They were putting people up in hotels who were out of their homes. It hearkened me back to the stories I heard from my parents and my grandparents about what it was like in the Great Depression in poor communities in the South and how much people were there for each other. It reminded me of World War II. My grandmother, literally, until the day she died, an African-American woman, was bragging about her victory gardens, how eagerly and how it gave her pride that she was rationing-- how this poor woman, who worked as a domestic at times, was buying war bonds. Everybody was pitching in. That is who we are. That is America. Now the wealthiest Nation on planet Earth is facing one of its biggest trials. I pray it is one of the biggest trials in my lifetime, if not the biggest trial. The wealthiest country on the planet is showing what we are called to be. I have always felt, as the prophet Elijah says in the Bible, that we are the light onto other nations-- about how we pull together, stand together, fight through a storm, and fight through a crisis. We are showing what we do for each other. It is not just the men and women sitting in these seats. It is all of us. In the greatest crisis of our lifetime, what are you doing for other people? I pray our legislation keeps that spirit in mind. When the most common faith talks about what are you doing for the widower, what are you doing for the orphan, what are you doing for those people in prison, I hope we keep that in mind. It is not a time for half steps or half measures. It is time for the bold spirit of America, where we stand up for each other. We don't pull apart; we come together. We don't tear down; we rise up. That is where we are right now in American history. In this great global pandemic, we are a light unto each other, as well as to the world. And for the Senate, right now, while there still are 100 of us here doing the work, let's do it nobly and boldly and with generosity of spirit. Let's extend civic grace because this crisis is not bigger than who we are. We will endure. We shall overcome. May God bless America, and may God bless each and every one of us. Thank you. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOOKER

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

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, before I begin my formal remarks, I just want to state that the Senate page class--I don't know if you have noticed--are better than adequate. They are doing a good job for the United States of America, and I appreciate them in their service to the U.S. Senate.

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

Mr. BOOKER

Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, as of today there are over 1,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in 35 States and Washington, DC. The World Health Organization has now declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Thirty-one people have died in the United States already because of this virus. This includes one person in the State of New Jersey. Communities across the country, and most recently New Jersey, are confronting the possibility of seeing a spread of this virus. We also know that it is possible that, due to delays and lack of availability of testing, the actual number of those infected here in the U.S. is likely higher than what has been reported. Every day that passes during the spread of this virus--every single day, every single hour, every single moment is critical. We must act urgently to slow its spread, to mitigate its impact. We all have a role to play in fighting the virus, each and every one of us, from our personal hygiene habits to those of us in positions of authority and the roles we can play to protect each other and to protect our communities. One of the most significant ways to do this is actually by encouraging people to stay home. Members of Congress have self- isolated. For people who have symptoms or who have severe coughs or who may have been exposed, there is an importance in social isolation, staying home when you are sick. The challenge for us as a country is that for millions and millions of Americans this idea of staying home is not an option. Tens of millions of Americans know that if they stay home, they miss a paycheck. If they miss a paycheck, that can mean financial devastation or ruin for their family. We are now the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't have paid family sick leave for workers. This is an unwelcome and, unfortunately, this is a dangerous distinction now in the time of a global pandemic. This literally punishes people who are struggling, low-income workers. Right now the choice for millions of Americans is really this: Choose between your next paycheck and caring for your sick child. Choose between going to work sick or having to skip a meal. Choose between your health and well-being or your family's financial security. That choice, unfortunately, even before this pandemic, was a choice that many Americans knew--that the people who are handling our food, the people who work in our restaurants, and the people who work with our elderly often go to work sick in this country helping the normal flu and other illnesses spread. In the case of a pandemic which has a mortality rate of potentially five or ten times that of the flu, this is, unfortunately, a tragic choice that families are trying to make. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, 70 percent of the lowest income workers do not have a single paid sick day. They also report that 81 percent of people working in the food service industry--let me say that again: 81 percent of people working in our food service industry--and 75 percent of childcare center workers do not have access to paid sick leave. This is disproportionately seen in communities of color. Think about the choice you make. Your child is sick, you are showing signs but you know if you do not go to work, you will not be able to make rent, you will not be able to put food on the table, you will miss a car payment, which means your car will be repossessed. These are choices that don't just put the families in crisis but they put us all at risk. The disparity in access to preventive care is also an issue. There are disparities in access to healthcare and affordable medicine for people all across our country--millions and millions of people. This is already before the global pandemic is a health crisis. The continued and unmitigated spread of COVID-19 could have disastrous impacts on people in communities that already have this vulnerability. In my community, where I live, where I hopefully will go home this weekend, in Newark, NJ, the median income for the census track I live in is about $14,000, according to the last census. That is $14,000 per household. I know that public health emergencies can quickly become economic disasters for those who are already struggling in the economic margins of our country. As we work together to combat the spread of this virus, we need to remember that any of us is only as healthy as our most vulnerable neighbors. In other words, as Martin Luther King said years ago, when he said ``injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'' well, the virus anywhere is a threat to the health and safety of us everywhere. That is why we need to pass the bill introduced by Senator Patty Murray to guarantee 7 days of sick leave for all workers and critically guarantee 14 days of paid sick leave during public health emergencies. That is an act of self-interest. Again, I know with over 80 percent of those who handle our food in restaurants, if those folks do not have paid family leave, they are now economically incentivized to go to work sick. It can cause a greater spread of the virus. Paid sick and family leave is a public health and safety issue, plain and simple. It is about economic justice and economic strength and security, but it is a public health issue for us all. As we prepare to fight this virus, we need to do the things that keep our people, our communities, and our country safe, healthy, and strong. That means joining with the rest of our industrial nations and having paid family sick leave. That means opening up and modernizing the Unemployment Insurance Act, because workers who lose a paycheck because their factory closes or their restaurant closes or they lost childcare should be able to access the critical benefits they need to help their family get by. That means we also expand SNAP benefits for those kids who are forced to stay at home and from school and may miss meals. To take on this virus, to protect all of our communities, to ensure the strength of our economy, and to ensure our health, we need to take a comprehensive and inclusive approach. That means leaving no one behind, because we are all in this crisis together. I have seen challenges from 9/11 to when I was mayor and we had Hurricane Sandy hit. It was the strength of our community in that region around 9/11. It was the strength of that community during that terrible storm. I remember seeing that the strength was that we stood up for each other and stood by each other--neighbors opening up their homes, people lending a hand, people showing sacrifice for each other. That is the American way. Those values and virtues should be reflected in our policy. We are weakened and more vulnerable right now because we do not have commonsense policies that other countries take for granted, like paid family leave. We in the U.S. Senate should act for the love of each other and love of country, for the strength and security and health of our well-being for each other. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOOKER

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

Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I have prepared remarks, but before I do that, I want to thank the pages who are in this class right now. They are hard at work, and they do so much for this institution. I just want it written in the Record of the U.S. Senate that on this day in March, the junior Senator from New Jersey recognized them for everything they do around here, even though they do not tell jokes that are very good. Now, if I may start my prepared remarks, I rise today with other colleagues who are speaking, particularly my colleague from Connecticut, Senator Murphy, to speak on a bill that actually passed out of the House, which was something that was extraordinary. It passed out of the House of Representatives just over a full year ago, and we are waiting here in the Senate for it to come to the floor. I am one of these folks who really believe that we have too much unnecessary partisanship around issues when there is so much common cause in our country and when there is so much common ground in our country. Yes, indeed, debate is important. Disagreement is important. It undergirds the ideals of democracy that we should form a national conversation and work through our differences--the idea that that actually produces a better whole and a better result. But when we have a nation that has such extensive agreement on an issue, where 97 percent of Americans agree, where Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives agree, and we can't get action here, to me, that is not adding to the strength of democracy. It is weakening our Republic. It was almost exactly a year ago that the House of Representatives passed H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019. This legislation would require a background check before any sale or transfer of a firearm. Under existing law, you can go to a gun show and purchase a gun from an unlicensed seller without having gone through a background check. Think about this. You could be on a terrorist no-fly list; you could be a convicted felon; and you could be a spousal abuser. You can be a lot of things--anything--and be able to go to an unlicensed seller at a gun show and fill up a trunk full of weapons. This is a glaring loophole that allows dangerous individuals--who we all agree are dangerous--to purchase a gun in violation of Federal law. Again, 97 percent of Americans wanted that loophole closed. The evidence is clear. A study found last year that States that have this commonsense, widely supported, bipartisanly backed background check law--when States have it in place, they get 10 percent lower homicide rates. This isn't speculation. Folks who have that law in place on a State level have 10 percent fewer homicides. But today, over a year out of its passage out of the House, the Senate has failed to take up this commonsense bill, which we know-- which we know factually--would save lives. What is one of the fundamental reasons our government was founded in the first place? For the common defense. We are here to defend our Nation from violence, from terror, from injury, from harm. Everyone in this body takes that commitment very seriously. So here we have something 97 percent of Americans want. We know it would save lives, protect our country and, yet, no action. The bill has not come to the floor. I know this personally. I was the mayor of my State's largest city, and in the overwhelming majority of homicides and shootings where we captured the person and found out how they got their gun, they were not qualified to buy a gun. It was illegal for them to buy a gun in any State because many of them had criminal convictions. Yet they found easy ways to obtain a gun because we have so many loopholes in the commonsense law--loopholes that allow violence to happen that is terrorizing communities. Of course, we know that is not just anecdotal evidence. According to the Gun Violence Archive, an estimated 15,208 people were killed with a gun in the United States in 2019. We know that gun violence is the single leading cause of death for children and teenagers. Our greatest natural resource in this country is our children. Black children and teenagers are 14 times more likely to die of gun homicide than their White peers. There is tragic carnage going on for African-American kids. In just one city, for example, in St. Louis, MO, between April and September of last year, 13 children ranging in age from 2 to 16 were killed by a gun. There is another kind of gun violence we don't talk about. We don't talk enough about the death of our children, but we definitely don't talk about domestic violence in our country. It is factual that when an abuser can get a gun--if that abuser has a gun, a victim of domestic violence is five times more likely to be killed. Again, with the racial disparities in communities of color like the one I live in, we know a Black woman is twice as likely to be shot and killed by an intimate partner as well. Our duty is to protect this Nation and to protect one another. This is not controversial when you have 97 percent--97 percent. Every year in the United States of America, on average, 100,000 people are shot, and they survive. Many of them will carry with them, for their lives, mental and physical wounds. The economic cost of being a gun violence survivor is measured in the tens and tens of thousands of dollars. The community costs of folks being killed--I have seen this in my community when a shooting happened in front of the IHOP in Newark on Bergen Street. The IHOP had to close one of its shifts, and people lost jobs. It reverberates out into the community. You see scars happening every day in America. These wounds are physical, are economic, and involve mental health. I can't tell you how many communities in America--when we celebrate the very ideas of our country on July 4, when those firecrackers go off and children hear them, they duck for cover. They hide under beds. They show signs of post-traumatic stress. That is what we are living in right now. This is an everyday reality. I just came to the floor today to point out that a year--12 months, 365 days--from the House's passing of the bipartisan bill supported by 97 percent of Americans, which is fundamental to the reason for government, the common defense in the wake of one of the greatest killers of children in our country--all of these things, and we here are doing nothing. What did Martin Luther King say? What we have to repent for is not just the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people; it is also the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. I have stood for comprehensive gun safety reform, and a lot of things I support aren't supported by 97 percent of Americans like background checks. Heck, I support gun licensing. The percentage of Americans who support that falls into the seventies. I support an assault weapons ban. Support for that falls as well. So maybe that is an area where we debate. I will stand for those commonsense changes because, again, I believe in the data. States that do that have seen dramatic drops in violence. We can debate that. But when we have a bill from the House that 97 percent of Americans support, that has bipartisan support, that we know will save lives, and we don't act, what does that say about us? Every day in this country, people are being shot, and people are killed, and we do nothing when we all agree. This week, March 7, will mark the 55th anniversary of the day that 600 civil rights activists, led by a young man named John Lewis, set out to walk from Selma to Montgomery to protest systematic racialized disenfranchisement, discrimination, and violence. Those nonviolent protesters were met with vicious beatings with billy clubs by Alabama State troopers. They had tear gas and dogs set on them. Congressman Lewis had his skull cracked open. By the next day, Americans all over this country--that horrific scene, we know this as Bloody Sunday--Americans all over this country saw that violence, saw that viciousness, and saw what was being done to people who were nonviolent marchers fighting for justice and equality. It motivated Americans of all backgrounds--Black, White, Christian, Jewish, Republican, and Democrat--to join in the call for change. I love this Nation, and I love my country. I love folks who agree with me and who disagree with me. I think patriotism is love of country, and you can't love your country unless you love your fellow country men and women. I say to the Presiding Officer, I love you, man. My friends across the aisle, we don't agree. Heck, in our own caucus, we don't agree, but we love one another. My faith and the other faiths represented in this body--I am excited that we have more religious diversity in this body than ever before-- all of our faiths are founded on this fundamental principle: Love thy neighbor. This is the challenge. It is, how do we manifest love into our policy? Well, as I have read, one of the great authors said: What does love look like in public? It looks like justice. This is the great thing about our country. We don't always act right away, but throughout our history, when we were confronted with the wretchedness of our society, with the incongruences between reality and our morals and beliefs, we have seen this country rise up and make change. When four girls died in the bombing in Birmingham, it shocked the conscience of this country, and we made change. When women in a factory called the Triangle shirtwaist factory were trapped in sweatshop-like conditions--a fire broke out--this country watched in horror, read about in horror back then, and saw in horror through the pictures of women throwing themselves out windows, dying on the pavement below, it shocked the conscience of this country, and we in this body passed laws to protect workers. I could go on throughout our entire history. We are not always fast to get there, but we are a caring, compassionate, loving country. We are. That is the root of who we are. They are the values we profess. I know that as much as we disagree and try to vilify each other, the truth is, we are a nation founded on the ideals of love. Again, I look at my colleague up there in that seat. I have watched him. I saw him on HBO reading our founding documents. It was moving to me to see Republicans and Democrats--I am sure you saw it--reading our founding documents. Our Declaration of Independence--I hate to say this, you might say I am a little too mushy--it ends with one of the greatest declarations of love in human history. It says, if we are going to make this Nation work, all the stuff we just talked about, if we are going to be the country that is, as the prophet Isaiah said, ultimately a light unto other nations, inspiring free peoples across the globe--we are the oldest constitutional democracy. We stepped out into the course of human events and said we are going to found a country based on virtue, not a theocracy, not a monarchy, on virtue-- that we would be a nation based on ideas. And those ideas, as imperfect as the geniuses who founded this country--and, God, they didn't believe that women were equal or Blacks were equal, but they believed in those ideals and those virtues and that this Nation should always strive to make a more perfect Union, making more real those virtues and those values in people's lives. The history of our country is a glorious testimony of us getting better and better with each generation. Susan B. Anthony stood up and said that it was we the people, not we the male citizens that made this country, not the White male citizens. It was we the people. She used the words of our founding documents to inform her moment of history to call to the conscience of our country. Martin Luther King, right here in DC on the Mall, did he turn to some new radical treatise? No. He went back to our founding documents and quoted them in his speech at the March on Washington. That is the beauty of our Nation. So what does it say, that testimony to love, that the founding of our Nation in the Declaration of Independence--and, yes, to all those people, I will give you deference that that declaration called Native Americans savages. I will give you deference that the men who wrote them were imperfect representatives of the values to which they were called to, but that declaration of love at the end is unmistakable. At the end of the Declaration of Independence, they say, if we are to make it all work, we must mutually pledge--I look at my colleague in the seat because he knows these words backward and forward. It says we must mutually pledge; that is, pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. God, I think about those words more than you might realize. What does it mean to give someone your sacred honor, to pledge to them your lives and your fortunes? God, I would die for this country, as I know my colleagues would. None of the people in this body--I know many of my friends in this body have come here with great wealth, but none of them are doing it for wealth. Our lives, our fortunes, but that last one, sacred honor, what does that mean? To me, a word that evokes that greatest of human values, love; that word that we honor each other. We believe we are people who must elevate each other and protect each other. There is a bill in the House that passed in a bipartisan way on that fundamental ideal of being there for one another. Whether you pray like me or look like me, we are there for one another. We protect each other. We stand for each other. I may have differences with the man in that seat who is on the other side of the aisle, but, God, I give you my sacred honor that I am not going to vilify or demonize your character because we are Americans. Now, the call of our country is people who are overlooked are dying every day in communities like mine around this country, people being felled by domestic abusers. We know from the data that this can make a difference, a bipartisan voice. Ninety percent of Americans ask: Can we pass comprehensive background checks? We can do better. Let's leave the things we want to debate that, God, I want to debate--gun licensing, assault weapons ban, leave those aside, but we agree that someone on the terrorist no-fly list should not be able to go to a gun show and go to a casual seller and buy weapons. Those are the weapons showing up on the streets in Newark. We have traced them. My country tis of thee Sweet [sweet] land of liberty Of thee I sing. May our country be free from fear and free from violence, and may we be empathetic toward those today who are fearful of their abuser, who are fearful to walk their kids to school. May we understand that that liberty to fight for freedom from fear is still an unachieved dream in this country. That liberty that comes from safety and security is still an unrealized dream for millions of Americans. May we join together and pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. May we pledge to one another to do the work America wants--to keep each other safe and secure and to ensure our children, disproportionately impacted by violence, grow up to carry on our culture, and our traditions, and the honor that is America. I yield the floor.